Need help communicating w/H in therapy

[Alpacalunch]

When our marriage was becoming incredibly strained because of my inlaws involvement in our lives, my husband and I went to marital therapy for about a year. At that time we decided that myself and the kids (toddler age) would not be having a relationship or contact with uNPDMiL, unless or until she could change and respect our boundaries.

We had to set boundaries with the rest of my husband’s family, too.

Now, four years later, My husband (seemingly to me, quite abruptly) started wanting more contact between his parents and our family, which to him means they spend time with our kids. I am not comfortable with more contact, in fact I was already stretching myself quite thin trying to go along with the amount of contact we had before my husband started to make attempts to increase it!  he says he is at his breaking point as well and can’t go on not having them more in our lives.

We have recently reentered therapy with the same therapist as a result of recent quarrels over this subject.

We’ve had several sessions but I can’t seem to get the point across to  my husband or to the therapist that I simply cannot bend any more, or our already fragile marriage will just shatter like it almost did before. My husband sort of falls into a role of a victim, and says he just wants to see his family and I’m keeping him from it. I’ve suggested he see them on his own as often as he would like, but he demands to take the kids of else he won’t go. I’m not comfortable sending my young children alone with him to visit his family because he can not uphold the boundaries we’ve established, and he can’t say no to his parents.

He’s said things like, I’m keeping him from his family, and he is afraid of losing them all together. This is hard for me to understand because we have seen everyone (not including MIL who is still No contact) monthly or more and in addition have spent holidays together for the last two years! So how he is saying we’ll lose them all together baffles me.


Husband and I are at a point where we cannot even discuss this outside of therapy because the arguing gets out of control.


This is bringing me a lot of day to day stress, and hurt, and it’s damaging me personally and my marriage too.


Is there anything you all would suggest to help me get points across in therapy so that at least my therapist can understand? I’ve tried saying something big has to change, but my husband just seems to roll his eyes and brush it off. I’m holding everything inside between appointments and it’s becoming too much, and I don’t see how we can even begin to address any of the bigger issues if I can’t get my point across.


Thanks for reading. Im so sorry this is all over the place.

[all4peace]

I think you should share exactly what you've shared here:

State the frequency of visits (monthly is a LOT imo)
Let T and DH know this is as much as you are willing for.
Let T and DH know that you are open to DH spending as much time with his family as he wishes.
Let T and DH know that you believe your marriage and FOC come before DH's FOO.

If your current level of contact is already more than you would prefer, perhaps mention that also so that T knows you are already compromising and not in a position to move even further towards your DH's position.

I'm sorry you are facing this. It sounds very stressful.

[coyote]

"I'm not comfortable sending my young children alone with him to visit his family because he can not uphold the boundaries we've established, and he can't say no to his parents."

Have you tried saying this explicitly along with what the boundaries are and examples of when ILs have violated them?

You also say, "I've tried saying something big has to change" but what is "big" that has to change. Be as concrete and specific as possible when you speak so there can be no misunderstanding of your expectations.

"we have seen everyone (not including MIL who is still No contact) monthly or more and in addition have spent holidays together for the last two years! So how he is saying we'll lose them all together baffles me." Again have you specifically pointed this out.

IMO being as concrete and specific as possible will help the T understand your side and in turn the T might be able to help H understand better.

[Penny Lane]

I'm in a different situation than you but I can relate so hard to arguing with your H over contact with PD's. In my case it's my husband's uPDex. When we first met he would do all kinds of wild, unbelievable things (and be really careless toward me in the process) to placate her.

I really remember how frustrating it was to see the PD manipulations working on him but somehow I was always the bad guy when I pointed it out.

In our case time and him coming Out of the FOG did more to help the issue than anything I said.

I wish I had implemented firmer boundaries back then. (Like, leave the house when he started arguing with his ex wife on the phone instead of hanging out with me, his new girlfriend).

All4peace and coyote have some really good suggestions about what to say to the therapist. I think you've articulated the problem really well here too. If you've said all this to him and the therapist, there might not be a better way to get your point across - there's no magic set of words that will suddenly make him see your point if he's just not listening.

This might be counter-intuitive but can you take a break from discussing this and focus on your relationship for awhile? Would he agree to maintain the status quo re: seeing his family for, say, a month. During that time you guys spend all that energy that you had been spending on arguing to reconnect, have date nights, work on projects together, whatever. Then at the end maybe you can get back into the discussion with a renewed sense of partnership.

I also think it would be helpful if he stopped accusing you of keeping him from his family. That sets a line in the sand and there's no way you two can find yourselves on the same side of it. Can you ask him to reframe that as, your needs here are conflicting and you both want to find a solution that honors both of your needs?

Sometimes when H and I start to argue, one of us will say "we're on the same team here." That will bring us back to finding solutions that work for both of us rather than staking out our positions.

Everything you are saying sounds incredibly reasonable to me. It's a tragedy when reason loses out to PD manipulations.

[Alpacalunch]

Thank you all for the replies! I find it so helpful to read that my requests are reasonable.. all along I'm the one person who is rocking the boat per se and going against the family dynamics presented by my ILs (which my H was raised in).

Compounding this is that H was raised to sweep issues aside and his feelings were hushed as not to upset his mom. He was always expected to be the fixer, too, which is a bit hard to explain... but he was expected to make everyone feel better with his good behavior, his achievements, his activities, and really whatever else benefitted the adults in his family as a child.

I believe it created a fear in him, of what may happen if he doesn't make his family happy, that he's carried into adulthood.

Like penny posted, I am the one who everyone gets angry at for pointing out anything negative that his family does. I'm the bad guy for not being comfortable being made fun of because that's just how they are. But, I don't believe the answer here is to lower my standards, which is what I hear when H tells me to not take it personally.


I'm going to try to make bullet points to communicate with my T for our next appointment.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Solidarity, sister. You're the bad guy because you're the one who tapped the house of cards.

Your IL family dynamic sounds very familiar. Both the achievements of my DH and myself were used primarily to make my parents feel good about themselves. That was our job. Not doing our job does cause fear.

Oh, and the being made fun of thing too. My father could dish out pure insults and then say I shouldn't take it personally. Well howdy, personal insults ARE personal! This is called gaslighting, I believe. For your DH, when he says don't take it personally: So are they this nasty to everyone then? If yes, then why would I want to be around nasty people? If no, then how is it not personal? Logic. The anti-PD.

You sound very articulate to me! Do you freeze up in therapy? That happened to me sometimes, or I had delayed reactions, so I started emailing my DH and cc-ing the counselor. It helped a lot.

[Alpacalunch]

Thanks, Cordelia.

I freeze up in therapy sometimes or I'll have a delayed reaction. It has to sometimes sink in for a few hours for me to process my feelings. The same thing happens when dealing with my inlaws, though I've tried speaking up more in the moment things happen.

Therapy is hard, mentally exhausting and it's the same for H. Ive learned he feels scared of being vulnerable, so when he shares something in therapy I try not to have an immediate reaction even if I'm shocked by something H says. So between trying not to be immediately judgmental and needing a bit of time to process things, I certainly do clam up.

Another roadblock (this is a bit out of left field, but it popped in my mind while writing this) is that H will play the victim.  If I set limits on the time we spend with his family for example, H will revert to a victim in therapy: "what! Why can't we just hang out with my dad for a few hours?! What has my dad ever done to you that's so bad?" It's like H forgets all the reasons why we have boundaries in the first place, then blames me for holding grudges.


Mind blowing, all of it 

[Alpacalunch]

This might be counter-intuitive but can you take a break from discussing this and focus on your relationship for awhile? Would he agree to maintain the status quo re: seeing his family for, say, a month. During that time you guys spend all that energy that you had been spending on arguing to reconnect, have date nights, work on projects together, whatever. Then at the end maybe you can get back into the discussion with a renewed sense of partnership.

Penny Lane, I totally forgot to reply to this but I meant to! Yes, I have been trying to do this exact thing to reconnect and build our relationship. For about 3 full months now. I asked H that we stick to seeing his family once a month and I wrote dates on the calendar so it was a non issue as far as planning goes. I have a day set aside for them visiting through June, as silly as it seems, and I asked H to agree not to discuss them/visiting outside of therapy.

We've gone out, gotten babysitters for some alone time, focused on us. Frankly, I've been too shaken by all the previous arguing and his accusations of me to really let myself feel close to him again. I'm afraid to. I don't feel like he's the man I thought I married and I don't feel like I'm the priority in his life, and I don't want to put myself "out there"  to be hurt. Again.  I need some kind of commitment to work on this and overcome his own personal feelings and attachment to his family from him, before I can be vulnerable again myself. I feel like the rug got ripped out from under me.

[Poison Ivy]

Alpacalunch, I can relate to how you're feeling.  My ex-husband basically moved out while we were still married so that he could be his parents' full-time (as in 24/7) caregiver.  His parents live 150 miles from here.  One year while we were still married but after ex-h had started the full-time caregiving, I asked him if he would be able to come here at Christmas time, to see one of our adult children, who was going to be visiting from out of state.  That year, ex-h had spent approximately 350 of 365 days at his parents' house.  But his father (my former FIL), as usual, put up a stink about ex-h leaving to come here.  Former FIL said to ex-h, "You know, your mom is part of your family, too."  I took this to mean that for former FIL, 350 days was not enough and 15 days with me or our children was too many.  Grrr.

[bloomie]

Alpacalunch - Just popping in with support, some thoughts, and a few links to info that might be helpful to you.  Something that was an important shift as the tension from my own H's times of waffling arose was to understand that I was looking for consistency and stability in someone who was a product of a rigid, parentifying, abusive and shaming family system and for quite some time my H was just not healed enough to be "there" yet.

I began to see the looping back through and revisiting the fear, obligation, and guilt of our decisions to limit contact with H's family as a painful part of the process of making progress and as something I could examine and manage my responses to and learn to be careful to see the bigger picture and have compassion for both myself and my H in the midst of breaking free from the powerful and unhealthy emotional bonds to parents/family with toxic patterns of relating.

Many of us who grew up in PD family systems struggle hard to come Out of the FOG and have fleas we have to deal with that negatively impact those that we love the very most. In the swirl of emotions, and in a less healthy place, it is easy to be triggered and have
abuse amnesia and a tremendous amount of self doubt about our choices.

I have found it is not that unusual for someone who has been abused their entire life and is so conflicted emotionally around limiting contact with a PD parent, to blame shift and look outside of themselves to their partner for the solution. You are very wise to hold your position and to calmly return those uncomfortable emotions and decisions back to your H where they rightly belong. You and the kiddos cannot be a shield for him or a distraction that dilutes the angst of contact so that he can more easily continue to have a relationship with his mother or spend more time with his father. That is love. Even if it doesn't "feel" like it to your H who desperately (it seems) wants you to make the pain go away for him.

Your anger and frustration in having to go one more time around the painful mountain you thought was behind you is understandable and real. I don't know if you should have to hide those feelings if they are expressed in respectful and clear ways. Limiting the place and time you all discuss this is SO wise.

Holding a boundary that you will not allow harsh and untrue character judgements against you and will not offer them against your H, for opinions, boundaries and the ultimate stance you each choose is a starting gate position imv. You do not have to have the same relationship with your in law family as you H does.

It helped my H and myself to each have time with our T alone to work through emotions and issues without constraint.

My biggest suggestion... work hard on your own healing and recovery journey. Work hard on understanding and managing your own responses and building strategies and a toolset to handle the waffling and conflicts that arise when we have PD in laws and a hurting, confused, possibly flea ridden spouse who struggles with priorities and consistent boundaries, so that you begin to settle down and into a secure and stable position yourself and the blow ups do not happen and serve as a release valve for all of the pent up pain and confusion you both must be feeling.

Keep coming back here and sharing, reading, learning and find in real life trusted friends and mentors, women's groups, people who will support you and who are not your H that you can work through your valid emotions with.

One of our hero members and moderators says this and I believe it is so wise: "Do not let people who do not love you come between you!" Fight for your marriage and your beautiful family together. Find every single way you can shift your view of yourself and your H to see you both as empowered to overcome this and learn and grow to a place of unity and a flourishing relationship.

I am a ways down the road from you and I can tell you this from my own marriage... my DH still sometimes just randomly waffles or impulsively responds to the fear, obligation, and guilt and we find ourselves with a bit of a tangle to unravel together. It is extremely hard for him to be consistent when triggered by his mom or sister. It is vastly better, but still something I accept that I cannot change and have learned to have a measured and reasoned response to that builds us both up and restores unity.

This is really tough stuff you all are working through. We've got your back!

[Alpacalunch]

Bloomie, thank you so much for your words. It's encouraging to read that there is more info out there, and thank you for the links.  You've summed up many of my feelings so, so well. It truly is like having to climb a mountain of pain, and thinking it was behind me gave me peace and hope, but here it comes again up over the horizon line of my life! So frustrating.

It's a lot to wrap my mind around the potentially abusive, neglectful, dysfunctional situation he likely grew up in. Our backgrounds in that respect are so different, and coming from a nurturing childhood myself I've been a bit naive about the effects of a difficult upbringing on his adult relationships and feelings.

Though, looking at it through the lens of H being a product of his upbringing, does help extinguish some of my anger. Not to say I let him off the hook totally for having a hard childhood, but I don't feel as much that he's acting this way because he doesn't love me or because he chooses his FOO over me. It's a product of how the very people who are causing strife in our lives now raised him.

You've definitely helped me understand how important it is to get to the root of the issues related to all this.

I can work on relinquishing control this way, too... because it's up to him to choose whether or not he can acknowledge his childhood, and he has to do the work to fix it.

[Penny Lane]

Alpacalunch, like I said I really identify with everything you're saying. And I came back to recommend the same thing as Bloomie - separate therapy.

DH and I experienced the same thing you're describing. We would have these huge fights and we just weren't connecting or on the same page at all. What I realized was that he was being triggered. I said something that I thought was totally reasonable. But he was hearing it through the lens of a previous abusive relationship. The problem wasn't between us, per se. He needed to work on his healing, and I needed to work on finding the right balance between being supportive vs setting my boundaries.

We've been doing it for several months and it seems to have helped a LOT. But the key was that DH wanted to work on his issues - it took him to a very long time to get to a place where he was ready for that.

Like you I have a hard time imagining how bad things were in his previous marriage, so it's hard for me to understand how bad things truly were in his previous marriage. We've definitely had to work through this. And a lot of the work, I can't really help DH with. He has to do the work on his own and all I can do is support him. It's very hard to let go of that control sometimes!

[Starlightgirl]

It appears you both are at an impasse.

I was where you were in my marriage.

My dh—after he left the fog—felt tremendous guilt and sadness because his toxic parents stomped all over our boundaries.

He had hoped they'd alter their behavior.  They did not. 

They were rather all the more spiteful, raging insults, giving him lots of guilt a la "after everything we have done for you, this is how your treat your parents?  We know this is your unstable wife's doing!  You will both burn in Hell!" 

Gee, lovely.

Basic malignant narcissist tantrum by two 70-year-olds.

So my dh re-entered the fog and wanted to resume contact, even though they repeatedly and brazenly violated our boundaries.

Dh wanted our kids to see their grandparents again too.

Lots of arguing.  It was ugly.

I soon realized that I could not control my husband and that he could easily have his parents meet with our kids without my knowing.

So my dh and I "decided" (I caved) to give his parents an opportunity to see dh and the kids but there were dealbreakers and if (more like when) they violated any dealbreakers, the visit would be over and no contact would resume.

Sensing my dh would morph into a submissive compliant little boy, I took a deep breath and declared at the last minute that I would be attending the meetup.

I didn't want to go but Mama bear had to go to protect her kids.

I also wanted it to appear to in-laws that
dh & I were completely united.  (True, I was very upset but again I didn't want to give my in-laws a sense of victory in their quest to divide and separate).

The tension was very thick at the restaurant (it had to be at a public place.  I refused to meet them at their home or ours).

The narc in-laws basically felt threatened upon my arrival.  I simply treated them like I was stuck babysitting naughty toddlers.  I was very detached and proper and medium chill.

The in-laws lost it. 

They were unsure of their positioning.

I was unflappable. 

These are impulsive people here who thrive on drama and chaos and I was cool as a cucumber.

When they started picking on my kids' eating habits, criticizing my parenting and scolding my kids, I looked at my dh.  He said and did nothing.  I replied with a disapproving "Oh my.  It's time to go."  I got up, got the kids' coats on and dh followed me to the vehicle.

The in-laws unmasked themselves again!  I didn't have to do a thing.

As soon as got home, dh's parents unleashed a nasty email to their son calling him "whipped, without a backbone, a loser, dominated by his wife."

I already proved my point. Why keep fighting?

I decided to go NC.  The email was vile.

Dh agreed his toxic parents are too toxic.  For all of us. 

We did not reply btw.  We disengaged.  After all, dh took my lead in treating them like the poorly-mannered babies they are!  Our silence enraged them all the more! They desperately desired fuel and wanted us to play dirty.  Our refusal signaled we thought we were better than that.

When I was scared of my in-laws and their words, they fed off my insecurity.

As soon as I entered the room with an air of "I know who you really are under that mask and I know who I am and there will be consequences"

The in-laws sent our way at least half a dozen of malicious, threatening, name-calling emails.

Dh called the police who agreed that the emails were inappropriate and a form of harassment.

Consequence: the police called our in-laws and notified them to cease contact.

We also forwarded their nasty emails to a few relatives.

The in-laws whined I dropped a bomb on them. 

I realized I had to change my approach and it changed everything for the better!

Stay strong!!!!  Sorry for the long post.