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Husband Protecting His Mother's Feelings
I am trying to understand my husband's behavior after a
recent visit from his elderly mother. First, let me paint the picture that his
mom lives in a different state and we only see her a few times a year. Every
year that I have known my husband (dating and marriage) we have always visited
his mom on her birthday, but this year she came to our house for her
birthday. My husband and I loved the idea of her coming to our house just
because other relatives that live with her and near her can make our visits pretty
stressful whenever we go to her house. Second, let me also paint the
picture that she and I have a positive relationship. We are not close by any
stretch of the imagination but there is no negativity between me and her at
all. Third, I am pregnant right now and of course extra tired, etc, etc
that comes with pregnancy. Probably sounds boring.....so that's why I am
shocked, confused, and hurt by my husband's words and actions towards me.
So during her 4-night, 5-day visit the first major event is that we announced
the pregnancy to her! She was shocked but gave her congratulations and we
all went to dinner together. She proceeds to call and tell all of her
relatives about the pregnancy, which me and my husband expected. It
turned into an avalanche of calls and texts from many, many people (my husband
has 4 siblings, 12 aunts/uncles, and many cousins). One relative even
posted an announcement on Facebook, which bothered me because I am a very
private person. My husband then proceeds to tell his mother one of the names
that we were seriously considering for the baby, and this bothered me because
again I am very private and I want no input/opinions on naming my child. He and
I had not discussed telling people baby names so I was very caught off guard.
Additionally, as I am receiving congratulations from one of his relatives, that
person says "thanks for the pictures" and I say "what
pictures?" My husband had text pictures of me and my pregnant belly
to multiple relatives. I was very caught off guard and displeased with these
actions. So I decided to talk about it with my husband the next morning outside
the presence of his mother but he got defensive and shut me down. That hurt my
feelings and so I went through the day pretty much mute towards him. Meanwhile,
we all spent the whole day together going to church, a friend's house, and
house hunting. I put on a happy face in front of friends but was still upset
with my husband for shutting me down and disregarding my feelings.
Later that day, I asked to see his phone so I can see what pictures he had sent to folks. He gives me his phone but gets upset when I delete a picture I didn’t like. This time, this is in front of his mother and he proceeds to try to explain the situation to his mother. I am not sure why he felt the need to start explaining to her but I can tell he gets uncomfortable. He later tells me that she made the comment “I hope she is not mad at me” (in reference to me being upset with her) In my mind, she had nothing to do with the events but she just witnessed an argument between me and husband.
But that is not the worse part of the story. The next two days my husband goes to work and I am at home alone with my MIL. One of those days I am not feeling well and sleep most of the day. The next day I take her to get a pedicure and offer to take her shopping. We all go to dinner that night for her birthday and drive around the city to give her a tour. Finally, here come the crazy actions from my husband…… On the morning of her departure, I planned on taking MIL to the airport. My husband comes to wake me up and I am grouchy because it’s early and I already planned in my head what time I was getting up and taking her to the airport. I go into the bathroom and he comes in with an attitude saying “Do I need to take her to the airport!?” He then starts yelling at me saying “You knew what time her flight is leaving. You have been rude and disrespectful this whole time! If you don’t get your act together, we are not going to be married!” (We had plenty of time to get to the airport) This goes on for a few minutes and I respond with anger as well because I thought he was being completely ridiculous and I had no idea where all his rage was coming from! I literally woke up and a few minutes later got verbally attacked by my husband.
So clearly my husband had something bottled up inside him, but my feelings were devastated because he yelled at me like a monster and even threatened divorce. In my mind, he verbally attacked his wife and threatened divorce all in the name of his mother’s feelings. This scares me and makes me feel that he prioritizes his mother’s feelings over me. (Even when his mother had nothing to do with any miscommunication that he and I had during her visit)
I know what he did wrong, but what did I do wrong? Hurt and confused…..
Re: Husband Protecting His Mother's Feelings
This also faintly reeks of a control issue.
Fix this before the child arrives. This kind of set up and marriage dynamic is not healthy for you -- and it is not healthy for a child.
If he refuses to fix things, I'd send him packing to his mother, his uncle, his cousin, his this and his that...and let THEM be stuck with his ass for good.
Srsly, what a jerk. What is he bringing to YOUR table???
My husband is actually a great man and brings a lot to the table. During the pregnancy he has done everything since I am so exhausted...cooking, cleaning, running errands, working 2 jobs. Even before pregnancy he has always been amazing to me. So that's why this crazy encounter is really shocking and scares me. It makes me think that things can just completely change if his mom is around, but he never treated me this way whenever we would visit his mom's house. This is the first time she has been in our house since we have been married, and maybe he just didn't know how to handle the situation....I don't know.
You're approaching this from "he's protecting her feelings" but I'm not fully understanding how this specific incident relates to that??
I'm not justifying what he did. I agree- he's bottling something up and you all need to talk more. What he did was inexcusable.
But. I feel like either you haven't told us everything or you might be "crossing wires" over what you're upset about. As in- whatever his blow up was really about, you're connecting it to his mom and his "protecting" her when it might be something else entirely. I say that only because if you don't focus on the right issue, you'll never resolve this.
Neither one of you reads minds. If you didn't want him sharing the baby name, or sending photos, you shouldn't have assumed that he was on the same page. Those are both activities that excited soon-to-be parents often partake in. It's fine to not share, but it's something that you should have talked about beforehand if you had the expectation that he wouldn't. When you tried to talk to him about it afterwards, he did overreact, and sharing the fight with his mother was a little weird and inappropriate, but I think you're right about the possibility that he just didn't know how to handle the situation of her visit.
Now that his mother is on your turf, there's been a change of dynamics that may have been causing him some stress & uneasiness. It was no longer him, vising his mother's home - where she rules the roost - she has come into the home that he/you run. His mother is now just a guest; that thought may have thrown him for a loop.
When it came to taking his mother to the airport, you and he obviously had a set game plan, but neither of you shared yours, and they didn't match at all. A lot of your morning stress could have been avoided if the night before, you had just said "I'm waking up at X time, and we're leaving at Y time," or if he had done the same.
Unless you specifically share the expectations that you're building of how something should be handled, you can't assume that your husband is going to be on your same page - even if he has been in the past. And the same goes for him. Maybe he had really high expectations for his mother's visit, and when he didn't share them, they weren't met, and it built some resentment that he bottled instead of sharing and handling it properly.
The fact that he was unwilling to talk when you brought up your feelings about sharing photos, and the fact that he yelled at you and threaten divorce over what time you woke up is very disturbing. You two definitely need to sit down and talk this out. Find out what was so upsetting to him, and talk out each point of "I was going to wake up X, and if you wanted me to wake up at Y, you should have said something" etc.
Since this seems like largely a communication issue (or complete lack thereof), the good news is that it's something that you can both take steps to help avoid or at least minimize in the future.
You two need to be a united front with everything pregnancy related, as far as what is/isn't shared. Work it out, and get on the same page.
The reason why I titled the post "protecting his mother's feelings" is because he seemed to get overly concerned after his mom made the comment "I hope she is not at mad at me." I felt like he started to be more concerned about her comment/feelings rather than listening to anything I tried to talk to him about. Additionally, when he exploded, he said I was being rude to HER, and I knew what time HER flight was, and I act different around HER. After his blowup, I was so confused that all I was left with thinking is that he was protecting her feelings (instead of focusing on our miscommunication).
He probably did want the visit to go perfectly but when he and I started having miscommunication, he somehow connected that with me not treating his mom the right way....I guess???
Thanks OtterJ, my husband and I definitely need to have a serious heart-to-heart....
And yes he had been holding this in for some time now because I have ignored him in the past (something I need to work on). During his mother's visit, the issue was just magnified and he blew up.
So we have some work to do just like you all wrote in your posts. We have talked about going to a marriage counselor to help prevent future blow ups and threats. He reassured me that he wouldn't know how to live without me and his blowup was completely wrong and overboard. So we are going to work on our communication and conflict resolution.
I only bring this up because he specifically mentioned needing respect....before we got married, my husband and I went to a very short (weekend) seminar titled Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs (he also has a book with the same message). I believe it is faith based, so I realize it might not be something that everyone is interested in. The basis of the message is that women need to feel loved (and how can a husband show his wife love), and men want to feel respected (and how can a wife show her husband respect). It also talked about how to identify and avoid miscommunication, among other things. I feel like it really helped our understanding of each other.
Marriage counseling is a great option, but there are resources similar to this that could be a very helpful option as well.