Family Matters
natg504
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
More Issues
Re: More Issues
Did your counseling give you any advice on how to handle issues when they come up? I always feel like it should be his job to handle his mother (so that we appear to be on the same side to her), but he feels like that's just me putting him in the middle.
Respect, like trust, is nearly impossible to replace once it's gone.
You'll have to decide where to go on this -- and it should be to a divorce attorney. This guy has no spine and he can't have yoru back and be a team with you: he's struck out all the way around.
I would suggest counseling but he won't go and even if he does, he's not self aware enough or serious enough to fix what is wrong with himself.
You've got a lost cause here. The little Helen Mirren impersonation with the playacting and woe-is-me bit is silly and stupid; that's nothing compared to the fact your H won't be a HUSBAND.
Figure out wht it is YOU want to do about this and then do it.
Our counsellor recommended that my DH spend a lot of time thinking about what HE really wants, instead of listening to his family and being wishy-washy about everything because he's listening to too many people. She also suggested that I stand up for myself when something was directed just at me, but that DH absolutely had to back me up. (For example, my MIL would pull my son out of my arms when he was a baby, or refuse to give him back to me when he was crying, or I needed to feed him, etc.) So I started fighting it more, and if DH was there and saw it, he'd tell her she needed to do what I asked. And when it's an issue with both of us, he deals with it. I don't talk to my MIL anymore. My situation might be a little different because my DH often DOES want the same thing as me and want his family to back off, he just didn't know how to do it, or felt horribly guilty for doing it. So counselling helped mainly because it gave him permission to focus on himself and to recognize that his family was guilt-tripping and manipulating him. Your DH sounds like he might still be on his family's side, I hate to say. It sucks to even feel like there are sides, but from what you're describing, he's really not making you and your child his priority. I hope a counsellor can give him a wake-up call on that too. Wishing you the best.
That being said.... if, IF, you feel it can't be saved, I need to speak to this:
I know she needs two parents that love each other, and that’s getting harder to do every day. He really is a good dad to her though, and I would never take that away from our daughter. I also don’t want to take my MIL away from our daughter, but I just don’t know how to handle her anymore. I can’t trust how my MIL might act around her, and I can’t trust my husband to handle his mother.
No, she actually doesn't "need" two parents who love each other. She needs parents who respect themselves and each other, and whether together or not, who are HAPPY. She needs parents who are strong and who make the right decisions, even if they are hard.
If, IF, you were to leave him, he can still be a strong figure in her life. Not being with him doesn't mean you're taking her away from him.
And what is this BS about how you can't take her away from your MIL? In the next sentence you say you can't trust your MIL w/ your DD. Why on earth can't you "take" her DD from her if she isn't a good role model for your DD? She doesn't have any rights to your child.
You admit that you've kind of had your head in the sand. You've ignored a lot of warning signs along the way and you seem to admit it. But yet you STILL have your head in the sand over this idea of what you "have" to do and who you have to give access to your child. If your MIL isn't a good person and i fyou have any concerns of what she'll do/say to your DD when you're not there - then she doesn't get access to your kid!
I strongly suggest therapy for you alone. Even before dragging your (useless) husband, you owe it to yourself to acquire some self respect/esteem and the right tools to protect yourself. This show is continuing to go on because you LET it happen.
You don't trust her around your child? Well then sorry, she doesn't get access to your child. And you don't feel the least bit guilty about it. You're the parent - you set the rules about who does and doesn't have access to your child. Someone who blatantly disrespects you is not worthy of having a relationship with your child to rub their nasty behavior off on them.