Afterall..... This IS my life IV for heatherg

[fearless]

IMO, you are treading on dangerous ground here. You have stated a good argument why your H should own up to his actions, why your family is justified in wanting to protect you, why he should own up to his actions so your family can forgive him, and plenty more reasons I am sure. But you know what? None of that matters! The bottom line is either your H or your family. This is a classic power struggle and one that dysfunctional families fall into ALL THE TIME and YES, YOUR FAMILY IS DYSFUNCTIONAL.

Actually I do not think that Heather's H or her family is the choice she feels at all. I think the choice she feels is her own self worth and opinions versus her husband's. I think, for her, her family is merely an incidental. Now Heather's H HAS made heather's family an issue and my concern is that he may possibly be purposely picking fights and forcing choices in order to ISOLATE Heather from her family. NOT a good thing IMO.

That said, Heather still needs to address her H's concerns in ways that SHE controls. She needs to respect his feelings even if she does not have the same feelings. It is tough for her because he does not honor her in that way but regardless of what he does, I think she needs to search for the strength to be respectful without giving in and giving him all the power. A tough place to be!!

Cobra,

I still cannot tell how close we are in opinion or not. The thing that confuses me is that I do not ever read what your opinion is about Heather's personal issue with the marriage.

It APPEARS to me when I read your post to Heather that what you are telling her is similar to someone telling you to just accept that there will be no sex in your marriage so get over it. I would certainly hope that you would ignore that person's advice because it would be so outrageous, right? So why do you appear to think that HEather's point about being in a marriage where she cannot express and have an opinion is not a HUGE problem for her? Why shouldn't her main goal be to a balanced marriage where BOTH of them are capable of having their needs met?