I have historically left her feeling alone in this. She only recently started voicing her emotions in this area, but it has apparently been building for a long time.
Hey, my brother-from-another-mother.... I've read this particular post a couple times now, and those two sentences above keep leaping out at me, as if written in neon.
Why do I find that to be an incredibly important development?
Why? Because it is an incredibly important development - bigger than I ever would have thought...
to quote one of the many books I have read "The worst thing a man can do to a woman is to leave her alone"
First: Thank you to all for the 2x4s from yesterday. They prompted me to pick up a shovel and start digging into the relationship between my W and my parents, and what I have found so far has not been pretty. In fact, it is horrible.
Yesterday, I used the following example:
Quote:
Example:
Thinkers Dad (Said to an empty room but loud enough that everyone can hear it) "God D@mn It!! one of the kids spilled milk in the kitchen!!"
Thought reaction of everyone in my family (including me): "There he goes again, bla bla bla, just calm down will you, they didn't do it to make you mad, and someone will clean it up."
Thought reaction of Mrs. Thinker "He's blaming this all on me. He's calling my kids unruly. He's saying I'm a bad mother"
Well guess what! Mrs. Thinker is right. That's exactly what he was saying.
What I am discovering (realizing??) is that for a very very long time, my parents have taken EVERYTHING that they don't like about me and things I am doing and blamed it on my wife.
We don't visit them at XMas, prefering to go elsewhere - it's obviously her fault.
They don't approve of the way I am raising my kids - it's obviously her influence.
They don't get a Thank-you for something they did for us - it's definitely because she is inconsiderate and not because I was supposed to send it and forgot.
They visit and aren't made to feel welcome enough - it's definitely because she does not like them, and not because I was a workaholic who couldn't bother to take time off of work while they were here.
on and on
and over time, they have been building it up in their minds to the point where I am their "perfect" son who has been (corrupted, influenced, taken advantage of, stolen, ...) by this horrible woman.
and they have been pointing their anger at her, and never said anything to me.
I never realized that my family was THAT dysfunctional!!
and I have been allowing it to happen by not actively standing up to them ("We are not coming to visit at XMAS because I don't want to") and by being clueless (in denial?) about what was going on.
F_ck!!
My poor wife.
I told her this morning that I now realized what was going on with my parents and her, that I agreed with her, and that I was ashamed that I had not seen it earlier and had let it go on, and that I was sorry for what my family had put her through.
She cried.
Me 42, W 39, S8, S6, S2 M 11y, A & ILYBNILWY 11/08 Walking away from a bad situation.
