How to tell if there is an A

[justpeachy]

i couldn't agree with you more. i'm guilty of overlooking the lack of emotional development - i chalked it up to him being a guy. there are glimpses of an adult inside my h that wants to come out. he has vented a few times to me about his parents but he's rarely confronts them about the issues he has with them. he has a good head on his shoulders. he has tried to stand up to his parents but i think the delivery needs polishing. and it will only get polished with practise. but when his mother cries, it discourages him from trying again because it might take 5 or even 10 tries to get it right.

Ditto all of this. Except that his mother doesn't cry -- she mopes.

My H is much better today about confronting/standing up to his parents than he was when we first got together. But he still has a long way to go. His parents still treat him like a child. And I think he struggles with completely stopping that out of fear that they won't be able to handle it. Instead, he literally acts like a little boy around them.

all i can say is, you are not alone. i have not seen any posts of yours in newcomers. i will be trolling your thread to see what allen a has to say. i know it applies to me too.

I haven't posted over there. Just my one thread in Infidelity. I wasn't quite sure where I supposed to post when I first signed up.

my big question is .. how do you get your h to put on his big boy pants if you cannot control his behavior? i can't force my h to go ft. just like you can't make an alcoholic go to rehab if they don't think they have a problem.

Same here. And even if you try to guide them and give the resources and teach them... it's like that old saying "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". I get to this point, and then sometimes find myself wondering "Is any of this worth it? What am I doing to myself?"

for years, i've tried to model a good relationship with parents. my mom and i have a pretty good relationship. she is not afraid to let me fall down or make mistakes. she knows i have the skills to get back on my feet. i know my mom is hurting a great deal. the one thing she has yet to teach me is how to take care of a child. you can't really do it when you don't have a child of your own. she tells me that she wants to live long enough to see me have children. even though she has eight grandchildren already but she would love to see me have a child. i get teary talking like this. must stop.

Same thing with me. I had issues with my mother as a child. It'd take too long to get into, but suffice it to say my mom had always been very controlling and over-protective with me. She was also super harsh in punishing me. But when I hit 20 years old, I had decided I was ready to be an adult. I was very afraid of this (I couldn't tell you why, today). But I did it. And to my surprise, my mom immediately accepted and embraced it. It was like she was waiting for me to take that step. And our relationship really blossomed and went from parent/child to adult/adult from that point forward.

My mom has two grandkids (and another on the way). But, like your mom, she really wants a grandchild from me. Her other grandchildren all come with complicated situations. And as my mom's only daughter (and oldest child), she has told me she has been most looking forward to me being a mom. It's really hard for me to think that, one way or another, that is now being delayed for who-knows-how-long because of H's immaturity and irresponsibility. I either have to wait for him to grow up, or try to find another, truly worthy man to start a family with. There's no easy choice.

I've tried to be an example to H too. Some things he has picked up on. He learned, from me, how to stand up to his parents a little more. He learned how to follow through on decisions that he had carefully thought through but that his parents were strongly discouraging (like his choice of career, which is a great career and has been his dream since he was a child -- but his parents tried to talk him out of it for very selfish reasons). But, like your H, my H fears the day his parents die. Not because they directly beat it into his head, though. He says it's mostly because he lost 3 of his 4 grandparents while he was a child, and he's afraid his parents could die young too (even though they don't have any serious health problems). So he feels like he needs to connect with them as much as possible while they're still around. Even if it's unhealthy, and only perpetuates their lack of a life outside of their sons.

Makes me think that if I ever do end up in the dating pool again, I'm going be carefully scrutinizing the parents of any possibly marriage partners, and their relationship with their parents. Clearly these kind of parent/child dynamics create some predictable (and destructive) patterns!