Thank you Spiff and Mutatio. As a side note, before I found this board I cannot tell you the last time I had a meaningful and personal conversation with a man. Including my H, which is sad. Is that strange? I talk to my friend's husbands, my brothers, my cousins, my son's teachers and the Dads at the school, but never anything personal. I am guessing that is a good thing, because that would be the way an emotional affair starts. But it is really, really nice to have the male perspective and to have guy "friends." Thank you for that.
I will continue to stay pleasant and keep a healthy distance from the IL's. It is mostly MIL who is the source of the drama, but FIL gets caught up in it and then he agrees with MIL and speaks "for her." He also tries to be "helpful" , such as telling me H's affair was "just" romantic love, but what he has with me is "committed love". He also said "If it were me, I would have F@@cked her by now." Just what you want to hear about your H. For months I after BD I would get a weekly call from MIL rehashing our MC, asking me to "explain" myself for things I said in there, challenging me on my "jealous and controlling ways" and defending H's EA. This is just stuff his parent's shouldn't have even known about.
My approach since BD has been to keep my mouth shut, to not involve H in any conflict between me and the IL's and to just let everything slide. It has been working for me, but he is still hearing it from their side. What he really needs to do is remove himself from the equation and let each person handle their own issues.
I asked him in September to stop discussing me and our marriage with his parents and he reluctantly agreed. Maybe that 2 month break (if he actually did stop) got him to the point where he felt like he could voice his concerns. Maybe if he continues to not "take on" their perspective about me, and I continue to not engage in the IL dynamic, maybe he will form his own perspective. I don't expect that he will 100% agree with me.
I am thinking, instead of feeling hopeless (which I do right now) that there are things H can provide for me that will save the M if he chooses to.....
1- I need the "safety" of knowing that H is NOT discussing me with his family and rehashing incidents with them. I cannot imagine calling my family to discuss H's behavior or entertaining their criticisms of him, I just can't fathom doing that, even now. 2- That H does not believe I am somebody who spent years victimizing an innocent woman. So I need to not be blamed for the past. I need him to either let it go, accept that the truth is complicated and there was some fault all around, or accept that it was all his mom (LOL). I don't need for him to agree with me but I do need to know he doesn't think I am a destructive abusive person and that I systematically and intentionally went about destroying his mother's life. 3- to set reasonable boundaries with IL's moving forward.
I think if H was to get involved with ANY woman in the future, me, his EA, or someone new, the woman would expect these basic things, am I right? I don't think I am asking for very much. And I promise I am "out" of the IL drama, no longer a participant in any way. The only problem will be if they drag my children into it, that will be a tough one for me and I am working on building my children's resiliency and emotional awareness so that they will be strong enough to deal with that, or anything else that comes there way.
So there is hope, but it will be up to H. I am in no rush to push him, but I will need those things.
