My husband hates his parents

[Davina3000]

My husband has a horrible relationship with his parents. Currently, I feel that the bad situation is his fault. He refuses to answer the phone when they call or return their messages. His parents invited us to their house for Christmas, and he is now completely balking at the idea of going. About 5 or 6 years ago, before I even met him, he and his parents had a falling out. He dropped out of college and made some pretty rebellious decisions. They in turn decided to blame his actions on mental instability and put him through a battery of psychiatric evaluations and rehab stints. He has admitted that he still holds a grudge against them for this experience. He wavers between wanting to confront them for what has happened in the past and blame them for all of the bad moments in his life and wanting to be completely isolated from them.

I am at a total loss. I understand that my husband has gone through a lot of family crap in the past that I was not a part of. And I think if he was willing to deal with it and talk to them about it, I would support him through the rough interactions that would no doubt follow. However, he is acting like a child. He puts me in the middle of things. He refuses to see that he is affecting more people than just himself. He has been completely passive-aggressive about planning our Christmas...waiting until the last minute when I am planning on going to see his parents and then saying that he doesn't want to see them and he doesn't care that he is ruining my holiday and he won't compromise and come up with any kind of plan except sitting at our own house...and most annoyingly, he refuses to call his parents and tell them that he doesn't want to see them...he is willing to let them expect us on Christmas and then be disappointed, so I will end up calling them because I feel badly about the situation.

In some ways I am angry that he ever introduced me to his parents. I always wanted a marriage that involved two families being united, and I feel like he played along with this ideal that I held...introducing me to his parents, letting me accept their family heirloom engagement ring, going to family functions, building a relationship with his family members, asking his parents to host our rehearsal dinner...and now he wants me to cut off my relationship with his parents. I understand that my relationship to his parents is secondary to his relationship with them, but nothing bad has happened between them since we started dating...it is literally like he adopted this new stance towards them and demanded that I abandon them too. It is really sad, and I don't know how to deal with it. My family is really close, and I understand that this is a lucky situation, but at the same time, I work really hard at those relationships and I feel like he doesn't see the importance of making this kind of effort.

I am mainly posting because I just cried for an hour over this and needed to vent in some way. Any thoughts/support/advice would be much appreciated. I have suggested counseling, and he has said he will go, but the immediate situation (dealing with the fact that he refuses to see his parents over Christmas) obviously needs to be resolved before we could see any therapist.

Thanks SDNers, you are my often my support system without even knowing it.....

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[myfavred]

My husband has a horrible relationship with his parents. Currently, I feel that the bad situation is his fault. He refuses to answer the phone when they call or return their messages. His parents invited us to their house for Christmas, and he is now completely balking at the idea of going. About 5 or 6 years ago, before I even met him, he and his parents had a falling out. He dropped out of college and made some pretty rebellious decisions. They in turn decided to blame his actions on mental instability and put him through a battery of psychiatric evaluations and rehab stints. He has admitted that he still holds a grudge against them for this experience. He wavers between wanting to confront them for what has happened in the past and blame them for all of the bad moments in his life and wanting to be completely isolated from them.

I am at a total loss. I understand that my husband has gone through a lot of family crap in the past that I was not a part of. And I think if he was willing to deal with it and talk to them about it, I would support him through the rough interactions that would no doubt follow. However, he is acting like a child. He puts me in the middle of things. He refuses to see that he is affecting more people than just himself. He has been completely passive-aggressive about planning our Christmas...waiting until the last minute when I am planning on going to see his parents and then saying that he doesn't want to see them and he doesn't care that he is ruining my holiday and he won't compromise and come up with any kind of plan except sitting at our own house...and most annoyingly, he refuses to call his parents and tell them that he doesn't want to see them...he is willing to let them expect us on Christmas and then be disappointed, so I will end up calling them because I feel badly about the situation.

In some ways I am angry that he ever introduced me to his parents. I always wanted a marriage that involved two families being united, and I feel like he played along with this ideal that I held...introducing me to his parents, letting me accept their family heirloom engagement ring, going to family functions, building a relationship with his family members, asking his parents to host our rehearsal dinner...and now he wants me to cut off my relationship with his parents. I understand that my relationship to his parents is secondary to his relationship with them, but nothing bad has happened between them since we started dating...it is literally like he adopted this new stance towards them and demanded that I abandon them too. It is really sad, and I don't know how to deal with it. My family is really close, and I understand that this is a lucky situation, but at the same time, I work really hard at those relationships and I feel like he doesn't see the importance of making this kind of effort.

I am mainly posting because I just cried for an hour over this and needed to vent in some way. Any thoughts/support/advice would be much appreciated. I have suggested counseling, and he has said he will go, but the immediate situation (dealing with the fact that he refuses to see his parents over Christmas) obviously needs to be resolved before we could see any therapist.

Thanks SDNers, you are my often my support system without even knowing it.....

I am really sorry for what you are going through. I would say (and I don't have any experience in any situation like that so it is just theoretical) that don't let him put you in the middle of it. If he doesn't want to go then fine. Tell your husband that you have promised to see them on christmas and at the time of promise he was part of it. So you won't go back on your words. If he wants he can have christmas alone but you are going to visit his parents. I am really sorry to say this but your husband seemed to have deceived you and that is not nice. You have to talk to him about it. I am really sorry for all your problems. It must be very hard to go through all that.

I hope you will fell better soon.

Take care

 

[Neuronix]

My advice is to let him have his way. They're HIS parents, not yours. If you don't see his parents for one holiday, it's not the end of the world. I'm sorry, but my opinion is that you should let this go and move on with your relationship. I think in time he will probably forgive them, but if you try to force the issue it's going to distance the two of you and hurt YOUR relationship, which is what really matters. Christmas is a stressful time for everyone, and this probably just his way of reacting to alot of things going on right now. It sounds to me like he needs your support, but not pressure. Of course you can give advice, and it sounds like you have, but sometimes it isn't right to pressure someone out of something that's wrong.

 

[kinetic]

Sounds to me like you're the one with a problem. It's real easy for you to say, "what a selfish bastard my husband is ...he's being passive-aggressive about Christmas!" Meantime, the reason he's being passive-aggressive is because you're so hell-bent on having your conception of a perfect little holiday, Norman Rockwell style, and forcing him into an uncomfortable situation.

What's amazing is that you are AWARE of his past interactions with his family and still are being dense about it. "Gee, why doesn't he just grow up and make nice with them?" What the hell is that all about? You don't get that sometimes people get pissy when their parents call them mentally unstable and force them to take loony tests? Let's put you in that situation and see how mature you are about it.

 

[Davina3000]

Sounds to me like you're the one with a problem. It's real easy for you to say, "what a selfish bastard my husband is ...he's being passive-aggressive about Christmas!" Meantime, the reason he's being passive-aggressive is because you're so hell-bent on having your conception of a perfect little holiday, Norman Rockwell style, and forcing him into an uncomfortable situation.

What's amazing is that you are AWARE of his past interactions with his family and still are being dense about it. "Gee, why doesn't he just grow up and make nice with them?" What the hell is that all about? You don't get that sometimes people get pissy when their parents call them mentally unstable and force them to take loony tests? Let's put you in that situation and see how mature you are about it.

I'm sorry, I had to laugh...I was just thinking the other day that your posts remind me of my husband and his thought processes, and now here you are defending him! Are you my husband operating under an alias?

Anyway to both you and Neuronix, I agree with you about my trying to push him into "a perfect little holiday" and placing too much pressure on the issue. I realize that this is what the argument has turned into, and this morning I decided to back off and we are staying home for the holidays. (kinetic, if you really are my husband posting under an alias, I guess you allready know this )

I take full responsibility for the issue turning into "what the hell are we going to do about Christmas???" But for me the real problem was that he put me in a very uncomfortable spot by originally agreeing to make a trip to see his parents and then turning very evasive and making me be the one to communicate his feelings to his parents. That was what really upset me last night. The issue was not between his parents and me, it was between my husband and his parents, and I felt like he was using me by forcing me into the middle of the situation, instead of acting his age, picking up the phone and saying "mom, we won't be there for christmas, bye." Anyway, thanks for the advice, sometimes it is helpful to see an outsider's perspective.

And to the first poster, thanks for caring enough to post, I was having a really tough time last night and it helped to see that someone had heard me out.

 

[GeneGoddess]

My husband doesn't hate his parents, but he hasn't seen him mom in four years or spoken with her in 3.5yrs. He hasn't seen or spoke to his dad (they're divorced) in over a year. In fact, he only talks to his grandmother (who is an angel). Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to support HIM! Far be it from me to act as a perfect "martha-stewart" wifey (my friends who die laughing at anyone who described me as such), but his parents are just that: HIS parents. Yeah, I'd love to have inlaws that I enjoyed being with, but that's just never going to happen. Side with your husband on this one, and support HIS decision. If he decides to go, then GO. If he decides not to, they stay at home with him! Good luck!