Hi ladies.
My DH and I had finally sought marital counseling and had our first session two nights ago. DH and I have barely spoken to each other since. We've been tip-toeing around each other, avoiding confrontation. I know he's afraid I'll blow up at him, and rightfully so. I'm so angry about so many things. And I know I shouldn't be directing it at in him in that way, but I'm so frustrated with him because he could've put a stop to it all from the very beginning with his mom, but he wouldn't.
A little bit of backround: I had written a little bit of this before but I will restate it. I have a teenage son from a previous marriage, my ex was abusive and we split when DS was two. I started my life over, went to college, bought a nice little home for DS and I, and we lived comfortably until I remarried. I was a single mom for nine years. I had met my DH at church. He is five years younger than I am, and we had been friends for quite a few years prior to when we began dating, so our relationship was built on a foudation of trust as friends and grew from there. (I had a very difficult time dating and trusting people because of my ex.)
Things were going wonderfully between DH and I, he was truly everything I had ever prayed for in a man. Then we got engaged. I had gotten along with his family prior, and the only questions about it were after DH and I went to FIL's house for dinner and FSIL was there, his parents would later question him about why I was so quiet at the dinner table. My reply was always the same; when FSIL is home visting from her college the entire conversation revolves around gossip about people from her college town, none of whom I even know. So early in our dating, I got the picture that FSIL was the princess and always the center of attention in DH's family, but I didn't really know how dysfunctional it was.
All of the gloves were taken off on the day of what is now known in our house as the"dress incident." Dh and I got engaged and decided we wanted a small wedding. I had dreamed if I ever remarried that I would have a beach wedding. I had already been married once and DH is the kind of guy who never showed up to his own college graduation ceremony, plus, we were paying for it ourselves. So we wanted it small, but his extended family is rather large, and most of them I had known for many years and known better than my own FIL's. My first idea was to drive to Myrtle Beach @ 8-10 hrs away. It would ensure that it would be small and just our immediate family would go, but DH's grandparents probably wouldn't make the trip, and it was important that they be there. So scratch plan A and onto plan B, which ended up being at our church after my initial ideas of a local winery and a local lake were thrown out because FMIL insisted that we had to get married in a church, it wouldn't be proper otherwise.
My twin sis and I went to a bridal shop that FMIL had recommended, and I found my wedding dress. We also found a beatiful bridesmaid (BM) dress that went wonderfully with my dress. It had a little too much cleavage, but could be easily altered. Now a little backround on how the FIL's dressed; MIL lives vicariously thru SIL, who always has her breasts hanging out.
Several weeks later, my sis and I met MIL and SIL at the bridal shop so that my twin and SIL could be measured to order the BM dresses. It was really busy and it turned out that no one was able to pin the size 10 dress on my size 2 sister. So she was hanging out all over. Sis and I were laughing, and considering MIL had purchased all of SIL's prom gowns at this same shop, and MIL can sew, I still couldn't figure out why she was gently verbally tearing the BM dress apart. She kept imagining all kinds of things wrong with it. I smiled and we managed thru the measurements, until we went to check out and order the dresses. My sis (who was laid off at the time) ordered and put the down-payment on hers, when suddenly I heard my FMIL behind us sqawking that she'd "had enough" and she stormed out of the shop, slammimg the entry doors so hard that they slammed into the adjacent foyer wall. I was dumbfounded and humiliated. The cashier was apolegetic and also happened to be a size 10 , so she tried on the BM dress over her clothes to enable SIL to properly see how the dress would fit, but she also began to verbally tear the dress apart. She also said that FMIL complained about the cost.
So we all go home. I explain what happened to FDH and SIL ends up showing up a his house to "talk" things over. FDH leaves us in a room alone together and I ended up getting a half-hour lecture from FSIL about how "special" she is in the family, (she literally announced that to me at least a half dozen times in the one-sided conversation). She kept telling me she couldn't wear anything too tight, too short, low cut, blah, blah....except the entire time she was saying this, her cleavage was hanging waaaay out of her top. She was making absolutely no sense. So I got on the computer that was in the room and started looking up dresses in order to find her an alternate dress., except she just ignore me and kept talking about herself, so I finally said, "look, your not helping here and you're not showing me what you can or will wear,, I've already changed my plans for your family..." And that 's where she blew up and started yelling that I was blaming her family , she refused to hear the rest of my sentence. FDH came up because of her yelling and immediately told me to leave. FSIL eventually was the one to leave. She called him on the phone and DH sad to her, "(FDW) said she was trying to show you alternate dresses on the computer" at which she screamed so loud into the phone that I could hear her from across the room, "that liar! I just want to punch her in the face!"
So it was now my word against hers. FMIL denied ever causing a scene in the bridal shop. For the next six months I watched every thing I tried to plan go down the tubes. All the while watching MIL and SIL's blatant hypocrisy and lies. They both manipulated him about everything. In their eyes, their family was more important than mine. My feelings about how our wedding should be planned didn't matter to them, because I was already married once. I watched as my FDH quivered in fear about standing up to his mother, but he wouldn't do it. In the end, I was thrown under the bus for everything and wasted hundreds of dollars on things for our wedding that were never used . My son was not in my wedding, my sis was not in my wedding because in their eyes, if SIL couldn't be in it, then no one in my family had a right to be in it. I didn't have a bridal shower because I kept giving everyone excuses about why we didn't pin down a wedding date, my church wanted to throw one for me. I kept giving everyone excuses, but the truth is, I was humiliated that my FMIL was manipulating everything. In the end, there was no bouquet, no photographer, no cake...there was nothing except the wedding dress that I had purchased before FIL's tantrums started. FDH wouldn't spend a dime til his mom was smoothed over...we can guess how that went. Everyone that truly blessed our marriage was shoved aside for two people who didn't.
We returned from our honeymoon, to find expensive furniture stuffed into DH's house, gifted from MIL. The same woman who complained about the cost of a BM dress, bought us overpriced furniture that looked a near match to the furniture in her house. DH and I each owned our own houses at the time, so we already had two houses full of furniture. The furniture was returned after DH and I got into an argument over it, one of the few battles that I won.
SIL got engaged about a year later. Everthing that MIL and SIL threw tantrums about for our wedding, they actually did in hers. And yep, you should see all of the cleavage. I didn't go to her wedding. I left the country. DH went, but regretted going.
He had allowed his mom to humiliate us both. I was so understanding in the beginning because I knew that he had never had conflict with them, but he was trained to do as they pleased. He admitted from nearly the beginning how narcissistic and blatantly hypocritcal they were., but he refused to do anything about it. Instead he chose to let them do what they always did, but this time, they trampled on me too. Over time, I'd lost my patience. About a month after SIL's weddding, I kicked him out. That was one year ago. He was back in less than a week, but under the condition that things had to change. MIL and SIL have been "cut out"C, but unfortunately it's too little, too late. The damage has already been done to our relationship. I have no trust or respect left for him. He refused to ever stand up for me when I needed him to. My walls of not trusting anyone are back up...these were all supposed to be lifelong Christians I was dealing with, and you can't trust them, who can you trust?
Our counseling session reiterated all of the above, with my DH not denying that he should set boundaries with his family early on. Our counselor flat out said, "DW, you have to make a choice to either give him a chance or give up on him.
I'm so upset that I'm back to the untrusting person that I used to be, and it never had to be this way. I feel like I gave him the benefit of the doubt for far too long.I feel bitter, angry and betrayed. I don't know that I can trust him again, it's been a year already. Our entire marriage has been in turmoil since it's beginning stages during our engagement, because of another woman, my MIL.
Please help...how do I ever trust or respect him again?? :'(
