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Ordinary mum with son married to a jealous controlling Doctor.

Started by muminlaw, November 16, 2016, 01:23:34 AM

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muminlaw

Ordinary mum with son married to a jealous controlling Doctor.
Hallo Everyone, this is my first time using a forum so not quite sure how to start? I am a mother of two sons, the eldest is a high achiever with a MA and is a Director of his company. He has always been a loving caring son, we have always been close. This year he married a controlling, jealous Doctor, who is used to having her way. It has not been easy. I usually take easily to people and have several good friends. My husband of 37 years is a great person and very supportive. We both do not know how to handle the situation. She insists they go to her family for Thanksgiving not ours...last year my son said he was coming to us for Christmas..i thought all of Christmas with maybe this year swapping with them coming here for thanksgiving and going to her family for Christmas. i was wrong...she went to her family last year then at Christmas they came Christmas Eve for dinner, then Christmas morning we opened presents which was nice until we were told they were leaving at noon to drive 3 1/2 hours to go to her family...the weather was bitterly cold and i worried about the driving. They were safe thankfully. I spoke to my son and told him that we did not want the stress like last Christmas with them rushing out and his wife eager to leave to go to see her family. I was not going to have Christmas this year which my son said was  choice, then i thought more about it and thought maybe if we have Christmas the week before, our son thought that was a great idea so they are coming to stay for 3 days. Don't get me wrong I appreciate that we will see them. But they made no effort to compromise, I know my son is governed by his wife and cannot commit to anything until he has her word. So Christmas day my husband and I will be alone. Our other son is going to his partners  parents. There is so much more to tell but as being new i do not know where to start.

luise.volta

Welcome, M. We ask all new members to go to our HomePage and under Open Me first to read the posts placed there for you. Please pay special attention to our 'Forum Agreement' to be sure WWU is a fit for you. We are a monitored Website.

My own experience with my eldest son was very difficult. Now, years later, I think what hurt the most was brought about by my very reasonable expectations. I had no idea I wasn't 'allowed' any. I thought I mattered to my son and that we had transitioned successfully out of our mother/child relationship into a more distant and comfortable adult/adult relationship of mutual respect.

It took a long time for me to get that he had made his choice and my job was to adjust to that. No matter how much he wanted to, it wasn't comfortable for him to interfere with the way my daughter in law saw things and set them up. He went along in the name of establishing and keeping the peace. And my guess is it also contributed to keeping her happily in his bed.

My job of raising him was done. His adulthood was in his hands and what I finally did was to get it and turn toward making a new life for myself that I found rewarding. I also found that I didn't want to contribute to my grandchildren seeing a family relationship that was thoughtless and unkind and accepting it as the norm. They are raised now...and great friends. You never know. Hugs...
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

muminlaw

Hi can I reply back to this? Not quite sure how this works?

Yes my thoughts exactly on our son, he does things to keep the peace. We know our son loves his wife and she loves him too..but it has to be her way and her family first...our son was her prize, she got him and now she is happy. We have never done any thing intentionally to hurt her although in her mind she feels we have. We are polite and welcome her always with a hug etc. We do not play head games or such, we want our children to be happy. But she wants him all to herself. I am very conscious when he sees me he always hugs me for several seconds as we do not see each other that often and verbally expresses how much he loves me, all the time I am aware of his wife watching all this.

Marina

Muminlaw, I miss those warm hugs from my own DS; it's been a while.  I'm not sure if what I say here will help you, but I'm working on coming to terms with the way things are.  I would like to think the situation will improve in the future, though I have no reason to believe so. 

It took me years to start to understand the dynamics of my estrangement from DS and DIL.  Pre-wedding, our relationship seemed rosy and joyous.  After the wedding, they made rules unilaterally, limiting the how and when of our interactions.  It has just gotten worse with time, no matter how much I have tried to work things out.  It is their way or the highway.  Her FOO gets the lion's share of their time and attention, and I, the crumbs.  The hardest thing to accept was that my DS was going along with it; I was in denial because I just couldn't believe that DS would treat me this way--surely, he didn't understand the hurt I felt!

I finally came out of denial to understand it was their JOINT decision-making (even if DIL was the one instigating the "rules") and that DS fully knew I was hurting.  At that point, I was very angry with DS for betraying me this way, though I couldn't afford to show it.  Narcissistic DIL enjoys the game of being in power, even more so now that there are GC.  (Jump, jump, higher!)  I have withdrawn from that rigged game. 

DS acts mystified about my withdrawal.  DS has nebulously stated that DIL and I have a problem "for some reason" (shrug, shrug).  In this way, DS has conveniently excused himself of any accountability in the relationship. 

Yuck!  Even as I write this, it is hard to grasp emotionally.  I DO feel much better keeping my distance from them, sadly.   



muminlaw

Isn't it awful. Our son is 32, before he met DL he was in a 7yr relationship with a woman, they were both going to UNI at this time. We saw so much of them, I could call their apt. and suggest something and they usually agreed. We are 2 hours away form our son's residence. Ourr son was always popular growing up and brought a couple of other girls home for us to meet. Never have we had any issues. I was actually shocked to find out after our son married this DL how widespread DL controlling is. I come from a large family who are all very close, this is all new to me.
Our other son is 27 and lives with his partner who is very loving. Our DL tried to come between the two brothers also...our youngest will still not forgive DL for this..again though he is not rude to her 
Also a good friend of the family who lives close to our eldest son and before he met DL he and family friend went to the theater together, out to dinner etc. This is a woman in her 70s. Recently our son cut her off.
Tragic.
It hurts to the core dosn't it?

Pen

It is sad. I hope things improve, but in the meantime please take care of yourself.

Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

Stilllearning

It is so sad!!  The worst thing you can do though is to think about it.  If you think about it all the time then the sadness and unfairness of it invades the other parts of your life.  If you talk about it all the time then your friends will start not calling as often and your family will politely fade away at gatherings and the one or two who are stuck with you will try to avoid it happening again.  Ask me how I know!  My DH would barely talk to me and when I brought up my hurt he would walk away, not because I was wrong but because men feel the need to fix things and there was no fixing this.  He still just tells me my DIL is crazy (diagnosed bipolar now) and offers no insight about how to handle it.  His way is to completely avoid her and my DS most times too.

So what did I do to grow into some acceptance?  I started following my thoughts with thoughts of "no news is good news" and I started doing things that made me happy.  Things that made me happy made my DH happy and gradually life evened out (mostly, LOL) and once I stopped running after my DS looking for ways to "fix things" and stopped trying desperately to be my DIL's friend the whole situation lost its grip on me.  Are you coming for Thanksgiving?  Great!  You're not?  Have a good Thanksgiving because I certainly will!!!

This did require an adjustment of my expectations, which as Luise says, were very reasonable but they were mine and not my DS's.  And yes, I did mourn the loss of the close family I was hoping to have but I found my self faced with only two possibilities.  On one hand I could continue to be miserable and make everyone around me miserable by comparing how much my DIL's FOO got to see my GC or on the other I could be happy when I saw them and ignore everything else.  For me it was an easy choice once I saw it as an either/or situation and stopped trying to make it better.  It took me months to get to that point and I am not sure if I would have ever gotten there without the wonderful women on this site.  They have been here for me through the wedding and the showers.  They even supported me when I said that I could not go to the baby showers.  I owe them an eternal debt of gratitude and so does my DH!!

Good luck to you in your struggles and remember that we all make strides forward and occasional slides back into the abyss but with work you can find your slides occurring less and less.  My DS is only now becoming aware of what he lost.  I will love him forever but he will never again have the power over my life he had.  So be it.
Your mind is a garden your thoughts are the seeds
You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.
Author unknown

Marina

Before I could move on and start to focus on taking care of myself and making adjustments to my future plans, it was really important to be validated in the reality of what was going on and how I was feeling.  Validation was hard to come by because (1) you can only share this kind of info with people you trust and (2) most people can't truly understand how a loving parent can be rejected by the child (unless there are drugs involved, etc.).  I found this forum to be a good place to find that validation. Thank you, ladies.   

Pooh

Welcome.  The other ladies have nailed it, but you have to come to the conclusions in your own time.  Your expectation is that you will see DS on holidays.  Their expectation is that as long as they are coming "around" the holidays, that should be good.  So as Luise said, I had to learn that my expectations were not in line with theirs and also had to remember those years I spent running like crazy on the holidays to appease everyone.  It wasn't that I didn't want to see them, it just took all the fun out of the holiday to be running, running and more running. 

So I had to learn to make plans for me and DH, and if it worked out for the kids, it did.  If it didn't, we figured out something else.  Not my ideal situation as it's normal to want your family around on the holiday, but it still works out.  I think having them the week before is excellent.  Now you and DH can make your own plans for Christmas Day.  You can run around naked, sipping hot chocolate and singing Christmas songs at the top of your lungs! :)
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell

Pen

So how did the naked hot chocolate drinking and caroling go, Pooh?  ;)

My DF married a jealous, controlling doctor, too. I can't even talk to him on the phone w/o her being on the other line. DS also married a controlling professional woman. I am the opposite of a control freak. Perhaps I should become one?
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

Bamboo2

Sounds like a fun way to spend the holidays :)

Pen, I can't imagine you as controlling; control comes with a high price.  It's hard to see those we love in controlling relationships, but we just need to put boundaries around ourselves so we don't get sucked into the vortex.  I got myself out of my own controlling relationship years ago, and my DD has to make her own decisions in her own time.  It isn't mine to understand or control, and believe me, I've unfortunately tried! 

All I can say for sure is that I don't want to be controlled emotionally by her or anyone again.  You wise women have helped give me the strength to put a healthy boundary around myself, and I am so grateful  :D

Can you believe this??  DD recently got a puppy (ill-advised financially and otherwise) and she asked if we would take care of the dog during her two consecutive overnight shifts.  The old mom would have acquiesced, reluctantly, but the new mom said that wouldn't work for us.  Big growth!

luise.volta

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

Bamboo2


Pen

Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

Pooh

Quote from: Pen on November 29, 2016, 08:57:52 AM
So how did the naked hot chocolate drinking and caroling go, Pooh?  ;)

My DF married a jealous, controlling doctor, too. I can't even talk to him on the phone w/o her being on the other line. DS also married a controlling professional woman. I am the opposite of a control freak. Perhaps I should become one?

***Note:  Make sure the hot chocolate has cooled some before running around naked..... :)
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell