Question
My husband and I have been together for 10 years and married for four. I’ll admit our relationship has always felt a little uneven – he is not very expressive with his feelings and can be closed off. This always had me questioning how strong his feelings were for me in the early days.
But we had a strong physical attraction and, bit by bit, we got more serious, moved in together, engaged, got married, had kids, etc. We have recently moved back to his hometown, so I am getting to know his family more. His mother, a widow, is harsh, reactive, cold and extremely stingy with money and her time – particularly when it comes to her grandkids. She’s had a tough life and I think there are some traumas she never dealt with.
It’s really upsetting to me to see how she interacts with my husband, and equally upsetting to see how he is with her. Their relationship is weird; she doesn’t seem to like or trust him, and he is permanently in defensive mode around her. There is, needless to say, no love or warmth there.
This is starting to affect our relationship. He is colder and more dismissive of me. He can say scathing, mean things to me and then roll his eyes if I show any upset or don’t let it go straight away. He accuses me of taking everything personally.
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I’m scared because now I can see who he was raised by, and I’m worried he is more like her than he thinks. I’ve broached the subject of his mother and their relationship previously, only for the conversation to be shut down and for him to avoid bringing her up in chats with me for long periods of time. I feel sad; he seems utterly clueless of how unpleasant he can be around me, he still seems to just expect our physical relationship to be totally unaffected and for me to just laugh off his nastiness when it occurs.
I don’t like him right now, and I’m scared that I am moving further and further from a place of liking him. It’s not intentional, but it’s like something in me is drawing back from him and trying to reclaim some dignity or self-preservation. We have small children; I want to keep our family intact, but, truthfully, some days I genuinely feel like my life would be happier without him.
I don’t know what to do.
Answer
What you are now confronting are the patterns of our families of origin and how they impact on the current generation, and it is quite common that the effect is not seen fully until we have children ourselves.
Most of us live unaware of the heritage that expresses itself in our everyday lives and often we need someone outside of the family to point out to us the patterns that emerge. How we love, and how we express that love, is learnt very early on in life. You might be familiar with attachment theory and how early responses can shape our later relationships.
Crisis is often a time when we are open to change and when we can step outside our routine and habits
If a parent offered only conditional love or if it was withheld altogether (as you appear to suggest in the case of your mother-in-law), then the child adapts to the environment by withdrawing any need for love and affection and blocking any vulnerability to possible rejection. However, even the person who has adapted to this would not want the same for their own children, and in this way, they can see that their experience of being parented was damaging.
Opportunities for challenging this heritage often come when we fall in love and, at least for a while, we can stretch ourselves during a period of generosity and faith in human nature, but without sustained personal work, this brief moment of light can quickly return to the safety of scepticism and keeping our distance.
It seems that the return to your husband’s hometown and family has triggered this retreat in him, and now you find yourself facing a very difficult situation. It is unlikely that your husband (even with your wisdom and support) would be able to track his family story and patterns by himself, so the obvious answer to your quest of finding expressed love and affection with your husband is to seek help from a couples therapist or even to find a personal therapist for your husband. However, the suggestion that he source this support is unlikely to be taken up unless you create a controlled crisis.
Crisis is often a time when we are open to change and when we can step outside our routine and habits, but while it can be useful to help bringing about a real shift in approach, it is not without an element of risk. One way for you to create a crisis is to say that you are thinking of a break-up unless you both seek help. This can only be done if you mean it, so think carefully before suggesting it. Perhaps going away for a week on your own might offer opportunities for open conversation. Being clear that you want your fledging family to thrive and that you are willing to fight for this is also important.
Give your husband time to absorb what you are saying, and do not withdraw affection during this time. He will need evidence that love can conquer all, but his fight or flight response might kick in initially.
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If he can see that you are determined to support him in the risks he needs to take in order to secure his family, he may learn that emotional vulnerability is the pathway to connection and happiness. A family and couples therapist will be able to draw a genogram of your husband’s family which will trace the patterns and legacy over three generations. This is a powerful way to highlight the family traits that get handed down from generation to generation. Look up familytherapyireland.com for accredited therapists.
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