Lonely, Empty Marriage After Dead MIL
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Anonymous
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DH and I have been married 8 years and I've wanted out probably for 6 of those years. It started with a toxic in-law dynamic. DH's parents didn't want him to marry me because I'm of a different race. I sensed it before we married and pressed DH about it repeatedly, but he lied to me and told me I was paranoid. After we got married and conceived, I guess his parents realized this wouldn't be a quickie marriage. They switched from distant and passive-aggressive to overtly hostile and racist. I found out they had been pressing DH to break up with me literally since he told them about me -- even before they met me. I was so angry with DH. If he had admitted what I felt -- that my race was a problem -- I would never have married him. DH did nothing about their behavior while pressuring me to say nothing -- even when they said racist things about our children.
Over the years, I lost respect for him and then I started resenting him. He came to resent me too for "dividing" his family. A year before the pandemic, I told his parents they were no longer welcome in our home and I told DH he could get out too if he had a problem with that. I meant it. We tried counseling and DH led off with so many lies that I decided I wasn't going to waste hundreds per hour on such a charade. It just made me resent him more. I hired a divorce attorney, but then the pandemic hit, we were stuck quarantining together, and DH's mother died. She was a truly horrible woman and her death was a great relief to me. DH grieved her like he wanted to die with her. I struggled to empathize with him, especially because he had never empathized with my losses over the years. DH became as resentful towards me as I was towards him. Nowadays, we're stuck together. Things are mostly calm and when we're doing things with the kids, we're like old friends. There's a certain warmth that comes out of our love for the kids. Both of our kids are very happy and I don't believe breaking up their family is the best move. Nonetheless, I'm lonely and I miss having love in my life. DH and I don't have sex nor do we want to touch each other. We don't trust or confide in each other. I don't like him most days -- it's amazing how many little quirks become almost intolerable when you resent someone. Anyway, I know most people here will scream divorce, but I don't think that's best for my kids. DH doesn't want to divorce. I think he's someone who would rather be in this empty husk of a marriage than alone. I'd love advice from couples who have dealt with this level of resentment and disconnection. Does living separate lives get better? Does the connection ever return? Is this all there is to life? |
Anonymous
| Living separate lives never gets better, only more distant. I’m flummoxed you wouldn’t divorce in this situation. Surely it’s better for your children to grown up with a loving relationship modeled for them. |
Anonymous
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No advice, just commiseration.
Only differences are my MIL is sadly still alive and I am of the same race. Otherwise I could've written this word for word, including the divorce attorney in Feb 2020 and the marriage counseling that was a huge waste of time and money. It's like my husband lives in an alternate reality. I'll be following for advice, too. |
Anonymous
| Very similar situation. My sympathies to all struggling w these dysfunctional mother-son dynamics. Will be following |
Anonymous
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It sounds like your husband might suffer from a very common issue, mother-son enmeshment. I would encourage you to get and read this book, and if it rings bells, offer it to your husband to read. It is never too late to heal from a toxic upbringing, and to learn relationship skills that can help reignite love in a marriage and help forge stronger relationships with one’s children, too.
https://smile.amazon.com/When-Hes-Married-Mom-Mother-Enmeshed/dp/0743291387/ref=pd_aw_fbt_img_2/134-3944879-0289947?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0743291387&pd_rd_r=f4b907dc-9330-4808-9b59-31ca2da034eb&pd_rd_w=DfLHj&pd_rd_wg=rQgdn&pf_rd_p=bf0db4ad-fc21-4e85-be88-036340fb7014&pf_rd_r=8JXFVE79P7P4ED6ARXEY&psc=1&refRID=8JXFVE79P7P4ED6ARXEY |
Anonymous
| This isn’t a healthy dynamic for your children or sustainable for you and your husband. Maybe you both can start by doing therapy 1:1 instead of as a couple. |
Anonymous
OP here. One additional factor weighing against divorce for me is that while we're together, I get to regulate who is around my children. DH's family is so trashy, hateful, racist and DH is so weak and ineffectual that he has and will continue to stand by while those animals are racist towards my children. Short of fighting him for full custody, which is not guaranteed, divorcing him would just mean my kids are exposed to his family with no one to protect them. I don't want to save myself at their expense. |
Anonymous
This. Why do people think this type of dysfunction is healthy for kids?! Op get therapy for yourself. |
Anonymous
OP here. He absolutely was enmeshed with his toxic, bitter, controlling mother AND he is still enmeshed with his father. They have overshadowed and ruined all of his relationships outside them. He has no confidants beyond them. I spent years buying him books and discussing to try to get him to see it. Now, I've left him to his family. I can't spend my life trying to pry this man-child from his family. I don't even want him anymore. |
Anonymous
| OP I hear you. Could you document the racism in DH's social/family circles? Does anyone here think that would help/ensure a full custody arrangement? |
Anonymous
| You need to stop blaming your in-laws for the issues you are having with your husband. They are not your in-laws' fault, they are your and your husband's problem. Marriage counseling would be a great idea - you can find online marriage counselors. |
Anonymous
I have A LOT of documentation. Over the years, I started writing his parents e-mails raising their racist comments with them. I also got copies of racist things they wrote about me. Not to mention so many other examples that aren't documented. But even then, nothing is guaranteed as far as custody goes. Lawyers I've consulted have told me that family court turns on the judge you get. Some white Boomer judge who is himself someone's racist in law might rule that DH has learned his lesson and can be trusted to share custody. Right now, with DH's relatives banned from the house and any FT conversations happening with my earshot, my children are safe. No more comments about how the boy has to be watched before his "other side" kicks in and he steals something. No more comments about my toddler daughter showing "slutty" tendencies. I kid you not. These people have said that and worse about my children while my husband did nothing. I will never forgive him, but I have to be pragmatic. |
Anonymous
| I grew up with parents who disliked each other. They were good parents. They managed to parent well together. But my brother and I still knew the dysfunction all around and had a terrible model for what a healthy relationship should be. Both of us struggled with that. I was in a couple of abusive relationships before getting therapy and meeting dh. My brother just doesn't do well in relationships and is always worried they are going to turn into my parents. I know a lot of people think that staying in these marriages is best....but it's really miserable for the kids. You're kidding yourselves if you think kids don't pick up on things. |
Anonymous
OP here. I hate my in-laws and they are problematic. My husband is also a weak asshole. I can hold those two feelings at the same time. I have already shared how counseling went. Thanks. |
Anonymous
I am a black woman, raised by a single mother (who was divorced) and now married to a spouse whose parents were married but didn’t seem to get along for years and tolerated each other. So I feel like I relate to your post in many ways: I grew up with a parent who chose to divorce rather than stay in a bad marriage “for the sake of the kids,” my spouse’s parents chose the opposite, and I’m black so I get the race thing, and I also have a kid and sometimes think about what divorce would mean in terms of sharing custody. Were it not for your husbands complete inability to stand up for his children’s identities to his family’s racism,I would absolutely say to divorce because it’s better to model happiness alone than misery stay together. But I think it’ll be much more damaging to their psyche long term to have them spend half of their time with a racist family and a father who either doesn’t defend them or who believes the same than it would be to grow up with parents who show no affection to each other. So I’d suggest that you get individual and may couples therapy to figure out how to tolerate each other without resentment until they are in high school, when they can really choose who they want to live with, and then divorce. |