Reply to Controlling mother + DH ongoing conflicts

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[quote=Anonymous]Yes, your DH is controlling and abusive.

And I say that even though I actually agree with him that it's "controlling" for your mom to insist on doing the dishes even after he said he'd handle them. It's just that this is something a lot of moms would do, and is at least partly a generational issue. My own mom does this in my house pretty much every time she visits and it does annoy me.

But just to give you a sense of how a functional marriage with mutual respect handles this:

My mom is sometimes pushy about cleaning or cooking when she visits. It's obviously at least partly about her self-perception as the matriarch and the idea that she must be in the caretaking role at all times. For my DH and I, under other circumstances we'd welcome the help, but my mom is also getting older and has some cognitive issues and she will make weird choices when she is "helping" that can actually make things harder. So often we will tell her not to do something so we can do it, because we are worried about her breaking or ruining something. Sometimes she listens, sometimes she doesn't -- she can be very stubborn and it depends on her mood. We handle it the best we can and try to remind ourselves that these issues are common with aging parents.

But we don't demand apologies when she oversteps a boundary or disregards our requests. We recognize this is a relatively minor thing, and even when she accidentally destroys something, it's not the end of the world. Probably the worst thing she ever did was ruin some flatware that I really loved and was discontinued (repeated issues with dropping utensils down the sink and running the disposal). That was upsetting but... it's just stuff. We bought new flatware. I think she even paid for it, I can't remember.

When my DH gets annoyed with her, I listen and commiserate, and vice versa. We have issues with his mom as well and we do the same. We always have each other's backs and we don't view one another's family as a heavy burden. Or at least, if they are a burden, they are one we share to lighten the load. We would never make demands from one another like this or nit pick how someone chooses to phrase a text or email to their family member. We trust each other and assume good intent, always.

Even if your DH is right and your family is controlling or violates boundaries a lot, the way he is handling it is abusive. He is treating you like a child and trying to control every aspect of your relationship with your own parents. Even if your parents were terrible (which they don't sound at all -- maybe a tiny bit clueless but really not a big deal) his behavior would not be okay.[/quote]

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