Confused, kind of sad, torn

[DifferentDrummer]

Dear all,
Thank you so much for your responses and support. I took the initial topic off the board here to to take the details out of a public forum.  I do believe the answer to preserving a viable relationship on both ends lies in taking a more proactive stance for a change.  Will keep you "posted".

[Hopalong]

Oy, D and D, you really are between a rock and a hard place.

I have two observations that may not help at all, but they're what jumps out.

a few days about 4 times a year, and spend a week somewhere together on vacation.  Maybe come to one of the family get togethers sometime (haven't been in many years).  He has a recurring theme of going on a family vacation

Here's the rock--I think these are unreasonable expectations. That's an ENORMOUS amount of time, especially when you've just had a baby. Buried in them though, is the desire to stay a family and though overbearing and critical and very icky, your father's message also reveals (I think) grief. I think they do genuinely miss you. Mixed in with their bossy entitled and neurotic stuff, they miss you. They're blaming and whining...which doesn't help, but I'm guessing there's a germ of real love mixed in. So if you do want some connection with them (before they trample the possibility to death) that MIGHT be negotiated over time to something that would be positive for you and your children. Or at least more positive than destructive. (It's getting tiresome to hear them paint S&G as your jailer...however, it is possible you have a habit of being passive with them?) Don't mean that as a swipe...but it's VERY good that you're here posting in your own voice and in your own behalf.

Here's the hard place--Your dear hub, S & G, of whom I've grown quite fond...has sounded overwhelmingly anxious and controlling from the get-go when he talks about your situation. Something in your parents' presumptions touches a place where he feels deeply scared and powerless. And that anxiety + powerlessness, I think, is leading to over-the-top efforts to control both you and them.

I am SO glad you are going into counseling. With three people (two parents and one husband) constantly barraging you with what is right, appropriate, fair, kind, what should be your priority, what should not be your priority, etc.---it's a wonder you can inhale and exhale without screaming. I think it's great you're going into it with S & G, so the T can help provide you both with some perspective.

Meanwhile, though, I do hope you will also consider separate counseling for yourself. NOT to "correct" your thinking or your priorities to please either S&G or your parents...but truly FOR YOURSELF.

I have felt since first reading S&G's posts that he is truly alarmed by how powerful your parents appear and how passive you seem in response (perhaps that's an very old and familiar role-dialogue in your family) and is desperate for help, but his anxiety interferes and makes his efforts to help come across as hypercontrolling. With the call-monitoring...it's clear he's over the edge. That's NOT good.

You, I think, have a whole lot of people in your head trying to think for you, decide for you, prioritize for you, set value for you, create meaning for you, determine fault and blame and proportionality for you.

I think you need to tell the lot of them to back off -- and find your own ideas about what shape you will tolerate in your relationships, both with your overbearing parents and your concerned but hypercontrolling hubby. It's not acceptable for ANYONE (including me or anyone here) to dictate to you what to do.

But I think you need help taking this into yourself. Otherwise sounds like a slippery slide into either total loss of biofamily (which it doesn't sound like you want) or the same level of threat to your marriage. (Likewise, S&G probably needs separate help for his own self, too. But starting with a T together is a great idea.)

Wouldn't it be good to find your own voice instead of sitting by while everyone squabbles over you like a pack of dogs? Set your own doggone boundaries thankyouverymuch?

Keep us posted, pun intended...I know it's painful. (In a funny way though, you're in a very powerful position...having them all fight over you like that, while you don't seem to speak clearly about what YOU want.)

Hopalong

[mudpuppy]

While it sounds like your husband is acting in a paranoid manner, I guess the question is does he have reason to?
Just how N are your parents? Do they really just want you to visit or do they want to split you and your husband up?
If they are tolerable Ns and will be satisfied with a visit or two that's one thing.
But people with a real case of NPD will not be satisfied with a visit or two. They'll sucker you with that request, but it is only the worm on a very sharp hook. They have to win, especially if they have declared your husband the enemy.
And if they are NPDers their desires have NOTHING to do with love as that is an emotion that is utterly foreign to them.

Seems to me like the first thing you need to do is decide in your own mind just exactly what you are dealing with.
If one side is really off the wall and the other is just reacting to their provocation then its pretty simple; stay away from the off the wall nuts.
If both sides are a little nutty then you can probably steer a middle course and placate them.
If they're both pretty nutty then you've got a tough row to hoe.

I have to say that S&G has seemed more exasperated and at his wits end as to how to deal with them than truly paranoid.
And I'm sure you're both very emotional with a newborn on your hands and the holidays and your family pressuring you.
On the other hand it does sound like he is going to some extreme lengths.

If you read this S&G I hope you will try and relieve the pressure you are putting on your wife. It doesn't seem to be helping you, your wife or your desire to be rid of their influence.

DD you have my sympathy. I couldn't have gotten through what my family has put us through without my rock solid wife right by me.

mudpup

[write]

oh dear, you are stuck.
You can't please 'em all so you will have to work out what pleases you.

When I had my son I asked friends and family to stay away for a few days. I was learning to nurse, bleeding from about every place a new mom who had a difficult birth ending in a c-section is, including the surgery wound, and trying to preserve my dignity and most of all compusure to take care of a newborn.

I would say I offended all but the most understanding: apparently everyone wants to see a new baby, the younger the better, and people who got to see the baby a couple of weeks later than they had intended asked who had seen the baby first, who came to hospital, who was there before them...

This definitely wasn't an N issue, so much as I had offended the customs and traditions for new babies in my society.

Hell, even the midwife was offended one day when she visited and I was asleep with the baby and my husband said she should come back next day!

My father ignored my wishes and came in one day h left the door unlocked, I was nursing and soaked through with blood, I remember thinking I should be embarrassed but I wasn't, i thought if you insist on not listening to me....

Funny about parents-in-law though.

My father then visited every day often several times a day, my brother had his head injury accident when my son was a week old, and after that it was like he didn't exist except as an initial excuse to visit 'to see my grandchild' then it was all about dad and his situation trying to arrange care for my brother.

Interestingly, my brother and I are close, but just bro and sis, he never asks anything of me, we keep in touch, he asks about my life and family, but my father always tried to get me more involved.
Even over Christmas just gone it was 'have you called your brother?'
He forgets all the times he's also come between us when it suited him.

Anyway, funny about parents-in-law, or problem-parents-in-law...

I was talking to my ex today about a friend with an alcoholic mother, and he said you know if she gets her Green card she can bring her here...

Suddenly he shuddered and said: I guess you could bring your father.

I said some things should never be spoken and we laughed and made some jokes.

But he grew to loathe my father who was always wanting something and never satisfied, it was like giving him a little bit just meant he wanted more.

Maybe it was him gave ex-h the insight into PDs.

When I was very ill in 2004 h took my son to England, and I was concerned he should see my father. he took him there on their last day there, and apparently they had a great visit, because there was nothing else could be demanded of them.

But we got to that same stage of pretend we're not here: I had huge velvet curtains on the front side of the house which were drawn the whole time in England.

When I was there last year I organised very structered SHORT trips with my father.

I guess I am rambling on a bit, all this was an emotional roller-coaster time of my lie, and I'll never forget settling in to nursing and being home with my son after a traumatic delivery only to get the call my brother was dying in intensive care.

It was the last time I really spoke to my mother too, she had been summoned to the hospital in the only circumstances my brother would have had her visit ( in a coma )

***

Wonderful family vacations, especially Christmas

are you American? Let go the imagery.
I too was amazed at the wonderful spirit of er 'Holidays' when I first came here.
I have learned since that not ONE of my friends enjoys it, that most families are full of tension, and that my dysfunctional British 'stiff-upper-lip' background is as nothing when families are trying to PROVE they are 100% American Happy People.

***

ps. Postpartum: my father told me when my son was 9 days old I should leave him with my sister-in-law ( who doesn't like babies plus I was nursing ) and stay at the hospital with my brother doing a round-the-clock vigil. My brother was on life-support, and I said let me know if he comes off it, but I am best home taking care of my newborn.
A couple of years later my father in conversation told me I must have had post-partum depression because of the harsh things I said! Like 'no'....

***

Do what feels best for you.

Exchanging photos, encouraging the grandparents to write letters and send little gifts is the way I've tried to go. I think my father managed two letters to my son in the over five years we've been here.
I still send regular photos and letters back, and I don't feel guilt at all.

Relationships at a distance.

A Voicelessness Classic text...

xoxox

[guest444]

This sort of sounds like my sister and her husband.  N. Mom & N. Dad, at one point wished, aloud to me-- I don't even think it sounded foreign to them-- that my sis and her H would break up so they could have her and the kids to themselves.  At the time she had 2 little ones, I think, now there's three.

I couldn't believe my ears.  I walked away imagining I was hallucinating.  It's no wonder I'm deeply disturbed by your explanation.

I'm with your H, I gotta be honest.  I think his anxiety would go away too (OK, lessen), if he didn't have to worry so much about whether or not you're really going to stick up for yourself and him (you're a couple, remember?).

But I just had a T session and the phrase "I think all relationships are optional" just rang in my ears like music.

bean

[Plucky]

Hi DD,
it sounds like a terribly confusing, difficult situation.   I think it is a good idea to go into counseling.  I think you need your own T.  You've been pulled between others' wishes, needs, and demands for so long you might not even know what you really think any more.

Family vacations are what all of his generation are doing... what my mother's friend did with their kids and what his sister does with their kids.  He asked if I could ever envision us doing this and I said yes, sometime (husband freaked out).  Then he said if my husband couldn't tolerate it, "you know some people do go on separate vacations".  I get 3 weeks of vacation a year, I'm not going to not see my husband during it!

I did see this and was a little confused.  It sounds like you know your H will never want to vacation with them, you don't want to go without him, yet you said you would go.  It also sounds like your parents are trying to keep up appearances by doing what everyone else is doing.  And I guess there is some warnth in being treated as if you are 2, but I wouldn't like it!
If you are going to stay married, you might have to take your husband's side until you sort things out.  Even if you don't think he is completely right, and he does sound a little overboard from your description, being married, especially under siege, means closing ranks.  If there are things to resolve, you do that in private, not in front of your family who do not seem too enamoured of your H.
Good luck and congrats on your beautiful baby.
Plucky

[miss piggy]

Hi Different Drummer,

It's good to hear from you.  I hope little one is doing well!  Well, here comes my two cents.

I think what is missing here are healthy natural boundaries.  I know that can be an overused word, but that's it in a nutshell.  It means where you end and I begin.  Your parents do not recognize your boundaries, your Self, your right to be an individual.  As your dad himself said, you are a part of us.  I note he didn't say you are a part of our family.  And why would that change depending on where you are located?  That is telling to me. 

He is upset because the status quo has been changed greatly and not by HIS doing.  From what S&G has written, I gather he is used to setting all the terms and conditions not only for himself, but for everyone around him.  He plans all the vacations, jobs, etc.  He makes all the decisions.  This isn't love, this is control.

Boundaries allow you to have balance between separation and togetherness.  But since your parents have no boundaries and have extreme trouble recognizing limits, then extreme measures are needed.  Hence the call monitoring, the move away.  I am greatly surprised (pleasantly) that your mother has started therapy.  Perhaps your move has tipped things in a direction so that other members need to examine the family dynamics, too.  I see this as a good outcome, not a failure.

I do feel for you, DD.  My H also had to put in some extreme controls when I was going through the same kind of separation process with some family members.  We screened calls, declined invitations, and finally divorced a family member because we couldn't have peace and space to breathe otherwise.  We did try.  I like to think of myself as a team player, a nice person, etc.  Setting limits with my SIL and father was new to me.  I felt disloyal and mean.  But I also knew it was necessary.  It took a lot of self-examination to figure out why it was so hard for me, and also to figure out that I didn't need permission to grow up on my own terms.

I did waver.  My H had to hold my feet to the fire a couple of times because I was so weak.  It was extremely difficult for me to set limits.  It feels unloving.  But I also need to say that he didn't appreciate having to be the "bad guy" just to get his wife "back in the house" emotionally.  I was tempted to use him as the excuse or tool to placate my father.  but it wasn't fair and not good for our relationship.  It's also not fair for you to be in the position of having to choose.  In an ideal situation, you would be able to balance being a daughter and a wife.  But your Dad won't let go of being #1 in your eyes.

I'm glad you are about to start counseling because just reading your father's remarks as you have written them is classic N logic through the meat-grinder stuff.  Designed to stir up guilt and shame.  Immature to move away???  Huh?  Some parents are thrilled when their kids move and take responsibility for themselves!    Why the pressure for these family vacations?  because sis does?  so this is just a keep up with sis move?  (My H's family did that for a while.  It's ironic that the family member who was pushing this agenda "for the kids" had the kids who were least interested in getting to know their cousins.  And then there's the constant bickering over dinner tabs...so now we get together with a less rigid schedule.) 

Back to you.  I agree with others here.  It's important to get to the bottom of how you feel about your parents' behavior.  A good therapist will help you own all your feelings about this confusing situation.  Good luck DD.  It's a worthwhile journey.  MP