My relationship with my in-laws is complicated. For the most part they welcomed me and have been kind. We’ve had some moments, but mostly with my FIL and mostly once my MIL passed and he lost his filter and I started to see the veneer peeling back on the family picture. I harbor resentment though at the trauma their alcoholism inflicted on my husband and their abject denial of same to the present. They image-managed the heck out of their lives before I married their son. That’s a little like spitting in my scrambled eggs and trying to sell it to me as a soufflé.
I’ve written before about Handsome’s Complex PTSD. While a good bit of the genesis of his CPTSD stems from his job, an equal if not greater part stems from growing up with two functionally alcoholic parents.
My MIL was already quite ill with emphysema when I met her, but she was still mobile and somewhat self-sufficient. I saw her drink, but only at dinner and usually just one cocktail. My FIL has been sober for years and, if anything, is probably now only addicted to AA. And cigarettes. And being a controlling ass. I have often thanked heaven for the 10 hours of distance between our homes.
I was at their house one day and looking for a sheet pan in the kitchen. I opened a cabinet and out spilled several fifths of vodka. My MIL wasn’t driving at the time so that means my FIL was facilitating whatever drinking she was doing. On another occasion I picked up her 24oz water bottle to wash it. To my dismay, it was filled with vodka, not water. That was about 6 months before she died.
My MIL’s death unmoored my husband. I’ve written before about how he disassociated during her funeral to the point that he convinced himself that I wasn’t there. Then he used the resentment from me not being there to “justify” his acting out. (“My wife doesn’t love me. She couldn’t even be bothered to come to my mother’s funeral.”) The fact that I moved heaven and earth to be present and that I was there, standing beside him and holding his hand, was just lost in the recesses of his mind and replaced with resentment. All of his major acting out rolled forward from there.
Now, as I write this, my FIL is in failing health. It seems unlikely that he’ll see Christmas this year, and next to impossible to believe he’ll last a year. I can already see the toll this is taking on my husband and it’s nerve wracking.
I don’t want to make this all about me. It’s not. But my experience tells me that when the time comes and my FIL passes, my husband is going to be adrift. There will be no more parental affection to chase. No one to try endlessly to impress (to no avail). No one to be a theoretical safety net.
Handsome is not the same person he was when his mom died 8 years ago. He has experience and resources and tools to bring to bear, but the loss of a parent is no small thing. That’s particularly true when you’ve spent your life trying to connect with that parent and chasing the unconditional affection you could never exactly muster from them.
A part of me wishes that Handsome would be more angry at his dad. If not for himself, then maybe for our kids who are mostly ignored by the man. He either forgets their birthdays entirely or he remembers one child and not the other. Handsome acts as though he could care less. Maybe that’s true, but I doubt it. This is the dad whose behavior – no matter how deplorable – he excuses. The dad who told Handsome he was fat (he wasn’t) which prompted Handsome to pursue months of dieting. (FIL told my size 0 daughter the same thing during a visit. Not “wow, I’ve missed you” or “I’m so happy to see you,” but “you’ve put on a lot of weight.” Jerk.) It’s the same dad who never attended a single school event or sporting event for Handsome – even though they lived only 3 blocks from the school.
Handsome enlisted in the Marines and went into law enforcement because his dad did those things. He’s been chasing attention and approval and love from his father for decades. Getting those things from his dad has always been just out of reach. Just beyond his grasp. It’s not that Handsome hasn’t earned or deserved them. His father just has no idea how to give them freely. Once it is literally impossible to get those things from his dad, I have to wonder if the longing will stop. I suspect that it won’t.
It’s really tragic how unmet needs in our family of origin can affect us for the whole of our lives. Also, it doesn’t end when the parent dies because now the need can never be met, and the approval can never be given. Very sad and extremely destructive.
I’m glad you are able to see what goes on in your husband’s family system, and can also trace the effect it has had on your relationship and family. Having information is a useful starting place – even if your husband is blind to these patterns. At least it helps you to understand him better, and maybe interrupt what might otherwise be passed on to the next generation.
Interrupting the pattern is incredibly important. My husband tries mightily to be the dad he wished he had. He attends everything our kids are involved in and he loves spending time with them. There are things he doesn’t know how to do well – like express disappointment appropriately or give constructive criticism – because he never saw those modeled in any kind of a healthy way. So we work on those things.
The impact that his parents’ neglect had on Handsome persists to this day… over 4 decades after he moved out of their home. Very sad and destructive indeed. My heart breaks for the little boy inside him who deserved way more than he got from the people who were supposed to cherish him. 💔
If we’ve never had good parenting modeled, it is very hard to pull it out of nowhere when we are the parent ourselves. Also, the effect of the absence of healthy love and attachment can feel more desperate as time goes on, and our parent becomes even more set in their cold and dysfunctional ways. We NEED to feel loved and cherished. It’s absence leaves a terrible vaccuum.
It sounds like your husband has worked really hard … and I’m sure he appreciates your ongoing support and understanding!!
I think he does DLH. It’s a little hard for him to really face the neglect (I think it makes him feel like he’s attacking/ betraying his parents rather than just seeing them for what they are) but he really does want to do better by our kids. I know that motivates him and I try to encourage it from that angle.
I really appreciate your wise insight!
Thank you for your lovely words. You’re way too kind!
Saying (or even thinking) any negative about our parents is such a huge taboo in society. But we need to at least be honest with ourselves – otherwise we can never make progress at all.
It’s good that you can see with more objective eyes – and that you know how to encourage him in ways that motivate, and don’t threaten, him. What a gift.
Your husband and I share many similarities.
It ain’t enough to not do this or that but I also have to confront the ghosts that haunt my experiences and separate the real traumas and wounds from the imagined. I have to invest the resources to recognize and accept the coping mechanism that became habits.
You can be a high functioning and high achieving person in one area of life and a complete bag of nuts in another.
I do think you two got along for a reason. 😉
Healing one’s inner child – especially a truly neglected one – could be a full time job. Handsome works on it but the wounds are deep and hard to confront.
I laughed out loud at the high functioning/ bag of nuts. It’s completely true. Handsome is a rock star at work, with honors and awards and plaques appearing regularly … but the rest of his life has often been a crapfest. Adulting is really hard when you’ve had terrible role models.
I don’t think people who don’t have a lot of repetitive and ongoing experiences with trauma fully appreciate how that translates into adulthood and the impact on approaches to vulnerability, intimacy, and connection with others. And discussions of how to approach growing through that trauma gets met with accusations of blame shifting, excuse making, or some other contempt. Which of course just drives the secrets and paying deeper perpetuating the trauma.
I feel like I tried to talk to Beatrix about these issues and she would respond with heartfelt attempts to offer support but really we’re just variations of positivity. Not because she’s a bad person but because some of these things were well outside her experience and so what she thought was helping was damaging. We can’t help with what we don’t understand. And often what we don’t understand we fear.
There’s a lot of things I don’t understand about relationships and how they are supposed to function.
Also I was talking to Chef yesterday, and I forget exactly what she said, but my thought was my infidelity is the least of the issues I struggle with.
Too often I look to relationships to give my life meaning instead of making meaning in my relationships.
Wow. That’s profound. 😉
Sorry, I’m kind of chatty at the moment.
I think the other components that gets lost in translation is that it is not anyone’s responsibility, no matter how much we love someone, to ride the stormy seas with them. Especially if they’re using us as a life preserver. And while I may love somebody, Love is never enough. And while I can care about somebody I cannot care for somebody. Some of the very same coping mechanisms and responses to life that make me high functioning in one area are the same exact coping and functioning that make me a bag of nuts in another. I did a lot of really excellent, supporting, loving behaviors with painter because I was carrying for her, but that is not the same thing as caring about her.
I imagine handsoms accolades at work probably are as much about the need for approval and recognition making him feel good as his betrayals at home. Some betrayals are just more socially acceptable than others…
Catching up on 2 months of reading. Just my opinion but you need some boundaries and consequences for interacting with the grandfather. Being a patriarch your husband can’t stand up to doesnt mean you have to follow suit.
You’re not wrong about the boundaries. The philosophical question is whether it’s a boundary if I don’t voice it. 🤔 (if a tree falls in the forest…)
COVID has been 100% effective at cutting down contact. Grandfather’s reluctance to get vaccinated is another legit reason that Handsome agrees with, so I haven’t had to have the “I’m not visiting” discussion. Since there have been no visits I’ve also been able to skip the “someone needs to be around to watch what he says to the kids” discussion. I don’t know that Handsome would necessarily take issue with these boundaries per se, but I haven’t seen the man in well over 2 years and it now seems the issue might resolve on its own. (Harsh, but true.) At present he’s a voice on the phone on major holidays and not much more for anyone other than Handsome.
Two years… jeez I’ve been reading your stuff a long time. I remember long before that