feeling confused

reader109

Hi, sorry for long post but I am looking for advice at the minute because i feel very confused.

I had a very bad falling out with my husband and his family in or around 2 years ago over something very personal and deeply upsetting. our child was diagnosed with a condition that required constant medical treatment at the time, but has since improved thankfully and things have started to go back to normal for myself and my husband, ( well semi normal) considering how stressful and all over the place we were feeling at the time.

At the time, my husbands family basically intruded in on our lives under what i feel now, the pretence that they were trying to help us out when really they were looking for praise from others and making out that they were so caring and helpful, that was far from the truth behind closed doors. these people are malicious, calculating and manipulating, that might sound far fetched, but when you have been around people for more than 10 years you see through them a lot, in reality they completely over stepped their boundaries and basically tried to take over what we were doing over looking everything i said or done and undermining me constantly. First, i went to my husband and asked him to have a word with them to stop and leave us be but he wouldn't do it so, i asked them directly to stop and give us some space, when that happened they turned really nasty on me, fell out with me and my family and basically made up lies about me and my family to others around our small town, i know this because i heard what they had said back from many. since they fell out with me, to this day they havent bothered to even ask anyone how our child is.

i was very stressed out at the time and feeling very vunerable, i didnt feel like my husband cared or was supportive in anyway whatsoever towards me or our kids. he wouldnt listen to a word about the stuff his family were doing, instead he would twist the narative around on me that my family werent doing enough to help out it was so good of his family for all they were doing. I could see it a mile away, it was driving a wedge between us. he was completely brainwashed and oblivious to what was going on, even friends of ours were telling him to cop on and stop listening to his family before they ended up splitting us up.

my last straw at the time, was during a big argument with him, where he started calling me nasty names and insulting me, i was so overwhemed that i took a seizure, fell and whacked my head. i required 8 stiches in my head and increased medication by my doctor. i told my doctor about everything that was happening and they advised me that maybe we needed to take a while away from eachother as neither of us were on the same page and it might do us some good. my husband agreed with the doctor and left to stay with his parents. i felt hurt that he left so easily, and i felt like at the time not only was it because he didnt see the wrong in what his family were doing, but he just didnt care either. I didnt want him to leave i thought we could have sat down and tried to work things out but he choose to go. he left for over a month and then came back after falling out with his siblings and started telling me that he seen through what they were doing and he wanted to make upto me for all the hurtful stuff he said and did over listening to them.

i talk to his parents but i dont speak to anyone else in his family, too much has happened so much so that i never want to talk to them ever again. my husband refuses to speak to them also bar his parents. ( i never asked him to stop talking to them he choose to himself) he said its because they have done too much hurtful things to me at the time i was vunerable. but sometimes deep down i feel like he was just every bit as bad.

it happened nearly over 2 years ago, and sometimes i think this is great we have come so far and moved on, but other times i feel like i am living a lie and pretending with him to be happy or because i dont really want us to break up. but sometimes i hate him so much it overwhelms me and i wish i never agreed to let him back . he hasnt been nasty to me since. but i feel like since i seen that side of him, its only a matter of time before he could switch personalities again. i have asked him to leave a few times since this happened but he always refuses saying we have got so much stronger as a couple since that and they would just love it if we split for good. i dont know how to feel about that. i do love him. but sometimes deep down i feel like i hate him more than i love him. i know that sounds horrible but its how i feel and it confuses me. everytime i look in the mirror and see the scar on my forehead it reminds me of that time and i blame him and his family for it. i know thats not fair, he didnt make me fall. i dont know what i should be doing or how i should proceed with him feeling like that. i dont know if feeling like this makes me a horrible person but sometimes i feel like this is what they have turned me into, because i was a very happy person before all of this.

Dial Hard

Did you ever actually go to marriage counselling together after he moved back in??? In seems very obvious to me that that should have been stop number 1 on both your lists.

Also, if you genuinely want to end your marriage, then it's really up to you to leave, not him.

It's not clear to me exactly what it is you want from your husband - he has apologised for bot seeing through his family's actions sooner, he's cut contact with most of them. He can't change what happened in the past but if you can't or won't get over that, then it seems to me that your marriage is over.

Edit: on reading back, that may have come across as unnecessarily harsh. It wasn't intended that way. But if you don't even know what it is you want/need from your husband in order to be happy with him again, then what chance has he got of ever being able to give it to you? I think you need to speak to a therapist yourself first, and then go to couple's counselling together.