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Hello
Sept 23, 2003 10:47:52 GMT -8
Post by victimswife7 on Sept 23, 2003 10:47:52 GMT -8
I was looking up covert incest and emotional incest on the web not because I think I am a victim but I think dh is. His mother is about 68. She has no dh, no friends and depends on my dh for a lot. Before we married, she used to keep track of our check book, or it was not my check book eventhough my money was going into it but it was her and dh. She keep the records and knew everything that was going on and she and dh would discuss it and leave me out. I told dh this bothered me. He said "well if we take this away from mother she would not feel wanted." No regard to what I feel.
Well, we got that straightened out, pulling teeth. She takes care of it no more but she constantly asks questions about our money. She opened a savings acct with her and dh name. I mentioned it to her and she got irate. I am not to know anything about her bus that was between her and her son. But She gets to ask about ours. She can set boundries against me but there are no boundries between her and her son. Everytime I try to set boundries dh gets upset "we will hurt mother's feelings. She will cry" and she does. It is mother will get hurt, mother will cry and bawl. He cannot stand to see his mother cry.
Whenever I make a mistake, he says "I am telling mother." Just teh other day he asked his mother "can you handle more children." I feel like she is the other woman in our marriage. I confront dh about this and he says "that is absurd" "You need to see a psychiatrist."
I married for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. This is killing me. How, as a spouse, am I supposed to deal with this.
TIA.
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Hello
Sept 23, 2003 12:33:43 GMT -8
Post by wildlavender on Sept 23, 2003 12:33:43 GMT -8
Hello vicitimswife7, This is wildlavender here- I hope you got my welcome message. I know exactly what you mean about these mama's boys! I was married to one for 9 1/2 years. The mother-in-law can create such havoc to a marriage!! Even though I tried to get him to stand up to her and let me have the rightful place as WIFE, I guess she was just too much for him or had no real LOVE and AFFECTION for me, or at least it seemed like it. It makes me so angry to just think about it. I put up w/ a lot---so glad I got away...I doubt if things would have changed much even after she died 5 yrs.ago. I seemed to not be able to treat him as "special" as mom could. I really felt like I could not be myself until I realized that he was expecting and trying to make me into his mother!! God forbid! I went through such devastating grief, because all I had wanted was a family that I never had when I was growing up. I still have my precious teen-agers now, but what I mean is a complete family unit , not running this singularly. It is hard. But someday I hope to meet a man that can love me for who I am. Sounds like you are in the horrible triangle relationship. He will not change, I will be very blunt. Your husband is being emotionally controlled by his mother. Until he comes to the point where he really hates it himself and wants to change, there is little you can do. I know how hurtful it is to be left out of decisions that are supposed to be between man and wife.. ...it truly is like "they" are married, and you are just somebody on the side. I felt like a ghost when his mom came to help when I had my 2nd son. She complained about helping w/anything that pertained to the baby or my 1st child. It was like she was there just to cook her son's favorite meals! Arrrrgh!! I became severly depressed and though we moved away from his mother, the marriage suffered on. She had her talons into him. It was disgusting. To tell you the truth, victimswife7, I had always thought our sex life was not right . He just couldn't really cleave to his wife, me, like the Bible says a man should. I felt second -best. Never got the gifts his mom got, my cooking and baking never matched hers, and I got so sick of their secret conversations. His mother was definitly jealoous of me and never trully accepted me into the family. Unfortunatelly, the other siblings could not go against the great matriarch and acted like they had to have a distance from me. This was crushing since I had already gone through abuse as a child. Well, I had chosen what was FAMILIAR but did not realize this until I had therapy and learned about this covert incest abuse. I will stop blaming myself---it is his problem!! I KNOW I was the best wife I could be, the best lover, the best cook, the best housewife, the best listener and companion. I WAS ENOUGH! It is his problem, not yours and you will always be second- fiddle unless he wants to change. I'm sure you have already put in tremendous amounts of energy to change all of this crazyness . I know I did and it was futile. He still chose mother. So unhealthy, so unreal. I spent way too much time hoping it would get better. He missed out on a really good woman, let me telll you- ME! I even have talked to him through the years if he would want to try and get back together (because I thought I still could give it the 'good ol' college try') ,and he didn't want to. Satisfied as a bachelor, I guess. Thought he would think differently since his mother is gone. But things llike this do not go away that easily. Well, that was just opening myself up to more rejection and that hurt. I am concentrating on my healing and my kids and my life now. I guess I have learned that I have been the ever-lasting optimist! I have changed, but must remember others have not. When we got divorced, I remember him saying that it wasn't that he couldn't change, he just didn't want to. I even tried talking to his mother, and once said "why don't you be the mother, and I'll be the wife" but that didn't get through. Sorry to sounds so negative, but it won't help you any to say anything different. I've been there, but you can knock yourself out if you want to---it is like pushing a stream uphill. I know I've been letting out a lot of anger, I hope you can understand. Take care of yourself and stop being the caretaker of this little boy--you thought you married a man, but you really married a man with that never matured emotionally. Yet. Please respond when you can, wildlavender
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Hello
Sept 24, 2003 21:29:09 GMT -8
Post by Moriji on Sept 24, 2003 21:29:09 GMT -8
Oh my god, the relationship you describe between dh and his mother is a classic case of covert incest! I feel so sorry for you--always getting the shorter end of the stick. I get pissed off just by reading it.
I can relate to how you were not allowed to know about what went on between dh and his mother. My mother had to know everything about my personal life, but her personal life was none of my business. That double-standard really drove me crazy. I confronted her about it a couple times when I was a teen, but she would say, "I don't want you to be concerned about your mother." But it was her "right" to be concerned about me because, "I'm your mother."
The irony is my mother bailed from her parents and moved to a far away foreign country to marry my father and hardly ever talked to them. Although that was okay, it was not okay for me to do the same.
My mother would cry all the time too. I've talked to my therapist about her being a "crybaby," and she thinks my mother used crying as a means to get what she wants. I hated that. Though once I reached my late teens, I started ignoring her. She would try to put a guilt trip on me by saying, "You don't care about how your mother feels. Someday you'll have kids and then you'll know what it feels like to be unloved." But it didn't work. By then, I would just shrug her off.
As for what to do about dh and his mother, I totally agree with wildlavender--you're husband will not change until he views his relationship with his mother as a problem and takes steps to change it. But I have an idea on how you may be able to influence him. Since your husband says you are the one who should see a therapist, why don't you agree to it on the condition that he goes with you. Hopefully, it'll dawn on him during therapy that he is the problem.
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Hello
Sept 25, 2003 6:36:06 GMT -8
Post by victimswife7 on Sept 25, 2003 6:36:06 GMT -8
Mori, Your mother sounds more like my grandmother. Only grandmother did nto cry she just called me ugly names then proceeded to call my parents ugly names When I was 13 and she called me a third generation whore because I wanted to move out of her house and live with an aunt. I was not sexually active back then, I hardly knew what sex was back then. I had heard about it! I knew what a whore was. I cried for days after that. My dad was there and did nothing. Infact every time I did something she did not want me to do, I was a whore, my mom was a whore, and so was my other gm because she had 2 children out of wedlock. what did that have to do with me.
GM had it in her mind, and she did it to her kids too and I think that is the reason mom and dad divorced, that we would stay with her forever, cater to her and too, our business was her business but her business was none of our bus. Try saying that out loud. LOL.
GM disowned me I don't know how many times because i wanted to live my own life. Cut me from her will and everything. She always said I was going to wind up a whore. Why, I don't know. I have never been permiscious (SP) in my life. The last time she disowned me and cut me out of her will was 2 years ago and I just laughed in her face. She asked my bro how dh and I are doing financially. Bro told me this and I said to tell her we live in a trash can. The truth, we own a small 2 bed room home that has been newly remodeled, with a big backyard. We don't have PHD or M.D.s or whatever, but we get the bills paid and then have a little left over. She never thought any of us would be worth anything without her.
I think that dh is better than when we first got married. I do believe he loves me and dd but he loves his ma. I too told him that I think that crying crap is a manipulative tool. I used to pull that crap too when I did not get my way so I really cannot talk. I am just afraid that one day he is going to find out that an upset spouse can be much worse than an upset ma and he is going to find that an crying, winny ma is all he is going to have left.
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Hello
Sept 26, 2003 23:59:05 GMT -8
Post by Moriji on Sept 26, 2003 23:59:05 GMT -8
You know, I was asking my therapist the other day why it is that some incest survivors hated the abuse while others don't see anything wrong with it and don't want to do anything about it. Well, she told me that if the abuse started at a very early age, the child's ego can become so intertwined with the parent that separation is tantamount to death. She went on to say that most likely in my case, the abuse was inflicted on me after my own separate ego was formed. Which totally makes sense, because I remember my mother being a party girl when I was very very young, like before nursery and kindergarten. She wanted to go out all the time with my father. She would get these babysitters to look after me. I remember crying when my mother left for the night. It was first when the relationship between her and my father started deteriorating, that I began to replace him as husband.
This makes me wonder how much control we actually have over ourselves. If my mother had started with the covert incest from day one, I'd probably have ended up being one of those guys whose moms control every aspect of their lives and whom they cannot live without. What a chilling thought.
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Hello
Sept 27, 2003 12:36:20 GMT -8
Post by victimswife77 on Sept 27, 2003 12:36:20 GMT -8
You know what, Mori my dh is one of those that thinks if his ma died he would go crazy. He even told me so before we got married. Oh why could I not see it then. It was chilling because I was thinking "you poor man, your ma is almost 70s and you are 27 and you still have not learned to live without her." "you wil have to sooner or later, are you stupid, can you not see! you need to learn NOT to be dependent of her" MIL calls this love. I think it is just selfishness not teaching your child to be independent and be dependent on you. What do I know, I am the one that is nuts. I stupid self thought I could turn this around. I wished I would not have done this. I wished I would have followed my aunts advice and went looking somewhere else for a hubby. The truth is, I never dated much and I thought at the time dh was the best i could do. He kept a full time job and got paid well, he was attractive, intelligent but if I would have known what I was in for I wouldn't Now I am in an awful mess and don't know what to do. I do think that dh loves me though, he just does not want to give up mamma. Afraid to I guess. He has terrible nightmares where he wakes up in the middle of teh night and screams out. He did that one day last week and later he told me what it was about. He had dreamed that I had told him I wanted a divorce. on 09/25 was our 4 year aniversery. We fought about him and his ma. he had found out that I had been talking about our problems online. I told him what they were. He defended his ma. Everything she did escaped his memory but everything I do is vivid. I asked him about the time she said to leave me and dd at home and he come to see her himself. He corrected me with a smugg look and said "no, she wants dd and I to come and leave you at home" I screamed and yelled that she was trying to tear our family apart, the same family that 4 years ago you vowed you would defend and you are standing by the abuser. What does that say for you as the MAN of this famly. He got silent and said he was sorry and no his mother should have never said that. He says one thing that I am the most important person in his life but does another. He loves his mother, she has helped him out so many times. He was very rebelious when he was a teen, got married before he even graduated hs, been an alcoholic, got thrown in jail, she would have to bail him out, she had been there throughout it all, so that is why she is so dear.
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Hello
Nov 1, 2003 5:01:11 GMT -8
Post by car on Nov 1, 2003 5:01:11 GMT -8
covert like overt abuse can lead to alcoholism
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Hello
Dec 19, 2003 10:29:22 GMT -8
Post by wifetobe on Dec 19, 2003 10:29:22 GMT -8
Hi! This is a little bit awkward for me. I have just recently found the name for what has been affecting my fiancee. It is covert incest. I am getting married very soon, and have already been having dilemmas with MIL and fiancee. She calls him several times a day. Discusses his sexuality and past girlfriends with me. Insists on him sitting in her lap, which he won't do, kisses him on the lips, talks about his butt and other parts, and on and on. He has a problem with anger, rage and alcohol. However, he does realize there is something wrong. He just can't figure out what it is. His mom is paranoid. She always discussed his father with him. She wasconvinced dad was cheating, even with her own sister. She tries to discuss sex with everyone. She tells my fiancee, his two younger brothers, and me about her sex life with her husband. All around icky stuff. She desperately tried to break us up, after to my face acting as if I was the best thing ever for my fiancee. She told me in private he beat his ex-girlfriend, took money from the, talked to her about our sex life, that he resented me, thought I was controlling, told me my parents were awful, and on and on. She uses religion as a crutch to guilt him. When I finally told fiancee everything, he confronted her, after telling me she had said horrible things about me to him. She broke down, cried, said she was sorry she had lied, but she was desperate, b/c she is losing her baby. Then, she convinced him I was lying and manipulating, b/c I was threatened by her. She told him to believe her, b/c she had always been the only one there for him. He used to have problems with his dad. She would make him mad at his dad for how he treated her. Dad, btw, is a good man, hard working, non-drinking man. After he confronted her about the lying, she apologized, and that made everything okay in fiancee's eyes. However, I still am hurt and resentful. She tells him they have a special relationship that others don't understand. Nobody else is as close as they are. She devoted her life to him, and so on. He goes to see her at least once a week, without me. I go on the weekends. I have had a suspicion she stills bad mouths me, but he has not told me about it, until last night.
She is trying to move on to me, now. She asks me about our sex life, tries to guilt me into coming over, and just manioulates everything to make me feel bad. I am a very strong woman, though, and I think that makes the threat worse. She calls me constantly now,too. She tells me she never had a daughter, and she is so happy I am here, now. Yet, she says terrible things about me and my parents to fiancee. She tells my private medical problems to others, which fiancee told her against my wishes a few months ago.
I know this sounds bleak and depressing, but I think and hope there is finally hope. I wanted to tell vistimswife that I ordered a book from called Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners, by Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D. It is a short easy read, and very powerful. I got it yesterday, read it and high-lighted areas pertainent, and asked my fiancee to read it. He has already been investigating therapy for his anger problems. It hit home on so many levels. By the 3rd page, he was already talking and telling me all the secret talks they have about me. He readily opened a line of communication. I was terrified he would get mad and lash out at me and go closer to mommy. But, he did not. He shared personal experiences from his youth that have always bothered him, and it was awesome. He feels tremendous guilt, though. I am sure there will be very rocky times coming, because she has such a hold on him, but now he sees he is not crazy. He feels like an ingrate if he says anything negative about her, which is often, but if anyone else says anything, he jumps to her defense. Hetold me he sees I love him, b/c I took the time to research this and buy the silly little 8 dollar book. However, his mom thinks I am evil and searching for ways to tear them apart. Oh well. He is going to share this with his brothers he said, too. I told him to make sure they are at the point to accept it, and not be offended by it.
He can not remember incidents as a child being bad, and he says he was a happy child, but somewhere around 12ish things changed with her. He did compulsively masterbate, moved to magazines, and then moved to pornographic movies. He thought he did that more than the usual guy, but could not figure out why. The book addresses this. also. However, he said that changed after we got together, because something about me was different then past girlfriends.
I know this is long winded, but I don't really have anyone to talk to about this. I am concerned, b/c everytime he gets upset and confronts her about her behavior towards me or him, they fight and then make up, and seem even closer. I am frustrated, b/c I can see this so clearly. He is a 27 year0old man, and she needs to let go. However, he has started bonding with his dad, and he realizes she is wrong and inappropriate, so maybe help is coming and the book jump started it.
Do any of you know of a site for spouses of victims? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you, Wifetobe
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Hello
Dec 19, 2003 22:51:28 GMT -8
Post by Moriji on Dec 19, 2003 22:51:28 GMT -8
Hi! She tells him they have a special relationship that others don't understand. This is a classic one-liner used by many who engage in covert incest with their children. My mother said the same thing to others. I wanted to tell vistimswife that I ordered a book from called Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners, by Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D. I've listed that book in the Resources forum, along with another one you might be interested in reading: covertincest.proboards22.com/index.cgi?board=resources&action=display&thread=1061192582Do any of you know of a site for spouses of victims? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Hmm, I don't know of any myself. But I'm sure there must be some out there.
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Hello
Jan 6, 2004 18:25:01 GMT -8
Post by wifetobe on Jan 6, 2004 18:25:01 GMT -8
SIGH!!!
I have searched everywhereon the web, and I can not find any other support site for covert incest and spouses. This is soooo frustrating. I am glad this site is here, at least.
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Hello
Jan 6, 2004 22:26:34 GMT -8
Post by Moriji on Jan 6, 2004 22:26:34 GMT -8
Hmm, you may need to broaden your range and look for a support site for spouses of incest survivors or abuse survivors. Check in Yahoo Groups too. If you still can't find one, you might have to start your own.
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