Husband mean to my father

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-26-2004
Husband mean to my father
1
Sun, 02-29-2004 - 9:46am
Hi everyone. I was referred to this board by someone on another board where I posted this dilemma:

Last year my husband and I were having troubles and I filed for divorce. I decided to give him another chance when he gave in and agreed to go to therapy for his nasty, controlling and critical nature against me. He went and got medication and his disposition has improved somewhat and he is easier to live with. However, evidently it seems that the mean streak is still there in that he did something very cruel and demeaning to my father. He has had a grudge against him since I filed for divorce because my father did not agree with my husband on several points about me. Here he is saying mean, nasty things about me to my own father and he gets angry that my father defended me. And it was always my husband going to my father and complaining about me. My father never got in the middle of it willingly. He was always dragged in by him.

Considering that his mother went around saying vicious things about me to my relatives and I have forgiven her for the sake of keeping the peace (plus I know that she was upset and she had been good to me in the past), I think my husband is being unreasonable in this thing he has against my Dad. For several months now, since we got back together, my Dad has been unwelcome in our home and this really hurts me. I have him over anyway because I figure it’s my house too and I should have the right to have my family there sometimes. I always welcome his mother over as we have patched things up and are back into a very good relationship.

When my father comes over, my husband puts on a long face, doesn’t greet my father and only grunts in his diretion when my father greets him, which he does always and in a very friendly manner. He never speaks to my father, looks at him or addresses him in any fashion. In short, he is very rude to the poor guy, who has been trying to be as nice as possible for the sake of family relations. My father is a nice person, doesn’t do anything to get in anyone’s way and makes no demands. I like to have him over once a week for Sunday dinner, but after what my husband pulled a couple of weeks ago, I don’t feel I can do that anymore.

Do I dare say what my husband did to my poor father? This is so delicate and embarrassing, but there is no way around it. He has accused my father of having very bad bathroom habits. A few years ago, my stepmother, before they got a divorce, told me that she was concerned that my father might possibly be having symptoms of Alzheimer’s and she said that she thought he peed in the sink!!!! This was never proven and I’m shrinking back that I’m having to write this down but I don’t know how else to put it. In a very bad move, I confided this in my husband who is now using this as an excuse to not have my father over. Everytime my father leaves, he goes around making a big display of cleaning the sinks in the bathrooms and spraying Lysol and claiming that he smells things around the sink! I have never smelled anything. He has even told my small children this (and probably other bad things) and now they have turned off on their grandfather.

I have been trying to ignore this bad behavior to keep the peace, but last week after my father left, my 9 year old daughter called me into the bathroom, scared. There she pointed to a sign at the top of the mirror that said, “Do NOT urinate in this sink!”. She was afraid that I would get very angry at my husband, and I reassured her that I wouldn’t get angry because I didn’t want to scare her more and since my husband has a history of abuse (mostly mental) I was afraid to confront him on it and provoke his abuse again.

I just didn’t know how to react!!! I was mortified for my poor father (and for my daughter actually). Truthfully, I’m not sure he even saw it because I’m not sure he went into that particular bathroom that afternoon, though it is the one he usually uses. And the sign was not big, but if he looked up at the top of the mirror he would definitely see it.

I have never confronted my husband on this because I have the feeling that the reason he did it was not only to insult my father and be sure he never comes over again, but also to humiliate me, and I know from experience in the past, that what he usually wants is to provoke a fight. I have learned not to give in to this and just do mental dances around what he does because in the past I would get angry and raise my voice in protest and he would then claim that I was crazy and out of control for being upset at what he did.

I have decided not to have my father over anymore but I don’t know how to say this to him. I made an excuse this Sunday and just took him to church and then out to lunch, but I can’t keep doing that. I just don’t know what to say to the poor guy. It is so humiliating.

What can I say to my Dad? I just don’t dare have him back because I have the feeling that what my husband is trying to do is not only to provoke a fight with me, but also to provoke a fight with my father and the poor guy is almost 75 years old! My father lost his temper at him once (and only once!) after my husband badgered him and badgered him saying bad things about me, and my husband has forever been going around saying that my father is violent and has a bad temper and it is just not true. As I said, he has done this to me too. He will say mean things to me and keep going on and on, and then when I finally yell, “Stop it!” to try to stop the abuse, he will say I am crazy.

What am I going to do???? I know now that I should never have given him another chance, because the only thing he really wanted was just another chance to be abusive, not to have a good relationship with me.




iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Sun, 02-29-2004 - 3:44pm

How horrific!


You are 100% right in him wanting another chance to control you and by doing all of this to your father, he is attempting to isolate you from your family.

CL-Blueliner4