question re marriage

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
question re marriage
5
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 7:04pm
Due to a problem between my dh and bil we are cut out of christmas day at my families house. My mom sided with bil and refuses to alternate christmases to have us over every second or third year despite me asking her to. Now every holiday I end up in a big fight with my dh. I am depressed because I am cut out so I start dredging up his part in the whole falling out and we end up in an ugly situation. How can I break this cycle. We are invited to my family before or after the big day and usually go after the holiday. We are having his family thing on Christmas Day. Why can't I get past this?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 7:51pm
so what caused this "falling out?" It is a serious values or standards issue...or this just a power play?

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-30-2003
Wed, 12-24-2003 - 8:53pm
the falling out was due to the fact that after a family gathering bil said someone scratched his car and that dh was the one who did it because dh had walked through the garage to go get the kids who were playing up in the garage second story play area. Other people had been through that area too but bil was convinced that it was dh. Bil had been a fairly normal guy through the years, a braggart but somewhat funcional. In the last few years he became much wealthier and his attitude is much worse. I should say that bil is verbally abusive with his wife my sister. He likes to run down her appearance in front of her family. Dh had had no problems with bil prior to this, that is the funny thing. My sister on the other hand has been quite good at getting in little digs at me for years.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-05-2003
Fri, 12-26-2003 - 9:23am

I am not really sure what to say about this, it is surprising to me that after three years your family can't "forgive and forget" about an incedent with a minor scratch on a car, but I guess every family can have these sort of things.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 12-26-2003 - 10:37am
Not saying yours is but....dysfunctional families rarely have "emotional bond" in the true sense. They're bonded thru dysfunctional reasoning, and for the same "reasons" that business deals are made - this person is someone to align with for benefit, etc. etc.

Am so there, and have so been done with it....let's just say this. Your parents are aligned with the sister and BIL. For whatever reason - because it's not relevant.

And you're not going to do whatever it is that they demand to kiss and make up, or continue to take more abuse about this subject.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, beliefs, and perceptions...and each individual has their own perception of life as a whole, themselves as anindividual, and situations specifically - and that perception is THEIR reality and it's the position from which we deal. I guarantee your version of this isn't QUITE the same as your husband's, nor is yoru mother's the same as your fathers, nor your BIL's the same as your sister's exactly. That's the point - everybody's perception is their reality, they deal with it in accordance with their values and standards and needs and dictates.

So while you're sitting there going "how can I get over this?" I question in what context you mean. As an external situation you can't change, as a perspective reality on the parts of others that this is the correct way to conduct themselves you cannot change...yu accept it. You can like or hate something, and accept it as a fact.

And then.....once you've accepted it as a fact, you can decide how YOU - in accordance with your goals, your standards, your needs, and your values are going to deal with it.

What is dysfunctional on your part would be to sit there and say "I want them to see my piont, I want a "norman rockwell" family" - you can't get that in this equation and to sit there and waste time in denial of that fact, and in emotional distress as a result of the denial is pointless.

It's quite obvious that you and your husband and family are not as "important" to your mother and father. As hard as that is to accept, don'tsit there and deny it or try to justify or rationalize it - accept it. And then you can decide if based on that position of equality - do you want anything more to do with your parents and sister and BIL, in what capacity and on what terms and in what situations.

Youu all the shots in your life...if you sit there hat in hand, on the stoop, begging for their attention and inclusion and to consider you an equal -you're a victim to yourselves, not them.

Erin

quickblade14@hotmail.com

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Fri, 12-26-2003 - 2:24pm
On Christmas day, my mother - aged 78 - spoke with one of her older sisters for the first time in 52 years. What caused this long break? Some silly argument between the sisters and their husbands (two brothers who married two sisters) over a business that the husbands were involved in together. Both of the men are gone, one passed away nearly thirty years ago, the other (my father) in early 2000.

The event that brought them together after all this time? The Christmas Eve death of another sister.

Such a waste.