Saturday, August 17, 2024

Why he's more loyal to his family of origin than he is to you.

For a long time, I couldn't get my head around why he seemed to like his mother, father and sister more than me. He always valued his father's judgement over mine on everything, his mother could seemingly behave however she wanted to and he always deemed her right, his sister was always his favourite innocent victim. 

He'd chosen me and yet appeared to have more emotional loyalty to them. He was emotionally enmeshed with them. When his mother hurt me with her criticisms of my parenting of a newborn that I dedicated my everything to, I was always being "too sensitive" and "intolerant." He could admit that she was interferring, that she was overbearing but excused her as "meaning well."  He was absolutely more comfortable with my discomfort than he was with theirs. 

When we were dating, he once left my bed to go to his 27 year old sister in the middle of the night because she was upset about splitting from a  boyfriend a few weeks beforehand. He had been called to her by his mother who was consoling her at 3am. It was an open display of where his loyalties were expected to lie. It was a very clear message sent to me early on. I was not invited either. It was family matters. A few years later, I found Peter consoling his sister at her 30th birthday party after his mother upset her and they had both disappeared. I found them upstairs, where my presence was clearly unwanted and I was told to return to the party and that they would be down again soon. The details of the upset were never divulged to me. Family matters never were. 

Unknowingly, I blamed myself for far too long. 
I just wasn't cutting it. 
I was a troublemaker.
I really was too sensitive.
I'm pushing him away.
I'm unlovable.
I create drama.
I've disappointed him. 

Thank goodness I disappointed him. This is the main reason he was more loyal to his family of origin. I'd disappointed him for calling out bad behaviour, for being intolerant and noncompliant, for saying no, for not being more accommodating. 

Many of our men have never been challenged or criticised by their parents and so they gravitate back to them when life with us becomes tough. We are not their caregivers, we don't provide them with financial gifts or endeavour to meet their every little whim, where often their parents have done so. They deem their parents safer because they excuse him, demand nothing of him and in many ways, still povide for him. 

He was an older brother to a sister who was several years younger than him. 
He was always admired, always put on a pedestal, perhaps due to her own undiagnosed neurodiversity also. Family bonds don't change, fade or end in enmeshed families, they are all one and cult-like. Peter has always been made to feel very important by his family of origin or was left to his own devices without any expectations of him and so, when I came along with my expectations of him, he felt challenged and victimised. Naturally, he gravitated towards them more so. 

When I expressed my unhappiness to his mother with a young baby in my arms and a toddler at my side, she excused him like he excused her. "He needs his down time." I needed mine too, but my needs were not her priority or anyone's priority, certainly not his. They collaborated with each other albeit rather silently at times. They were all of one mindset, all one entity like nothing I'd seen before. A cult.

When I was encouraged by his sister to confide in her about our failing relationship, she listened only to know things. Behind my back, she was collaborating with him and creating a divide between us, pulling her brother back to her. I imagine her subconscious whispering "I have zero expectations of you, unlike her, she's unreasonable... I'll massage your ego like she never will..." 
Because he belonged to her. 

He belonged to them all. He wanted to belong to them. You can't marry when you're already married. My criticism of his negative behaviour became her ammunition in the end and he excused her anonymous online trolling of my blogs and posts and even her accusations that anonymous posts in a group were mine (they weren't). He even praised her for it, let alone defended her. I'd dared to reach out in a private group asking for help with the dysfunction which she'd been accustomed to and she found it, screenshot everything, shared it with the cult and continued being pleasant with me on the surface. Then she began attacking my personal blog anonymously. He refused to believe it was her, but was happy to believe her untruths about me. I'd spent years getting him to see that his mother's behaviour wasn't ok and we'd made progress, but getting him to see that his innocent little sister's wasn't ok came at the biggest price. 

He feels important and powerful around them and victimised when he's expected to contribute to family life or be in a loving, functional, intimate relationship when he was with me. He'd never really been expected to be a grown-up. He had particularly never been expected to make sacrifices. He'd never had to make any sacrifices at all before. It was a foreign feeling to him. 

" His life has changed enough" his mother once told me. Despite him remaining in his hometown, maintaining the same job for almost 20 years, the same friends... Whilst I'd moved towns, carried two babies and had huge body changes, developed an autoimmune disorder, lost friends, made new friends, moved away from my mother, lost my job, gained another and reduced my income significantly by working part-time and impacted my pension contributions. 

His life had changed because he suddenly had responsibilities and expectations of him which had never been placed on him before. Thats what she really meant. In his mother's eyes was a wounded victim and he often behaved that way. They gave me the feeling that they thought I'd victimised him, that I was spoiling all his fun. I guess Peter was eventually saved from me by his family of origin who he has been living with since our separation almost two years ago. 

It's odd that I always thought that the family he'd created with me, the loyalty to me which was building slowly, would prevail in the end. But it never did. Our men will always gravitate to the place and people where there is less challenge, where truths are unspoken and where there is comfort, familiarity and ease. 

I'm grateful for disappointing him these days because it means that I was loyal to myself. Thank goodness I wasn't loyal to him. It took me a long time to realise also that he disappointed me too and to value this fact.

Peter asked me recently, after he'd had a couple of glasses of wine, "have I disappointed you?" He has never once asked me a question like this before. Peter does not do vulnerability.
"Yes, most definitely." I responded without elaboration.
"I guess I have disappointed you also" was my response.
"Yes" he replied uncomfortably, without elaboration.
But I sat comfortably with this, knowing exactly what this disappointment meant for him, knowing that disappointing him was the only way I was ever going to emotionally survive. Disappointing him means that I am free. It means that I've said "no more." 

Of course, it is his family of origin who have disappointed him really. But he isn't capable of pinning that responsibility on them and I doubt ever will be. Them disabling him with their interferring and lack of expectation of him (which ultimately set me in a negative light) has given him the idea that they are kinder and good to him. 

He really is a victim the more I think about it. A victim of their control, of their enmeshment and manipulation. A prisoner of their beliefs, their mentality, their habits, their values, their family "loyalty", their excuses. It has cost him hugely. His disappointment will forever be directed to me because my morals, beliefs and values are unfamiliar and impact him. I think of all the sacrifices and life changes I made to be with him, the requests for love and affection, the desire for a fulfilling family life-- which ultimately is what has disappointed him. I realise that his disappointment in me is rooted in him feeling pulled away from his family of origin, away from his old life and away from all that is familiar. I offered so much. And it is that which disappoints him. 
And so he gravitates back to his family of origin, relieved. 




Monday, August 5, 2024

When Comparison Steals Your Joy

It's not just our men who steal our joy, but thanks to the kind of lives they force us into, so does our tendency to compare ourselves to other couples and other families.

"Comparison is the thief of joy!" I hear from the wings.
"We're all different, you can't compare!"
"Everyone has their struggles!"

But most Cassandras know that our other couple friends aren't experiencing the same kind of intricate, emotionally abusive troubles that we are. 

I'm currently on holiday with Peter and our children. Still, we are holidaying together to minimise the impact of his recklessness and thoughtlessness on our children. If I didn't holiday with him, he would holiday with the children without me because he deems it his right to, even if he wouldn't enjoy himself.  Everything comes down to rights with Peter. Even after separating, I'm still having to sacrifice parts of myself and my own wellbeing and needs to keep the children safe. Additionally, I believe that it's important to maintain some level of travel and life outside of the daily drudge of day to day living. I want to show the children other places and worlds and I need to experience them too. There are negatives to whatever solution I throw at the situation, so I choose my negatives carefully. 

But, I am starting to wonder if my foolish resilience is beginning to weaken. I don't like Peter as a person anymore. Peter is not my friend. Peter's lack of motivation to do anything at all which didn't benefit him personally wrecked our little family. I put the children to bed in the evenings and I'm left with him, beer in hand, no conscience, no care in the world acting completely normal. Can I keep doing this to myself? 

I am struggling hugely during this break.
Friends of ours are also holidaying nearby, a family we have holidayed here with in the past. They have taken extended family away with them too and are renting a lovely big house overlooking a quiet beach with stunning sea views and a private swimming pool. It was suggested that we meet up by the mother of the children in the family, but I can't face it. 

We are around a mile away from them in a small, pokey cottage that is a little tired, with no views due to having to leave our booking until the very last minute as I never know what the situation will be like with Peter to book in advance. I never know if we can endure another holiday together until the time is almost upon us. I envy them also taking their extended family away with them. They will be able to enjoy evening meals as a couple as they have family to watch the children. Peter and I never got to experience this due to the overwhelming, critical and interferring nature of his parents, particularly his mother. Peter, in retaliation wouldn't entertain bringing my mother away with us either because he deemed it "unfair." Like a toddler might. Our holidays have always been the four of us which has been isolating, something I think Peter enjoys.

What I find so difficult is that I've looked at this cluster of cottages that our friends are renting so many times before, longing to book the smaller one. But it's always gone by the time it gets close enough for me to accept that I can just about withstand holidaying with Peter for another year. 

But I lie here in the small bathtub of the pokey cottage that we're in with paint peeling off the battered tiles, wondering if I could tolerate this better if the destination was a little more luxurious and larger. A bigger space to get away from Peter more. Maybe I should book in advance afterall?

I cry for the life I never had with Peter, the one I see our old friends living now. I am green with envy and heavy with sadness.  Intimate suppers overlooking the harbour whilst their parents lovingly put their children to bed, the matching dry robes and matching kayaks that they own (Peter would never entertain partaking in any activities that I enjoyed), the swims at dusk in their private pool and family days out with extended family, having other adults to soak up the noise of hyperactive, tired children.

I know that no family life is a fairytale but I am tired of "making the best of a bad situation." If I hear this advice one more time, I genuinely might scream. I find myself thinking, why can't I have the best for once? Instead of making the best of the shit I have. I'm lonely here. 
Holidaying without any emotional connection and no love or friendship is tiresome in the throes of parenting young children. Is it time to let go? Time to accept that Peter will always be their father and that the risks are now out of my control? Save myself from the slavery of family holidays? Perhaps one day enjoyable family holidays will be in my reach once again, with a loving person who I deserve to share them with. But I guess I need to let go first...

The Reasons your Marriage/Relationship failed.

Luckily for me, I  can now label Peter as my ex, although I still have a lot to do with him because of the children.  Since separating, when...