Relationships  Discussion Forum

hi
am posting here for the first time. briefly my issue includes marriage problems, in-laws, and my child caught up in all this and impact on him.
sorry for the long post...

I have been married for 15 years with a 6.5 year old son, with in-laws staying with us since our son was born. Both my husband and me are working full-time, and in-laws look after our son during the day after he is back from school. Over the years the marriage has become very strained my husband has been verbally abusive to me often. In-laws have contributed a lot to this – they have ganged up together against me, and influenced my husband, constantly dominated on child matters, so that he has now totally turned against me the last 5 years or so. He does not want to reconcile at all, or try counseling etc.
On household matters also, direct interaction between husband and in-laws bypassing me many times. My husband and in-laws support each other, against me.
On child matters, they used to dominate/interfere a lot, causing many fights, and had spoilt my child’s habits by force-feeding and many other such things, and if I objected /spoke out, he sided with them, and it used to cause a lot of fights. Hence my son was lagging behind a lot, in comparison to other kids his age, in terms of eating on his own, eating different foods, playing with his peers etc. And it took me a long time and struggle to correct those things to some extent.
Now the issue is more with my husband rather than in-laws, i.e. he is really making my life miserable, even when my in-laws are not involved.

We have been on strained terms since last 5-6 years. Within that, at times we function in a non-conflicting way, just enough to manage keeping some peace in the house, and coordinating on child matters. Even then, I have to be very cautious, considering his moods/temper etc so as to atleast maintain this some peace. But the smallest trigger /fight, doesn’t remain localized to that fight, and he escalates/blows up things out of proportion, threatens divorce, says he anyway hates/doesn’t like me and then starts making things very difficult for me, constantly objecting to/interfering in anything I want to do with the child. So it is a constant see-saw, things are never stable. When we manage to maintain some peace for a month or so, of just being civil/pleasant with each other, managing to take the child out on weekends together/vacations etc, with maybe a slight hope of things possibly improving in the future – the smallest of issues/fight causes everything to go downhill- and when I try to reason out, he denies things were ever better, and that he hates me, can’t stand the sight of me, he becomes verbally extremely abusive, keeps suggesting divorce, and it becomes difficult to even manage to have a minimum communication on child matters in any logical/sane way. At times, in-laws also add to it, either in causing the fight, or in taking his side, and adding their complaints about me, making him further hate me.
Earlier , 5-6 years back, on fights related to his parents, he used to at least be somewhat fair, now even when I am in the right, and they insult /shout at me together, he further blames only me and hates me further, if I dare to complain about his parents.
Also, even after so many bitter , serious fights involving his parents, there is no question of them staying separately, as neither him nor them agree to that.

Also, many times, he threatens /insults me/ puts a stop to any arguments by saying it is his house, and I can get out if I want, threatens divorce for the smallest of issues.

Any amount of logical reasoning about keeping the child’s wellbeing/interests in mind has no effect on him. It is like ‘cutting his nose to spite his face’ where he just lashes out/shows open hatred/verbally abusive even in front of the child etc, just to spite me rather than see how the whole atmosphere is harmful to the child. Already, over the year it has affected the child a lot, in between my son used to start being very negative to me whenever his father was around, gradually he became more balanced, and he is otherwise very affectionate to me overall. He also has learned to compartmentalize his time between us. Also he has suffered a lot, trying to please each parent, stuck in between the battle.

Am putting up with everything, and staying on under the same roof though there is no marriage, and also continuing to stay with in-laws despite that, and being treated with less rights in the house.
But I focused on my son, to manage to cope up.

But after a recent fight, and things becoming worse- he has started competing all the time on the child.
A couple of years back, he used to even hit the child when he was angry. Then, he suddenly switched to the other extreme, of totally trying to win over the child by giving him whatever he wants, never disciplining him etc.
He is rude/abusive /not replying/deliberately provoking me.
Of late, he is obsessively trying to cling/spend time with the child, and compete fiercely with me on that. A few examples as below.
- My son sleeps with me, while me/husband sleep in different rooms. We were sleeping in different rooms even before the marriage was strained, even before our son was born, due to my husband' s snoring, but it did not affect our marriage. Now my husband resents that I get to sleep with the child and not him. At times, I feel he is trying to lure him to sleep with him instead.
- Competes on school matters/studies.
- Both of us being working, we get to spend limited time with the child. I just get to spend a little more time with son than my husband does. So on weekdays, I come back by 7:30 pm, and get an 1-2 hours with the child, as compared to him. Though that time includes dinner, where recently am trying to get him to eat on his own so takes v long, school work, cooking etc as well, so not constant fun/full quality time. My husband usually comes later, meets him for lesser time, or else not at all on those days when he is very late. So on weekends he tries to hog him. But the thing is, as compared to other at-home moms, even I get very less time with my child, and weekdays it is quite hectic.
- He objects often to my taking him out on my own, for example my sister’s place etc. ( another pt here is, since his parents stay here all the time, my son gets very little time with anyone from my side of the family).
- Often, of late, he is always whispering/trying to have private conversation with the child , trying to influence him etc, without me hearing him.
- He puts his selfish interest of trying to win over the child, over what is good for the child. E.g. giving him gadgets like iphone, ipad etc anytime, irrespective of whether that is a convenient time or not – such as getting late for his dinner/sleep/ getting late for a school function etc. And disrupting any good habits.
- Even the minimum coordination/ interaction /updating each other on the child, he is now not willing to do, or else very reluctantly, and snapping at me easily, rudely etc. It is absolutely impossible to try to work together in the interests of the child.
- Also, he is behaving very irrational sometimes – e.g. when we were going out together I played a xmas carol cd which me and my son both like, it is a slow-ish kind of version, and my husband snapped and said it sounds like mourning music. And further he ridiculously accused me of trying to make him Christian etc! (we both are hindus) it became a big fight. And once, when I mentioned, that in school they made lemonade one day in class, he said, that schools nowadays are bad/modern education system is rotten etc, doing activities like these rather than focus on studies. When we were to pick up our son from the annual concert at school, we sat separately in the audience, and when it was time to pickup, and I had an id-card to do that, as I usually do it, he secretly brought the other id-card and went to pick him up, without even telling me. It would have looked very silly if each parent produced an id-card there to pick up the same child! Luckily I called him on phone and found out.
- Also considering I have the raw side of things overall - and barely managing to stay on, I just about had been managing to function with some peaceful routine, spending time with the child etc. He is trying to disrupt that as well. And everyday is like a custody battle.
Don' t know what to do..pls help with some advise. replied. take a different house and shift there with your husband na