I have been married for 28 years and going on 29 coming this January. I married someone I have known since the fifth grade. We went to a very small school. We went through elementary, Jr. High and High School but ran in different circles. He was a grade ahead of me. He ended up being the football hero and dated cheerleaders and of course, almost anyone he wanted. I was in band and played and marched at the same games. We never really thought of each other in that way. We kept running into each other though and after I came back home from college one year, it blossomed into a real romance and we found our soul mates in each other.
I love him so much. We've been through some very hard times, medically, financially, and both at the same time. Not to mention family problems with our extended families. We always stayed close and I never felt that we ever really went out of love, even though love seems to morph into a more settled type of love as time goes by. Not to say that I don't get that rapid heartbeat once in a while, but just not as often. Not like when we were dating and everything was so wonderful.
Now, I mean every word that I said above but I have to tell you that I am being tested big time. We recently had a really big blowout with his side of the family that involves all of us but mostly our daughter. During this blowout, I stood beside my daughter, 28, while she was being bombarded by his family and let them know that was not right. My husband did nothing but stand there. Did not take up for us in the least. Knowing that we were in the right but not doing anything. Just stood there. We were being yelled and screamed at. They were yelling obscenities and berating us. He knew that the persons we had problems with had a history of dramatizing and hysterics, and that they were completely in the wrong but he just stood there.
I feel like I've been ran over by a mack truck. Like all of our history together was for nothing. I've been betrayed. My trust in him is gone. I have stood beside him when my parents were against me marrying him. I stood against my family during certain issues that I knew he was right in. I've been through thick and thin with him. I thought he would stand beside us during this incident. I really did.
Have you been in a situation where the trust bond was broken? How did you handle it? Is there a way to heal the pain or does it leave a scar on the marriage that may never heal? What do you think? (I know that's a loaded question. LOL)
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Comments: 47
I think the trust bond is damaged but not irreparable - it may take awhile but you have to forgive him - he's your husband. He also needs to understand and admit he was wrong in this one, too, for the healing to start. Are you sure you are both together on this issue in support of your daughter - whatever it is? Have you two sat down and talked about this away from everyone else?
Good luck in this - I wish you both healing and love.
We've been married for almost 25 years, Christmas eve being our anniversary,
We have always supported each other, and if some one any one attacked our kids, well you've heard of wwIII..........
Why wouldn't he stand up for you girls, is he fearful of his own family...???
I think you both need to sit down and talk it out. Hopefully it will help shed light on it all and help you heal.
no kis or family involved. Well, not kids I had with him; another woman and her kid.
The fact that I don't trust him anymore is hard to deal with. I want out but financially
can't go anywhere. So, yeah, I can relate. Being bitter about it doesn't help, so I
live my life . I hope things get better for you.
she thought I could do better, but I was and still am in love so I think I was right and my mom was wrong...I grounded my mom,,,no, I wouldn't go see my mom for a time when she started her complaining about my wife...sometimes it was the only thing that worked with her....but that is ancient history now. My mom knows that my wife is #1 and she has to take the backseat and be happy with the #2 spot.... I wouldn't go ending a long telationship over something like this though, it seems you and your husband will just have to work this out, time heals all wounds, you know..
I didn't read other comments, so some of this may be repetitive.
I would be soooo mad. But I would eventually get over it -if it did not become habit.
The key question here is, have you spoken to your husband about your anger that he didn't speak up? Was he so convinced you could handle it that he stayed out of it? Was he not wanting to put any value to the one who was having the histronics? In a case like this I would be VERY angry with my husband, but I really consider trust as separate. Mark will sometimes 'shut down' when he is being verbally attacked - it took me a long time to figure out why he wouldn't get outwardly angry about things - he stores it inside, and it comes out in the coldness he presents to people. I, on the other hand, blow up immediately, and when I'm done, I don't carry it around with me. It has been difficult to understand each other's style like this. Does your husband usually store it up, or blow it out? You had some extra anger when the attack was going on, this was your daughter! In your place I would ask my husband - not in a fight, but because I would really need to understand - WHY he stood back. Why he didn't defend her, what was he thinking, and how I felt.
I really hope you can work all of this out, because you have been in this relationship a long time, and only you can determine its value to your heart.
Maybe he was struck speechless by the scene unfolding before him, maybe he's just sick and tired of all the drama the extended family seems to put you all through. And why are you even letting the extended families have such an impact on your life?
You left a lot out of your retelling of the events, but I gather you know that certain people in the extended family are toxic to your well being, why are still subjecting yourself and your children to them?
Perhaps your husband now feels the same as you, betrayed, after 28 years you lose all trust/faith in your bond, because of this one incident? That the last 28 years mean nothing?
Some things in life we can control. We can control ourselves, we can not control others. We can control who we interact with and who we let impact our lives.
I don't think the bond of trust is broken either. He just didn't react the way you wanted him to. It's not like he took their side against you. That would be a problem.
I've had the problem in a different marriage where my husband at the time stood against me and behind my back suppported these family members and spoke against me. Now THAT's breaking a trust bond. It also contributed to breaking the marriage.
I would just cut everyone involved in the screaming at yourself and your daughter out of your lives and if he can't live with that, well then, you have a problem.
You may have to content with knowing that he supports you even though he didn't speak up. I wouldn't give up a long relationship without knowing how he feels.
My daughter has spoken to her father about the incident, along with many others times and they were able to go on with their relationship. I, however, have a much bigger issue than she does, she is willing to let her father off the hook. She understands that we have a lot more to work out. She is not really happy that her father did not take her side in this. One of the reasons is because he didn't stand up for her when she was sexually molested by one of his family members. Not that he didn't believe her but he blocked it out of his mind and didn't talk about it, because it involved his mother not stopping the abuse. So as you can see he does have a history of making these kinds of mistakes.
I don't have a problem with cutting these people out of my life and neither does my daughter. They don't add but subtract from our lives and it is a pleasure to go on living our lives without having them in ours.
Someone needs to make sure that they work out this problem before your entire family comes unraveled.
I can understand that you may feel that his family is more important to him than you are, but the real issue isn't importance, it's about power. Power that the family exerts and power that he may feel he has to counter their outbursts. I believe that he needs to clearly understand the damage done to your marriage. Trust is the very foundation of a marriage and if one partner feels that trust is broken, regaining it is a very long, commited process.
Whatever your future responses I believe it must be done from love not fear. Let him know that you feel abandoned by him and give him the opportunity to rebuild that trust, however you both decide.
You are brave in expressing yourself so openly. Good love.......
Then, years later, via a set of serendipitous circumstances, my husband's teenaged son came to live with us... I will never forget the evening when I prepared a dinner including a small salad which his son refused to take even one bite of... When I told the boy that he had to take at least one bite, his father intervened and said, "Well... he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to." And, in that one moment, I felt so betrayed by him... I had stood up to my daughter AND my mother -- taking HIS side on the very same issue and, there he was, siding AGAINST me with his son...
It's a silly, little, stupid thing, I know... But I have NEVER really gotten over it... I have NEVER forgotten it ... and ... I have never truly forgiven him for it....
Time dulls the sharp pang of betrayal -- but -- it never really goes away completely... at least, not yet, it hasn't...
In time, you will see that he is truly remorseful at his inability to react as you wish he had at that particular moment in time. As the distance between him and his family grows, your bond should strenghten.
I agree with you that there has been a severe break of trust in your family, and not just from your husband.
While I am setting the record straight, I also want you to understand that the lady who yelled at us was actually my sister in law not my mother in law. My mother in law was there when my daughter was molested but we did not know exactly what happened because my daughter didn't start to remember until she was a teenager. My mother in law's husband, not my husband's father as he died, was the one who molested and basically tortured her. He has since past away and she doesn't have to worry about ever seeing him again. My sister in law who was not close to him, cried like he was her own father. It's a crazy situation and I'm still trying to process it all and make sense of it.
Just to recap, I am talking to my husband about the situation and I'm reaching out for counseling but I just needed to talk about this.
By the way, my husband has a terrible temper. In other words, if something were to have been said to him, he would have taken up for himself. I have seen him do it, but he doesn't take up for me or our daughter. That's why I am having a terrible time with this.
I also think that you and your husband should go to counseling. It appears that this is a pattern of behavior, and it will not stop unless you get to the root of the problem. It is true that your husband may not know why he does or doesn't do things, and counseling may help him to realize why he makes the choices that he does. In addition, it may help him form a better bond with both you and your daughter, because dealing with his issues may allow him to better support the two of you.
I also think you and your daughter both should speak with your husband about how the situation was handled and what he should have done. Then forgive him and move on in life. I wouldn't consider it to be a reason out of marriage. 29 years is too long to just toss away.