How to support my husband?

[MessyMom]

My husband comes from a pretty disfunctional family and after a family camping trip, it has become quite clear that he is not loved or liked by everyone except his dad and one sister. This is affecting him pretty severly. He has been moodier than normal, more likely to get sullen by any percieved slight (our 15-month-old crying when he holds her, never minding that she is currently doing that with everyone except me, and her being our fourth child and he KNOWS this is a typical phase).

I come from a very close family and even with all our dysfunction, I always felt loved and cherished. I do not know how to councel him through this. He is also having a crisis of faith and hasn’t recieved communion since before Christmas. He is finally going to Mass with us again, so hopefully that is being remedied. But in the mean time, he will not go to talk to a priest for councel or a therapist of any kind.

Does anyone have any advice for me on how to support him in this? And if not, will you please pray for him?

 

[CatholicRaven]

Might be depression. Will he talk to your family doctor?

I wish I had more/better suggestions for you.

Will for him (and you).

 

[RoseMary131]

My husband comes from a pretty disfunctional family and after a family camping trip, it has become quite clear that he is not loved or liked by everyone except his dad and one sister. This is affecting him pretty severly. He has been moodier than normal, more likely to get sullen by any percieved slight …

He is also having a crisis of faith and hasn’t recieved communion since before Christmas. He is finally going to Mass with us again,…

Does anyone have any advice for me on how to support him in this? And if not, will you please pray for him?

Did he become more affected about how his family treats him after this camping trip?

Have you asked your husband to speak with you about how the camping trip affected him?

Have you asked him to share with you his thoughts on his family? How he felt growing up? How he feels today about them?

It may take a while before he’s comfortable sharing any feelings about his family.

Worldwide Marriage Encounter is a wonderful weekend to help couples make good marriages into great marriages. There are many tools taught that can be use to focus more on each other.

Maybe WWME would be a great start to help you understand him and for him to want to share his thoughts in this area with you.

Check their website for a weekend that you can attend. Some couples travel to other states to attend as they see it is something wonderful and are willing to drive a long distance.

wwme.org/

WWME is not a counseling weekend. You and your husband share nothing about your marriage with the other couples. After listening to the Presenting Team give a presentation - you two return to the privacy of your own room to share with each other.

There are 3 Presenting Couples and a Presenting Priest who give the talks on a variety of topics.

What wonderful news that your dear husband will be back to Mass.

Don’t push him to go to confession. Invite him, but don’t push. It may be a good first step that he is at Mass again without pressure to go to Confession and Communion. He may feel uncomfortable with you keeping up with when the last time he received Holy Communion.

May God give you both the graces to share with each other and to help with any pains from extended family.

 

[Cupofkindness]

My husband comes from a pretty disfunctional family and after a family camping trip, it has become quite clear that he is not loved or liked by everyone except his dad and one sister. This is affecting him pretty severly. He has been moodier than normal, more likely to get sullen by any percieved slight (our 15-month-old crying when he holds her, never minding that she is currently doing that with everyone except me, and her being our fourth child and he KNOWS this is a typical phase).

I come from a very close family and even with all our dysfunction, I always felt loved and cherished. I do not know how to councel him through this. He is also having a crisis of faith and hasn’t recieved communion since before Christmas. He is finally going to Mass with us again, so hopefully that is being remedied. But in the mean time, he will not go to talk to a priest for councel or a therapist of any kind.

Does anyone have any advice for me on how to support him in this? And if not, will you please pray for him?

I’d say that your job is to develop a new support system that includes more of your family, new friends/couples/families from Church, and do whatever you can (but not in an overtly obvious or phony way) to show respect, gratitude, and appreciation for whatever he does for you and your baby. How do you do this? Make his favorite foods and give him some down time that will allow him to recharge his batteries or develop a meaningful life outside of work and extended family. By having people over and by getting involved as a couple. Your DH needs positive feedback that he won’t get from his family, so you need to get the house in shape for company! How fun that will be (the friends, that is)! What an act of love this will be!

 

[ela2]

My husband came form a severely dysfunctional family and he had no idea why he was the way he was. I’ll spare the details, but life was very hard with him.

After encouraging him to talk, finally he listed all that happened while he was growing up. It was a terrible life with a borderline mother and unresponsive father.

These are some of the things in which we did and which helped him recover tremendously!

1. Regular church attendance and offering our sufferings, pains, etc. during mass
2. Regular Confession and councelling by a priest
3. A loving atmosphere at home
4. Distance from his own family (the ones who don’t like him or constantly bring out the bad in him)
5. Replacing toxic relationships with new, healthy, loving ones
6. Hobbies
7. Reading 'Healing the Child Withiniscovery and Recovery for adult children of dysfunctional families - by Charles L.Whitfield

I understand what you are going through and I shall be praying for you and your family.

 

[ela2]

sorry point 7 is:

Reading 'Healing the Child Within - Discovery and Recovery for adult children of dysfunctional families - by Charles L.Whitfield

(I don’t know how that face appeared).

 

[rayne89]

Sadly I understand more than you know. Give him space, men generally process things differently than woman. If he wants to talk about be a listening ear, if he doesn’t let him be. Not very obviously, but in subtle ways show him he is important, appreciated and accepted by you and interact with people how treat your husband positively. My husband after 22 years of marriage, battled and recovered from alcoholism over a decade ago, but has battled depression since his youth because of the nonacceptance and abuse from his father and a mother who was too timid to protect him -a father who still affects his mental state whenever they interact even today, is finally in therapy with an excellent therapist.

What helps my husband the most is to feel important, and appreciated and accepted. I used to try to get him to talk about his feelings when we were younger but I’ve learned it makes things worse. It just reminds him of things he doesn’t want to think about. I listen when he feels like sharing things about his family which isn’t very often but the best thing for his mood is being around people who treat him with acceptance and appreciation.

 

[rayne89]

I’d say that your job is to develop a new support system that includes more of your family, new friends/couples/families from Church, and do whatever you can (but not in an overtly obvious or phony way) to show respect, gratitude, and appreciation for whatever he does for you and your baby. How do you do this? Make his favorite foods and give him some down time that will allow him to recharge his batteries or develop a meaningful life outside of work and extended family. By having people over and by getting involved as a couple. Your DH needs positive feedback that he won’t get from his family, so you need to get the house in shape for company! How fun that will be (the friends, that is)! What an act of love this will be!

Yup, this is a better explanation of what I was trying to convey.

 

[underacloud]

I’d say that your job is to develop a new support system that includes more of your family, new friends/couples/families from Church, and do whatever you can (but not in an overtly obvious or phony way) to show respect, gratitude, and appreciation for whatever he does for you and your baby. How do you do this? Make his favorite foods and give him some down time that will allow him to recharge his batteries or develop a meaningful life outside of work and extended family. By having people over and by getting involved as a couple. Your DH needs positive feedback that he won’t get from his family, so you need to get the house in shape for company! How fun that will be (the friends, that is)! What an act of love this will be!

Some excellent suggestions here.

Yes, it’s time to bring positive, affirming people into your husbands life. And treat him kindly - favourite foods and weekend activities, etc. Show him some love for a while to brighten his life.

Try to get him engaged with the children when they’re in good moods and wanting to have fun, not when they are crying (or need fresh nappies, or feeding, etc). I know it’s his fourth child and he should know how they act, but as a father of four I can tell you from experience that sometimes it does hurt when you’re feeling down and it is compounded by your children clearly showing their preference for their mother (which is often entirely natural anyway; I’d prefer their mum too). When your own child cries at you and then calms down when mum picks them up, it can hurt. There’s nothing anyone can really do about this, but just try to be kind to him and not place him in this position if at all possible.