This is almost a novel, but if you could advise...thanks

[Princess_Abby]

ReginaNova:

Abby, please talk to a priest or counselor soon. This is a sentiment that is not healthy for you, your husband, your marriage, or your developing family. Your problems with your parents and sisters may be more than you and your husband should be handling on your own at this point. Please consider getting some professional or spiritual counseling before the holidays. Your holidays could be emotionally devastating if you struggle with these issues without assistance. Clearly, the situation with your own family is magnified because of the situation with your in-laws in the past and probably also because of the pregnancy.

Please take care of yourself and your little baby.

XOXOXOXO
Gigi

I don’t think the holidays will be emotionally devastating because we have spent the majority of them alone (well, just the two of us) within our marriage. I’m not really feeling sad about Christmas or anything like that. I suppose that could change, but we really are used to it.

I do agree it’s not a healthy sentiment, but if you had any idea the true abuse and torment we suffered at the hands of his parents, it might make more sense. And now…while things are nowhere near what happened on the east coast, I think we both feel this sense of dread that we’re in for round two with MY parents next.

My husband has a spiritual director and attempted to confess this sentiment, but the priest told him this was NOT a sin and he should not feel guilt or shame for merely feeling a very natural reaction given all that has happened to him and both of us. We’re not wishing any pain or suffering on anyone; we just want boundaries to be respected and for the manipulation to stop. It does seem that as long as each of our parents are alive, they will continue to try and enmesh themselves with us in an unhealthy manner. It’s sad but true.

That said, we still hope and pray that they can be the loving parents we want them to be so as to experience family harmony here on earth. We do tend to joke about it because his paternal grandparents are like 95 and 93, still going strong…his maternal grandmother is in her late 80s. It’s like…okay so basically we could have 70 more years of this?

Thanks for your thoughts and everyone else’s, too.

I think I need to take a break from being so emotionally invested in thinking about this and posting about it daily.

Thanks everyone!