Does anyone understand or am I crazy?
Some of you may have read my recent post concerning SD being DH's speed dial number in his phone. Yes, I am programed into his phone but not on speed dial. It bothered me that DH felt it necessary to do this.
About a year ago while on Facebook I noticed a pop-up listing DH as a suggested friend. DH never showed interest in FB and actually made negative comments about it. After seeing his name,I clicked on it and discovered that it was indeed my DH. When I asked him if he was on FB he said "NO." I then proceeded to tell him about the friend suggestion and he said he didn't know how that happened. He only knew that he received an email request to join FB. I'm not sure how he could deny creating an account with his name but he did. Months later I received another notification that DH was a suggested friend and that he was now friends with his father. I asked him and he again was not sure what he did.
Well, last night, I decided to look at SD's FB page because I hadn't seen pictures of the grandskids dressed for Halloween. She always posts pictures of the grandskids and herself. Lo and behold I see that she is now friends with DH. When I saw that I immediately became ill. I felt as though I had been kicked in the gut. You see, I sent DH a friend request many months ago and it has been ignored.
I always thought that I would be second to DH's deceased wife but I'm not. I am second to SD. I always thought it nice that DH and SD had a close relationship but it is much closer than I ever expected. They typically talk daily, if not more often. SD called him on a recent evening. During a normal conversation I can hear her talking, this time she was speaking very low. It's not that I listen, it's that she is extremely loud andyou can't help but hear her. There was something weird about this call, DH was quietly giggling and laughing and talking so sweetly to her. I crave that from him. When he calls me, which is rare, he is typically matter of fact, tells me what he has to say and that's it. On his desk he has a picture of SD and grandskids and his parents, not one of me, my photo is on a shelf with other photos of SD, and SD and DH. He does not have a photo of SS and his family on his desk either.
SD recently divorced, DH paid for everything. She wanted a new vehicle, DH signed for it. She wanted to stay in her house, DH purchased it for her and SD pays rent, which I'm sure is not even close to what DH pays a month.
Yes, I have insecurity issues. Having a jealous, overtly manipulative SD and a DH who has never set healthy boundaries for her have added to my issues. I am seeing a therapist but unfortunately she is out of town and I won't see her for nearly two weeks.
Prior to our marriage, SD told me that she hoped DH would not have to choose between us. Every day I learn more what she meant by that. Don't get me wrong, I truly believe DH loves me but because of their lifetime of having an unhealthy relationship and having no boundaries, he is juggling to keep both of the women in his life happy, rather than telling her the occasional no. Other family members know how their relationship is. None of them would ever say anything negative about SD because DH would not stand for it. Several family members have voiced their concern to me their fear that SD would come between us and our marriage. I don't know how much more I can take.
Thank you for taking the time
Thank you for taking the time for reading my lengthy post.
Is it possible that SD set up
Is it possible that SD set up FB account for DH and then selects his "friends" for him? That's what it sounds like to me. Especially, with your friend request being ignored.
I only wish that we're true.
I only wish that we're true. He set it up over a year ago, unbenownst to him he said. SD would not know the same mutual friend DH and I have on FB that sent him the original email to join. Thank you though.
Ditto rh's comments! You
Ditto rh's comments! You should NOT come second to his late wife or his daughter. Being married to a widower brings a whole set of insecurities with it, but you should never have to settle for less of a commitment than DH gave his first wife. You are second chronologically, not in importance. It is not an either/or situation; he can have a good relationship with his daughter while putting you and your marriage first. The whole FB lie thing is troubling, too. The pictures may or may not mean much. If they've been there a while he may not really notice them anymore. Give him a framed picture of you or of the two of you and tell him you noticed he didn't have one on his desk. See what he does. Talk with him about the situation and how it makes you feel. Pick a time when nobody is upset and try not to be accusatory or he'll get defensive and not hear you. Ask your therapist for a marriage counselor recommendation, preferably someone who has experience with this sort of situation. Ask DH to go with you and make an appointment. There are also good books out there if you haven't read them. "Making Adult Stepfamilies Work" (aka "Step Wars") and "Stepmonster" can provide insights. You are not wrong and this is really unfair. Unfortunately DH and SD seem just fine with the status quo so you will have to decide what you want and then act accordingly. Good luck.
Hugs WSM. I too am married to
Hugs WSM. I too am married to a widower. He has come around in the past few years and realized what he was doing with a mini wife, but I almost think it is too late. I hope you two can get counseling and I hope he responds appropriately.
Oh my, you know so very well
Oh my, you know so very well how I feel. I've not wanted to use those words, emotionally incestuous, but that is how I see the situation. His sister and my therapist call it an unhealthy relationship.
DH came home half hour ago wanting to know why I wasn't feeling well. I did not want to discuss the situation but he persisted asking me and raising his voice. I tried to calmly explain to him my feelings. He started yelling about me being jealous of his daughter and when was this going to stop. I told him that it was not I who was jealous but her of me. I was not the one to tell her that I didn't want him to choose between us.
He is totally irrational when it comes to her, we will never see eye to eye. He demanded that I give him circumstances when she was rude. When I did, he turned it on me, I was the one who started it. It was definitely my fault that she did not thank me for babysitting. It was my fault that she didn't thank me for the grandskids Halloween treats. Everything is my fault and I can't take it anymore. I also let it spew that when his sister came to see the grandskids play a game a week ago, she said to SD "this must be your new beau." SD ignored her and did not introduce them. My SIL later told me that SD is only nice to people when she wants them for something. It's evident to everyone but DH.
When I told him that I never shared anything negative about him or our marriage with my children but I knew he shared things with SD he turned it away from him saying "am I to censor what I tell her?" I said that you don't share these things with your son, father or other family members, then why is it necessary to share with SD?
I asked him when was the last time he was on FB, he honestly said today. I asked when it was before that and he said last week. According to him, he became friends with SD in order to see pictures of the grandskids because I was not showing them to him. I told him that the only picture I saw was this morning and it was a picture from the weekend at a sporting event he attended with her and the grandskids. He said that I didn't show him their Halloween pictures, I told him that the Halloween pictures did not show up on my FB page, which they did not. I had to go to her page to look for them and by the time I saw them last night he was sleeping and then I discovered the FB friendship he had with SD. We've had this issue before whereas she said that she posted pictures and I could not see them and I reminded him that WE both looked for them on my page and they were not there. I truly believe that SD is playing games and setting me up to be the bad one. Of course, when I told DH that individuals could control who sees their pictures he said that it was I who was blocking her, which is a total untruth. I asked him why he ignored my FB friend request, he said why would I need to be friends with you? I said SS is friends with his wife and my son is friends with his wife, that being friends with a spouse was not uncommon.
He left furiously telling me how evil I was. This marriage is doomed, DH will never change nor will the SD.
Your DH and my DH sound like
Your DH and my DH sound like twins. I just went through some very aggressive arguments over older SD. They have an "unhealthy" relationship. It was almost unbearable - the fights DH and I had. He accused me of being the one with the problem - and why can't I just "get over it" all. Move on - he said. Well i put up with it for too many years and I HAD ENOUGH. I was at the tipping point. I was making plans to leave and start a new life on my own, still am.
This happened after I disengaged and placed boundaries on my life with SD and DH. Sickening watching them together. I was NOT jealous - she was MEAN. I didn't like being treated badly so I got accused of being jealous. That is the catch-all phrase both sd's and Dh's like to use. Like we are petty and jealous and off our rocker.
Please don't let your DH bully you into thinking what he is doing is OK - it is not OK! There is a great book on Emotional Blackmail that I recently read and it really helped me to stay strong.
DH is trying to back away from SD but it is still very early on. I am still making my plans to move (SD lives about 12 houses away from us), and DH has a choice to make. He either comes with me and starts a healthy husband / wife relationship or he can stay on his own and spend all his spare time kissing Sd's butt. Totally up to him, but I made a choice to change and I am sticking to it.
I have to say i do look at
I have to say i do look at Facebook sometimes as a tool to manipulate and play games. I set up my account years ago, mostly to try and bond with my SD, share picts etc... but lately it has become a bit of an albatross around my neck. My husband asked to help set him up an account, so i did, we all have the same mutual friends, skids, grandkids, etc. No problems. About a year ago i notice pictures up on my husbands page that SD posted, she also has posts up (stupid rants mostly) but i could not see them. Apparently she made the posts, pictures, etc. only visible to a select few, i was not one of them.
At first this hurt my feelings but after awhile i got over it. I did mention it to my husband who is fairly clueless about how facebook works. I am not sure if he mentioned it to my SD but eventually she changed the settings on her account so i can see what she posts. The sad thing is her posts are nothing earth shattering, pictures of grandkids, nothing that would warrant "hiding them" from me. Just a way to be passive aggressive and hurtful which she has become very adept at.
Last year at my SS's wedding she put up about 150 pictures, guess what? There was not one of me. In a way it was my final AHA moment. I realized how much i mattered and now i am over it.
Lately she posts things about how horrible her life is, or any other assortment of "poor me" ploys. Sometimes i may post something and then she will post some strange hurtful comment below it.
When she asked for a loan from my husband and she did not get a response back she posted on his wall about how crappy that was... for everyone to see, naturally.
When this storm came and my husband did not call her right away she posts again on his wall (for everyone to see) how horrible and uncaring he was for not calling right away, at which he responds below "I know you are OK because i am reading your posts on Facebook" I am trying not to laugh but this is what it has come too.
I have thought about disabling my account more times than once because i do get upset by the way things become interpreted or comments that are snide or things "hidden" from each other. It was meant as a way to connect and has become a way to disconnect and fight.
It is also a way for others to control things, much like your DH and SD.
Thank you, I totally agree
Thank you, I totally agree with you. I was just thinking to myself, if only he could be rational about this. What could I possibly gain from not sharing pictures? If he was in his right mind he would look at my damn FB page and see for himself that I don't have her pictures. She can control who she shares with, not I. After all, she was the one that told me how not to share my posts with a certain person.
I have nothing to gain by purposely being rude to her knowing good and well they share everything. I only wish he could see that.
My SS unfriended his own
My SS unfriended his own father, so stupid. My husband was at his wits end anyway with this kid. All he did was harass him about money, as a matter a fact the only time he called his father is when he needed money. So after he unfriended him after an argument about money he tried to back peddle and "re-friend" his dad..oh brother... I asked my husband after he opened his page and saw the friend request if he was going to accept and he said "No, are you kidding? That was the best thing he could have done, now i do not have to hear about his problems!"
I tell you, Facebook is very weird....
Maybe you should defriend SD
Maybe you should defriend SD and limit viewing of all your FB entries to real friends. That way, you limit your exposure to her drama and his ignorance. I blocked my DH and all his family. So much better!
^^^^ totally agree. it would
^^^^ totally agree. it would be better to be by yourself than in the middle of this sickness.
SDIL really used FB to get at
SDIL really used FB to get at me. Tagged pics of sgkids to DHs ex, DH, skids, but not me. Invites from her, DH's ex and aggressive MIL via FB. I unfriended her, she still msgs invite. Also absolute silence when I tagged her and skids of my son's b-day, absolute silence on my b-day by all despite my going out of the way to get hard to find gifts, cards, attending parties and acknowledging bdays on FB.
My action was to unfriend SDIL and make all my posts invisible to DH's family (friendly or not). They can't tell but then it's not obvious I'm leaving out one and not the other. This way I enjoy FB in peace without all the junior high games.
Now as for the rest. What's going on is very unhealthy. Your DH basically acts like he is closer to SD than to you. It's 100% unacceptable that he invites her into the problems of your relationship. One of the rules I've always had with married men is that if they start talking negatively about their spouses, I'm out of there. I see this as a sign of disloyalty and a slam to their marriage. I figured it was a precursor to an affair.
I don't think I could put up with it. The more you do, the more you'll lose yourself and eventually your indignation as betrayal becomes the norm. It's hard to fight because you obviously aren't being invited to the conversation. He's lying (FB and gaslighting) and being clandestine.
He needs to go w/you to couples counseling. I'm not an advocate of divorce but I would certainly disengage from him if he doesn't participate. Get your own life, stop investing in someone who treats you like you are a second class wife. If you had known this was to be your status, you never would have married him. Don't let him establish this as the way things are going to be. Fight or leave mentally, or even physically if it's too much to handle emotionally. Again, as a Christian myself, I wouldn't divorce. I also couldn't emotionally handle this yr after yr without it taking up way to much of a toll on my psyche.
Men are pretty pragmatic. Right now, status quo is that he has invited someone else into your marriage and is gas-lighting you to get what he wants. Quantitatively tell him what you do what. One of which IS TO CENSURE his phone calls. We censure what we say every day, if we didn't this world would be like a kindergarten class. As for the rest, tell him what you want and what he needs to do to keep you (even mentally) with him.
The ugly part of what he is doing is that little of it is overt. It's just the feel of the whole thing that speaks volumes.
He needs to grow up, be a man and be a husband. He has not detached from his old way of life. It took a few years for my DH to consider me (IMO) his number one priority. They spent yrs and yrs without us and with another family. Understandable, but your DH needs to make the leap because it's unacceptable for you to be subjected to this treatment.
I think he can change but the impetus will likely have to be you no longer accepting this way of life. If he doesn't change, you mentally leaving, even losing interest in him, will likely bring about more change than discussing it ever could.
My husband, who has a daughter who is close, would back up everything I'm saying. He may love her, but he would never discuss our problems or marriage w/her. What your husband is doing is just wrong.
After telling them you had
:jawdrop: After telling them you had cancer??!!! So sorry...
Thank you everyone for your
Thank you everyone for your words of wisdom. Things are not any better and I can't imagine that they will change any time soon.
DH and I have not engaged in a decent conversation since I discovered his FB friendship with his daughter. As you all probably read, I'm not upset about the FB friendship but the fact that he avoided telling me about it and the reason he gave me for needing it. He now thinks that not only did I not share pictures of grandskids with him but that I deleted them from my FB page. He can't be more wrong. When I told him that the poster of pictures can control who sees them, he said that SD would never do that. I do find it interesting that only a few pictures have shown on my FB page but obviously show up on SD's other FB friends pages. I feel as though I'm in the movie Gaslight.
I tried to talk to him and told him that there is no way that our marriage will survive without trust and with a third person, SD, in the triangle. I stupidly told him that other family members have been concerned about our marriage. What I didn't tell him was that family members were concerned that SD was trying to come between us. Of course, even if I wanted to tell him that, I didn't have the opportunity because he called me a F'n snake and I left the room.
I can't do this any more. I can't deal with his blindness. It's so obvious to everyone what is happening, that's why his family is concerned, they see SD for who she really is. Sometimes I think he knows that she behaves badly but if he were to acknowledge it, he would be acknowledging that he had some part of it and God forbid he be wrong.
Or that he would have to
Or that he would have to change. Much easier to roll you under the bus. Leave.
It truly sounds like he is
It truly sounds like he is not taking you seriously nor does he seem to care about your feelings at all. Could you leave for a little while to regroup and think things through? DH being all alone and feeling what it would be like if you left might help him want to work on his marriage. Just a thought. Take care.
Dh's who don't listen or want
Dh's who don't listen or want to understand or believe their darling spawn are manipulative, deceitful relationship destroyers deserve a partner who is distant because they caused it- why don't they wake up to themselves- it's like they got you so they work harder with the skids and when they haven't got you they work harder to get you back--- users....with adult daughters it is always a game of who does daddy love more- it is their fcuking attachment problem-- not yours. Stay strong girl- true to yourself- at the end of the day time passes if you break up you will be ok.
Thank you all again for your
Thank you all again for your incite and advice. I'm debating whether to start another post about my current situation. This has been the worst week of my life with DH. I logged onto FB today and looked to see if DH friended any other family members and he is no longer friends with SD. Gee, I wonder how that conversation went? "SD because my evil wife made a scene that we were friends, I must defriend you." I'm so done with this lifestyle.