My (F 21) mom (F 42) is going to cut me out of the family unless I leave my husband (M 22)

**TLDR;**

**My family had an up and down relationship with my then boyfriend. Everything seemed better when we got engaged and married. We moved with my family to a foreign country. They paid for the trip down. We had miscommunication issues throughout the next few months that my family felt was a super big deal. Throughout the year of living in the new country, my mom now thinks my husband is abusive and had felt this way about our relationship for the past 3 years. Either I leave him or she’s cutting me out of her life if I’m still with him. She thinks she’s doing this out of protection for herself and my siblings. I think it’s emotional PTSD from her toxic two marriages and past filled with abuse.**

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So there’s a lot of background to get the full situation so be prepared for that. My husband and I have been together for 3 years and married for 1. We’re your classic Christian high school sweethearts, met in youth group and everything.

I had put distance between the parts of my life (my relationship and my family) for the first year my husband and I were together. While my husband and I were dating, we broke up in the first 8 months and then got back together to give our relationship one more try. Up until this point, my family had nothing bad to say about my relationship.

After we got back together in 2020, my stepfather said he needed to speak to me about something. He came over to my apartment and gave me a speel of, “You didn’t seem happy with him, He was disrespectful, you seemed happy when you broke up with him,…” To sum it up, he didn’t think it was a good idea for us to be together.

So I kept my relationship and my family separate. Didn’t talk about him when I was with my family, didn’t bring him over etc. It wasn’t until thanksgiving of 2020 that my family became more comfortable with him and wanted to get to know my husband again. They told me, “We’re going to be skeptical while you’re dating but once you’re married we’ll respect that he’s your husband.”

Throughout the next few months, he and my family become closer. My siblings loved hanging out with him and everything seemed perfect.

In January of 2021, we sat down with my parents to ask for their support with us getting married. Both my mom and stepdad gave their support and were super excited! They also brought up that they were planning to move out of our home country by the end of 2021. They said if we wanted to come with them, they would be more than happy to pay for the flight and help us get started in the new country.

We got married summer of 2021 and by the end of the summer, my now husband and I decided we wanted to move out of our home country with my family. This meant my husband was leaving all his friends and family behind.

Everything seems to go fine for the first few days in the new country. Until there is a miscommunication about a plan. We thought a plan was made with my family, but my parents didn’t think there was a plan and decided to do something else with the day. My husband feeling frustrated sent my stepdad a text saying;

*”I get that you guys are under a lot of stress but it’s not fair for us to rely on you for rides (as was stated earlier in the week) only to have plans changed without our knowledge or consent an hour before they would otherwise happen. In the future, if you need to change plans, please give us notice so we have time to figure out our schedule.”*

My parents felt extremely hurt and surprised by this text. They ignored the message and didn’t show up at our Airbnb until hours later than planned. They brought up that they felt surprised that my husband felt it was okay to talk to family this way. My husband said this is how he talks with his own family back home when they have a conflict. (My husband’s family speaks very bluntly and simply about stuff. Whereas my family never really had a ‘grey’ conflict in the family. Only black and white conflict. One person is bad and one person is good. Also try to keep your words super kind and gentle..) My husband and my stepdad were figuring it out and having a discourse when my mom felt like she needed to step in. She starts bringing up how she’s dealt with a lot of narcissist and this message comes across as super controlling and pushy etc.

My husband felt very hurt about this. Especially because my bio dad was a EXTEREME DANGEROUS narcissist and so implying someone is a narcissist is no small thing in my family.

She ended up apologizing to me over text (not my husband she didn’t reach out to him) and we took space from my family for a few weeks.

Another important piece of information, my mom and stepdad ended up splitting a few weeks after this incident. Up to this point, my siblings and I had been told what a great guy he was, how we finally had a good man in our lives etc. But after he left the whole narrative changed. now we were hearing from my mom that my stepdad was a narcissist, a sociopath, he emotionally abused her the whole marriage etc.

Over the next few months, my husband and I had a bit of space from my family. We still went over to see them around once a month. Nothing big would happen until April 2022.

Another important piece of information, my family doesn’t do any yelling or tough punishment. Gentle parenting is a very big thing in my family.

My husband had a miscommunication with my brother. My husband says he was speaking firmly to my brother and my mom and brother who witnessed it said he yelled at my brother. I did not see or hear this.

My mom comes to me and tells me what happened and that she doesn’t know how to speak to my husband about this. So she wants me to talk to him for her and that he needs to just keep his mouth shut and respect how my family runs things.

I shared this with my husband but all it did was add more confusion and stress for both of us because I was a middleman. We decided to text my mom asking if we can find a time to talk in person and if in the future, could we not use me as a middleman as that adds on a lot of stress.

We got no message in the group chat (with me, my husband and my mom) from her for days. Even when she was message me directly about other topics but no message back to my husband and I’s group message.

I ended up texting my mom asking if she had seen it and if we can find a time to talk. She responds by saying that she has a lot going on, she can only handle so much stress so once things settle down for her we can find a time to talk. Again this was a personal message to me, not in the group chat.

My husband messages in the group chat saying, thanks for letting us know. In the future could you just let us know sooner if you’ve at least seen the message so we know we’re not getting ignored. And if you need any help please let us know, we’d love to help. She responds by leaving the group chat.

That was the last visit my husband had with my family. I had one more visit and then I didn’t see them for four months due to a few bad phone calls I had with my mom. (If you want more details about that, let me know.)

Now we come back to the present moment (f you’re still reading, you are a superstar!)

I came down to visit after four months and everything seemed fine. And then my mom asked if we could talk up in her room.

The first thing that happens is she starts swearing about my husband. She very emotionally and begins to tell me how my husband is just like my bio dad (the extreme narcissist), my husband is on a path to becoming a psychopath and that he has been abusing me, my mom and my siblings.

It’ll be easier to organize the accusations in a point form. To clafiry, these things are not in my husbands character.

A. my husband is using me to hurt her. My husband took away special moments that should’ve been between my mom and me (my first apartment, my first drink). He’s faking his egg allergy so he could ‘take me away from the family’ on all our holidays together. He is financially abusing her and she’s worried that I also only see her as a money bank. (For reference, anytime I’ve asked for money I would give it back or my mom would tell me not to worry about it. Any money she gave me, we never asked for she offered out of her own volition. Any other money I receive from her is my paychuque because I’m working for her.). She also believes my husband is also intentionally putting a wedge between me and my mother and it’s all his fault.

B. He has been abusing my siblings by being rude to them, bullying them and being unwilling to have a conversation about anything. (They used an example of my 2-year-old sister going to play with a potty, and my husband told her no and took it away. My siblings then told him it was actually fine and that he didn’t need to do that. Or my 7-year-old sister would throw a tantrum about the game they were going to play while my husband was babysitting them. My husband’s response was to tell her if she was going to act that way, she couldn’t play the game. The rest of my siblings were going to play something else. My brothers felt off about this because their solution would be to find a different game everyone would like to play. Lots of little things like that.)

C. He’s been emotionally abusing me. Talking down about me in front of them, I haven’t been as happy since being with him. He doesn’t love me, he only married me for money. He’s going to get what he can out of me, maybe put a baby in me and then discard me when he has no further use for me. I’m trauma bonded to him. He’s keeping me from working for her etc. Basically, the only reason I’m not happy and unable to move forward in life is because of him.

D. She actually never liked him from the start but didn’t want to say anything to hurt me. She just hoped that it would just get better. She felt like I didn’t involve her enough in the wedding even though she paid for it. She also felt disrespected by my husband’s family at the wedding. (I’ll put the incident below)

*My family went to sit at a table. My sister-in-law (also our wedding planner) tells them they can’t sit there because it’s for family. My family gets put on a table in the back. But the key important factor was my sister-in-law didn’t realize that was my mother. They hadn’t met before the wedding. She felt my mother didn’t really talk to anyone at the wedding and that my boss did a better job at introducing herself and talking to people than my family. So a classic miscommunication, no ill intent. But my mom still felt disrespected and thought my husband’s family are also narcissistic.*

E. She showed texts from my husband’s texts to her therapist who said those sounded like someone who’s a narcissist and that she needs to find any way to cut him out of her life.

And then she gave me an ultimatum. She feels that she needs to cut my husband out of her life in any way possible out of protection for herself and my siblings. And that means cutting me out of her life because my husband could use me to hurt her. He will always have an in in her life as long as we’re together.

So either she’ll help me leave him or once I’m down working for my mother in a few months, they will shut the door on our relationship. And I won’t be back into their lives unless I am no longer with my husband. (Which she thinks we will split in a few years)

I was very shocked to hear all this. Especially because I haven’t felt they put in any effort to come and visit my husband and my house and see our lives. All they’ve seen of our marriage over the past few months have been weekend visits once a month.

Now let me tell you a bit about my husband. For those personality peeps, he’s an enneagram 8 and an ENTJ. He’s talkative and a giant people person. Think of him as a golden retriever. He loves his family above all else and will do anything to protect them He loves to make everyone feel included and most of all he loves me so fiercely. He’s always there to listen to me, tell me I’m beautiful every day and put in his vows that he will promise to make me smile and laugh every day. He learned to cook and loves making food for me. I feel like I’m living life with my best friend. He’s the man I always dreamed of. The biggest issue in our marriage is that he’s a little lazy. You know the cliché of a messy guy who has no clue how to take care of the house and doesn’t want to. This may have to do that he’s never lived on his own (he went from his mom’s place, college, than moved in with me) whereas I’ve lived on my own for almost a full year.

So obviously I’m not leaving my husband. I love him, had never had a doubt or wanted to leave him and have always felt taken care of by him. Most of our fights have been around the situation with my family (he feels angry at my mom for treating me this way and that she would leave us alone in a foreign country unless I leave him. Which if I did leave him he’s then he is alone in a foreign country with no family. And no income because I’m the main one working right now since we’re still figuring out our visas.) So he thinks my mom is controlling where I can understand that my mom has ALOT of trauma and emotional PTSD. This also is sadly not out of character for her because she gave a similar ultimatum to my grandpa. Expect it was if you get the COVID vaccine, you can’t see the grandkids

But the tough thing for me is I feel so much guilt because I feel I’m going to add even more onto my siblings trauma. They left their home country, their normal life, their dog and now the person they thought would be their new dad is gone too. And I still feel this insane loyalty to my mom despite all the shit that has gone on and how she’s made me feel like I can’t talk to her or express any feelings to her. I never felt comfortable sharing any stress or fights in my marriage because I was worried she would take it too far. I also feel so depressed because a big reason I wanted to move with my family is so I could see my siblings grow up. Family is the most important thing to me and now it’s going to be gone. What was even the point of leaving our home country if it meant I was going to lose my family!

So I guess my question is am I being selfish for choosing my marriage over my family? And does anyone have advice for letting go of family and healing from this? How do you move forward without your family in your life? I feel like I’m going to have a massive hole in my heart for the rest of my life.