So this is about HIS therapist. The one we went to for marriage counseling who uses the Gottmann method and the one I stopped going to with B because:

1. I thought he needed to see a therapist by himself’
2. I didn’t think that she was getting into our problems just helping us talk sweet to one another.

So let me also say this. I have never written about B’s past on this blog mostly out of showing respect for those things that are his. Mostly because I do not know how I would feel if the tables were reversed and because this blog is about those parts of me I want to share. I was never completely sure how much I had a right to share about B and I still have not resolved the issue.

That said, I will admit I am horrendously confused. Those of you who have read my story for the past two years have a rough idea of my life based on those things I have chosen to share. You have given me good advice and given me pause for thought making me really look at myself in ways that have at times made me uncomfortable. But it has been worth it because I am finding myself thanks to hard work on my part and some help by you. So I am coming to you for help.

One of the things that I have always felt has impacted my relationship with B has been his family of origin dynamics. His mother especially.  For the past two years I was under the impression that B was talking to his therapist about his abusive mother but this week I have found out it is not so.  In fact, when I told B I thought this relationship needed to be examined he talked to his therapist who told him not everyone has to look back at their past. Frankly, I was floored especially when the therapist knows some of the dynamics because we talked about them when we were going to counseling together. His mother and sibs impacted our relationship tremendously early on and I fought all the fights and said the words that should have been said by B who didn’t know how to stand up for himself and wanted to preserve peace at all costs.

B told me he wouldn’t know what to say to his therapist about his original family.

So here are just a few of the things that I question, that I wonder if they are affecting our relationship because he has not worked on them. What do you think?

1. His mother was mentally ill. When B was a child his mother was removed from the house by the police and taken to the state mental hospital where she stayed quite a while and underwent shock therapy in 1970 which is not like it is now. She was supposed to be on meds all her life and refused to take them. She went into rages, had a grandiose ideas of herself and also was depressed.
2. There was a bitter divorce in which she poisoned the kids against their father, until the father no longer came around. B loved his father deeply.
3. When B was in 4th grade one morning he stood up for his dad and when he came home from school his clothes were packed and his mother dropped him off at his father’s while the rest of the 5 kids lived with her. He lived with his Dad for about a year until he couldn’t stand being away from his sibs.
4. His mother had an affair while married to his dad.
5. All the adult children handed over their paychecks to their mother and mother decided what careers they would choose in college. They would live at home while going to college
6. There were indoor chickens and the house was a mess.
7. One of his sibs was in a terrible work-related fire and his mother would say to B “It is your fault. It should of been you.It was your selfishness that made your sib change dinner hour with you and it should have been you.”
8. B put the fire out on his burning sib
9. B’s mother wouldn’t let sib stay in hospital long enough because she didn’t like the outside influence
10. No one could date as adults. If they tried she would comment “You sure are walking funny” after they returned home and it never seemed worth the effort
11. When B and I were first together we took some risqué pictures and she had his sibs snoop around his grandmother’s house where these pics were found. His mother forced his sisters to look at this “big dick” in the pictures.
12. She would send me letters talking about her great beauty and giving me her measurements, talking about B’s high school sweetheart,  how he was using me, how she knew “all about girls like you”, etc.
13. She tried to get B to come home to her when I was pregnant after years of us going through fertility treatments and we were happily married.
14. After we had our baby we flew back and she refused to meet her month old grandchild. She also refused to attend B’s siblings wedding.
15. She was cruel in her words to him and always tried to make him feel stupid and weak. He could barely make a decision on his own when I first met him.

And I could go on.  But won’t  and for the most part I have truly let this stuff go because it was poisoning me. The only reason I am writing it here is to ask:

1. Are these the types of things people can just let go and forget about while not having them effect aspects in their adult relationship? Can you really do this? Is his therapist correct? Can you survive unscathed a traumatic childhood that then goes on to create chaos in your relationship with your wife and those around you?
2. B says he realized early on that his mother had issues and just accepted it while knowing he could not change it. He says it made him stronger and credits all his early chaos for making him the driven, hard-working man he is today.
3. So what do YOU think?