- This topic has 5 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I think there is something to be said for learned behavior. For instance while growing up my Mom would come home on Friday Nights and Drink. She said she worked hard and deserved it. Whenever anxiety was at its peak she would get drunk. Into my early 20’s I started doing the same damm things. I grew up with it. I hated it but I was acting the same way. I can remember thinking I work hard I deserve it. My SA grew up in an environment where the use of porn,cheating and going to strip clubs was the norm. His mom never divorced his father. His Dad would pull up behind the house with one of his latest girls in the car. This bothered my husband but he also adored his father. I noticed that all my father-in-laws broads dressed the same. Lot’s of makeup, High High heels, short dresses etc. That was the way he liked it. My husband likes the same thing. His Grandfather was known for touching any woman in his house in an inappropriate manner jokingly of course. My SA worked in the Combat Zone (known for strip clubs, prostitutes, and movie theaters) at the age of 15. His father had him plowing the streets and parking lots. He took him into the clubs. My Father-in-Law has passed but there were times when he would be a pig in my presence. When my daughter was 2 years old she got up on our kitchen counter. My father-in-law said look she’s practicing to work the poles. I told him to shut his mouth and never refer to my daughter in that context again. No doubt in my mind why my husband has done the things he has done. I believe that like an alcoholic he has learned the behavior and is addicted. I did write his father a letter once telling him that his behavior has f’d up his sons life. I found the letter in his stuff when he died.
Wow, katmandew- did his father ever say anything to you about the letter? That’s pretty telling that he kept it- it was significant. Maybe at some level he knew how broken they all are?
Sounds like multigenerational SA. I’ve got that in my family on both sides. It’s very sad. I was determined to break the cycle. I spent years in therapy in order to undo the damage from my parents and become healthy. Unfortunately, I will not be the one to do it.
Oh my gosh Kat, that is so disgusting what he said about your 2 year old. It’s good you wrote him that letter. I’m also curious if he ever said anything after that.
I wrote my SA’s mother a letter about 2 weeks after d-day, back in 2011. To this day, she still hasn’t ackowledged it to me. It was informing her about the secret life her son had that I had just discovered, and explaining to her why I left him. I begged her to please get him help, that he has a serious addiction, because he wasn’t listening to me.
Found out she read the letter with my SA present, he told her it was all lies and that I was insane, that what he does is totally “normal”. His mother and father, completely backed him up about using porn and going to stripclubs – that it was “normal” and not a problem, every man does that and I had to “live with it” and stop making a big deal out of nothing. To add to this, my SA’s addiction started with his dad’s hardcore magazines when he was a child. It became so clear to me that his parents played a big role in him becoming an SA and also keeping him in denial. If the parents model the behavior and condone it, there is a high chance they’ll grow up thinking it’s fine and/or end up doing the same. Because his mum put up with her husbands porn use, him and his family think all women should.
Children learn what they live. My xh life sounds much like yours kat. Plus, to top it all off, I think he may have been molested by his grandfather or grandmother.
As wives and mothers, we have to model this to our children, this is not someone we want in our lives, simple yet complicated.
i think many of us do not only battle the Sa and abuse of of our H’s we battle generational inherited behavior problems. there’s no way these SAH are just some abnormal exception to the rest of a normal or healthy family.
that’s why it is so hard to leave and get out from under. they have support systems that enable their bad behavior. this reinforces the idea that “we are the crazy ones” cuz they have others on board that think what they are doing is just fine.
the longer i live, the more i believe the fruit does not fall far from the tree.
with that being said, we have that much more responsibility to set the standard of behavior for our kids. they will follow suit — consciously or unconsciously
My Father-in-Law never said a word to me but I heard it through the grapevine that he showed it to some people. It was weird that he kept it. It was with his important papers. My husband tells me his Dad liked me a lot… I asked my husband a few weeks ago if he was bound and determined to live a life like his father did? He said No.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.