Has a bad childhood adversely affected your marriage?

Kavya, I had peaceful parents who never argued or fought over atleast in front of children.. always supported each other when one was angry on a child, never used any abusive language, were a victim of MIL but still went back to her.

My only struggle in the house was that a boy is supreme power in this world & everything should have the boy in priority. I used to see my bro & feel what exactly was my fault if I were born a gal.. anyhow thats a past. Also I wud see few of my cousin sis being pampered as well so could never relate this behaviour when passed on to me by my parents for just being a gal.

This upbringing had a positive effect on my career & married life... when I dint get any undivided love or too much of cajoling I never even needed it from my ILs or my DH.. I could sustain all those orphan attitudes on a positive note. Also I wanted to prove that yes a gal is equally capable of earning & looking after herself even if not attending the best of colleges or highest fees.
I lived a considerable life in hostel so I learnt my basic lessons from there itself to never disclose too much to a person with whom you have to share the room or house & also never overdo anything for anyone but remain at a coordial distance. Also since we never missed each other (family) too much I never felt the extereme agony a new entrant feels while coming to a hostel & returning / leaving course midway due to home sickness.. my bro suffered a lot with home sickness.. I became independent.

Hence its upto a person if you want to make positive out of the ordeals of your life or want to mess it up further. Things have changed a lot today and my parents have also changed for good.

 

Kavya/ShilpaMa

You guys may recognize me from my other thread, but just wanted to add my 2 cents here (sorry if I am digging up a relatively old thread).

I would say my childhood was fairly balanced and loving, despite differences between parents, since this never directly affected me or my bro'. However like you mentioned Kavya my mom has shared many unpleasant memories about my dad's parents and also some controlling behavior that my dad got away with, particularly when we were pretty young.

Since these revelations came at a time when I could appreciate the depth of my mom's hurt, I did develop some resentment to my dad - I have gone through periods of complete detachment from my dad, sometimes lasting months. I have remained without talking with him for like a year or so, when I finished college I think. To me this never did impact my marraige, since my issues were entirely different, and caused by a sea of difference between me and hubby. Any case, I do maintain that a bad childhood or even secondhand knowledge of problems between parents can be very troubling and possibly disrupt marital harmony when one ties the knot.

On a totally different note Kavya, I happened to read your personal thread and was stunned by several disturbing parallels with my own life - especially how we both seem to have faced marital discord post delivery. I sincerely hope you have sorted things out and wish you all success in life :thumbsup

 

Hi Kavya,
I really appreciate the points u have noted down to come out of a bad childhood..
My story - I can't say i had a bad childhood but i had a difficult mom.. Dad is the sweetest man.. Frankly, i am more close to my grandmother than to my mom.. Grandma and i share a very strong bond as mom (doctor) was working . My grandma used to feed me, cook my favourite dishes, listen to my school stories, dress me up for school etc.. Mom is a dominating Hitler.. I have never felt close to her.. But some of her actions made me suffer in my marriage..
As in my last semester of engg, i had a job offer at hand, she fixed up my marriage.. She assured me that the alliance is a good one.. When i refuted for marriage so early, she suspected i had an affair in college.. Somehow during post engagement period i was able to sense that i may not get along with my in-laws.. But mom never understood this, she only blamed me for being so non-adjusting..
Also, she fuelled a lot more tension by her behavior, like she used to compare my FIL's (college principal) position to my Dad's (Managing Director) position, many times she taunted openly that my in-laws financial status is lesser than hers.. But guess what, i had to bear the brunt of her actions, because my in-laws vented out their anger on me after marriage.. They forced me to quit my job and become a full time cook at their home..
There was time, when i seriously wanted to walk out of the marriage, when i told this intent to my mom - she got hysterical at me because she didn't know what to tell the society if i divorced.. She in turn put pressure on me to stay in marriage and put up with crap from in-laws.. Blamed me for being selfish and not thinking of family reputation.. She never takes responsibility for her actions, she says it is my fate to get such in-laws..
Now, i have learnt to accept things and move on with life.. I'm in a far more calm and composed state than before.. I am telling this story just to highlight that such behavior from parents can cause a lot of stress and pain to children..

On the contrary my MIL loves her children very dearly.. She can herself stay hungry to feed her children.. She never does anything against her children's wishes..But this love of MIL applies only to her children and not to DIL..
My husband simply cannot connect to my childhood nor to me.. He is still blissfully content with his mom's love to an extent that he does not feel the need of anyone else's love..

I just dont know what to do in such a situation other than accept reality and move on with life..

 

Yes.

My Parents both are very loving but my mom is very innocent. She married to a big family and she had 4 kids at the young age and no affection or support from the husband. I think she lost between all these responsibilities and she used to continuously taunt my father all the time and lot of fighting’s in the house all the time between them.

This is affected me badly. Now in my marriage, for any issue I always be quite thinking the fight would affect the kids and don’t want to create unhappy environment in the house. So my husband has become big dominated person in the house. But after I joined IL,I started learn to give him back little bit nicely. So these days I am winning on pretty small things, which my husband used to control earlier.

 

Kavya

I guess we both did not face the 'exact' issues but I felt it was odd that we should start distrusting our hubbies post partum. Earlier myself and hubby used to be quite close and affec, tho I did have IL trouble as usual, and barring his extreme beliefs some of which I didn't see a problem accepting tho not agreeing! But the way things turned during/post deliv - I guess pp is stressful not just for mom and kid, but even on a marriage. About whether the fact that my mom shared things with me - I don't think this affected my marriage per se, but I know that it could have. Which is why I never want to involve kiddo in our marital probs unless it comes to a seperation - also the reason that it is so imp to me to rebuild the trust we have lost somewhere.

I do agree on some points you raised. I rarely quietly take BS of any sort really. BUT I admit that I made many a mistake in the initial part of my married life. I guess I wanted things to go so smoothly that I was reluctant to create waves for things which at that time seemed like trivial issues. I also agree I am not much for the 'go offensive' theory, tho lately that's me!! Anyway, as you mentioned about the 7th month thing, I will tell you this. Initially I was too shocked to react since hubby threw this one at me right at the hosp for my 7th month checkup - he had his friend come up there to the clinic, this guy's bro' had a kid deliv at a little more than 1.25 kg (the kid was around 9 or 10 yr old then and hubby was saying he was so intelligent, a topper, as tho' it was the deliv time that made him such). Frankly I was so stunned to say anything meaningful then except wonder how I got myself into this. Later I researched online and did try telling him how this could adversely affect the child, sent links of articles that spoke of premature deliv and even the disadv of a C since it IS a surgery whatever be the rationale - unless of course it was warranted on medical grounds. I also tried stressing how his religious belief should not be thrust on others, particularly on an unborn kid, his take was he cares as much about him - of course when I said I was having the deliv not he, he would go silent and angry and not call me for days. We were going in circles for a good part of the last few months that's for sure.

Like you mentioned I tried other routes before going passive-aggressive - yes I do admit I can get that way and try the silent treatment especially when I get the feeling that people are going to be 'unmoved' regardless of what I say or do. Honestly Kavya there was not one SINGLE day I didn't regret getting a kiddo into this even during my preg, and sometimes I felt I was wasting my energies convincing someone who refused to budge. So I shrunk back, but didn't give in until it appeared to me that I would prob have a C anyway. I have mentioned that even my doc said this was possible eventually, but maybe the stress I put myself thru also resulted in kiddo not moving down - he was favorably placed head down till the end but his head never did get fixed per doc (even 2 days bef v fixed the date when I had the final examination bef deliv).

NOW though, I am past giving a cold shoulder, or taking ANY BS. I guess in a way our situations have been reversed. While earlier hubby ddn't think much about my take on things, now I have come to distrust him a lot. In a way like your case I am guilty of saying hurtful things to him because of all the times earlier when he could not care less what I felt/had to say about our life. I am prone to telling him these days that I won't be a puppet anymore - for him or his parents. I can see this hurts him BUT he in a way realises that I have tried bending earlier for which he was never responsive. So its come to this - All or Nothing! He wanted all, I gave some, he was unhappy and wanted more, more ... so I ended up offering nothing. This is why I said this is a Status Quo, and has been this way ever since kid arrived and I felt betrayed by someone I was supposed to trust 'until death do us part'.

But I hope this does not last. I would rather we go our seperate ways than live like this forever. I cringe to think this is the mom kiddo will see - he may feel I am vindictive, but I think I am not really that, I am just so hurt and don't want to feel helpless anymore. I never did appreciate people who said they had no control over their lives - but I became that once - now I am past that. I am more open minded now that I was when I went back after his birth. I am more in a frame of mind to get over it, though I don't claim I have 'forgiven', yet. The journey will be long no doubt but I think I am a very resilient person, opinionated surely, but not obstinate! Yup, I am figuring my way.

 

hi kavya,

Yours points were great! Thanks for posting :thumbsup

Even I went for counselling session to come out of my bad childhood. Though I am not married, definitely this affected my love life. An alcoholic,irresponsible dad & workaholic mom and their fights killed me to the core. All their frustration will end on me. When I was young, I used to think of cindrella story, that a prince would come and save me one day! :rotfl

Even now I am not completely out of it because there exist a 'emotional bonding' between us and whatever they do, they are my parents. So I ignore if they hurt me.