PNI untreated for 40 years....!

[horse]

Hi there I am a daughter in law of a lady who had/has post natal depression. I am dealing with the fallout of a clash with her son (my husband). She had a miscarriage and then suffered a bereavement of her father. Then 6 months on apparently she was "over it" and conceived her son.

My husband has always said he has no love in the conventional way for his mother, that she doesn't care about him the way she does the other sons. She doesn't support or believe in him. He has suffered memory loss due to childhood accidents and we think due to circumstances. He remembers nothing from an age I do. its strange.

This has resurfaced as he has discovered this lack of memory where his restored friend is convinced they were best buddies at that age. His mother denies all knowledge of this friend also but other confirm its true.

He was asking about his childhood what it was like. He was looked after from age 0 to 5 years by a nanny, he remembers nothing of this. He has reviewed old phtographs and finds his mother never touching him always his father is closer, the supporter.

Anyway his questions led to an argument and his mother said he had not achieved anything even not looking after his own children properly...harsh words and then turned on his father for defending his son. She will not talk about the past and she shys away changing the subject. Always the laugh and the of course you did x y z like your brothers of course you got to do x y z.

My husband has always said his mother says comments but with a snide twist. I dismissed this always as she is a lovely lady and loves her family well but I noticed more recently the remarks to and about my husband come to the smae point oh he did this or that but never achieved I told him to give and and do something else. Yet another son who is in divorced making no living depending on his parents again is not a failure she cooks and cleans for him and expects not much of him.

So this lady I feel had PNI with her son and was not treated and it has led to a difference in her relationship with him, they have never been friends, tolerably get along she will cook him breakfast when he stays and looks after us all. She has helped me out on numerous occasions also with no trouble. Yet now this big explosion argument she was going to leave that very day. And now she acts like nothing happened and has never apologised and so it will all go unsaid. I think its guilt she feels that there is no maternal love there. And she will not discuss as its a generation away from today. But because of our big event life change and the argument has left a rift with my husband he will not want to visit his childhood home if she is there he will not send her a card etc. She will not be welcome in our house if he is there. It was her birthday, I sent flowers from me and the children to say thankyou for her help for us but she ignored the fact her son is upset.

Should I leave it and ignore it or try to talk to her about it, I am thinking about leaving it to cool for now but later perhaps I should explain the argument from my husbands viewpoint is not closed she hurt him and she is hurting too.

She has led a tough life living with all men she has no close female friends only relatives its really tough for her. But the fallout is my husband is now on a "spiritual" quest of discovery into the psychology of mother and son, I am trying to keep his feet on the ground.

He (my husband) had one incident when I and the children were not there when he first learned his real history about the miscarriage and then his conception from his father. (His father is very matter of fact and thinks his wife behaviour is due to "the change" - which she has been going through for 10 years so I suspect she is over it and just keeps him guessing. He does not credit PNI a cause) My husband said he came close to thinking seriously silly thoughts about suicide and he said he never considered me or his children at the time. Luckily he got over it but a lesser person might not have and then it would be tragedy all round.

What a roller coaster of emotion.
I have been lucky I little PNI with my own children only the mildest from the shock of having a baby in my life and all that means. As all I regret some actions with my first and I hope they will not suffer for it. The younger 2 have benefitted from my parenting skills I learnt with my first. My first had a nanny when I returned to work and I was insanely jealous of the attachment to the nanny though I assure you I didn't interfere. My first remembers the nanny well, where my husband remembers almost nothing which is very strange.

thanks

[winegirl]

Hi Horse

It is a very difficult situation here. What happened to your mother in law was an age ago, where things in that generation were treated and dealt with differently. While the most of me would suggest to try and talk to her, I also think that doing so may open a huge can of worms that none of you would want open.

It is very strange that your husband has no memories from a child. Has he had any therapy for his childhood at all??

Do you think your husband could tak to his mother about things?

WG xx

[horse]

My husband tried to talk to her and she won't, I think you are right I will not try. The best way will be to talk to my father in law and explain what PNI is and how it could have affected her. Then he can talk to her because they share a lot although probably not this but there is a need here I think. But she will have to initiate the talk with her sone if she is to right it.

My husband has long recognised he has issues with his memory, he is contacting his nanny and I hope will visit her and talk through what they used to do. This may help to jog or reinitiate memories for him. Always in my own experience my family have talked about common events memories and reviewed photos and I feel this helped I do this with my own children so they know we have loved them from the start. In time I will talk to my daughter about how I felt when I went back to work too early and we had a nanny look after her so she understands when she has her children. My mother talked a lot to us as children about our feelings and some of hers.

Also my husband is now in contact with his old friend but revisiting events that his friend remembers and he does not, has caused pain so they are taking the friendship forward with new memories and I think this is better. (his memories may return with time).

He is certain however that his issue with women in authority positions is due to his relationship with his mother. Often he has remarked to me the women he worked with he did not like if they were in charge (okay as colleagues) yet men in the same position as boss he confided in. I found this true of him although he has never had issues with me. So in a way he got over his problems with me and I hope in future he will try to temper his feelings to women in authority more now he knows its root cause.

Its been heavy psychology for me.

So I will try talking to my father in law and see if we can move this forward otherwise I will have to live with this awkwardness, and leave it be.

The uncharacteristic argument and explosion is definitely an issue though as another brother we have now found out, nearly came to blows last year with her and was nearly told to leave and never return (and he is a favourite). I was going to visit and she kept sending me texts with excuses because of the atmosphere in the house at the time though I ignored her and went anyway and all was okay.

But always at our new house everyone of our friends and acquantainces remarked when my in laws came was that my father in law was naturally happy there and she was like a fish out of water, which at the time I found strange but now I can see perhaps why this was so obvious to strangers.

[winegirl]

Hi Horse

Just shows how our past can have such a huge phsychological impact on our present.

I really hope you, your husband and your mother in law can resolve all these issues and start to work on all this. It sounds like it may be a bit of a challenge with your MIL, but your husband seems keen to put things right. Maybe he would consider some sort of regressive therapy?

Pleas feel free to continue to come and talk to us here hun xxx

WG x

[cheshire]

Hi Horse,

Welcome to the site - x

What a difficult situation - as WG says, things were different back then and it was much more of a stigma than it is today etc.

But I guess talking to her may help - but perhaps keep in in the 'here and now' - as the past may be extremely painful for her?
It's a good idea to perhaps talk to your FIL, as this gives you a chance to get things off your chest.

Let us know how you get on?

Hopefulx

[Veritee]

Dear Horse

This is indeed a difficult situation for you and I can see you are working very hard to try to sort it out in your own mind as it has obviously affected you deeply and to sort it out for others. But you need to think of yourself to and look after yourself, you have a family of your own and your own issues as we all do.

However I do not know how old you and your husband are or your MIL is but I am guessing in her 50s at least if she has reached the change 10 years or more and this means that you are both way into adulthood

And I feel I have to say that there comes a time when as adults we have to sort theses things out for ourselves and come to some peace for ourselves with unresolved conflicts and issues with our parents and it is not necessarily their business to become involved in your - and your husbands process in that.

Yes it may be that your MIL had PNI, which she may not have had treated and this may have affected your husband as a child and implicates on how she treats him now

- but this is now his responsibility to process and untangle for himself how this has left him as a separate entity, a full adult, and this does not have to, nor should I feel it necessary to involve his mum now in his process.

By all means he - and you if what your husband is going through emotionally is reflecting on your life - have therapy or counseling and use this to talk about what happened when he was a child etc and of course how this affects his parenting and him as a adult and a husband and father.

I will say that PNI itself is mostly self limiting and if she had untreated PNI she probably does not have it now ( she could have on going depression or other mental health issues but probably not PNI ) although of course this would affect the person she is now and her attitudes and her attitudes toward her children

But this is your process and not really the business anymore of your parents or rather your husbands parents.

There is a saying that you can only change yourself and not other people and this is true and also you can only look at stuff yourself and not make others look at their emotional issues especially if they see no need to.

You can take responsibility for your own learning and change and of course if someone as close as a spouse is going through an emotional/mental process it will affect you and you can support and help them and make it clear to them that it is affecting you and how .................but you can not solve it for them or take responsibility for their learning, you can only deal with the stuff it brings up for you and how it implicates on your life.

You can not do the work for anyone - not your husband nor your MIL and especially if they feel no reason like your MIL to revisit the past or do any work on this.

I do not mean by this that neither you or your husband can not enter into dialog with your MIL about your husbands childhood etc if you feel it would help or is necessary?

However this will only be useful if it is not done with the idea of changing her or getting her to become self aware of anything but as a way of informing you of the facts as she sees them or what happened in the hope it will give more information and help move your husband on.

But bear in mind she may have no wish to ever talk about it, nor will it necessarily do her any good to do so and she may wall dismiss any attempt with jokes or minimizing what happened.

And this is of course her right. she does not have to talk about anything she does not want to.

I understand how hurtful recent events must be for your husband and how awful for you that this is now affecting your relationship with him and his children.

Perhaps relate counseling or other joint counseling or just counseling for your husband may help as such therapy can do much to unravel and come to terms with past and childhood hurts and issues without ever involving your parents or having any need to


and to tell your husband you understand how hurt he is and you support him but also make your husband aware of how deeply this is also affecting you and that you love and support him in the hear and now, he has his own family to support and love now.

I understand how hard this is for you and how hurt your husband must be feeling by his mothers attitude now. So to reassure him and support him is a good thing to do.

But I guess I am saying that there comes a time when we can not blame or involve parents in how things that happened in your childhood affected you and you have to sort it out for yourself.

I can say this as I am in my 50s and in many ways had a horrendous childhood and have in the past tried to deal with it by involving my parents in what this has caused for me and tried to get them to become more self aware and to change and to help sort it out for me .

But this has never worked. I am at peace now with my childhood etc but only through extensive therapy of my own, for me and I have long left my parents be. If they had wanted, or were able to look at what happened and their situation when I was a child and talked to me about it or even had therapy, they would have done it years ago.

They may have unresolved issues but they have long become set in a way of dealing with it that works for them - even if it worked badly and this spilled out in anger now and then as it did for your MIL, it still worked for them.

In fact for me I am talking way in the past as my dad is now dead and my mother has Alzheimer's. However it was up to me to sort it out for myself and go through my own process and not infringe on any peace they had achieved.

I hope I am making sense and you are not offended?

Of course I do not mean that as part of the process of sorting it out in your own mind and working out how to deal with it you can not come in here and talk to us about what is happening and what you are feeling - you are of course very welcome.

Veritee XX

[Veritee]

PS I would be interested in hearing how this is affecting your relationship with your husband and his relationship with his children.

i.e what is i that is the most difficult for you? Has he changed significantly and has he become less supportive of you etc - in what way is all his affecting you directly?

I was interested to hear that your child also had a nanny. If may not be coincidence that the fact that it appears that your husband having a nanny in some way affected him deeply, that you are yourself upset about the situation?

We all as mothers suffer guilt and worry about whether we did the right thing and as you say your nanny was because you had PNI, however mild, perhaps it would help to talk here about your own PNI and what happened to you with your first son? You say you regret some actions and hope your own children will not suffer from it?

We are always here to listen and very happy to however long ago it was, it does sometimes help to talk about it.

Veritee

[winegirl]

Noone in my family other than me has ever suffered with PNI. I am a true believer that after burth seretonin in the brain crashes (causing baby blues) and for many they just creep back up again over the following days. But for some they do not and this is what causes PNI.

This of course is just my theory, but I do believe that PNI is completely random (though circumstances can play a huge part), and will not be able to accept that it is genetic or down to a womans personality. (if that were the case, i would be the last person to get PNI!)

Interesting research though, and I am so happy that they are looking into women being treated or not as it maybe...