My husband and I are generally happy together. We’ve been married 3 years and together for 8 years. We have a good foundation of love, respect, and (generally) good communication. I can’t quite put my finger on what bothers me about this situation, so I’m not sure how to communicate with him about it.
To start off, I have an anxious attachment style and an aspect is that I tend to feel competitive/jealous. It’s something I’ve really worked on over the years, as it’s unwarranted and unhealthy. It took me time and therapy though to process that I am not competing with everything/everyone one in my husbands life for his attention.
The current issue. My husband and his oldest sister were really close growing up, but they grew apart. She ended up moving out at 17 due to issues with their parents. Through adult hood she has been pretty distant and the relationship has definitely been one sided (with my husband putting in time and energy to visit, call, etc that is not really reciprocated). We have even visited her in her home city to have her make extremely minimal time for us.
This has hurt him a lot in the past but he always just moves forward and keeps idolizing her. He puts a lot of effort in to her birthday for example (but little in to mine or his other siblings). It has almost seemed at times that because she rejects him he puts in more effort.
Last year she gave birth and it seems to have changed how she feels about family. She invited my husband to visit over the holidays and he went. I am 6 months pregnant myself and did not travel so to the pandemic. I wasn’t overjoyed with it, as it meant I spent the holidays alone, but I did agree to it (note: I find I do this, agree to something and then latter resent it).
Since he’s gotten home he talks non stop about his sister. Almost like he has a crush on her (again, wondering if this is an aspect of my jealousy to read it that specific way). Also, every time we are discussing parenting/baby logistics, all of his thoughts/ideas are ‘Sister did x’, ‘Sister said y’. Ok...
I’m happy he had an experience hanging out with her and her kid, because previously he had little/no experience with children/infants. I’m also happy he has ideas about parenting. But if I hear her name one more time I’m going to scream. This is coming up 4-5 times a day for the last week. I feel like saying ‘hey, why don’t you go have a baby with her then?’
It feels like his sister is totally perfect in his eyes. Which gets obnoxious. It also feels like my experiences and ideas don’t matter. Underlying that, it’s beginning to feel like these conversations are power struggles and not like we are collaborating.
I guess in some ways I’ve resented his idolizing if her for tears, but it never seemed like a big issue because it came up infrequently. The last few months (3-4) it’s an increasing issue and I’m feeling really resentful and like I’m competing and loosing. Since he visited there (the last 3 weeks) it feels totally over the top. He barely even mentions the other family members he saw when he talks about the trip.
I’m still in personal therapy and we are starting couples therapy next month, partly because of this. I don’t know how to talk about this without saying ‘hey, I feel like you are obsessed with your sister’ which I think will make him defensive.
Can you help me know what to say to him? Are there other ways to understand what’s going on?
TLDR: husband has always idolized his older sister. They grew apart in adulthood (on her side) but have recently reconnected. She’s all I hear about these days and I’m feeling slighted.
Submitted January 09, 2021 at 03:35PM by Resentful_in_Dayton https://ift.tt/3nw0a0E
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