Is it OK to hate someone for what they have done to someone else?

[alice1966]

Hi all,

 

This was going to be a very long post, but I think it really just came down to this one question.

 

Before I met my father-in-law, my DH told me about his childhood and how is dad physically and mentally abused him (he used to get drunk and beat him, leave him alone on Christmas day, make him sleep on the street, stuff like that) and it made me never want to meet him.

 

DH and FIL have since become 'best friends' (even though FIL is still a manipulative swine) and I'm expected to play happy families with him. I'm finding this very difficult. I'd like to know what you all think you would do in this situation. Should you just leave the past in the past, even though you live every day with your husbands emotional scars that his father caused?

 

Thanks for any advice, I could really use some.

[Sista12]

Well This is a tough one, I think now that you are married to his son, you have to let it be. I know what he did was very bad, but this was a father-son problem.

As long as your DH is okay with him now, I guess you should be happy too. I know sometimes parents can be very unfair, but still they are your parents, from where I come from we cant question them, we need to respect them. Anyhoo, For a successful marriage I think you should let the past go. Its a very good thing that they are like bestfriends now, maybe he has realized his mistakes. you should be positive at all times. I understand you that this might be very upsetting seeing him with his depression, but now that you are in his life you need to help him out of it. You cant separate both of them now, can you? and that wont be wise too. After all hes his father.

 

I hope my answer helped you, please stay positive and help your husband get over his past.

[lerenard]

I think if you don't like him - you shouldn't play "happy family" with him. That is not healthy.

But if your dislike only comes from what you know about him from other people, and he is nice to you... why not? If he is not that mean drunk anymore, he deserves a second chance.

 

Why you call him manipulative swine?

If so - just leave him, be polite when you see him, but other then that - you don't live with him, so let it go.

[alice1966]

Thanks for the replies. See, if the past was truly the past, I think I could deal with it. I say he manipulative because of some of the things he still things he does. For example: as soon as DH moved out (to move in with me) FIL sold his car so he has to keep calling DH for rides everywhere. He has 30+ photos on his walls of his new wife's kids but none of DH. He gave DH's phone number to a very stalker-ish ex-girlfriend, (he had to change all his details to get away from this girl) knowing that I would answer her phone call because DH was driving, (we were coming home from a holiday). I've also heard them arguing because FIL is convinced 'everyone beats their kids, it's just no one talks about it', and tells DH all the time that he had a privileged upbringing. Then DH will tell me how great his dad was because he let him live there after his mom left. I'm sorry, but I don't see a parent 'letting' their child live with them as being an outstanding achievement. They've got such a messed up relationship, and I don't think either of them see it.

 

I can deal with people being sorry for their mistakes, but I'm struggling to deal with someone who refuses to admit he did anything wrong.

 

Oh, I have to share this: FIL told me he didn't understand why his first wife left him after he had "molded her into the perfect housewife".

[lerenard]

Well, in that case - block him from your life. And why can`t your husband see what his FIL is doing? And why would he like to be his best friends with all that given? Jeeez... How would he feel if you have kids later and you leave them with his FIL and he beats them?

[alice1966]

EXACTLY! God, I thought it was me! DH just DOES NOT see what's going on. You've put my mind at ease that this isn't just going on in my head, thank you. I was starting to think that I was just look for excuses to not like him.

[lerenard]

he should get his own car too, by the way.

[alice1966]

FIL insists he can't drive anymore because he's 'too ill'. That's crap, by the way.

[lerenard]

I think he is very controlling from what you said.

If he is so ill - he should be in hospital. Have you talked with you husband about how you feel recently?

[alice1966]

Hospital? Ha! He's on holiday for a month at the expense of the taxpayers. We've not talked about it very recently, but we have discussed it. DH just tells me he's the only family member who ever stuck around for him (which is true) so he doesn't want to lose him. Every other member of DH family lives miles away. Also, how do you address this kind of issue? It kind of feels like it's not my place to say anything, he's not my father, and I'm generally not involved in anything that goes on between them.

[lerenard]

Losing him and supporting his manipulations and closing eyes on it are different things.

If he has nothing to do with you personally - then I would say let it go. But also set your boundaries and don't let him cross it.

[savignon]

I would set your personal boundaries and gently encourage him (your husband) to do the same. I'm sure its important on some level for your husband to feel that his father has changed and they're "great friends"....doesn't that feel much more healing than "he's using you and taking advantage of you after a lifetime of abuse"? That can be very hard to see and accept--understandably!! So I would be careful of not endorsing his denial and at the same time not living in it with him...does that make sense? At some point if he has some feelings that he's not dealing with, then suggest counseling and support him through that. In the meantime, I would be polite but not "fake family" with the father and understanding that your husband has some very difficult feelings under the surface that must be very hard for him to be in touch with and address properly.

[DancingFool]

The relationship between your husband and his father is obviously complicated and you would probably be wise to keep out of it. Set boundaries for yourself and for any children you may have in terms of not being left alone with the FIL, but when it comes to your husband, he is a grown man. Meaning, he needs to arrive at his own opinions and conclusions. They may not be something you like or agree with, unfortunately. Hating your FIL and harping to your husband about it will do nothing more than sour your life and your marriage. Don't let the FIL have that much influence in your personal life. He is not worth it. Your husband needs to sort himself out on his own. You can't protect him or fix him.

[Fudgie]

It sounds like a messed up situation. Don't get involved unless you want your marriage to sour. Stay out of it. By all means, hate FIL, he sounds like a lazy pig, but I wouldn't harp on your husband. But don't let any of your money or time get sucked into loser FIL. Keep your distance and don't have a relationship with him.

 

I hate my boyfriend's grandparents and don't have a relationship with them, my choice. They always are wanting to see me and all that crap but I just don't and I don't care if their feelings are hurt, not my problem. My boyfriend sees them once in a blue moon but I don't tag along and he doesn't care. That being said, my boyfriend doesn't like my parents. He has harped on me in the past. I would never expect or want him to play "happy family" with them and me. I just ask that he doesn't pitch a fit when I myself go to see them.

 

our relationship is doing poorly as a result and we will probably break up over it. I'm serious. Your husband may very well do the same with you. It's a big issue.

 

Don't want to end your marriage? Stay away from FIL, don't play "happy family", restrict your future children from FIL as much as you can (you have to, he is an abuser), and let your husband go see him if he wants, but not with you or the kids.

[lavenderdove]

You can't have a relationship for another person. The relationship your husband and his father make is THEIR relationship and not yours. I know it is upsetting, but you can't think and feel for another person. Their thoughts and feelings are their own. You can express your OPINION, but once you've done that (once), you need to drop it because the other person has a right to their own thoughts, feelings, opinions etc.

 

You can determine what YOUR relationship with the FIL with be. As in, you can tell your husband what you think, and that you'd prefer not to have the FIL deeply enmeshed in your lives or at your house all the time or whatever it is that annoys you. But it is reasonable to expect that your husband may want him involved in major holiday events etc.

 

You also need to consider human nature. As in, the harder you try to push to break up that relationship, the harder your husband may feel the need to defend it, because the relationship is obviously filling some kind of personal need for him, or he may feel loyalty to the father for no other reason than he's his father and he feels it wrong to cut him off for that reason alone. YOU may not feel that way, but he does.

 

So you need to learn and understand personal boundaries, and recognize you are invading your husband's boundaries if you try to tell him how to feel or control his relationship with his father. Work on getting a sense of detachment from this, and negotiate reasonable boundaries. For example, if hearing about the father drives you crazy, it would be OK to ask that he not tell you about negative things with his father because it drives you crazy. But if he says he wants to go visit his father or do something with his father or talk on the phone with him a few times a week, don't try to interfere with that because that is about his need to connect with his father and doesn't really relate to you.

 

If the problem is he wants his father in your face and at your house all the time, what you do there is draw your line and negoatiate a frequency you are comfortable with, and if he wants more than that, he'll need to go out to the father's house rather than bringing him to yours. And if he won't negotiate and insists the father invade your space all the time, then it becomes the hard choice of whether you feel strongly enough about that to leave the relationship or not because you don't want his father in your face all the time. Only you can decide whether that is worth breaking the relationship up or not. Some people are so obnoxious that there is no way i'd tolerate them in my face all the time and would divorce if they insisted on it, but frankly I would tolerate an obnoxious in-law around sometimes if it was really important to my spouse.

 

So you need to try to negotiate, and if you can't come to agreement, that is when you might need to make a hard choice to leave. But trying to bully him or argue him into feeling the same way about his father as you do will just never work so it's a waste of time and causes conflict.

[Liraele]

I can relate to this on a certain level, because this is how I feel about my step-daughter's mother. I don't hate her, but I dislike that she has used her daughter as a confidant (from the time she was very young), as a tool to hurt this girls father, has projected her own mental illness onto her, and has put this child through things that no child should ever have to deal with... let alone should her mother, the person who is most meant to protect her, be the instigator of those things. All that being said, and regardless of my feelings, I always do what is best for the daughter; that includes being polite to her mother, and not maligning her - especially to the daughter, even though I (and her father) do not get that same courtesy in return. While you aren't dealing with a child, I do think that you would benefit from a similar approach. It's just for your husband's sake, rather than a child's.

 

I will tell you that, personally, I have never found hate to be a beneficial emotion. It keeps you tied to things in a way that tends to be unhealthy, and it tends to encourage absorption of those negative traits that you were abhorred of in the first place.

 

I think it is OK to dislike him. I think it is OK to not be his "best friend." However, if your husband has made his peace with him, you should be able to be polite, at the least. You don't have to agree with his father, how he is, or what he wants in order to be supportive of your husband. It's just going to be up to you to find that balance. I'm sure it's there.

[alice1966]

Thanks for all your advice. It's kind of made me realize that I don't really want them to fight, or cut contact or anything. I think I just want to hear DH say, just once 'my dad wasn't a good father'. I think it would give me some peace of mind to know that DH knows that, because honestly, sometimes it seems like he's been brainwashed and it scares me to think that he might think for a single second there was anything normal about his childhood.

 

Most of you have recommended being polite and civil to FIL, which is what I will do. But it is so hard being civil with someone that did what he did to someone I love. It's in the past, I know. But sometimes I do believe the only reason the physical abuse ever stopped is because DH took up boxing as a teenager and wasn't a push-over anymore.

[Fudgie]

I've come to understand that one of the most important things you have to do in life is to be nice to people you hate. We all have to do it. I love my boss but I have to take care of many mean people who are violent, nasty, and stupid, you know, good for nothing people who have contributed nothing of value to the earth and just like to hurt others. Yet I have to be polite, civil, even when they yell at me for dumb things "I WANT TO SMOKE WHY WONT YOU LET ME SMOKE IN HERE", and all of that because they are patients and require medical care.

 

this is just life. I know it's hard, really I do. This is why I personally don't have a relationship with my boyfriend's grandparents because they abused him too and I hate them for it. I'm not telling you to get over your hate or to befriend this guy just fake it til you make it. You don't have to see him outside of major holidays if are don't want to. Seeing people you hate less makes it easier to fake it around them.

[alice1966]

I have to take care of many mean people who are violent, nasty, and stupid, you know, good for nothing people who have contributed nothing of value to the earth and just like to hurt others. Yet I have to be polite, civil, even when they yell at me for dumb things "I WANT TO SMOKE WHY WONT YOU LET ME SMOKE IN HERE", and all of that because they are patients and require medical care.

 

Wow, that's inspirational. I don't have a lot of tolerance with people I suppose. Maybe it's something I should work on

[Fudgie]

I used to snap a lot and not have a lot of tolerance. When I started my job, I realized that the epitome of professionalism is being respectful to people you hate or people who are mean to you. Now it applies to a lot in life, I'm finding.

 

I by no means and advocate playing happy family or what. Because I don't do that. I will suck up when I have to but then set boundaries so I don't have to be around people I dislike. See what I mean? I am nice to my boyfriend's grandparents but I make it so I rarely see them and I don't put an effort into keeping a relationship with them.

 

Truly, this is how I deal with people I don't like and it is working for me.