I actually forgot about this blog until just recently. I apologize. It's been a crazy few months. We graduated from college, moved across the country, began working, have taken tests to continue school, and applied for more schooling. Things have started to settle down, so I'll write about when we were engaged.
On a side note, we have discovered my mother-in-law had an emotional incest relationship with my husband. This only aided in the abuse by his father, and it helps explain why his mom pretty much had a meltdown when we got married.
These first few posts are boring because we haven't gotten to the extreme behavior - that came when we got married. It's ongoing too - some pretty crazy things have happened in the last month! I need to get past these beginning stages and get to the better examples.
Okay, so my husband proposed to me on the beach at sunset. In fact, he proposed at my favorite beach. It was perfect! The only annoying thing was, his family would not leave it alone! I suspected he would propose because of their strange behavior. They called constantly to check up on him; they even called to say they were around his ex-girlfriend (again...don't really know what else to call her - not really an "ex," but that's what she is in my in-laws' eyes - even though my husband doesn't feel like he dated her at all), and they walked up to her to let her know what he was doing. Sooooo annoying!
Anyway, despite their annoying actions, we had an excellent proposal. You see, I loooooove the beach. If I could get paid to be a beach bum, I would do it. I mean, I really really love the beach. And the particular beach we got engaged at happens to be one of my most favorite places. In fact, I always talked about it with my husband before we ever went there together. It's pretty much the best! He did a good job!
Moving on....
Once we got engaged, planning the wedding came. We got married in a different state than we were both from because it was always my dream, so we ended up having two receptions - one where we got married, and one where we are from. My in-laws insisted they take care of everything for the reception at the place we got married. I didn't mind, but I made sure to tell them what we wanted for that reception.
We figured it all out -the flowers, the decorations, the cakes, the songs, etc. Somehow, they conveniently couldn't find things we wanted. They claimed the flowers we wanted didn't come in the color we wanted. Gerber Daises don't come in a dark red? Yeah they do! Well my mother-in-law didn't want her sons wearing that dark red with their suits because she thought it would look bad. Well, let me tell you that they wore dark red roses at our other reception, and it looked way better than the white she wanted because the white wasn't as white as their shirts. Anyway....lies! Well, I actually didn't realize all of this until after we were married. Back then, I totally believed the florist couldn't get the gerber daises in dark red. Booooo! Anyway, they also didn't get the photographer we liked for their own reasons. They didn't listen about the number of people who gave us RSVPs, so they ended up with way too much food. We only wanted a bride's cake because there weren't as many people at this one, but they got a groom's cake too. We also wanted it to be more like a dinner. We didn't want a DJ or anything because we just wanted to play music in the background and then leave after a couple of hours because it was our wedding night! But nooooo, they got a DJ and we didn't get to leave until about 2 in the morning. We didn't get to our hotel until about 2:30/3. Partly, it was because his dad insisted we open our presents there in front of everyone instead of opening them later at our house. It's just so irritating when I realize how controlling they were then!
Okay, so that's me ranting and raving about them being controlling for our wedding. We still had a great wedding. The wedding itself was everything I ever wanted. The reception just wasn't what we wanted. And they were full of excuses and lies to get what they wanted. The reception in our home state was everything we wanted - my family actually listened to us.
Well, while we were engaged, the same things kept happening.
At his brother's graduation, they were very irritating with his "ex" (whatever she is...lol). We were engaged for crying out loud! They told me to "flash my ring" so she could see it. They told us we needed to act certain ways for her to see. After, they even told us we needed to go find her so she could see us, the ring, and the fact that we were engaged. That was when my husband finally said that was enough, and they needed to stop. It shut them up for the rest of that day at least.
That wasn't the real problem - their obsessions with his exes (girls he hung around, haha...whatever you can make of it, since he didn't date them, but they sure like to think he did) were just another annoyance. The problem came in my husband's lying. I mean, we were about to get married, so I became really concerned about his lying. I would bring it up to talk about. My husband would get really upset. He was still in denial at this point. Anyway, it got brought up quite a number of times, and every time the same thing would happen.
My husband would get really really upset. I'm talking crying, yelling, being sarcastic. He would blame me, get mad at me. Lying would usually get brought up around his family because they would bring it out in him. That's when he would get caught in lies, and his bad habits seemed to escalate around his family. I know why now - that's the only way he knew to act around him. Well, we would end up away from his family for hours. Sometimes we would sit outside, sometimes we would go for a walk, sometimes we would be in our room. Then, his family would get involved. We wouldn't ask them to get involved; they would just force their way in. I heard the same things over and over.
They would blame me, deny he had a problem, put me down, and justify lying. I mean, they would make me feel terrible. They were already making me feel like there was something wrong with me. I can't tell you how many times I heard that there was something wrong with me, that I needed to realize how lucky I was to have my husband, that I needed to get a grip/get ahold of myself, that I was turning my husband into a liar because I was unstable, etc. Everything was always on me; always! Now I know they were abusive at these times. It's as simple as that. They got into my head and made me believe I was the problem. They were slowly changing me, destroying me, messing with my mind.
Well, that's it for when we were engaged. Not too much, but enough for me to look back at now and see that I was beginning to be destroyed. They were manipulative, controlling, dishonest, cunning, deceitful, and whatever else you can see in this post. They were and still are abusive.
Now we can get into when we were married. This will definitely come in many, many posts. This is still going on, but please know that my husband and I are great. There came a turning point a year into our marriage in which he could see it all. We don't have anything to do with them these days. We haven't for years, but that doesn't stop them. You'll see. It will all unfold.
I want to say sorry in advance if these become kind of scatter-brained. I'll try to keep it all in order of our marriage, but there may be posts mixed in that aren't in chronological order.
