Good Friday evening (here), Confused 🙂

I just looked at your very first post in this thread, Dec 19, 2025- a bit more than 8.5 months ago.

3 days vs 18 months. What is the % of irl vs LD?

(Will have Gemini calculate it for me- on the phone I have Gemini, Copilot on the computer)..

Good Wed Evening, Nea 🙂

Sincerely, talking with you this evening is making me smile. I find our conversation meaningful and I’m not feeling alone right now.

My social life was wonderful, thrilling, really- since 2017 and then even more so, since Oct 2021. For 4 evenings per week, or more, I socialized, some the same people I saw frequently, and some néw people. It was lovely!

Things have changed since 2 places of business that I frequented and one where I worked every day (without pay, long story) closed.

My current social life is at the dog park 🐕🐕🐕 and there were a few outdoors music events where I 💃 (although not in a red dress, ha-ha). The last 2 events were truly lovely. Next event, and maybe last till next spring or summer, is in 10 days or so.

Back to what we are talking about, I was afraid that having mentioned personality disorders may have been too much. I’m glad you’re still open to some analysis.

I analyze, therefore, I am 😁

“They’re still discussing my husband”- the term triangulation comes to mind: your father is not confronting your husband directly at this time. He’s confronting him indirectly by trying to turn people against him.

“There’s a whole world outside of everything happening inside this house”-

And I think that that’s where you belong, in that Whole Outside World (WOW 🙂)

🌿✨️🌿 Anita

Good Tues night, Annie 🙂

Eight days ago, you wrote to me that you’d be happy to speak to me. You also wrote that day that you have little energy.

I’m still here if you want to speak to me.

🌿 Anita

One more thing Nea 🙂- everything I shared right above is just my understanding based on what you described in 9 pages. Please take only what feels true to you and leave anything that doesn’t fit. You’re seeing these dynamics with a lot of clarity, and I trust your ability to make your own conclusions about your family and what feels right for you. 🌿

Good Tuesday late morning, Nea 🙂

“Eventually, it became easier to comply than to keep questioning things”-

Your father (and please let me know if I’m wrong), like my mother, and like just one other person I know, is unable and unwilling to be questioned or confronted at all. I mean, not ever, not a tiny bit, no matter how gently.

I don’t like to be questioned or confronted myself. It’s unpleasant because it scratches my deep shame- wound from long ago.

But I’m able to endure the unpleasantness, that touch of old shame, because I want to do right by others- to help others, or at least, to not harm other people.

But for some people, their deep shame wound is still so raw, or the memory of it is so alive, that their first priority is to silence and punish anyone who asks them to look within.

And there’s nothing you can do to change that. Neither one (your father, my mother..) is going to pay a therapist for the ‘pleasure’ of looking within, which means, to feel that deep shame within, and correct their behaviors.

You mentioned that your father and husband were “genuinely close” in the beginning. I believe that the genuine closeness- on your father’s side- depended on a 100% do-as-I-say compliance on the part of your husband

Fast forward, that heavenly bubble of genuine closeness between them is gone and restoring it is impossible, says I- because in your father’s mind, your husband is guilty and the only thing that can be restored is compliance, not closeness.

You mentioned your mother making comments that had hurt your husband. Is she trying to avoid your father’s anger by joining him against your husband?

🤔 Anita

Nea, I’m still smiling 🙂 that I’m replying only eight minutes after your message.

When you wrote that your husband was “sometimes reassured but mostly silenced by yelling,” that really stood out. Yelling isn’t just loud talking — it’s a dominance tactic. It shuts down questions, stops discussion, overrides doubt, forces compliance, and intimidates. Your father wasn’t simply overconfident; he was controlling the situation through intimidation.

When someone raises reasonable doubts and is met with yelling instead of a real conversation, it becomes impossible to think clearly or make a free choice. Yelling doesn’t reassure — it silences. And it makes sense that both you and your husband ended up following his lead even when you weren’t fully comfortable.

You’re seeing this dynamic with a lot of clarity, Nea. I’m here with you as you keep untangling it.

Anita

Good late Sunday evening, Nea:

I find myself with a two questions this evening, but please, feel free to not answer. I’d like to keep talking with you whether you answers these, or not.

1) You said in your most recent post today, and in your original post, that you and your husband were “led to believe” certain things that didn’t materialize.

Do you mean that your father intentionally misrepresented things in regard to you choosing to rent your place out, and in regard to your husband job opportunity?

2) The other family member who said: ‘If your husband truly cared about you…’ didn’t say ‘if your father…’

Has he or she been a direct or indirect recipient of your father’s “generosity”?

🤔 Anita

Hi Nea 🙂

More later, but for now, about the family member’s advice — it’s emotionally understandable but not valid. Saying “if he truly cares, he should let it go for now” is basically encouraging your husband to abandon his boundaries, swallow his legitimate hurt, and pretend nothing happened. That would be self‑erasure, and it would damage the marriage long‑term.

What you are realizing — and articulating beautifully — is that your anxiety relief cannot come from your husband’s severe emotional sacrifice. It has to come from your own internal grounding, like you said.

Anita