fbpx
Menu

I've lost my voice

Home→Forums→Emotional Mastery→I've lost my voice

New Reply
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • April 17, 2016 at 8:04 am #102041
    doggyB
    Participant

    Three years ago I moved to another country to make a life here with my husband. I left behind a profession I loved, my family, and friends. Although I am working towards it, I am currently not able to practice in that profession here and, out of financial necessity, am currently working in a job I feel little pride in doing.

    My husband’s family are very different to me and I feel like they are disappointed with his choice to marry me. When differences have arose, I have always kept quiet to avoid any potential conflict and this has caused me to resent them visiting. His mother is particularly opinionated and although some of her comments enrage me, I simply withdraw. It’s gone on for so long that I don’t know how to speak up without it being an issue, I don’t know how to express myself anymore without coming across as totally irrational because of the pent up anger. Me and my husband have a child now, and there are certain boundaries I want to establish but I am useless in conflict situations and my husband always feels guilty about doing anything that goes against their grain…

    In the last year I have developed some fairly decent friendships with some of the other expats in town, but I find myself unable to connect on the same level that I did with friendships in my home country. I just feel like I’ve lost my identity, and I don’t know how to speak up and find it again. I used to be very strong, confident and social, but I don’t recognise myself as that person anymore, instead I feel weak, insecure and incapable. How can I rekindle my fire again and feel confident to be myself even if that’s not the person those around me want me to be?

    April 17, 2016 at 8:14 am #102042
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dogbat:

    Your question is how to rekindle your fire and feel confident to be yourself even though the people around you don’t want you to be yourself. My answer is Courage, the courage you have to have to come out of submission.

    You adapted to the new country, new family, unfulfilling job by submitting, by being passive, and so you became naturally angry. Holding that anger in wreaks havoc in a person, any person.

    So no other way than to assert yourself and continue to assert yourself in spite of the objection of the people who want you to submit (they, especially mother in law, will not be happy!)

    Can you come up with opportunities you can see now, situations where you can assert yourself next? You can practice here by planning what to say and do differently, assertively in a situation where you were submissive, passive before.

    We can look into such a situation and then prepare for the next, following the response to your assertiveness.

    anita

    April 17, 2016 at 9:41 am #102048
    doggyB
    Participant

    Thank you for your thoughtful response Anita, you have really understood my question. It feels great to have my feelings validated and what you’ve wrote hits the nail on the head. I have been passive. I have done so to keep the peace, or to be accepted (although I realise in doing so I’ve not been accepted for who I really am), but many of the situations I can think of being passive has been to my own detriment and at the expense of my needs/happiness. I’m not really sure why I’m so afraid of conflict here. I feel like I used to be assertive but after 3 years of submission I’ve lost that skill.

    The most obvious examples I can think of are all with my in-laws. I grew up in a very liberal environment, my husband did not. Despite this, my husband shares a similar world view to me, although he is not open about this with his family. He lets their bigoted comments slide because whilst he disagrees, hearing them say such things is normal to him and he sees no point arguing. For me to hear these racist, homophobic, or intolerant comments about anyone who isn’t a Christian, is not normal. Whilst this is unacceptable to me, I am ashamed to say I have stood by and said nothing about it, which could be interpreted by them as my agreement with what they are saying – this couldn’t be further from the truth. I especially do not want my son to be taught being hateful towards anyone different to you is ok.

    The only time I have ever said anything (or typed as it was in an email) was when my mother in-law repeatedly sent videos preaching Christianity to me. I told her I did not share her beliefs and asked that she would respect that. She said she would not send me anymore videos and for sometime it did seem like she was respecting my differences. However, after 6 months, she started sending the same videos on a family chat group and responding with prayer demands and Christian praise to any news I would share (usually about our son). The group includes my husband, his father, mother, sister and myself. The only person making any unprovoked religious references is his mother, and I feel like she’s purposely doing so to do disrespect my request, but because I don’t want to cause a scene, I say nothing.

    There are many other examples of passive behaviour from me with his family, but I don’t want to rant and turn this into a huge monologue of complaints against them when I know the main problem lies with me! I want to take action to express myself but have been silent for so long I don’t know how to begin, especially when dealing with such sensitive topics. Do you have any suggestions for how I can assert myself in these situations?

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by doggyB.
    April 17, 2016 at 10:07 am #102051
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dogbat:

    You are very welcome. In your quest to be assertive in your three year old circumstances, you are alone. And so, it will be a “one woman show” of courage and determination.

    About realistic expectations: it seems clear to me, and let me know if you agree, that no matter what you say or do, for as long as you are not a Christian, your mother in law will not approve of you. No way, from your description of her and the family, no way she could have approved of you in the past or in the future, you not being a Christian, and the kind of Christian she thinks you need to be (the kind that she is). So, short of you sending similar videos back to her and to others, and expressing her kind of Christian praise, she will continue to disapprove of you.

    If you agree, then trying in any way, shape or form to earn her approval is a lost cause (unless again, you do the above which will be at a huge cost to your well being). It is important for you to fully accept it. Any hopes to earn her disapproval will stand in your way of asserting yourself effectively and be mentally well.

    Having no such hopes, may allow you the courage that you need because as you assert yourself with her, there is no risk of losing her future approval as such is not possible.

    What you do have going for you in his situation is that your mother in law is Supposed (and I say, supposed) to be loving and kind according to the basic teachings of Christianity, as taught by the stories about Jesus being kind to the unsaved, such as prostitutes. So, she is… supposed to be kind to you. If she forgets that, I will remind her of it. (When she says bigoted things maybe it is time to remind her of the story about Jesus reaching out to prostitutes with kindness, you can look it up).

    Regarding her religious references and sharing, you can absolutely demand that she does not make any such to you or to your child but whenever you leave your child with her without your supervision, you can’t check on what she tells him. And she will probably tell him things.

    Another thing going for you is that you can reward her for respecting your assertions and let her suffer the consequences of not respecting your assertions by limiting her access to your child, for one.

    Assert yourself gently but firmly with her, and with the others, do what you can do. Exit that family online chat group if you don’t want to see those videos and references, start a new, alternative chat group for you and those who agree to not post religious references.

    Assert yourself calmly but firmly. Please do post again. I will be glad to read further about your future assertions and keep giving you my input for as long as you’d like it.

    anita

    April 17, 2016 at 10:15 am #102054
    Anonymous
    Guest

    * Correction, for: “Any hopes to earn her disapproval will stand in your way of asserting yourself effectively and be mentally well. ” Any hopes to earn her approval, I meant.
    anita

    April 17, 2016 at 10:34 am #102055
    doggyB
    Participant

    Anita, thank you for your responses and for shedding light on a situation that I have been struggling with for a long time. You write so clearly and are so insightful! You really have been wonderful to talk to, thank you. I think I have been longing to be accepted by his family when actually, I agree with what you said, that approval is most likely a lost cause. I agree too with what you said about access to our son, but unfortunately my husband is not on the same page as me there so it’s created a me against them situation and he feels in the middle. I have relied on him to express my needs to them and he has failed to so, and rather than address them myself, I opted to stay silent. I am beginning to realise that this needs to change. Even if it leads me and my husband down a rocky path. For my sanity I can’t continue as I have been doing.

    I will be thinking about how I can tactfully ask her to stop on the group chat. Sometimes the religious comments are extremely baltant, and other times they are slight. The other day me and my husband hiked to the top of a mountain and he asked me to share a picture of the view with them. I did, and her response was that it is ‘absolutely God made’. I know this is a small reference and perhaps I should brush it off as maybe on this occasion I’m being petty, but her inability to say anything to me without it being religious in nature has made me feel very intolerant to any reference of God coming from her.

    My husband knows how I feel but he thinks I am being difficult if I say anything about it because he knows it will cause conflict. In that regard I feel like I’m caught in the middle of respecting his wishes or being true to myself.

    Thank you for your time Anita, I really appreciate the thought and care in your messages.

    April 17, 2016 at 10:47 am #102056
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dogbat:

    You are welcome. Like I wrote before, it has to be a “one woman show”- in that I meant that I can see that your husband has not been helpful in your quest to assert yourself and is not likely to be. After all, he himself is submissive to his mother, so submission to her is what he encourages in you.

    The fact that your husband is submissive to his mother (common and understandable as a boy needs his mother’s approval so badly. But I am impressed that he was assertive enough to marry a non Christian, so he has it in him to follow his own values and will), means that he is not likely to fight her… or you. He is not likely to fight you as you proceed with this One Woman Show.

    Nothing you can do, and neither do you have the right, to tell your mother in law to not use the word “god”- as annoying as it is for you. When you decided to move in to your husband’s country and live close to his family, you also chose that kind of talk to be in your life. You will have to make peace with it, to accept it. And to assert yourself where and when it is fair for you to do so. You can figure out circumstances when to accept and when to assert, ahead of time so that you are prepared.

    anita

    April 17, 2016 at 11:01 am #102057
    doggyB
    Participant

    Thanks again Anita, I know have to make peace with many elements that I am currently frustrated with. This is my difficulty, I’ve become so irritated by any interaction with them that I don’t even recognise which battles are the right ones to fight. A non-religious example, but something that also bothers me, is that they will always specify a person’s race in conversation. Even if they don’t add anything derogatory to their sentence, just the labelling ‘white’ ‘black’ ‘indian’ I find totally irrelevant, unnecessary and furthers to feed any stereotypes they have built about people of that race. I really struggle knowing what I must accept as by-product of moving here or where I have a valid point to say something.

    April 17, 2016 at 11:21 am #102058
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dogbat:

    When you built the anger inside, understandably (as I would as well, in your situation), that anger, like any intense emotion, creates a fog that stands in your way to see clearly. In this case the fog makes it difficult for you to see where and what to accept and what to reject and when to assert yourself. But it is possible for you to clear that fog, when calm, and if you’d like through our correspondence, over time.

    Pent up anger and frustration of three years is not going to dissipate and disappear in an instance, or in one day. But the beginning of the process of seeing clearly has already started and you are on your way!

    You can start listing the different behaviors that bother you on your mother in law’s end, one by one, put it aside so to get calm and get back to it later, deciding which to accept, which to reject and how.

    For example, her mentioning the race of each person, my goodness, what can possibly be done about that, I am wondering as I type. I know that kind of talk, I heard it. What can you do… sure you can say: “Why do you have to mention the race? Why not just say a name?” You can say this, calmly and see how she responds. Why not, as long as you say so calmly, as in trying to understand her thinking on this (if there is thinking, it is probably automatic, what she heard, what she says). But who knows, maybe you will make her think.

    Let’s keep corresponding, over days and weeks, or longer. No way to solve this three years problems in one day.

    anita

    April 17, 2016 at 11:25 am #102059
    doggyB
    Participant

    Thank you Anita, I really appreciate your suggestions, and your plan to write down the specific behaviours is a good idea. I will keep in touch. Keep well.

    April 17, 2016 at 12:14 pm #102061
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear dogbat:

    Thank you and as I wrote, I am here so do write back anytime. Hopefully you will have a few items on your list by then.

    Take care1

    anita

    April 18, 2016 at 5:15 am #102096
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi dogbat,

    I know I’m late to the party here, but a few suggestions:

    1. When your MIL says something racist or unkind, tell her “You are actually turning me AWAY from Christianity when you do/say that”. She will double check herself!!

    2. If she goes on and on (and on) about “Praaaiiissse JAY-zuz!” again say, “You are actually turning me OFF from Christianity when you do that”. If she is Evangelical she will STOP and PAUSE and THINK. Tell her Less is More with you. You are more likely to accept Jesus/God the quieter people are about Them. LOL

    3. If she says “God” and/or “Jesus” more than once in her visit with you say gently, “I can only handle God/Jesus in small doses”

    4. Alternately, you can Ignore. Let her talk herself out. The awkward silence after her religious/racist diatribe will speak volumes. Don’t feed the beast! Don’t give that kind of talk any attention. Don’t “reward” her with positivity or negativity.

    5. Or, Use the Broken Record Technique. For each racist comment say, “You’re getting the reputation of a racist in town, this is a bad habit, I would stop.” And only that.

    OK, Good Luck!

    Inky

    • This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Inky.
  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Please log in OR register.