Really Needing Advice Please!

[MikeW]

...but Where we are new here our posts are being checked by the moderator..

Yeah, don't take it personal… its just the way the system works until you (meaning your account) has 50 posts. Once there, you have more privileges and your posts don't get held for moderation. Looking forward to all you guys have to say.

[BarryAndBryan]

His post finally showed up....it's a little out of order though....but hopefully this will she'd the light from his side...thanks guys----Barry

[meridannight]

i just wanted to say that i think it's very good you both read this thread. not just one side posting, absorbing feedback, and then deciding on his own. you both are concerned, and it was the right thing to do to involve both of you.

[Butterfingers]

I know I haven't explained myself well...so I'm going to try to go into a little more detail. I'm not trying to be selfish or not be compassionate to the situation. He is hurting still but has started moving on with time. My husband mourning his father has never been the problem either has his mother's mourning. He has accepted it and we work through it day by day. His mother has never been Okay with the fact that he is gay. To the point that we got married and told her after through fact. She is using her husband's death as a way for someone to take care of her. At first, yes of course, she needed help, but over time she started using the situation to stop having to do anything for herself. She will call my husband away from her to make her coffee, to go to the front door to get her mail, even call him down to throw away a piece of trash when the trash can is sitting directly beside of her. He wants to leave here even more than I do, and constantly tells me he wants our lives back....that he knows it's gotten to the point that she is only taking advantage of him. THIS is why he is so depressed. She is making him guilty. Making him feel like he can't or shouldn't leave. He has a sister that lives an hour away that stopped coming to visit for this very reason.

You didn't get in to this overnight, you can't "cut and run" (I refer to both of you). If she is able to be alone and has no physical problems that require constant care you and your husband need to make a plan, to gradually separate yourselves from his mom.
It can start with a walk or a drive to the store, be on the same page, have him tell her that you will be back at a certain time, turn off your cell phones and go.

Do this more frequently and for longer periods of time, go on dates, and plan on moving, even if you have to rent a room.

[Camfer]

Now is the time to plan your transition. Set up a budget on what you need to get your own place. Save up for it; that should be easy since you have few expenses. Start having longer and longer periods of time that both of you are away from the house and she is alone. Take a weekend trip just the two of you. You have to get her to see her own independence. You have to asset your independence. Start saying no to her petty requests. Stop enabling her. Write down your plan to transition out and follow it. The plan alone will help you.

[MikeW]

Hello, this is Bryan, Barry's husband…..

Hey Bryan, Barry's Husband! Welcome to the forum… and thank you for taking the time to write all that out. It was very informative and helpful.

So, first off, let me offer my condolences regarding your father's passing. I hope you know that you are in no way responsible for your father's death and that, although your parting was not ideal, it was good. I can understand your anger and frustration -- that IS part of the grieving process.

I do *know* what it is like to loose someone you love suddenly and unexpectedly. My first partner died of a brain tumor (that had just been diagnosed the week before) on valentine's day, 1997. A couple years later my best gay friend committed suicide… More recently (2010) my second partner passed of a heart attack (although we had been separated for some years, we were still close friends). All to say, yes, these sudden deaths are shocks to the whole of our system, our lives and sense of who we are, and I empathize with what you're dealing with, both in terms of the loss of your father and also how it is affecting your mother's emotional health. This is a HUGE issue… and from the sound of it you're actually dealing with it very well.

One of the hazards of a forum like this is when one half of a couple shows up to ask for advice or whatever, we're only getting *half* the story (and then, really, only a sketch that has been put into words, often leaving essential facts out). Although I think some of us here have some background in psychology or counseling of one sort or another, none of us (that I know of anyway) are professionals -- and so everything we say has to be taken with a huge lump of salt. I think generally we all want to be helpful to other gay men but we're limited by our own experience, our ability to express ourselves, and the limitations of this social medium.

So, from my POV, it's a good that you've joined this conversation. To me it is a very positive sign when two partners try and work out the difficulties they're dealing with. Now that I have more details, I understand you have familial responsibilities. You can't just abandon your mother, *especially* after the sudden loss of your father. Completely understandable.

However, if there is anything to Barry's OP, your relationship is suffering, and this is what has been brought front and center to our attention. The question is, what to do? [MENTION=20941]Camfer[/MENTION], above, has made a suggestion and hopefully others will make suggestions and perhaps some of them will be of real help.

I'm going to back track a bit and share some about my second partner. I'll try to keep it brief and to the point. I didn't realize when I became involved with him (he was 10 years younger than I but I was 49, thus he was 39 when we met -- hardly spring chickens) that he had (in his youth) suffered from several psychotic episodes. My attraction and "falling in love with" him happened very suddenly, and quite unexpectedly to me -- literally one of those "at first sight" kind of things -- as my first partner had passed only a few months prior. I *did* know that he was HIV+ (I'm - ) but, pretty much up to the time we met, he'd been mostly asymptomatic. Our relationship was wild, passionate, intense -- amazingly wonderful on SO many levels -- but ultimately disastrous. It turns out we were exactly WRONG for one another -- and completely unintentionally (simply by being "ourselves") ended up *re-injuring* one another on deep psychological levels.

I bring this up because, several drug overdoses, 2 suicide attempts, a month long disappearance , and two institutionalizations in a mental ward later, it became clear to me (and, thankfully, to him as well) that -- however much I loved him -- I could NOT care for him. He needed professional psychological and medical assistance and attention that was WAY beyond my ability to provide. So what I (we, really) had to do was get him on disability and, ultimately, into a very unique care facility -- an apartment complex run by a Catholic charity that was specifically set up for persons living with HIV. He had his own apartment but at the same time medical care was literally available within the building.

Now, the only reason I bring this up is to suggest that, perhaps, you do NOT have to "do it all". In fact, you may not be ABLE to. I don't know enough to say, of course, but, if you haven't, I strongly advise that you look into what sort of support services are available to both you and your mother. At the very least, I would think grief counseling is in order (for the whole family, it sounds like). I'm especially concerned about your mother's drug use, which sounds very unhealthy to me.

So, I'm just tossing this out there. It is fortunate that you and Barry have one another. I do hope you find ways to spend time together -- just the two of you -- so you can begin to put your own lives back on track WHILE taking care of this extra family concern. I certainly hope there is some way that you can begin to find a new, dynamic, inner balance that can deal successfully with all these stressors in your life.

The most important thing I'm trying to convey here is simply that you may NOT have to do it ALL on your own. There must be support services available. Exactly what they are or how you can find them and make use of them, I don't know. My own experience with these kinds of services is that *initially* they are often quite aggravating (being bureaucracies and all that)… BUT… if you find the right guidance (usually someone within the system) who can listen to and understand what is going on, they may point you in the right direction so you can begin to get this sorted out.

Best of everything to the both of you