A mother reflects on the struggles she and her husband faced during the first few years of their daughter’s life, including almost getting a divorce and her daughter bonding strongly with her husband’s brother’s wife. After working on repairing her relationships and attending sobriety and parenting classes, she wants to decrease the visits and FaceTimes with her sister-in-law to bond with her daughter as a family, but her husband disagrees and calls her selfish.
Source: Reddit
During the first four-ish years of my daughter’s life my husband and I had many fights and struggles. At one point he was living with my daughter and his brother for almost two years and we nearly got divorced. My daughter bonded very strongly to his brother’s wife.
Covid opened my eyes and my husband and I have healed a lot and I am repairing my relationship with him and my daughter. I attend sobriety groups and parenting classes. I understand these things take time. However he continuously brings my daughter to visit his brother and her wife. If you ask my daughter she’ll say her favorite person is her aunt. My daughter can’t help this but my sister in law certainly can. She is always calling my daughter “my baby”, taking her on outings, etc. She will FaceTime my husband just to speak to my daughter. She seems to not want to relinquish the place she took in my daughter’s life.
A few weeks ago I took my daughter to get her ears pierced for her birthday. This was supposed to be a special moment for us, it was the same birthday my mom took me. But instead my daughter started panicking uncontrollably and wanting my sister in law. She didn’t want to do it without my sister in law there. At this point I decided to put my foot down. I have been trying to decrease the visits and the FaceTimes. But now my husband is catching on. I try to explain that my daughter needs to spend time with us as a family without outside influences, and she needs to bond with her mother without being confused. He says I am being selfish. I don’t see how it’s selfish to want to repair my relationship with my child. He says that it is unfair to my daughter, and I explained yes it is but he is making it a thousand times worse by not ripping off the band aid.
I have worked so hard to get my family back, meanwhile my husband will not even give me an inch. It’s frustrating that I am always made out to be the bad guy when all I want is to fix things.
Am I Wrong ?
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