My fiance was always close with his parents, but knew he could never go to them with problems, especially if they are on getting along with other people. They don't want to hear it. I grew up in a family where this was considered okay. My dad and mom both talked to me through things with other people, and let me vent if I ever struggled. Sometimes my conversations with my dad will go on for 1 hour.
I went to graduate school and ended up in a profession which was heavily male dominated. I struggled a lot and didn't have any friends in the program. I would talk to my fiance, who lived at home. His mom started to pick up on our long conversations, and told him that she could help. She initially kept it from his dad, but then eventually told him. I started to talk to both his parents like I talked to my own parents, and they seemed okay with it.
Then, one day, his parents broke down. His dad immediately got angry and started bashing me, telling me if I didn't come into their life the whole family would be happier. I stopped talking about problems with them.
But then, my fiance told me - I want to have a relationship where I can talk to them on problems. I've been lonely dealing with things on my own, and I'd like to have a relationship with my dad the way you do. He tried to open up his parents, and it would work. They were actively trying, but then again, they would snap, get upset or get angry and then turn to bashing both of us.
I was struggling to get along with two girls in my fiance's family. It's hard to integrate into a new family. I would talk to my fiance about it, and his parents would even encourage me to go to them. Sometimes my conversations with his parents would go on for 1 hour like they did with my dad. But overtime, again, his parents got really mad that we were talking about people in the family, called us gossips, discredited anything we said about them, and said it was my problem and not theirs. Each time they'd get mad, they'd say i should see a therapist, that I'm having another "episode," which I found very hurtful. They have made it very clear that they don't want to help.
This past weekend was a very bad fight. My fiance and I got back from dinner, and he received a message from his brother which stressed him out. It was simply about not being invited to the dinner and how his girlfriend was crying. He told me "I want to talk to my dad on how to address this because he's my friend." His father sat down with him and within 30 seconds started freaking out on him. He got incredibly angry, and it was terrifying. He blamed me and my fiance again. He has called him stupid, a bad son, etc. out of anger. He said to me - if you never came into his life, he would never talk to us about problems. He said the family would be better off without me or my fiance in his life. He was storming around, yelling, throwing things and I just sat there quietly.
The next day, my fiance wanted to address these comments. His father said he said and did nothing wrong and immediately pointed the finger at both of us for causing his anger. He said he doesn't want to talk about anything with us anymore because he can't handle our problems. I called him out on how he has emotionally drained me and impacted my mental health, and he says to me "do you talk to your own father like that?" and I said "yes... I do and he respects that I stand up for myself."
We aren't going to go to them with any problems anymore, even if they say they are okay with it, but both of us are emotionally drained and hurt. Also, so much has happened that it's hard for me to even look him in the face the same way anymore. My fiance feels the same way I do. We feel we were unfairly punished for something so small, and if we had a choice we'd love to reverse our choice of trying to talk to him through things. But his parents are still acting like victims, saying that we've caused this pain in their life, and acting out for sympathy. I'm honestly tired of this because nothing we did was deserving of this kind of response.
I honestly want nothing to do with his parents anymore. My fiance feels the same, but we both know this isn't probably the best way to deal with these things and know we are running high on emotions. How do you recommend we move on from this, and what advice would you give us in talking to his parents in the future?
