What's Love Got To Do With It?

My husband is one of the most loving and affectionate husbands and fathers out there. However he feels no attachment whatsoever to either of his parents nor toward his only brother.


It's easy to understand not feeling attached to your brother if he beat you up every time your parents weren't looking, and your parents were almost never watching you.  In fact my husband's brother would enlist his friends and their cousins to taunt and beat up my husband as he was a young boy.  At the bus stop, he'd throw rocks at him.  Call him names.  Belittle him.  And this brother wonders why we don't want anything to do with him now.   What about his older brother? Well he's on his 2nd marriage since he's a carbon copy of his father and his first wife wasn't about to put up with being treated like that.  He and his 2nd wife have no kids (so far) and we're desperately hoping they never do, because he will be the same kind of father his dad was, messing up another generation of kids.


So back to my husband having no attachment to his parents. He doesn't even have extreme anger toward them... just indifference, which is kind of weird.  I've spent the last 16 years trying to figure out the family dynamics and how my husband turned out so differently from his family.  How he can be so loving and come from such an unloving family?  How he can love his black children so much, and come from a racist family?  How he can put his family first when his father put their family last?  How he can have such a great sense of humor when anger seems to be the only thing his family is good at?


There was no fun in his family growing up.  No hugging.  No games.  Just chores.  And whippings.  Once my brother-in-law made my FIL so mad that after he got done whipping him with a belt, he went into my husband's room and beat him too.  FOR SOMETHING HIS BROTHER DID.  This was a "Children Should Be Seen And Not Heard" kind of household.  My husband has no memory of what his mother (a stay-at-home mom) was doing while he was growing up.  He says she definitely wasn't cleaning or cooking.  She never even got out of bed to see them off to school.  She clearly was very depressed.  My FIL never really showed love to her.  No gifts to her for their anniversaries, or Valentine's Day. No flowers given to her.  He's the kind of dad who said he loved her on her wedding day, so why should he say it again?


Earlier this year when his parents were visiting, they asked to go out to eat with just my husband and I.  (i.e. no kids)  Somehow my husband started talking about his journey as a father and how he's learned to put them first, not to yell at them, and to enjoy them every chance he gets.  He's such a fun dad.  That's why we homeschool.  Just so we can adjust to his unusual working schedule and maximize his time with the kids.


SIDENOTE: My FIL has always had this thing where he tells us he was such a lousy dad. And then my MIL immediately says, "No honey, you did the best you could."  My FIL isn't really confessing anything.  Because his boys are still alive and so are his grandkids and he doesn't try to do any better with them.  No, he says it because he wants someone to say, "Oh no... you did your best."  By the way, every time my FIL does this, it drives us INSANE.


Back to this dinner.  My husband explaining his journey as a father. His dad interrupted about 6 or 7 times and said, "It's because I was such a bad father, wasn't it? "  My husband quickly said, "Yes" and then went on to what he was saying before he was interrupted.  I was SO PROUD of my husband for this.  Of course since my FIL didn't get the answer he wanted, that's why he kept interrupting, asking the same thing.  Each time my husband quickly said, "Yes" and went back to what he was saying.  I really don't think either of his parents actually listened to what my husband was talking about because they were so shocked that my husband acknowledged what a crappy parent his dad was.


Then his parents felt the need to respond and defend their past sins as parents.  My FIL said, "Well I never hugged you guys or said I loved you because my father never did those things with me.  I didn't know any better because I wasn't shown any better."  Neither my husband or I nodded in acknowledgment.  We just stared at him.  Then my MIL said, "I too never hugged you guys or told you I loved you because my parents never said those things to me.  I just didn't know any better."


HOLD UP.... wait a minute.  His mother didn't tell her boys she loved them when they were growing up? No hugs?  How effed up is that?  Well that's my answer to why my husband is so different.  He never formed an attachment to them.  Which is why he never felt compelled to be like them, follow their beliefs, etc.  And thank GOD he's not a Mama's boy!


But we're so SICK TO DEATH of their stupid excuse that they were crappy parents because they had crappy parents.  How exactly does that explain how my husband has become such an outstanding husband and father?  That's right... it takes away their excuse because they have NO EXCUSE.


I've since talked with my husband about his parents never saying they loved him.  This just blows my mind.  He said he thinks they probably never really felt that way toward them.  Raising kids was all about chores and discipline.


Now that the boys are adults, both his parents regularly say they love him (and me too).  Oh how it makes me squirm to do the expected, "we love you too" responds and I often try to change the subject so I don't have to say it.  I try to position myself so I am not forced to hug them when we say hello and goodbye.  Often I'm not successful and their hugs feel icky.


If you were to meet them, you'd feel they were nice and friendly (perhaps a little dumb-sounding with their deep country accent) but they would be pleasantly nice to you.  But if you were to dig a little under the surface, you'd find a seriously effed up family.


And I couldn't be more happy that my husband feels no attachment whatsoever toward his family.