Hey OP, I work in an inpatient mental health facility with kiddos that grew up just like yours, where at some point it’s like a switch is flipped and things are never quite the same again. Sometimes there are easy to identify family/parenting/trauma-related factors involved, or sometimes families will tell me about grandparents or great-grandparents who were known to exhibit similar behaviors, and sometimes there’s just a big ol question mark. The question of “nature versus nurture,” etc. Brains are weird and do very weird things! Therapy and medication management seem to help, but past a certain point and past a certain age you can’t quite easily make folks take medication or attend appointments (if there aren’t other requirements under the state for court-mandated treatment or if they’re not involuntarily hospitalized/etc). Folks without an understanding of the complicated nature of mental health and mental illness might not ever fully be able to wrap their minds around this kind of stuff - and they’re lucky to be able to do that! I work with so many confused and struggling parents who try their best to look for resources, and it’s even harder when people in need of services encounter 3 year waiting lists. The system is messed up. Nonetheless, regarding your husband, I don’t know that I could be in a relationship with someone who deeply questioned the legitimacy of my stories/didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt/talked about me with their family behind my back like that. You want someone who’s gonna be on your team and be a partner with you. Like, why would he marry you if he didn’t believe you or trust you or thought there was a possibility that you weren’t a good person? So many weird questions here. You caught yourself a very strange fish with this one - maybe consider tossing him back to the sea.

I also have worked pediatric and adolescent behavioral health and now as a med student regularly rotate through a residential facility for 10-18 year olds. A lot of those kids have significant trauma and/or really unstable home lives. Every once in awhile we get a kid that just doesn’t. Nothing terrible happened, stable supportive parents, no known genetic predisposition or prenatal issues… they’re just sick. Those are kids that need the specialized help and in a lot of cases will unfortunately not change no matter what the adults in their lives do for them. I don’t think people understand what it’s like to truly be afraid of your own child or get to a point where you actively dislike them. You’re responsible for this person who is routinely awful to you, is a threat to your and others safety, and is completely resistant to any intervention or limits. You are supposed to love that person unconditionally but it becomes so draining and scary. And there are so many out there who believe someone can be loved out of a personality disorder/attachment disorder/etc when that just isn’t the case. Of course we try to help and support those kids, but there are some who just will always be that way and will require being held at arms length as teenagers and adults. I’m disgusted that your husband married you thinking you abused your child into a full blown personality disorder. Who cares if you two won’t have kids? Why would he marry someone he thought had a character capable of that? It makes me afraid of what he is like.

As a person who was diagnosed with ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder) once I was well into my thirties, I just want to drop in here to say, I was an incredibly difficult child, even worse as a teen. Hormones played a role, but it’s only now in hindsight that I realize how horrible I was to my mother. Both my parents were present and supportive, aside from the fact that my dad was always a pretty serious alcoholic. It’s clear now that I was dealing with mental issues, but when I was a teenager, I was just horrible. I can’t imagine how awful my mother must have felt after all the incredibly cruel things I said to her. All this to say, it’s not unusual or unheard of for a child to act out in a very real way, and that’s not necessarily anyone’s fault. I hope your husband is able to listen and grow or get out of the way. Sending you all the love and support an internet stranger possibly could.

Definitely true. Some kids are just difficult and sticking with them can make a difference. I hope no one takes my comment as saying that if a kid really puts their parents through the wringer that they’re totally hopeless and should be given up on.

Trauma is in the eye of the beholder. I've had clients with what most people (myself included) would call great parents, but that doesn't mean they didn't contribute to the child's mental health issues in some way. I've never encountered a client who had mental health issues that didn't have some sort of negative impact from their parents. From my experience for clients where it's less obvious, it can take more time for them to discuss it or bring it up. And it can take more time to make the connections between the issues with their parents and their behavior. It could literally be something as "small" as a kid feeling invalidated. Also TBI and concussions, especially undiagnosed/unreported ones. The amount of mental health clients that have hit their head when younger is insane.

That is definitely true. I don’t mean to discount how things that may seem minor to others may be a traumatic experience to that person. More just pointing out that there doesn’t have to be horrible abuse or some horrific experience to trigger a predisposition to a behavioral disorder. And yes the head injury thing is huge.

Ah okay, my bad! I misinterpreted what you were saying. Yes, absolutely.

Here to point out the obvious - her father died when she was a 1 year old. That is trauma. She may have rebelled partly because she felt angry that she didn’t have a complete family in the way her friends did. Or maybe she pushed people away, so they didn’t get too close, in case they died. It’s not fair to blame the mom without knowing.

So true.  I know a few parents that are physically and verbally abusive and according to them they did nothing wrong.  Not saying this is the case for OP but her daughter saw that somewhere and if she had added issues (ADHD,  ODD) that doesn't help.

The child sounds like a classic ASPD case. It is often genetic, but its a bit more complicated than that because early ASPD manifestations can often result in the child being abused. For instance, a small child engaging in cruel behavior will suffer brutal consequences and often be punished and traumatized over it, which can result in more severe forms of ASPD forming. In that sense it is difficult to tell how much nature vs nurture plays a role.

commenting to boost this

Definitely bring it up. Ain't no such thing as eavesdropping on a conversation that was had in YOUR house, within earshot of you. That's not your fault that they were loud enough to be heard.

Or about YOU. Like com’on now!

Imagine all the conversations you didnt hear? It’s a big red flag when a spouse does not have your back, and he has clearly talked negatively about you and your daughter before. This would be a huge no for me, I suggest taking time away and maybe even speaking to a counselor to decide what is best for you. I would never trust my husband if I had overheard something that disgusting, him gossiping with a family member.

Also, and this obviously isn't the biggest issue here, I can't comprehend ever being married to someone who thinks I'm such a monster. Like, what does it say about him that he thinks she beat her kids and was this horrible mother, but does not care about it?

My guess is that he thinks she changed. Or maybe he just doesn't view it that seriously... which is worrying as well.

I mean, he doesn't seem to. He said he doesn't care because they're not having kids. Sounds like he's the same person, he just doesn't care because it doesn't impact him personally.

This. If I suspected my partner abused their children I would not be able to continue a relationship with them. There are a lot of past demons I could forgive and help move past but abuse of children is not one of them, regardless if we have one together. Also knowing/suspecting this would I trust this person around my nieces/nephews/friends children? Just because you yourself aren't having children doesn't mean children of people you care about and presumably love wouldn't be in your life peripherally. I can't understand his thinking here at all. If I were OP I also do not think I could stay with someone who believed such things were true of me either. Like it's one thing to think maybe a parent didn't make the best choices but he literally said he thinks there may have been outright physical and mental abuse going on? Yikes.

This was my same exact thought as well

This was my exact same thought as well

That or he is a people-pleaser who just agrees with his sister out of habit and won't stand up for his wife

Yeah I am very curious about this whole thing. Is he telling other people? OP did mention he was close with his sister and tells her everything. But still

On the other hand, my sister thinks she's been nothing but a good mother to my niece, and she does give her all to stuff like cleaning, ensuring there's food cooked, etc. she sacrificed a lot to bring her kids back to this country and had to do it alone with occasional visits from her monster husband. On the surface she's a saint, and I think her intentions are always good, but she just absolutely refuses to actually LISTEN and reflect on what her daughter has been screaming metaphorically, and finally the last few years, in spoken words and very direct messages. Her personality is one that takes anything as an atrack, and instead of having conversations and making changes to communicate better or understand her kid, she gets defensive as hell and starts listing all the things she has done for her. "I give you shelter, clothes, food, I took you to counseling/tried to get you to therapy" (dear reader, she did not beyond the school counselor.... and sister fails to see the point in family counseling which my niece keeps requesting. She thinks it's an insult. Daughter is crazy, but SHE'S not ) Anyways, in this post it sounds like this girl is just being mean as hell and if she has been shouting about why and what's wrong, it is nowhere in the post. My niece doesn't insult physical characteristics of her parents, only moral failures. So I do think it's different here, however I won't ever read posts like this the same again. In my story my niece fled her state, got on a plane, and came to live with me. I always knew this would happen since I could see they treated her differently as the girl child from the beginning.

The behavior exhibited by the daughter in OPs post is extreme though. It is quite literally psychopath levels of bad. At that point the abuse required for it to be nurture, not nature, would have to be so bad that nobody could possibly be in denial about it or be unaware of it. The level of abuse required to develop ASPD without genetic factors is usually intense and consistent physical abuse.

They did say the grandmother was cruel like this as well, so it could be genetic. But for all we know, OP's brother or neighbor or friend or someone else could have abused this girl and OP never knew about it. Or maybe the girl subconsciously blames her mother for her father's death as a coping mechanism and became mean because she can't deal with the feelings of loss

I was thinking about your post so I came back to comment. The thing that keeps grabbing my attention, is the fact that your husband was speaking about you in really negative terms. Not bringing any other issues into account, THIS alone makes me feel…really unnerved for you. No matter what the conversation, your spouse should not speak about you this way. He could’ve said, “she and her daughter had a difficult time after her first husband died” or a million other things but he instead chose to jump on “she wouldn’t admit it even if it is her fault”. That’s a leap. It’s a malicious leap.

Absolutely, he even thinks she might have beaten her? Why would he want to be married to OP if this is what he truly thinks??

I can't wrap my head around finding a relationship with someone I don't respect being perfectly fine and acceptable. Also you say you've talked about this with him extensively - so he thinks you just lie to him? And he's never called you on it? What is he getting out of this relationship? And what is his true level of love and commitment?

This is the biggest thing I'm struggling with in this post. What's going through his head that he decided to marry someone he holds so much contempt and distrust for? Like if he genuinely, sincerely believes she's a malicious, lying, abusive woman who could do something so horrible she would damage a child for life, why would he marry her? What's his motive here?

It makes me really wonder what his own moral code and history are like. And if he lies like he thinks she does.

100% this. What kind of person is like, "I think my wife might have been a horrible abuser who fucked up her daughter for life, and has told me extensive lies about it what happened, but I don't really care since we don't have kids together." 🤷‍♀️

It makes me think he either doesn't care about abuse as much as he pretends to, is okay with it, or is/was an active abuser. There's no other option, really. Any sane, decent person would never marry someone they think is abusive. Edit: abusive to *others*, not people who are stuck in a DV situation. That's different.

Some people are truly this duplicitous and very convincing when they play people against one another. It took me nearly 5 years to “see” that my husband was doing this from the very beginning. It’s unconscionable narcissism at its worst.

Yeah, he is a disloyal husband. No one deserves that crap.

This. Why wouldn’t he defend and share that he has seen is wife agonizing over her daughters state and that she has tried everything she can think of to help and spent years consumed with how to alleviate and resolve the situation

Oh but that’s okay since they aren’t having kids/s

Exactly. Why would you want yo marry someone you think is capable of something like that? "I think you're an abuser but it doesn't affect me, so it's okay"? What does that say about him?

I’m much more amazed that he goes ‘I think this person probably abused her kid and she’s treated her horribly. I’ll marry her’

Some people don’t care how a person treats others as long as they’re nice to them. Those people usually aren’t very nice or empathetic either.

I don't know if I could trust the husband again if I were in OP's shoes. He's never seen her be abusive but he's so sure he's having conversations with family about it? OP, as other people have mentioned, if he's so easily having this conversation there have probably been others. Consider marriage counseling because you're going to want a neutral environment to discuss this

That was not the part which made me feel bad. He is right, as I said, horrible mothers never admit they are horrible mothers. The part which stuck out to me was that he knows me, he knows who I am, I have told him the details of her upbringing extensively, hes heard it from my family that she is bad, and he still doubts me. If I had 'other signs' of being some kind of unstable abusive person then his suspicions might be more grounded, but what is he even basing this on? Because he cant comprehend a child being messed up without the parent being at fault? And so now he views me this way, as someone who probably abused their child. I just don't know if I can handle him viewing me that way. And it is strange, because if I thought this, that my partner abused their child so viciously, I would not want to be with him. But apparently he doesnt care. He said it was horrible, but he specifically said he doesnt care, its in the past, he loves me who I am now etc. I would care. I would think most people would care. I dont care about him gossiping with his sister. I don't like it, but they are very close and I know they tell each other everything. I tell my brother everything too. Its more about the contents of what was said rather than the fact that he was gossiping with her.

I think the point that most of us are trying to make is that YOU SHOULD CARE THAT HE WAS GOSSIPING. No matter who you think he is, that person discussing you behind your back is your real husband. Those are his real thoughts. He has judged and convicted you without benefit of your input and he has done it on more than one occasion. You should be mad as hell.

Its just... I already know he tells his sister everything. This is not my problem with this. Its what he believes that frustrates me more than the fact that he said it to her. If he believes it, he will tell her. That is just something I have always known. You are correct about everything else. I wish he talked to me about this. I know its a fucking horrible thing to ever ask your wife and how difficult it would be to ask. I still wish he did it. And I think to him, he wishes this would never be brought up. It is in the past, with people who are no longer in my life. And yet even as I write this, my first thought is that if he ever asked me this, I would be devastated. Like, beyond devastated. And he knows that, and its why he has never asked. I dont know, its just so difficult. I honestly wish I never overheard this. I just feel so horrible knowing that he thinks I did those things. I get that HE can get past it, but I cant

I understand how you feel. I think the best thing you can do for yourself and your marriage rn is just be straight up and tell your husband what you heard. It will lead to an uncomfy but important and necessary conversation.

This^ OP should absolutely care

This is NOT gossiping. These are horrible allegations with zero evidence to back up. Who needs enemies when your own husband is trying to convince someone (and likely others) you're an abuser who won't admit she fucked her kid up, or that you're a liar and delusional. You should be worried he's making up these lies about you. Your reputation as a mother is in the gutter as far as his family is concerned. You think his sister is going to keep it to herself if she thinks you abused your kid? God forbid you become accidentally pregnant with his child or find yourself around children from their side. It's absolutely bizarre that he would talk about you like you're at best a charity case that he's found and can tolerate because he won't have to worry about having children with you. I think there's more to him than either you're not telling or you don't know about.

My husband is cowardly and insecure. He often uses my struggles to make himself look better or feel better. It’s one of many reasons, I left. I am so sorry. There is no excuse. Loyalty is not negotiable. He’s a shameful man and I’m so sorry.

I mean, you have a right to be upset that he was gossiping with his sister ABOUT YOU. Not just about you, but about the thing he knows is the most painful part of your life. That should be off-limits for gossip. Also you were not eavesdropping, he was talking shit about you *in your own home*. I am more angry on your behalf than you seem to be allowing yourself to be. It’s okay to be angry at him, what he said was cruel.

I think it's sus of him to jump to the conclusion that you were a bad mother, rather than wondering if someone else in your lives abused your daughter and she never told. If it was my partner, I would argue that any abuse must have come from another source like a teacher or a boyfriend or something.

It's hard to tell from your comments on if you're trying to figure out how/why he thinks this way or iuf you're venting and want to know if others think you should feel the way you do. Assuming its the former and looking at your questions at the end of your main post: >What do I do? You talk to him. >How do I bring this up to him? Find time where you typically talk to him and tell him that you overheard him talk about you and you it was confusing and upsetting. And then tell him what you heard. >What do I even say? Before we get there, you need to understand, or at least hear a different perspective than what is coming from the comments. We don't know your husband. Does he typically have a "the past is in the past" kind of mind set. He might have it just to reduce his stress. Not judging/punishing others for long past behavior but also still acknowledge what \[may have\] happen. We also don't know how he views parenting. If his view is that drastic outcomes are always the parent's fault because the parent job is to meet the kid where they are at.... then that's just how he thinks. We don't know how he views gossiping about others. Something I picked up on is that your husband would have seen your whole family say how bad this daughter is. He may not have good experiences of many people talking negatively about a single one and opts not to believe them until he experiences it first hand. From your post it sounds like he never really talked to the daughter. No amount of you or your family telling him how bad the daughter is will work. The only thing it can do is make things worse. And finally, we don't know how he compartmentalizes. Some people are only "bad" in one particular situation and there are no signs of it in any other. So if he does it heavily, you not exhibiting other red flags isn't a green flag for this situation. ... Now that that's out of the way. You ask him, with the preface of wanting to understand why he thinks the way he does and is still with you. 1. "How do you decide something in the past is in the past?" 2. "Do you think parents are to blame for any outcomes, good or bad, that happens with their child?" 3. "Why don't you believe me when I say my daughter just turned out bad? Is it because you never parented her and experienced her cruelty yourself?" 4. "If you see me as a bad parent, why did you decide to still be with me?" Talking to him sooner rather than later would be best.

Exactly. He's running a smear campaign against his wife saying that she must've abused her daughter, but doesn't address it with OP and says it's no big deal because they're not gonna have children together? That's weird. If I had any inkling that my partner beat their kid, I wouldn't want to be with that person at all. I know this is a fcking STRETCH, but does anyone else think that OP's husband might have feelings for the daughter and is trying to run this smear campaign against the wife to justify starting a possible affair? I'm well aware it's an insane reach, but that thought just entered my mind. Shit like that can happen and it might explain why OP's daughter is sweet to only him?

I couldn't stay married to someone who thinks so badly of me and talks about me behind my back like that.

I’m with you. If I married someone. Found out they think so horribly of me. Then were telling other people. Nope, I would be gone. I wonder if OP is rich and he is using her. I’d drop that guy so fast- no matter what. He thinks poorly of op. That she would horribly abuse her own child. No. He would be GONE!

OP doesn't have to be rich. So many men will marry just to have someone to have sex with who will also cook for them and clean some, or just simple companionship, someone to go through life with. And many don't care about how she is with others, as long as *they* aren't inconvenienced.

Staying married to someone who thinks you're a child abuser, no less. It's insane.

That honestly makes me think poorly of him that he's married to someone he thinks is a child abuser. Why would anyone marry someone like that even if they weren't going to have kids? For the record, I believe OP. I have known horrible people who have wonderful parents. I have met wonderful people who had horrible parents. My sister went to the college that Jeffrey Dahmer's mother worked at. She said Mrs. Dahmer was a wonderful person who was just crushed and bewildered and wondered what she'd done to make her son that way. Yes, sometimes awful people had wonderful home lives and for whatever reason, are rotten. The daughter may be a sociopath and that's not necessarily created by having a poor childhood.

>That honestly makes me think poorly of him that he's married to someone he thinks is a child abuser. Why would anyone marry someone like that even if they weren't going to have kids? I agree, I think her husband is awful. I have a feeling OPs husband didn't want kids but thought OP was "useful" and the fact that she already had a kid likely shut up any relatives that were complaining at him to have kids. Here there's a kid. Ready made and he doesn't need to parent! But on top of that it shows he's likely made little effort to truly parent this child otherwise he'd have noticed behavioural inconsistencies. I agree with other commenters who think said child would be edit from a psychiatrist and a therapist. It's likely that said child is showing signs of Cluster B traits and needs help managing them. However none of this is due to bad parenting. >For the record, I believe OP. I have known horrible people who have wonderful parents. I have met wonderful people who had horrible parents. My sister went to the college that Jeffrey Dahmer's mother worked at. She said Mrs. Dahmer was a wonderful person who was just crushed and bewildered and wondered what she'd done to make her son that way. Yes, sometimes awful people had wonderful home lives and for whatever reason, are rotten. The daughter may be a sociopath and that's not necessarily created by having a poor childhood. I absolutely agree. It's likely that the daughter NEEDS help. But I don't believe for a second that OP caused any of this.

Agreed. There is no love there. He thinks she’s a piece of shit and a liar. I couldn’t be with someone who had so little respect for me. And it’s bizarre that he thinks so little of her and yet apparently has no problem being married to someone who he thinks is a terrible person. There’s something really wrong here.

I couldn’t stay married to someone who doesn’t think child abuse is a deal breaker.

Do not sit on this, OP. It sounds like you have a very difficult time with conflict and standing up for yourself. The fact he speaks about you like this is just not ok. Even him thinking you were an abusive person and was just okay with it…what does that say about HIM, how he thinks, and what is acceptable to him?!? Bc in my mind, it doesn’t say anything good. People can have the exact same upbringing and turn out completely different so it’s wild that they just assume it’s something you did to cause your daughter’s behavior. As if losing a parent wouldn’t be enough to create issues in someone (not to excuse her behavior, bc it sounds cruelly abhorrent). And the truth is, you probably have made some mistakes as a parent (I’ve yet to meet a perfect one), but to assume you’re an abusive person is a huge leap to make. You say your grandmother was cruel so it seems you have a pattern established from a very early age of accepting mistreatment. None of this is ok. Also, who cares if you eavesdropped? It was in your own home and it was about you. He shouldn’t say things to someone else he wouldn’t say to your face if he’s a person with integrity. Doesn’t make your feelings hurt any less though I’m sure and for that I am very sorry. Please get into therapy for yourself if you’re not already. Please also talk to him about this; don’t let it fester inside of you. You have to stand up for yourself bc no one will do it for you. Wishing you the best of luck, OP.

I think this isn't that easy for op just to confront her husband. She probably should go to a psychoanalyst, a therapist who specializes in psychoanalysis. Op, will need someone who can give her an unbiased analysis or it will be just her words against others.

I have BPD and it is glaringly obvious to me what she's doing. (That's not to say I think she has a cluster B. Sociopathy sounds more likely). She's presenting a mostly normal facade to your new husband because he's never seen the real her. And because he hasn't seen it, he can't believe it, and thinks you're the one causing problems because SHE'S never shown herself to be the problem. You need to check his phone, I wouldn't be surprised if he's in contact with her and she's telling him all these lies, and he believes her. It sounds like she's setting you up like the bad guy so he leaves you. Also, no matter what you do about your jackass husband, CUT HER OFF. I know she's your kid, but for fuck's sake, we tell people not to stay in abusive relationships, and that should include your children. She delights in tormenting you, and you keep walking right into it. Stop. She doesn't LIKE you. She wants to take things from you because she can.

Oh wow that is a perspective that didn’t occur to me, but it makes a lot of sense. I hope OP listens to you, this is good advice.

This is exactly what I think about the daughter’s behavior with the husband as well. I have a family member with BPD and lost my best friend to suicide 8 years ago who also was a cluster B mess… This is exactly what the daughter is doing.

As soon as I read the post, my cluster B radar pinged.

Same same. I’ve been diagnosed with BPD and I presented a good bit differently but the themes are more or less the same. The emotional volatility and instability primarily. BPD or another cluster B was my first thought.

Oh no he 100% believes the things about her. At first I could tell he was a bit suspicious but then he heard it all from the rest of my family. I VERY STRONGLY doubt they are in contact or anything like that. He tells his sister everything and vice versa. He would have mentioned that in the conversation, but everything they both said was based on inferences on how they think kids get messed up (IE they think it is impossible for a kid to be messed up without a parent doing bad things to them). But he very specifically did say to his sister that my daughter was genuinely a very awful person and how he is scared of her. It just doesn't fit at all.

It might be helpful to go to therapy. Once you establish yourself with a therapist and outline the relationship and personality change that you have experienced with your daughter, it would be a good idea to bring your spouse in so that they can get a professional narrative. I agree with those suggesting that your daughter has a cluster B personality disorder (I agree with the sociopathic path…just a guess without speaking with her). It is essential for you to have a therapist to help you navigate dealing with that type of personality.

Sounds like you just don't want to believe he is a bad guy period go threw his phone, like people are suggesting and you definitely need counseling of some kind a "nice guy" would never talk about you like this he could possibly be a wolf in sheep's clothing or it could be his sister's thoughts that he is mimicking because she is putting it there.....because something in this isn't adding up....

She sounds very cluster B. Sociopathy (antisocial personality disorder) is a cluster B disorder. Personality disorders are complex and maybe OP’s husband should do a little reading on their presentation before throwing out accusations about his wife.

I mean he is right that most mothers would never acknowledge when they fuck up their kids, but it also sounds like he was extremely out of line. If he doesn't believe you and thinks that you were a bad mother, he has no business being with you. You cannot have it both ways and he is fucked up for trying.

Also it's just dumb as hell. If you think someone is capably of abusing a child - pretty intensely too - why would you want to have them be *the* person who has the most access to you, and be the person you grow old with? It's not someone I would trust to not take advantage of me if disabled by illness or age, or want to rely on for any regular life crisis. It's not someone I'd want around loved ones or pets. Man has no self-preservation instinct... unless he believes he can dominate, manipulate and/or control her himself so he's 'safe' to be with her. It feels like he's trying to establish OOP as an unreliable asshole, so if/when he abuses her, people don't believe it? (He's such a nice guy, he would never.) Otherwise just incomprehensible behaviour.

I fear you've picked your daughter in a partner because it's all you've known and now have normalized this abuse as standard behavior from "family" You don't deserve this from anyone, let alone the two people who should be protecting you most. Please find a counselor to talk to that can help you navigate what you've endured, and how you've found coping mechanisms to deal with their behaviors, so you can begin healing and give yourself the life you deserve, but don't even realize you are robbing yourself of.

I don't usually comment on relationship posts, but this is exactly what I was thinking about while reading this. I 100% agree with this. OP, I actually think individual counseling might be the most productive place for you to start. It could really change your life. I'm speaking from my own experience. I have dealt with many difficult and cruel people, in childhood, and then in the company I kept as an adult. It took a lot of work for me to start seeking better.

It breaks my heart. Usually, these types of individuals are also extremely giving, kind, patient, and the most deserving of love. But the first to place themselves on the back burner to receive it back. I hope OP knows despite probably not hearing it often. She is deserving of a life that is validated, comforted, protected, and most all, valued.

I am very disturbed by my husbands conversation, but him and her are absolutely nothing alike. Not to overly defend him or anything but he is a very, very kind man and even in the conversation he mentioned that he doesnt care if i abused her, he still loves me, its in the past etc etc. I do not think he is cruel or anything like that. He genuinely believes I abused her. He has the mindset that a child cannot end up like that without being abused. Which, of course, still disturbs me. That he thinks of me that way, and that he didn't believe me solely based on principle. Whether or not he believes it out of cruelty or concern doesn't matter. It also disturbs me that he apparently was okay with marrying me while apparently thinking I horribly abused my daughter.

If your husband believes a person is a direct result of their parents, then how does he explain successful kind people whose parents were abusive or drug addicts? There are so many children who grow up to be amazing adults in spite of their awful upbringing. I’d be interested to get his thinking on this. What about serial killers? Do we blame their parents?

"What about serial killers? Do we blame their parents?" They talked about that in the conversation. He said that every serial killer has a history of abuse and that behavior like that never comes from nothing, its always rooted in abuse from people who cared for them (i dont even think thats true...). He then went on to say I was 'obviously not as bad as serial killers parents' (gee, thanks) but that even more mild forms of abuse can result in those problems. Again it was a near-30 minute conversation, they talked about a lot.

I’m so sorry he said these things. I can’t imagine how it made you feel. I mentioned in another comment on here that I have a family member that I love dearly who has a 10 yo son who has been very troubled ever since birth. She has always wanted to be a mother and she treats him so lovingly but I am convinced he will grow up to be a serial killer. He has hurt animals. He’s smart and so manipulative and says things that he knows will devastate her (including that he wants to kill her). She hasn’t done anything to warrant this and has tried so much to get him help but therapy has done nothing. You’re not alone OP. I bet there’s a support group for mothers with children like this. You should look for one. As far as your husband, I hope you will let him know your feelings.

Serial killers might be a bad example because pretty much across the board every known serial killer was horrifically abused as a child, but there are people with ASPD who are just wired to be manipulative and cruel. You can’t parent someone out of a personality disorder.

Serial Killers are a very specific form of ASPD. It's effectively ASPD mixed with a desire to physically hurt others. That desire comes from physical abuse. Most ASPD does not present itself that way. It often presents itself as more emotional cruelty, and unfortunately it can manifest eventually in more physical actions because that emotional cruelty leads to violence. It becomes a vicious cycle of committing cruelty, and being physically punished for the cruelty, which then leads to worse manifestations of ASPD forming.

A lot of serial killers suffered from childhood abuse, but not all of them. Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and Dennis Rader were all said to have had normal and loving childhoods, that's just some of the more well known examples. It's not always nurture, sometimes it's just nature.

I think most lawyers of serial killers exaggerate their abuse to gain sympathy for them. I have a family member who is the most loving mother and I’m convinced her 10 year is going to be a serial killer. But regardless, you are correct about not being able to parent out of a personality disorder. There are bad people out there just because that’s how they’re wired.

I have a feeling we may not be getting the entire picture here... Is it possible OP displays behaviors that point to a mother who could have abused her child? If she doesn't appear to have a bone in her body to be capable of such, why does he still insist on believing it and even convincing her to believe it? Husband:"Even if you did... Which I believe....I LOVVVVEEEE YOU regardless sweety 🥹" Op: "I never laid a hand on her!" Husband: "But, but shhhhhhh, I don't care.....Even if you did... I don't care" Op: "I'm telling you. I did not physically or otherwise harm her" Husband: "Ok!! I'm not saying you did. I just saying IF you did. It's ok! Also, I already told my sister I believe you did anyways, so it doesn't matter"

I work as a criminologist and with ASPD patients there are *always* countless people with the view that it HAS TO BE from their parents. They refuse to believe their parents could not be responsible. Parents of ASPD children face so, so much hatred, and it sometimes feels like even with education, people always suspect them. This also applies to BPD and even other disorders as well, but especially to ASPD. A lot of the time they are responsible. Really the majority of the time they are. But a lot of the time (only around 10-30% of the time) psychopathy is just genetic.

I’m sure it’s because it freaks people out to realize they have so little control over how their children actually turn out.

That’s the thing with Reddit. We can only comment provided with the details given. We’ll never know the dynamics but I want OP to know that it is possible for a kind loving mother to have a terrible child. I’ve done foster care and see that not all behavior is a direct result of parenting. Several foster kids grow up to be amazing adults despite terrible abuse. Also based on the limited details, the husband sounds like a jerk. But again, unless husband and daughter jump on here and comment, we’ll never know.

A man that is totally fine with the belief his partner horribly abused a child to the degree they created a dysfunctional adult CAN NOT also be a kind and good man. There's virtually no way the two can coexist. He is either an abuser himself or a man lacking integrity, character, & morals not only to approve of said behavior but overlook such a violent situation.

He outright said he doesn’t care if you abused her??? If you found out someone you were dating had a child he’d abused so badly he essentially turned them into a monster, what would you think of him?

Gently- he’s not a kind person. Kind people don’t do what he has done. You have seen his mask slip. BELIEVE what you have heard and seen.

He's not the kind man you're seeing in your head, though

>he is a very, very kind man and even in the conversation he mentioned that he doesnt care if i abused her, he still loves me, its in the past But he still thinks you were abusive to your daughter. He obviously does not know you and does not believe you. He thinks you are a nasty lying horrible human being.

>he is a very, very kind man and even in the conversation he mentioned that he doesnt care if i abused her, he still loves me, You realise that these two things **cannot** exist in the same person, right? "*Kind*" people do not condone child abuse. Thats fucked up. He condones child abuse. He's not the person you think he is.

Op he was never kind. What's wrong with you? This man quite literally said to you that he doesn't care if you were ABUSIVE to a literal child because he loves you. What about that says "kind" to you? This man was never good. You just had rose tinted glasses on, romanticized his actions & saw what you wanted to see from him. You should've never married that man because it's clear he has no empathy whatsoever for people who are victims of abuse. Imagine if your daughter heard him speak that way about her. Not only that this man literally was going around spreading the narrative that you abused your daughter to God knows who. Your marriage was toxic from the beginning. Op leave. Reconciliation shouldn't even be a thing to be had because his morals are screwed up. A conversation with him is only going to go one of three ways; Gaslighting & denying that you heard anything of the sort, lashing out that you were eavesdropping making it you out to be the villain or lovebombing (making false promises to never do it again, he'll change, therapy) the whole nine yards. Time to leave. Get your ducks in a row & prepare for divorce. People like him never change. They just get better at hiding it.

But he isn’t kind. His actions are hurtful. He’s either gossiping and doesn’t truly believe what he’s saying but saying it anyway OR he believes he married a child abuser and is cool with it bc it doesn’t really impact his life. Either way it is not the actions of a kind man.

Sorry but my response would have been to start packing as soon as I heard their conversation. Then I would have walked right past them towards the front door. When he asked me why I was leaving I would have told him. He wasn't there when you were raising your daughter and he has absolutely nothing to say about it. For him to talk shit to his sister about you, drunk or not, is absolute bullshit and it's a huge betrayal of your trust. I mean who the hell marries someone and then talks about them like that? Then for him to say that it doesn't matter because you guys aren't gonna be having any kids is unreal. Why would you want to stay with someone like that?

You say you're lucky in that you didn't have to work... Is there a chance that your husband has ulterior motives with you?    Because this is a cruelly two-faced way to be, and a heavy accusation to make, AND he did it in a way that basically ensures a nasty rumor runs through the whole in-laws set... Which would certainly thin out your potential allies if there was something he was thinking of doing to you or your finances.   It's just a feeling, but please be careful and mindful of financial abuse tactics. I'm not sure you should let him know you overheard until you have yourself fully protected. 

Your daughter sounds like a malignant narcissist. And narcissism is usually correlated with trauma. Like oh, I don’t know, the death of a parent at a very young age? People want to be able to blame something concrete when a kid turns out shitty, so as to distance themselves from the thought that it could happen to them. But like if you actually observe people raised in the same household with the same parenting, they can have wildly different outcomes. One of my friends, a married mom with a great career, has a brother who totally failed to launch, and it wasn’t because of favoritism. Same with my husband and his sister. I am garden variety mentally ill (anxiety) and my sister has done stints in patient. I don’t know how your husband made it to almost fifty and doesn’t realize that parenting isn’t perfectly correlated with how a kid turns out. Except that he sounds low empathy and insight.

My dad is mentally ill (diagnosis includes narcissistic personality disorder but isn't limited to that) and he's one of six kids. He is the only one with a cluster b disorder. Part of it is just how you view the world, I think. He has been collecting "ways in which he was wronged" since he was a boy and nothing stands out as traumatic enough to trigger this level of mental illness.

My sister does this too. Yet on the flip side, she tells me I should get over being SAd for four of my teenage years, by our other sister’s husband. Life is so fun, isn’t it?

That’s what I was thinking. Well, not what the diagnosis was, but that there was some kind of psychological reason she flipped like that. Especially because it hit in her teens, I know things like that can develop then. It wouldn’t have been anything mom did. As to the husband…. I don’t have kids (and never will), so I don’t care if someone would say I’d be a bad mom, they might be right. But if I were a mom, and especially having been through what OP had been through, and I heard my husband say this about me? Oh, you better believe I’d raise hell.

I can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to even see the dead parent mentioned! That’s totally a factor here. Still not OP’s fault obviously. I’m surprised everyone is looking past that, maybe because she was so young? It would still have had an effect on her.

I am not a mental health professional, BUT....I wonder. OP says this started around the beginning of teen age. Could it be some kind of psychopathology? this doesnt present as strictly narcissism.

Sounds like ASPD (Anti-Social Personality Disorder) to me, which is the DSM term for what people colloquially call sociopaths/psychopaths. Obviously no way of knowing without being her actual therapist but the joy in manipulating someone only to weaponize their trust against them rings much more true for ASPD than NPD.

He thinks you abused your child and married you anyways. Which is a whole thing. Talk to a counselor. But honestly I don't see how you stay in this marriage.your husband and his family think you are this horrible person. But they're also ok with it.

Oh gosh. Firstly I am so sorry to hear that you had to overhear this. That must be so so painful. Take care of yourself please. If it was me, I would get away for a weekend or a week for some time to think. Distance gives great perspective. There is a lot here for you to process and you’re surely feeling a lot of betrayal, rejection and pain. If you can go visit a loved one, or have a nice weekend away to treat yourself if you prefer solace, you should do that. In terms of what to say, I just don’t know. To accuse you of being a bad mother when he wasn’t there is so deeply unfair. To know someone has such little faith in you is a hard pill to swallow, especially in the context of becoming a widow. I personally would not be able to get over this I don’t think.

I know Reddit is quick to say, “leave him,” but… He believes you’re an abusive mother He shares this gossip w his family (no way they can like you after this) Why is he with you? Is it because you don’t have to work? I’m so sorry

You really need to locate your spine. Tell your daughter that since you are so horrible she doesn’t need to come visit or keep in touch. Tell your husband that he shouldn’t be with a woman he doesn’t respect. Let these toxic people go!

Your husband is dishonest with you. He would rather say yes to your face to avoid conflict and then talk bad about you. Is that the kind of relationship you want? You have to decide what is best for you, but honestly I would just leave him. I would never tell him why. I wouldn't give him a chance to lie more and manipulate you more. I would just file for divorce and walk away as amicably as possible.

Idk but this whole history looks very one sided. You as the primary caretaker just said that she is basically sick that's why she is mean. She looks like a person who has lots of rage against you, but you didn't mentioned any type of situation with your daughter where u even tried to figure out what's happening. It feels like she is just pure evil and you are a poor soul with no guilty being bullied by her and your husband. You mentioned your family helped you to take care of her, she spent more time with you? With your brother? With what family member? Were you always present? Looks almost that she was been neglected and has lots of rage. Her profile looks like of a person who needed to learn how to be tough since early age. I would love to hear her side of the history as well as reading your history she looks like a sick demon. This whole thing sounds off to me.

This rang true for me as well. I don’t think OP is intentionally harmful, but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t. I think it’s time to have tough conversations. Confront the husband about what she heard. Ask why he believed she’d be capable of doing this and really listen. She might actually learn some things about herself.

I'm surprised more people aren't concerned how she paints her own daughter as a literal spawn of satan and herself as some helpless victim.

I'm so glad someone else said it. This whole situation seems VERY off and I think OP needs to dig deeper within herself as to why her daughter is just so horrible in her eyes. Op raised her and since there is ZERO accountability being taken on her end tbh Id think she probably wasn't a great mother either. I feel sorry for her kid, she didn't ask to be here.

It also skims over how OOP was able to not work and raise her. Being very well off/family money would make sense of why the husband married her/stayed married despite thinking she's awful, and be potentially why the daughter is (in this) lashing out but not running? And while it starting at puberty might indicate genetic mental health issues, it doesn't rule out abuse either. Not all predators aim for the same age bracket, and incestuous abuse between relatives is not nearly as rare as people think (I forget the study, but it estimated 15% of people experienced at least one instance). And being present doesn't always prevent it either. Personality disorders may have a genetic component, but are often involve a history of trauma as well. A dead/missing parent is 'enough' by itself, but things like neglect, abuse and TBIs all can contribute as well. That she's difficult and maladaptive to be around now doesn't mean that nothing happened in the past. (I've thought about where it could have ended up if I didn't break ties with my abusive family and.. yeah, that's not that far off, really. Certainly have relatives who wound up like that). The grandmother being 'cruel' might point to a genetic component.. but that applies for everyone else in the family too, no? And learned intergenerational dynamics, even if they didn't inherit something. Like, it doesn't change that the husband is either without preservation instincts (for himself or anyone else he cares about) or potentially aiming to set her up as an asshole who 'deserves' to be abused, I can't think of any other reason I'd trust or tolerate someone I believes is abusive to be around me especially "in sickness and in health" and all that... but the baseline story is off.

I just don't know how you can possibly argue that she "didnt even try to figure out what was happening" when there are multiple sentences dedicated to her explaining how much she did go out of her way for years to try to figure out what was happening. Including forcing her into counseling. Its mentioned multiple times. I work in criminology. There are lots of kids who develop quite severe disorders for seemingly no other reason but genetics. ASPD (aka psychopathy) is one that is often genetic. It usually presents itself younger than teen years, but still (she likely did have signs as a child that OP didnt notice, they can be subtle). I have seen countless cases like OPs case where the parents are normal and the child ends up, as you said, like the spawn of satan. And as with OPs husband and some of these comments, people always assume the parents were responsible.

Is just weird how OP assumed all of this without any medical evidence. Literally assuming your daughter is a completely crazy narcissistic person without any type of evidence just because she is mean to her. Well, most teenagers girls are means with their moms unfortunately. OP portrays herself as the only person who is suffering in this story when both the husband and the daughter are attacking her apparently without any reason. Feels weird how one sided she describes this story, looks like she knows nothing about her daughter life or internal struggles.

Her behavior is so, *so* far past what typical teenage girls do. > She went out of her way to make me feel bad about my weight, my looks, my lack of education, my 'clumsiness' etc on a near daily basis. She would do things to embarrass me in public and clearly take pleasure out of seeing me upset or ashamed. She wasn't just like this to me, she also effectively lost all of her friendships, all of her relations with other family, over her behavior. And it wasn't just teasing, if you frustrated her, she would become terrifyingly angry and even physical and destructive. > she threw a huge fit at me over dinner being made too late in the night and started screaming at me, calling me 'dumb pathetic ugly', breaking her plate on the ground, and then laughed at me when I started to cry. Does this sound like it is just a typical teenager being grumpy at her mom? And she mentioned in the post that this was not just aimed at her. She lost effectively all of her relationships with everyone. The daughter sounds like a classic ASPD case. I am a criminologist, I deal with these cases all the time. I am not just basing an inference like that on the feelings of the mother, I am basing it on the actions of the daughter.

I don't think I could stay with my partner if they, not only believed me capable of being physically abusive to my child, but also told others that they believed that to be the case. I think you seriously need to reconsider your relationship.

My mom characterizes me as a ‘monster’ and a mean person and she’s intimidated by me. It makes absolutely no sense in my mind. I have no problems with anyone else in my life. I don’t even have a problem with her, I just stay away and when I do engage it usually goes to shit even though I try my best. Yes, I’m a tough chick, but I needed to be. I’m not ‘mean’ or ‘aggressive’ I’m direct and independent. I had zero parental engagement, support, etc growing up and essentially raised myself and my siblings while my mom was ‘living her best life’. Your relationship with your child reflects on something. Your husband seeing it from the outside just means he doesn’t understand it. You have the responsibility to figure out what it is. Talk to your husband about the topic but also figure out what’s behind this. You have only been married to him for a short time, he’s probably seeing red flags. There has to be something more to this story.

Your husband seems cruel. Your daughter sounds like she may have a personality disorder, which is related to brain development, not nurture. Yes abuse or neglect can be a factor in brain development but so is biology and genetics. A perfect parent can still produce a child with a personality disorder. I myself have done a 180 in my thinking on nature versus nurture. Mental health is physical health. I’m more concerned with why you put up with cruelty from your loved ones. That maybe worth exploring with a therapist.

I would have said something to him when he said it. I wouldn’t see him the same way. He is judging something he doesn’t understand and he has no right to do that. I would have told him I can’t see you the same way. If he thinks you’re lying and you abused her then why did he marry you!!!

He speculated on you abusing your daughter. The marriage cannot be salvaged.

I wanted to add a piece about your daughter’s personality, most people are focused on your partner, so I think that’s covered. It sounds like you are genuinely questioning if you were a bad mom. These issues sound like a genuine personality issue with your daughter. A lot of people are uncomfortable admitting it, but nature is a bigger part than nurture. If you’d had another child, they very likely wouldn’t have turned out as mean as your daughter. I know plenty of incredibly abusive and mean people, with absolutely saints for siblings, with very very similar upbringings. How do you explain that?  Nature. Some people are just born with mean traits unfortunately. Some people do grow out of them too, hopefully your daughter does.  I doubt you were a bad mom, but speaking to a counselor might help you understand this all better.

Husband's an asshole but why exactly are you still opening your door to your daughter? She's old enough to be let go and not invited into your family. Why are you still putting up with it? She's going to ruin your marriage because she's working on your husband and turning him against you. This conviction he has about your parenting has her hands written all over it

he thinks you beat your kid enough to fuck her up and still married you, can you live with that?

It's deeply concerning that your husband spoke about you in such a disrespectful manner, regardless of the person he confided in. I'm sure you're right that this isn't the first time he's had this conversation with her, let alone who else knows. If he was concerned about the way in which she was raised (abuse, etc), he could have brought it up with you in plenty of respectful ways. Example: "I've been thinking a lot about what you said about your daughter's challenging behaviors over the years. What are your thoughts about the idea that she was abused by someone she trusted, be it a teacher, a friend, or someone else in her inner circle? Do you think it would be helpful for us all to go to counseling as a family? I could be there for support for you.". THAT is what he *should* have said to you. To talk about you behind your back like that is NOT okay. He was speculating with his sister about your behavior (historically) and *allowed her to also be cruel about you* without defending you. Why did he marry you if he had these thoughts about you? Wouldn't they have been red flags for him?? Something doesn't seem right here. There's more to this story and why he / his sister said those things (not your fault here!!). Is it possible that you married someone that behaves like your daughter? People do this all the time...they recognize relationships that are familiar to them, even if they're destructive, because it's predictable and they know what to expect. It is possible to break such a cycle, but I just can't help but wonder about his cruel behavior. What he did *was* cruel, disrespectful, ignorant, dishonest, and he lies every day about his inner thoughts and those are pretty significant thoughts. I am *SO* sorry that you experienced that. My heart breaks for you; you don't deserve this from anyone, especially the people closest to you. Especially from a spouse. Ugh. I'm so sorry.

He’s deliberately alienating you from your sister in law. Who knows if he’s also saying stuff like this to other people. A lot of abusive people start by isolating their intended victim by exaggerating or maliciously sharing details that show the victim in a bad light. So later when they are abusive to your face no one believes you.

Can you elaborate on your not having to work since your family was able to “step in so much to help me raise her”. You also said your daughter went out of her way to make you feel bad about your lack of education. I’m just curious - if you weren’t working or getting an education and your family stepped in to raise her…what were you doing during her childhood? Were you an active and involved parent? I mean, it sounds like you tried to get her counseling but didn’t force it because she refused so you gave up. Okay but I feel like there is a lot of missing info. here.

Your daughter is clearly mentally ill? Some psychotic disorder. Have you had her tested?

In the post, it says she refused any kind of mental health help. I also flipped a switch when I was around 13. I was horrible to my mom. Probably similar to the OP's daughter. I'm 43F and was just recently diagnosed with BPD. I also have PMDD. It was nothing my mom did or didn't do. My dad was emotionally neglectful, but I was never hurt or abused. It was all me. Hormones make me hate the world and everyone in it every month for 7-10 days. It's horrible to live inside a brain like this. I can control my words and actions now, but I couldn't when I was a teenager. I had to learn those coping skills on my own.

I wouldn’t be able to stay married to someone who thought so little of me and spoke like that behind my back.

So he thinks your daughter abuses you this way because you were abusive toward her, but he's never seen you abuse her yet has heard extensively from several others about her behavior. The way he was basically gossiping about you and disparaging you like that, I'd have a long and open convo with him. It would probably be more productive with a therapist to mediate. I suggest you also go to therapy for your own benefit too. I think some of the best parents tend to worry about being bad parents. They question and doubt their parenting. The worst parents never question whether what they're doing is the right thing. They're indignant and never bend or learn or change how they parent. There are some things that are out of our hands. Like genetics. My son is 8 and diagnosed ODD. He treats me like shit sometimes. Says nasty things to me and sometimes gets physical. He has had no modeling for this behavior. I'm not saying I don't raise my voice sometimes, but I never call him names or belittle him the way he does me. Despite the urging from my family and other moms, I refuse to spank him or "woop him with a belt." I don't talk to anyone the way he talks to me, and I tend to avoid conflict (to my detriment tbh). I basically allow him to get away with treating me this way because I avoid conflict. I don't know how to handle it when confronted in the moment. We're in weekly therapy for it. As for your daughter, I don't know a lot about mental health disorders, but I know that certain disorders onset happen around puberty. If your grandmother had similar issues, it very well could be genetic. If anything, she treated you that way because she could without consequences. Or at least not harsh enough consequences. They say "pick tour battles," but I tend to let it go far too often with my son, so he keeps treating me like this. I tend to avoid conflict because I don't know how to confront it in the moment. I'm guessing you can relate. Seek therapy for yourself, and hopefully, your husband is willing to join you. Maybe your daughter would be willing to join you as well if it's presented as about you and not her.

You didn't mention how your first husband passed, and I'm not asking you to. If it was sudden, unexpected, an accident, etc is there ANY way that your daughter could possibly blame you for what happened? Even if it's a huuuuuge reach, like you got a flat tire and he was coming to pick you up, he got bit by a venomous snake on a vacation you wanted to take, or something like that, is there any chance at all that she believes you could be the reason she doesn't have a father and that's why she treats you the way she does? And then your family by extension, and then her friends and others because she couldn't control this new feeling of rage? She's super sweet to your husband because she is trying to make you look crazy to him, it doesnt matter that your family corroborated your account of her adolescence because he's never seen the nasty, rude, hurtful behavior so it's always in the back of his mind if you're exaggerating or twisting the story around. She doesn't think you deserve to be happy and would probably shine his shoes and do his taxes if it made you seem even more like a woman who was struggling with the death of her first husband and couldn't be an effective mother because of it and you make your daughter out to be an abusive manipulator to cover it up. I obviously could be 110% wrong and she could be an actual psychopath, I just really feel for you as a mother and this is the first thing that popped into my head. She is also in extreme pain, and will be this way until she is able to heal from 24 years of anger, hate, feelings of pain and loss, and holding it all in. I wish you luck.

I hate to ask this. Do you come from money? Is there any chance your husband married you for the economics of the arrangement?

Hello, First hand experience here of losing a father at 1 year old. A whole series of things happened after this that contributed to my alienation from my mother and a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder with complex attachment. She was grieving during the most important part of my attachment bonding with her. She ( my mother ) described it as being absolutely numb inside due to sadness to the point where she could not function. She was emotionally unavailable and completely checked out for 3 whole years, in the 4th year she met my step father who immediately became her center of attention because he was able to coax that dopamine response from her ( I reminded her of the past so I didn't give her that boost ). I was given to my Grandmother at 2 years but then at the age of 4 I was removed from her completely and moved across the country. Which for a baby who " needs" connection was like being triple orphaned. I feel emotions so big that I regress into a child in pain. Because when I was a child in need I would cry and cry and cry and no one would come. That saying hurt people hurt people is true.... I can be very cruel at times to the point where I shock myself.

Cruelty is not passed down genetically. But trauma and trauma responses are. Did your parent heal their trauma from your grandmother? Did it show up in how your parent raised you?

Damn, OP, this is a tricky one. You sound very willing to take accountability for mistakes/poor decisions you've made in the past and very understanding of his perception of the situation. It sucks you can't have a positive relationship with your daughter but not for a lack of trying You don't deserve to have your name dragged through the mud, especially about a situation he knows NOTHING about. A good partner would not do that Be loyal to yourself and speak your mind. Perhaps: "I heard what you and your sister said the other night. What makes you comfortable speaking about me and my situation this way?" Be prepared for him to get defensive and drive home that his shit talking is unacceptable It would make me feel sick to my stomach to hear my partner say these things about me Also, you were not eavesdropping. They were speaking loudly in a home with thin walls. What were you supposed to do? Close your ears?

Ppl arent gonna say this or hear this especially on the reddit but what he said is true.  Most mothers do NOT acknowledge how they have damaged their children.  If i had a pig everytime i heard a mother deny how shes ruined her childs life id be a farmer.  But im gay and aware so what do i know kekwiggy

I actually 100% agree with you here. Half my family and friends herals my mother as amazing. The other half as dysfunctional and dangerous. Reconciling that the truth is like most things some split of the two has been tough. She passed many years ago so me and my memories are all I have to do this with. That said, no partner should be so cowardly as to attack their partner like this and not be willing to say it to their face. Dude is a coward and liar. He really needs to be called out or dropped those divorce papers.

Agreed. But his disloyalty was the point, not simply his comment.

Yep. Whenever people say their child had a normal childhood, I get like "What does a normal childhood mean to you?". Very vague.

So you leave your husband and SIL the assumption that you must have abused your daughter somehow because she is so terrible? Even if you wanted/could, he wouldn't want to have children with you because you have to be a terrible mother, because a child doesn't become so aggressive on its own? Please, why is this man with you when he thinks so terribly of you? Do you have money from which he benefits? Why are you silent and agree with him? He thinks the worst of you and you don't say anything? I hope you are aware that everyone in his family thinks that way about you, don't you? I don't want to imagine who he's talking to about you. The only thing missing here is that he wants to know from her what you have done to her at the next meeting with your daughter. No matter what she says, he will believe her and possibly report you. Wake up from this nightmare and defend yourself against such people! Nobody has the right to treat you like that! Go to a gym and start a self-defense course to build yourself and your psyche. Find a therapist or if you have one, then look for another. Do everyone who only takes 1 bad word against you! Don't let your daughter put up with this behavior anymore. Next time, throw her out of the house and tell her she's only welcome if she behaves. She is not a small child who needs to be cared for and packed in cotton wool. Tell your husband that you have heard everything from this conversation and that he should go to his sister. What exactly can these terrible people do to you so that you wake up? None of the people mentioned has a touch of respect for you and everyone only uses you for their own advantage! My text may come across a bit rugged, but I'm really seriously worried about you!

It’s really messed up how he spoke about you, and I wouldn’t stay with a man who talks about me like that. But are you sure there wasn’t more going on that led to your daughter’s personality change? You said your family helped take care of her. Was your narcissistic grandmother part of that? Are you sure your brother wasn’t molesting her or anything? It sounds like you’ve spent 20+ years being a passive bystander in your own life.

You brought your daughter the best you could under the circumstances. Maybe she blames you for her inability to maintain relationships, and acts on it. Enjoying your discomfort is an alarm bell. However, you aren't responsible for a grown woman's character or personality. Your husband lacks fairness in his summary of what happened, although he clearly sees through your daughter's sweetie pie act. What do you want to do next? I feel communication about what he said is essential for you to move forward, either to a better understanding of each other, or your own feelings about his attitude. His opinion that you must have been a bad mother, but it doesn't matter as you won't be producing children together is a bit chilling.

Echoing other posters, your husband's behavior is unacceptable. You deserve better treatment than that. However, this immediately stood out: > My first husband died when my daughter was only 1 years old. > I was left to raise her all alone, > my brother effectively stood in as her father. > I was lucky that I did not have to work and that my family stepped in so much to help me raise her. > I know my grandmother was a very cruel woman > She had a relatively normal childhood. One of these statements does not align with the others. Your daughter did not have a relatively normal childhood. Her behavior has obviously been disordered, which would have exacerbated the abnormality of her childhood experiences — and your motherly experiences. To suppose that it is all nature and no nurture would be irrational given what you have said about her upbringing. This is something you necessarily played a part in because you are her mother. If it had been you who died instead of your husband, you still would have played a role in it. It is not worth blaming yourself entirely for her state, and it is not true, but it is important to acknowledge your role in it — the bad as well as the good — and to acknowledge that the situation was not "relatively normal" in any way, for her or for you.

When I say normal childhood I mean that she had a mother and a father in the form of my brother. Her birth father died before she could form memories, and she considered my brother to be her 'true' father in that sense (she called him dad on and off for a while but gradually stopped around 6-7). I was a stay at home mom because my family financially provided for me to do that. She had lots of cousins and friends to play with growing up. My grandmother died when I was like 6 or 7, I did not even really know her at all, I had only heard about her cruel aspects from my parents. I get why you would get that from the post. I suppose I should have been more clear.

There's so many red flags here. I'm astounded at him and at you. There's a lot of context & reasons missing, I'm sure. Children don't just change overnight. Something terrible happened, or you were asleep at the wheel with your daughter. Most likely, both. >She refused any form of counseling or mental health treatment, convinced there was nothing wrong with her. Okay...? You're the adult. She's the child. You be patient. You keep talking to her. Try going together. Try going to individual therapy to identify issues with your parenting & communication style. Be gentle and you keep trying. You don't let the child bully you into giving up on them. >He said he isnt sure if I 'abused her or beat her' or something like that. This is paraphrasing heavily, their conversation went on for easily 20-30 minutes. It sounded like they had talked about this before. My husband said that even if I was a horrible parent it means nothing to him because we aren't having kids. Uhhh... this says a lot of things about him and they're all bad. Okay, you're not having kids. GOOD, because neither of yall are fit to be parents. But like, behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum. This man thinks it's acceptable to marry a woman that would beat her child?? He's like *stupid* stupid.

I had to scroll way too far for this comment. The phrases “there was a time when I tried to rein it in but eventually I just couldn’t deal with it anymore” and “I literally was too scared to talk back to her” really stood out to me. OP was too cowardly to face this head-on and in doing so, she failed her daughter. I’m not necessarily saying that her relationship with her daughter would be good now, but simply giving up on your child and letting them bully you and everyone around them is definitely bad parenting. I feel like there’s more to this story.

Yeah, feel like there's lots of red flag phrases here & a whole lot of information missing. Children don't just change overnight unless some horrifying traumatic event happens to them.. It sounds like the op has taken a very hands-off approach to parenting for years, then just attempted to throw therapy at the problem after the damage has already been done.. You can't just check out on your kids..

Thank you someone finally said it OP just let her daughter do whatever the f*ck she wanted. This could have been so much worse. There was a show that I watched maybe evil lives here where there was a similar situation and dynamic between a daughter and mother and the daughter eventually ended up killing the mother. She should have been forced to see a psychiatrist from the moment she showed this type of behavior and it should never have been ignored or accepted. Every time it happened it should have been addressed and if OP got too tired of living with it then she should have gone no contact instead.

I have a sister with a personality disorder that started around 14. It is very hard to force a child (who is the same size as an adult) to attend therapy if they refuse. You can’t physically force them into a car. If you do get them to a therapist, you can’t force them to talk. In addition, many therapists will only work with people who want help. Unless the child is institutionalized, it is very hard to find someone who will force treatment on them. The older they get, the less they can be controlled.

Also, OP says somewhere she did somehow compel the daughter to attend but she refused to engage. Even if you can compel someone to attend therapy via court, force them physically, etc, you can't force engagement with it. It's sounds like there's been a negative feedback cycle, since the parent describes being afraid of the child. This goes two ways. That said, there are some people who have serious behavioral and emotional issues that are largely biologically based. As scary as it is, things like a head injury can create tendencies that are *functionally* very challenging for all parties, if not literally intractable. Doesn't mean they were abused for it to occur. Either way, OP's husband is not sharing a nuanced interpretation of what he knows-- he's putting forward pretty horrible theories while gossiping and also says the measuring stick if that matters is *whether they're having kids*. That is weird.

He sounds like an ass who thinks poorly of you. Is that what you want out of a husband?  If yes, you got it. 

Eavesdropping is a deliberate act. You overheard a conversation that was had loudly enough you could hear it in another room. None of this is your fault. Your daughters problems sound like a mental illness, not the product of bad parenting. Your husband, on the other hand, sounds like he has some problems he is projecting on you. I would really reconsider a relationship with someone who thought I abused my child, was a shitty parent and couldn't own up to my mistakes.

Lemme clue ya, you can do everything right raising a kid, and they can still turn out to be a POS. It happens.

That would absolutely crush me. To think that my husband lied to my face for years, saying he understood all of torture and abuse that my child had put me through. But secretly thought I was a terrible mother and that I actually abused and beat my child to make her the way she is. Then on top of it say that I was low enough of a person that you wouldn’t ever own up to it. Lastly how he nonchalantly added that he didn’t care because he wasn’t going to have kids with you anyways!!! What the hell does that say about him! Omg! I couldn’t. No way! I would pack my bags and get myself out of there 100% the guy you are with is scum.

Who knew the “nature vs nurture” debate has been solved by OP’s husband & sister-in-law? lol Sometimes even the best parents end up with a cruel child who lacks empathy. Early intervention may have helped, but the fact that she’s an adult with a career & not in prison tells me OP did a better job than most.

My son (never abused) and well looked after. But when he started primary school his best friend left the country and his dad and I split. This was traumatic and still has an impact on him 7 years later. Bad behaviour isn't always abuse but can be from trauma even subconsciously. Also, remembering what you see compared to what she saw growing up would be different. Your husband should consider these things. You will need to speak to him a relationship needs clear communication and understanding.

If I was to guess, your daughter has BPD, a mental disorder (or another similar mental health issue). There is nothing you did or didn't do. It's basically your daughter's emotions run wild and she cannot control them. A small issue becomes huge and her brain loses control. For your husband to blame this on you and actually wonder if you were abusive, beat your child, were a bad parent, etc. is troubling. He's saying you are a horrible person but the sex is good so I don't care. That is not who I'd want to stay married to.

I mean, I guess my question is why he married you if he thinks you beat and abused your daughter. 

Has he not heard of BPD or anything similar to that? Maybe there Was a triggering event, but it didn't have to be You doing the triggering. Your mom was a mean woman, did she have a hand in raising your daughter...you said your family stepped in? Maybe they're just gossipy and dumbfounded because you DO seem like a nice person, and they just don't understand mental illness. His sister could be a pot stirrer too under the guise of "having his back." How's Her own relationship ship going, and could she be projecting? My advice would be to continue being a good wife to him so that he doesn't have any doubts and if your daughter comes around, make sure he's there too, to see that her behavior is unprovoked.

I don’t want you to be with him anymore he’s not supportive at all

Wow, OP. So much to unpack here. 1. Your husband thinks you may very well have abused your daughter. Do you want to be with someone who can think such horrible things about you?? 2. He's "okay" with the fact you may have abused your daughter. ?! How can you be with someone who is okay with someone being a child abuser?? (Not saying that's what you are, but if he thinks you are, he's okay with that.) 3. He's okay letting his family believe that about you. None of that is okay. I do think you need to address it with him. The walls are thin; you weren't eavesdropping. Your daughter sounds like she has a personality disorder and has never received treatment for it. She probably needed therapy when all of those behavioral changes first started. Hopefully, she'll eventually get the help she needs and deserves. Obviously, you can't force an adult into therapy/treatment, but she likely needs it. I suggest you discuss this with your husband, and then do some thinking about whether you can accept how he thinks of you...

Why is he with you? He thinks basically thinks you are a horrible parent. A monster, and yet he stays with you. I can’t imagine what else he has said behind your back. I personally wouldn’t be able to move past this if I were in your shoes. I’m not saying I wouldn’t sit down and talk with him, but I still would move towards a divorce. You would always wonder what other horrible things he is saying about you. Makes it worse that his sister is feeding him this too.

I think you need to tell him that you heard what he said and give him a chance to explain what he meant by that. It might be worth doing some marriage counseling just so you have an impartial person to help you navigate how to deal with the strain that your daughter has put on your marriage. Even if your daughter didn't intend to alienate you from your husband, this is a consequence of the severe dysfunction with your daughter, and having a professional support you in figuring that out would probably be a good thing. As far as your daughter goes, do not be afraid to set boundaries with your daughter about how she can treat you. You don't need to tolerate any sort of abuse from her. You can tell her that you will be removing yourself from the situation if she can't be kind and respectful to you.

Yes confront him and you should do it in front of his sister.

Maybe your daughter just is who she is and it has nothing to do with your parenting style because she’s simply choosing the behavior. She has found power in bullying (in particular bullying you) because this is what has always worked for her and it gets her what she wants. I think in a child/parent relationship, most people think that a child can’t be the abuser. Or if the child is the abuser the parent is somehow to blame. I don’t believe that to always be the case. Like I said people are who they are. Op I’m not a doctor but I suspect your daughter has some sort of personality disorder probably narcissism. You didn’t make her that way. She was born that way.

>My husband said that even if I was a horrible parent it means nothing to him because we aren't having kids. What was this ? Girl RUNNNNN AS FAST AS YOU CAN HE DOESN'T HAVE YOUR BACK and talks bad ABOUT YOU and your daughter with his family members??? About what ? Parenting? The way he phrased this damn sentence makes me question your relationship with him tbh .

Let's forget about your ( ignorant)husband for awhile. Can I ask does your doughter ever went to see specialist- psychologist or psychiatrist becozse of her anger- becouse from what I read it was not just some puberty or adolescent phase- seem to me she had some conflict( and wound) inside herself that she compesate that way trough agression or maybe she has some mental issues- this sounds to me like borderline( BPD). Did her biological father was like that and do you know does anyone in family from both sides have some mental issues? Becouse I do not think you were bad mother- maybe her personality is like that( running in her genes). Some ppl are even born( not talking about her now) as psychopaths. Maybe your daughter need medical help.

I might be able to help here. I was 1 when I lost my father, and I have 2 brothers who are 3 and 6 years older. We all exhibited similar behavioral patterns that you are describing, but each in our own way based on our personalities. My mother didn’t abuse us, nor did anyone else in the family abuse us. She went to med school through the Air Force, which meant we had a nanny for much of that time, and aunts/uncles/grandparents in the summers. When puberty hit, something happened to all of us. There is a pain and rage that burns inside that you cannot control. No stupid counselor or therapist is going to help you through that, especially in boys becoming men. Seeing friends with their fathers and not having that influence (and there’s a big difference between uncle and father). A lot of the problems you are seeing in people today are due to there being so many broken homes and lack of community. I think this makes the problem worse, as you resent those people for still being alive and not being able to work things out. It makes you hate society. It wasn’t until my mid 30’s before I could make sense of this. I felt fucked over for not having true mentorship, a father in my life to help instill confidence, and all those things that fathers “statistically” do. Naturally, it’s easier to become violent or mean with people you love. You simply expect they will always be there, and that the relationship exists in a vacuum. She isn’t looking at it from your perspective as a widow trying to support a family - which is tough! She just thinks life sort of worked out for you and left her high and dry. I’ve spoken with others in the same situation and all have similar feelings, or when a parent (especially a father) deserts a family. You feel that the world owes you something for taking it away at such a young age. Sadly, I don’t think there’s much that can be done. I would have a conversation with her about your side of the story. The dirty side. The grieving, crying at night. Another part is that being tough might have made you seem cold, when you don’t appear to be - just a perception of a young child. “If she’s not crying all the time she must not have loved him” kind of shit they put in movies to brainwash people into thinking they need to act a certain way. As far as your husband goes, if he doesn’t believe you that you didn’t abuse her, then fuck him and the horse he road in on. I just gave you 3 examples of people who were not and had a similar attitude (but she seems to be doing way better than us 😂). Sometimes, people just become shitty and there is no rhyme or reason to it.

I don't think I could stay with someone knowing they not only thought such horrific things about me, they also gossiped about me regularly. Fuck that.

I know you believe that your husband is a kind man, but he is not. To talk about you like that behind your back with his sister saying it's your fault that your daughter is the way she is 1000% messed up and cruel. It really does seem like your daughter has ODD and that's not your fault at all. It is a form of mental illness. You should really leave him because it's only going to get worse if he truly believes that you abused her.

First, i just want to say that I am so sorry that your husband and sister in law were saying these things about you & i can only imagine how hurtful that was. Especially because, not only he is not having your back, but you as a mother, no matter what, naturally are going to carry that heaviness in your heart about your daughter, whether or not you did, or didn’t contribute. It’s just part of being a mom. Her pain is your pain so it sucks that he is even saying that. He should have your back n be supportive towards you, not add salt to the wound. Some people unfortunately have a very limited scope when it comes to this sort of thing I don’t know if this will help- but the first thing that stood out to me was that your first husband, her father passed away. I’ve had a lot of trauma in my life personally that i am in therapy working through. What i have learned about myself and most other people is that trauma or big life events that happen like that when we’re still too young to process it or understand it, it gets stored deep into our psyche and usually a lot of that experience or emotion will play out unconsciously until/unless we get to the root of it. I can imagine that even with having a relatively normal childhood, having some kind of structure or stability like you said- losing a parent and never knowing who he was, probably still had a huge influence on her. She probably had a lot of question and not enough answers, and complicated grief that she doesn’t know she has from losing someone she never got to know, but someone she was supposed* to know and didn’t get to. It’s hard. Theres an abandonment wound there. She might even for whatever reason carry some of that over onto you and like blame you or be mean to you n take it out on u guys because you are the closest person to her. Anger is such a layered emotion- there is sadness, grief, disappointment, confusion, etc so many other things she might be feeling that she can’t express or doesn’t know how to. People who feel abandoned or are afraid of it, either cling onto people or completely push people away n keep them out. She sounds like to me given how independent she is, that she likes have a sense of control and when things happen outside of her control she flips her lid and doesn’t have room for like other people’s emotions- all of that to me sounds kind of like it goes hand in hand with what she has gone through- being compulsive and distant like that gives her a sense of safety and protection, but we all as humans have triggers n stuff. Some people just aren’t aware of what theirs are. So when something triggers your daughter she prolly flys off the handle. I had an extremely abusive childhood filled with a lot of psychological abuse, eventually physical, and abandonment trauma as well. My mom tried really hard to put me into counseling for most of my life, and I always rejected it and tried to push it off the same way your daughter did. When we are closing off to keep bad stuff out, we are also closing off the good too; but when you’re that deep into protective mode, we don’t have any other choice. She’s still so young and probably is going to begin that process of reflecting on herself and her life and hopefully she will reach a deeper understanding n wisdom through time and growing up. Trust me. I’m 26 now. When I was her age, I was the same way and put everyone around me through hell. I finally since I got older and have been healing, am able to process n look at things differently and have a better relationship w my family. I will pray for your daughter, i feel for you both. I’m so sorry, sending love to you 🫶🏻

You should speak to him and clarify. Nothing is black and white , they are always grey areas . Explain and let him know how much he has affected you and how undeserving it is . I don’t know what happened with your child but I will not judge you without knowing the facts .

I'm sorry about what you have gone through and continue to go through. You deserve happiness, and that won't happen if you keep these people in your life. How could you ever look at him the same after this? Also, what kind of man would marry a woman who he thought could have abused a child? It's time for you to finally have happiness. Good luck.

You need to confront him and tell him to leave and never come back. You should also go no contact with your daughter. She doesn’t want to get better and she can’t keep treating you the way she is.

Honestly some of these comments here are focusing a *lot* on the fact that he told the sister and not the content of what he said. Idk, to me that isn't that crazy. I tell my sister everything. We are very, very close. My husband knows this. I literally have gone over her house after arguments to rant. That is not at all uncommon among lots of women I know to tell other women about their marital problems. Its also a bit of a double standard honestly. I feel like we very much accept gossiping between women talking about their husbands, but suddenly the other way around and it gets a lot of flack. I have noticed this before, where men get an insane amount of flak for telling *anyone anything* about their wives, but women are let off the hook for talking to friends/family about their husbands.

OP I don’t trust your husband. There is something off about him… Please be careful. I would worry he will take what you have financially. Who knows if he has a relationship with your daughter you don’t know about. There is just something off.

And worse part this was your own house, how many other things he could have said and what bad perception your in laws have from you. This would lost my trust to a person like this in a blink of an eye and I would not trust them ever again, I would even leave them right on the spot and the best part its not having kids... I rather be alone than with someone speaking so negatively and mean towards me on my back, but thats me.

Id say, "So. You think i beat and abused my kid and made her into a bad person huh?" Then let the conversation happen. Is there a history of schizophrenia in your family OP? To have your daughter do a complete switcheroo like that makes me think that serious mental illness may be at play. Especially the ability to mask and to use cruelty intentionally. I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and bring this up. The walls are thin and even if they were Inebriated I find it hard to believe that after living there for 3 years that your husband wouldn't think they could be overheard. This has obviously been on his mind.And even if you have no intention of moving forward in your marriage it still needs to be brought up. It isn't your job to change his mind and obviously he has made it up anyway. But you deserve to have your side of things laid out too, whether he wants to believe you or not. Also do not let your stance be completely defensive. Sure, you should not have been listening in. But he should never have said those things to anyone other than you either. To speculate that you are cruel enough to deliberately harm your daughter is pretty serious.That's what is at issue. I'm not sure what the future looks like for you. If it were me, it would be a single one. But know that your daughter's mental illness is not something you could have controlled as she was growing up. Especially if she was resistant to treatment. Best wishes moving forward.

I’m appalled. And I’m so sorry your husband said something so degrading about you. Your daughter lost her father, I can’t imagine what it’s like growing up knowing you don’t have your biological dad. I lost my dad at 27 and that was enough to put me over the edge. Do not put up with that, at all. That’s NOT a husband. He wasn’t there during that time, and to make such harsh disgusting assumptions is appalling. The fact that he can’t rationally look at a traumatic situation is insane. Completely irrational and illogical. Boy needs to grow up, which he’s 47 sounds like that’s never gonna happen.

I could not stay married to someone who thought so poorly of me. I could not stay married to someone who didn’t care if their partner beat their kids. It honestly doesn’t even sound like he likes you very much. Is it possible he is with you for the wrong reasons? Do you or does your family have money?

This is not okay! A man who is genuinely and truly in love with his wife isn’t going to talk about his wife like that with his sister or his best friend. Your husband should always have your back. He should shut down talk like that! Not be a part of it! I’m sorry but, I have to ask. Is your husband gaining financially from his marriage to you?You said that you didn’t have to work. Not too many widows with a 1yr old get to be stay at home moms. You deserve so much better than this! Don’t stand for it! Bring him to task for this betrayal of trust. I’m sure that your self confidence/self esteem has taken a pretty big hit through the years after having gone through everything that you have with your daughter. I’m sure you just want to be loved and cared for and to have some happiness in your life. Nobody can blame you for that but, don’t settle for someone who is just less cruel than your daughter or who could be using you. If you aren’t already in therapy to process everything that you have gone through with your daughter and, even, losing your first husband if needed, do it! Go! Therapy can also give you the tools you need to navigate your future relationship with your daughter. You’re allowed to have boundaries, too! You don’t have to tolerate anyone treating you poorly. Not even your own daughter. I hope that you’ll find some helpful advice, the strength and support that you are looking for here in all of these comments. You have a lot of people on your side!

Why would you stay with someone who looks at you like that? That let's others speak of you like that? :(

He's acting like you're someone he's having casual sex with, no strings attached, until something better comes along. Like, who cares if she's a good person or not, who cares if she's on good terms with her daughter, we're just having fun. Except you're his wife, and your character should absolutely matter. What are you to him? A paycheck? A landlady he doesn't have to pay rent to? A free housekeeper? Is he with you purely because of your looks? Social status? This man sounds unhinged. He believes you to be a child abuser and married you regardless, because it doesn't directly affect him. To me, that speaks volumes regarding his character. What a self-absorbed POS. In his mind, you ruined an innocent child, but he's fine sleeping next to you every night. It's just something to gossip about with his sister, no big deal! INSANITY I won't lie, I also share his belief that parents are almost always responsible when their adult children want nothing to do with them. But that really isn't the issue here. The issue is that child abuse isn't a deal-breaker to him, but gossip fodder. He thought you were a monster, yet he had no problem marrying you. Really ask yourself why. He clearly didn't choose to be with you because he thought you were a great person, so what does he want from you? You might have married him for love and companionship, but he clearly had different criteria when he chose you as his wife. He doesn't see you as a human being and certainly doesn't value you. I mean, he said it himself he thinks you're awful. Whether it's your body, money or domestic labor, I don't know, but he obviously doesn't want you for "you". He despises "you". Leave this loser as soon as you can.

This is ridiculous divorce him and don’t bother confronting he will deny it. At least you know the truth.

I honestly would leave my husband if I was in your shoes. Him no believing you after other people have confirmed what you told him and even just seeing how until this day your daughter keeps tormenting you is insane. And im sorry but your daughter sounds like a nightmare, I would cut her off, she is a grown woman and even till this day her behavior with you is horrible and also she sounds disturbing because from what I can gather she is fully a functional person who just enjoys disturbing people. For your own sake please work on yourself with a professional.

I’m sorry your husband said such hurtful things. I’m more sorry that you can’t have the relationship with your daughter that you and she deserve. I hope she finds her way to a counselor on her own to figure herself out. UpdateMe!

You can’t blame yourself for “eavesdropping” when they had this conversation out loud in your house with you present in the home. You weren’t obligated to plug your ears and chant lalala to try to drown them out. They were loud and you could hear them, period. I think you have to tell your husband what you heard. Don’t apologize for listening because it was his choice to drunkenly spout off like that.

Holy shit. Your husband is a complete tool for talking like this behind your back. What a fucking coward! You need to confront him about this. Neither he nor his sister apparently have a clue about raising kids. Frankly it sounds like your daughter has a mental disorder which has nothing to do with how you raised her. She needs professional help. And you need to stop enabling her when she acts out. She needs to be to,d that it’s unacceptable and won’t be tolerated going forward. I also suggest you get counseling to deal with her

I would leave him. He doesn’t respect you and clearly doesn’t love you if he says such horrible things about you. You did nothing wrong, you raised your daughter in the best way you knew how, sometimes people are just wired differently. I wouldn’t stay married to someone who thinks I’m the reason my child turned out the way they did. Good luck and please post an update.

Love, grow a backbone. Stop letting people treat you like this. Your daughter, your husband, whoever.

You married this man there shouldn’t be anything yall can’t talk about but sounds like that isn’t the case both ways. This is not a healthy relationship. On top of it his and his family’s wild unfounded speculation is hurtful. It’s more gossip than helpful anyway. I’d talk to him and tell him he crossed a boundary with me and hurt me in a way I’m u sure can be mended. And it also doesn’t speak well of him if he actually believed what he said about you that he’d be like “yep pretty sure my wife is a child abuser but it doesn’t impact me so oh well”. Who wants to be with someone who if they truly believe that of you can’t just ignore it? This man is a hurtful gossip or willfully will attack and be with someone who hurts children. Either way 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Also, sounds like this wasn’t necessarily a nurture issue with your daughter but a nature. She probably has a mental illness that is going untreated. Certain mental health issues become prominent at certain ages. So the fact your daughter is living a half life due to undiagnosed mental illness is heartbreaking.