Trouble with Future In-Laws

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We are planning to move to a faraway state that's caught our attention, and we are pursuing premarital counseling...and, as it so happens, this counselor we found specializes in helping people with autism. So, it could either be very good or very bad.

It will be good if the counselor actually GETS autism, and if he helps suggest ways for my fiancé and me to work with our differences...however, it will be bad if the counselor is one of those arrogant types who thinks he knows me better than I do.

My Mom once received advice from a counselor like that, he told her that my autism would magically become less bad if I was constantly exposed to stress...my Mom responded to this by forcing me to share a tiny room with my crass, noisy sister. Those years were awful. It's true that exposing autistic individuals to stressful sensations or situations can SOMETIMES desensitize them, but these experiences can be traumatic if precautions are not taken to ensure that the individual's needs are not disregarded in the process. No matter how kindly or tactfully I attempted to explain to my Mom that I was under constant stress from being unable to have my own solitary place to run to, she kept insisting that "it's good for [me]." She only just recently began listening to me, and my sister now shares a room with my other sister (they were eager to share a space)...but, of course, my Mom only allowed this change after making sure I knew that I was being wrong and selfish. So, I feel a pang of guilt every time I walk into my room.

Anywho, that whole experience is why I'm so apprehensive about this new counselor. What if the counselor says something that disregards me as an individual, but my fiancé and family cling to it, because "the expert said so"? I've lived with autism ALL MY LIFE, so it causes me no small amount of pain when people close to me ignore me and use the words of some puffed-up stranger to enforce their own agenda.

I know you don't want to walk away, but the more I read this thread the more I'm reminded of what my situation was like.

I went to counselling with my ex too, but it didn't work. Even when he had moved out of home and in with me, his mother was still on the oppressive - how DARE I take away her son?!

Can I at least suggest taking a break away from him? I know it's hard and I know you love him and want to make things work, but if he's not willing to stand up for himself and you (even if it means having to move out of home) then there's no way this can work.

It's a bit more difficult to break off with your family, of course, but if your fiancé does this too, that's HAS TO BE THE END OF THE RELATIONSHIP.

My husband learned a hard lesson about listening to experts after some genius gave me a huge dose of risperidone for depression. He was all in favor-- I took a pill, I went to bed, no one heard a word out of me for 8 hours, when I got up I tried hard to be cheerful and had no opinions and no will to assert. That went on for four or five months...

...and then he realized that the drug was killing me. NOT METAPHORICALLY. I could barely walk, couldn't find my way to the store, couldn't play with the kids, no longer had the energy or the cognitive function to cook a meal. Too bad for him, after crying out for help and crying out for help and crying out for help and getting told to take a pill and lie down, I'd convinced myself that this was my life, that I needed the drug because my personality was just that bad, that I might as well swallow anything I had left that I could articulate, spread my legs, and try to smile all the time.

He started trying to convince me that I didn't need it after all (tired of cleaning house, taking care of the kids, telling me all the steps to do things like laundry, running all the errands, paying all the bills, eating take out or doing the cooking himself), but it was too late. It was in my head, and the depression was out of control. A few months after that I tried to kill myself; THREE YEARS LATER I'm still not OK.

Never mind that I wouldn't have been in that position in the first place if it weren't for him and his parents (basically, he chose to believe his father telling him that I was a gold-digger and a whore-- never mind that I put him through school and never looked at another man-- and his mother saying that I should exist to serve him when my stepmother had a massive stroke and I begged for permission to go home to help my father, who subsequently worked himself to death, died alone, and rotted in bed).

PLEASE, I BEG YOU-- If he listens to "an expert" over you, he doesn't know how to love somebody. It won't bear good fruit. AT TAHT POINT, YOU MUST GET YOURSELF OUT OF THE RELATIONSHIP.

Personally, I'd get out now-- he's not mentally healthy (not even making a serious effort at working for mental health), he doesn't respect you, and that isn't going to change.

One more plea: WITH THIS SITUATION THE WAY IT IS, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T HAVE KIDS.

THOSE PEOPLE WILL NOT HESITATE TO USE THEM AS WEAPONS AGAINST YOU OR TO PUT THEM IN THE MIDDLE OF A DIVORCE.

And if you think this hurts, you ain't seen nothing yet.

You?re basing some of the foundations of your partnership on ?ifs? and ?maybes?.
Eg If he alters some of his currently held priorities our marriage can work, If his family respects our new boundaries... As he exists today and now, he prioritises his birth family highly, is compromising on that value realistically possible? Resentment can be very destructive. Though my input is biased, I can see that this relationship is very significant to you, be realistic about what is achievable, for example, focus on the worst case scenario as much as you focus on the best case scenario, and answer honestly if you can live healthily and permanently in this situation?

This, also, is very harsh; however, being a woman in America, it seems from my experience to be accurate.

Pretend you are taking a job as a servant to his family. The last autonomous decision you have is whether or not to take the job. If you do, you (and any subsequent children you may have while in their employ) become the property of his family. Your pay for this is 1/2 of whatever your would-be husband earns. Unless they approve, you may not:

--choose your own clothing
--decide what you will prepare for meals and how you will prepare it
--choose how your quarters will be kept/decorated
--choose your own friends
--decide how to conduct your relationships
--decide how to educate, discipline, and otherwise raise your children
--have much control over anything outside of your own head
--have a place where you are not constantly being evaluated other than the few square feet where you physically sleep (your half of the bed, not your bed room)

Should your employment be terminated, you will not receive any form of severance. Your employer will make every effort to retain sole control over any children you may have produced. Basically, consider it as if you are planning on willfully entering into this family as an African slave in the Deep South circa 1800. You get better quarters, but that's really about the only difference.

Under those conditions, can you be happy with this family??

If the answer is "NO," then don't marry him. All those "if's" and "maybe's" might materialize, but they probably won't. I'm 36, my hubby is 34, we've been around the block a few times. I guess that I do love him, and like I said, he's as good to me as he knows how to be and probably better than a 'tard has a right to expect...

...but he gets more and more like his father with every year that passes. He expects me to be more and more like his mother with every year that passes. Despite the fact that he knows his parents did not like each other, he has openly stated that he intends to cope as his father did, demands that I cope as his mother did, and expects to have his parents' marriage (only without his mother's tendency to do what she wanted when his dad wasn't looking). I resent it all more and more with every year that passes. I've lost most of my family and pushed most of my friends away; if it fell apart now, there would be no "old life" or "other life" or "rest of life" for me to go back to. Even if I did have something to go back to, my husband and his mother have already made it clear that they would do everything in their power to take the kids from me; I have every reason to believe that they would succeed.


...and then he turned into his family, and I turned into mine. I should have seen it coming. My FIL is dead and my MIL isn't nearly as bad as the woman whose service you are contemplating entering; I wouldn't wish my life on anyone. PLEASE-- LOOK AT THE TRAIN-WRECK IN FRONT OF YOU AND ASK YOURSELF IF YOU REALLY WANT THIS TO BE YOUR LIFE.

There's no problem with your in-laws. The problem is with your fiance.
(hear me out because I know that might sound crazy)
In-laws often have demands, expectations, and opinions that conflict with those of the couple. It is the responsibility of the couple to establish boundaries, prioritize their own needs, and look out for each other. Your fiance should never allow his family to speak ill of you in his presence. He should never drop plans with you for some impromptu event with them. You are supposed to come first, and until he acknowledges that in word and deed you should not marry him.

You're right. You're all right.

I grew up in a very sexist environment (it was a cult in all but name). My family left a long time ago, but they have retained many of their old attitudes. As my family has insisted over and over that my fiancé is great and that I need to "be a lady" with his family, they are not saying this with my best interests in mind. They are saying this because my fiancé is a man, and I'm an a(n autistic!) woman. I don't know why I didn't see it before. My family adores him because he brings me flowers, takes me places, and because he's (usually) patient when I have meltdowns...that's all nice, but how can he respect me if he so often fails to support me when I need it most?

I love him...I've defended him when he messes up, to his family and mine; I support him through thick and thin; I'm there for him to help him through hard times, even when I feel like running away and crying myself. He's hard-pressed to do any of those things for me. My family always sees him as a victim of his upbringing, and, with an upbringing like that, I can see it...or, at least, I COULD see it, if he were still a child or teen. At this point, he is a grown adult, and he has the mental capacity to make decisions without contending with crazy hormones. He has the mental capacity to CHOOSE whether or not he wants to listen to his parents' nonsense. If the tables were turned--say, if my brother ended up in a situation like this where a WOMAN disrespected him and had an awful family--my family would tell him to leave and find another woman!

As someone said earlier, I'm drawing a hard line and standing on it. I believe in giving people chances to right their wrongs, but this is the last chance my fiancé will be getting. Either he starts supporting me like a husband should support his wife, or I'll leave him and patiently wait for someone who can. I'd rather risk dying alone than agree to spend the rest of my life as a puppet.

Thank you all so much for your help and advice...I cannot express how cathartic it was to be validated by people who actually view me as an individual, not some troublesome show dog.

P.S. - In the event that my fiancé spits on his last chance and decides to choose his family forever and always, do you guys know of any good states/countries/regions where sexism is actually a thing of the past? I've put up with it all my life, and I'm sick of it.