Differences in Opinion re: Family, Is there a middle ground on this ??

[babymaniac]

Sorry if this might sound a bit more like a rant than a topic starter but truly I would like to hear from those of you who might have the same issues.

My husband has lived on the same stretch of road for his entire life, except for the few years he went to collage. We live on the same road as his mother,his brothers, and several of his uncles,aunts, and cousins.His mother never worked outside the home, she kept her house emmaculate, and doted on all her kids.She even laid out a clean outfit of clothes each night for each of her sons and her husband, taking time to move all their pocket contests to their clean clothes, etc... She did this until they were grown and left home.
Mind you, that is fine with me. HOWEVER. it is like my husband has grown up in a bubble filled with wonderful,loving, people and he has no concept of what life would be like for folks who weren't so lucky. Like me for instance.
When I was a child, I lived in a house with 7 brothers and sisters. We were dirt poor. But were clean and we went to church every Sunday.My mother was and still is, a nightmare. My father, who was a precious man did most of the cooking and the kids all took care of each other.My mother sat on her rump and yelled at people.When I was 7 years old, my father passed away from Cancer. Actually I was almost 8 at the time
Things went from bad to worse.My mother turned into I can't even say the word.Let's just say she had many men friends over,often.Mind you, she wasn't drinking or doing drugs so she can't even blame her actions on those things.We moved all the time.Some places we would only live for 3 days before Mom would decide she didn't like it there and move again.All the older kids left to stay with relatives, leaving me,my 11 year old sister,and my 3 year old brother to fend for ourselves.
The house was like a bar most of the time with strange drunk me coming in and out.She was letting my 11 year old sister date a 19 year old MAN ! Whenever we moved, she would just make me and my sister wait on the street for the schoolbus (which we had never ridden before) and send us to a new school with our birth certificates etc... ane we would register ourselves.Somehow, we both remained on honor roll through all of this. School was hell as we had no decent clothes and folks made fun of us.We went hungry a lot.During this whole time nobody ever reported my mother or tried to get us help that I know of.
To make a areally long story just long,my sister got married at 14 (mom signed for her to do this. And my mom ran off with a truck driver leaving me and my brother alone when I was just 11. I ended up living with a cousin and some of my older brother and sisters until I got married at 16.
Now the thing is, I do not get along with my mother.For obvious reasons.I do see her but only because she will not stop following me and always finds where I live and I got tired of moving LOL. I don't get along with most of my siblings.We just aren't close, maybe because we all went our separate ways as kids.
My husband tells me how I should be ashamed for hating my mother and not wanting my family around.For the life of me I cannot make him see what I went through.And this must be because he just can't imagine living life the way I did. Any ideas on how to make him understand how I feel or at the very least stop shaming me for feeling that way?

Thanks,
Susan

[KrispysKingdom]

I don't have any ideas for you, but I can identify with the crazy mother. Mine is psycho and my first husband had a really hard time accepting that. Well - at least until dear ol' mom showed her true colors in front of him one Christmas. After that, he never bugged me about making it work with my mom again. It took my family (who all lived in CA while we lived in WA) a lot longer to understand that a relationship with my mom was out of the question. They were always bugging me to "make it work" with my mom. They just couldn't understand why we would fight all the time. So I would give it another try after not talking to my mom for a year or two just to be met with the same crazy ideas. I lucked out last year when my mom exposed her crazy side to one of my cousins. She had always been very close to this cousin, so my family was in shock over the whole situation. My mom has a tendency to take things way too far and blow everything out of proportion. Ever since then, my family has stopped telling me to attempt to have a relationship with my mom. It has been nice, too! Life is a lot less stressful without her trying to mess things up for me all the time.