Hello,

My husband and are expecting our first child in two months. We are in our late 30's and our baby was planned and we are extremely happy about it. I come from a very supportive, healthy family who is very excited about the baby. My husband comes from a toxic family who seems to care less about the pregnancy. He feels he has nobody to talk to. He works 60+ hours per week and is taking an online course. His job has made it impossible to have friends anymore. Nobody at his work really cares about the pregnancy-in fact, it's like it's an inconvenience to his boss that he will need to take his entitled two weeks vacation when the baby comes (he's a Chef-the only one in the restaurant and the boss is an idiot who really needs to hire a Sous Chef but is too cheap to). The people at my work are so excited and supportive and will even be throwing me a baby shower. He feels nobody is supporting him-other then me and my family. It makes me incredibly sad and I am worried about him. I love him so much, I know he's going to be an amazing father, because in spite the @55holes who raised him-he's got a kind and loving heart.

He's been upset because Mother's Day is coming up. As a Chef he pretty much works most major holidays and always has. His family cannot seem to understand this. I see over and over again with his mother that everything seems to always be his fault. She is a toxic woman. She screams and yells, is so miserable and drags everyone down with her. She spreads this toxicity to his siblings. He can't make a family event-suddenly he's the worse person in the world. I have seen them even set him up to fail-by confusing times of family gatherings which appeared to be on purpose-just to keep him the bad guy. His family has a history of taking and not giving-he'd buy them presents at xmas but not get any in return. He was homeless as a teen at times because his mother was so bad. His parents divorced in his early teens and both remarried quite quickly afterwards. His father's new family always comes first. His step-mother is also a toxic person-though not as bad as his mother, we can't really stand visiting them because she dominates the conversation, speaks negatively of everyone and talks endlessly about her health problems. His father is about the most normal of all of them-but he lectures his constantly about work and stuff. It's like with his family he's never good enough.

When he called them to let them know we are expecting they didn't even seem excited. They never call him-he has to call them and they never ask how the baby and I are doing. He asked his dad months ago if he could come up when I am in labour as he wants to have someone around to support him and his dad was already making excuses why he can't. He is now concerned with even having these people in his child's life. (there's all kinds of history too...just a constant history of them letting him down, treating him like crap etc).

As I come from a loving and supportive family it's difficult for me to understand what he's going through and what to say. I often get angry at them and instead of being supportive I just say things like "screw them". I don't think it's helpful. Since I love him so much it kills me to see them treat him the way they do. I don't want them to put a damper of the birth of our daughter. He's expressed concern over them being in her life-on how he's going to have to explain all of the stupid manipulative things they do. He feels he maybe should just cut them out of his life.

I am writing this to see if anyone can provided advice on this situation. If you have/had toxic parents, how could your spouse best support you? Are there any good books or things that help you to get over the trauma they caused you.

It breaks my heart seeing him this way. I think because I am now close to 8 months pregnant, I am so overly emotional.

Thank you