Untangling the spagetti (S.Europe Culture, Catholisim and Women>

[Loquace]

So...this thing where the culture informs the religion and vice versa and where that leaves women.

Let the untangling begin so we can get pur heads arpund it, from all angles. Be it expats living there, people with parents from there being brought up there/elsewhere, people, orginally from there and anybody else who is interested.

Or just me and Dark if nobody else feels like having a poke in the bowl with thier fork.

[Darkesteyes]

Hi Loquace. Carrying on from what we were talking about last night i have to say i had an upbringing which was confusing and IMO now emotionally abusive.
Not being allowed to shave my legs as a teen but yet nothing being done about the bullying which resulted from that was the least of it.
There are many posts from me on here about my sexless affectionless marriage and my DH along with my family have made me feel emotionally broken.
After seven yrs of DH refusing me sex and affection i had an affair. Before the affair i asked DH to go to counselling but he refused. When they found out about the affair i my mum said i was acting like a whore.
My mum watches a lot of reality crap on tv. (i cant stand it) ive been there when she watches Take Me Out and she bangs on about how the girls have been married before and that some of them have children etc etc
When she found out id lost my virginity at 18 she told me i was ruined for all other men. I was spoiled goods. It makes me feel sick to think about this sometimes.

[Darkesteyes]

A year ago i watched my cousins wedding video (mums side of my family) .Her DB a male cousin of mine was banging on about "how she had found a man at last to look after her" Its just not a world i want to be a part of.

[Darkesteyes]

Great thread title by the way

[Darkesteyes]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/9811443/German-rape-victim-turned-away-by-Catholic-hospitals-over-pregnancy-fears.html

[Loquace]

my mum said i was acting like a whore.

Oh that is still going on. There is a massive double standard sexually. (some, onv talking in massive gereralities) Women seem almost resigned to infidelity, they call it "a slip". More like blokes throwing banana skin on floor and then stepping on it highly deliberate fashion as far as I can see.

The only women I know who have lost custody of their children are the ones who had affairs of their own.

Neither do I buy the "great Italian love" line. DH is great, but I sampled a spinkling of Milan before I met him, and it was all a bit, well not exactly aimed at mutual pleasure shall we say.

Still loads of Madonna/Whore mentality going on too. Not necessarily obvious, but in little things said and done, you can see it's still there which I think makes things complicated (inside their own head at the very least) for my friends after they have had a child.

OmG the telly! It's like the 70s all over again. Half naked women looking vapid while men are clothed, smarmy and the humour is so turgid and purile that I go into a long term cringe.

Mums can be a bit....full on. Especially the older generation. MIL was mentally ill so had no inhibitions, but I don't think her choice of whoreslapperslutwhoreslapperslut as a rant at me was an accident or just the first rude words that came to mind. She defined me as sexual, so that was all I could be, IYSWIM.

She told DH not to marry me saying, "yes she has a nice bottom, but you don't marry a nice bottom, you have your fun with it (yes, I became "it" utterly dehumanised) and then marry a good woman."

But thing I don't get...most everybody has one kid, two tops, very few have moremthan that, so they aren't listen about contraception, how come all the other sex based stuff stays ingrained if there is obvious examples of picking and choosing which bit the pope say to listen to?

Bullying is still not tackled in schools. At All. I don't think it is perhaps as physical as maybe in the UK, but it is nasty and find the attitudes of school and staff really old fashioned.

And that's just kid on kid bullying. Some of the stuff you hear about about staff bullying....hair raising !

[Darkesteyes]

Some of the comments ive seen about sexless marriages have huge double standards. If the woman doesnt want sex or affection any more the husband seems to gain huge sympathy. If the man doesnt want it any more though the woman is expected to put up and shut up.

[Darkesteyes]

I have to say that ive not seen the above attitude towards women in my position on MN but i have seen the double standards on other websites and felt it in society and im in the UK.

[Loquace]

I saw the comments under the newspaper peiece you linked to in another thread.

Just....incredible. If the gender roles had been reversed the tone, content and thrust of the majority of the (males from what I could see) would have done an immediate 180 degree turn.

The woman blaming/shaming was startling.

[Loquace]

And tht is when I get confused vis a vis here and home". Cos I know there are differences between me and my Italian mates. But everytime I think I have pinned something down, I read the sort of comments you pointed to and feel like I am back to square one, cos "home" isn't reacting like I sort of expected it too.

[Darkesteyes]

Loquace its horrible having to put up with that attitude from your MIL. What does your DH say about it? (you dont have to say if you dont want to)
When my DM found out i was having an affair she told me to stop acting like a whore and to "wear my wedding ring" it didnt get taken off because of the affair. It got removed because it kept falling off after i lost weight.
Thats another bone of contention between me and DM. She doesnt like the fact that i am overweight again. I comfort ate after the affair ended and didnt gain it all back just some.
She knows damn well the situation between me and DH but still thinks i should be slim. (dont get me wrong i am on a healthy eating plan at the mo) but she thinks i should just be some kind of good looking ornament that never gets touched.
This has screwed me up badly. I wish with all my heart that i could have what i had with my ex OM again.
But if i met someone special enough i would get NO support from my family at all. well my dad may do because when my mum did the hand waving and crying (emotional blackmail) he told her to grow up.

[Loquace]

What does your DH say about it?

Not a lot at the minute, she only died three weeks ago so hemis still very raw. At the time he would minimise, point out all the horriblemthings she would say about everybody else. But hemnever seemed to notice the sexually focused abuse she meeted put to females and the "not sexual" abuse she meeted put to males. And it was very much rooted in her (superdooper massive) faith.

I do think the Jezebel concept is alive, well and possibly pushed by the church. To give an example not all that long ago some prepubecent girls were abused by a preist, on an investatice jouno. thpe programme they interviewed some parisioners, who were very pro preist. The WOMEN were saying shit like "well who do you think gave him the idea to look at her vagina ?" about a little girl. It was horrible. The idea that they would blame a female child for a male adult's perversion.

And I wonder if that is part of your mum's mentality, that women are inherantly temptresses if they are not "Madonnas" and should fight that "original sin" and just accept either sexlessness or sexual behavoir depending on the behest of a man, taking all and every responsibility for any outcomes passively, uncomplainingly as their lot.

As in she could not accept your obvious (and frankly understandable) distress at being reduced to a non sexual being and your desire to find an outside solution when inside the marriage no solution was to be had.

The thing is, I find it hard to forgive women who leap all over that mentality and adopt it. Becuase yes it is real, yes it is pervasive, but so many manage to retain a sense of reasonablness (all be it coloured byntheir faith/culture) whilemothers go all "fundamentalist" about it to the extent that it looks like they are poking a stick in their own eyes in order to blind themselves to reality.

[Darkesteyes]

The blaming of abuse victims was brought into sharp focus over here too last autumn when the truth about Jimmy Savile came out. My DM made comments about the fact that some of the victims went on a morning TV show to talk about it,help to uncover the truth and hopefully secure justice.
My DM said that the victims should be ashamed of talking about it.
Then in the next breath she said they should have come forward earlier (they DID but didnt get believed) A couple of the girls even got locked in solitary confinement for saying anything.
The terminology for what my DM was doing there is gaslighting. In situations of psychological abuse it is a technique that is used to make the victim always the one to be blamed and always in the wrong.
I can never go back to Italy. I went there twice as a child and for the sake of my sanity i will never go back. Something happened out there which shouldnt have and even as a child i knew not to say anything. So i will NEVER go back there.

[Darkesteyes]

Sorry about your MIL Loquace. i know losing someone doesnt change who they were in life but i realise it can cause conflicting emotions so my sympathies to you and your DH.

[AdoraBell]

Hello
May I ask for an opinion please?

We are currently looking at relocating from Latin America to Spain. My OH, in his infinite wisdom thinks this move will benefit our 11yr old DDs by removing them from the machismo society. Would we be jumping from frying pan to fire?

Loquace sorry for the way late MIL treated you.