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My husband and my parents; I want them closer
08 May 2006 by Rod Smith in Anxiety, Communication, Family, In-laws / 33 Comments
Q: My husband does not like my parents very much but puts up with them when they visit us about once every two weeks. He is civil to them and will even chat with both my parents about all sorts of things – all when it suits him. I want more – I want them to really bond like I have bonded with his parents. I think this will be good for our children to see a warm loving relationship between their father and all their grandparents. What can I do?
A: Stay out of this! Don’t interfere in relationships that do not include you. Your husband’s relationships with your parents might impact you, but they don’t include you. Leave your husband and your parents to “bond’ in any way they feel comfortable (or uncomfortable).
Your anxiety about the affairs of others is likely to be more damaging to your family than your husband’s cordial relationship with your parents.
Want for yourself and for matters that directly involve you. Wanting for others will make you feel superior, and make you feel important, but it is a waste of your energy. Don’t waste your wanting!
About the Author: Rod Smith
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
Idiots – always adults, children were surprisingly patient, – would make me repeat sentences as if a repeat performance of the humiliating uncoordinated gesticulations, my arms and legs flying in all directions, would make for an easier delivery the second time. That I’d just spent every ounce of energy trying to cough it up was lost on them. That I was already thoroughly humiliated was something to which they were blind.“Practice, practice,” they’d say as if stutterers simply didn’t speak enough. “Think before you speak. Now – try that again,” they would declare slowly and loudly as if I was stupid and deaf. These thoughtless people were ignorant of just how much stutterers do think. Too much – which is central to the issue!
If I’d known at twelve or thirteen that the day would come when I’d make a career of public speaking I might have strolled off a high-rise building.
Now it is quite easy to hide. I am very comfortable with crowds.
It’s asking driving directions or ordering food at a drive through where it gets tricky. Sitting in a cozy circle waiting for my turn to introduce myself sends my blood-pressure through the roof. The ticket attendant on the London underground can render me dumb after I’ve just spent days addressing a room full of graduate level adults about Family Systems Theory. I know. It sounds ridiculous.
I was almost immobilized the first time I saw Thulani put himself “on duty” in the event he needed to be my mouthpiece. He did it. No one asked him or appointed him. He just did it.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
Our house is the same, but instead of painting from end to end and back again, I am the guy constantly cleaning, – and, it’s hard to tell.
Where I cleaned and swept and dusted and vacuumed and sponged and sterilized yesterday there are scooters and bicycles (boys), mail in piles (me), books (boys and me), newspapers (me), magazines (me), and socks (boys and Max, the Chihuahua).
Turn my back and the boys and Max are at it again – enjoying life as boys (and a dog) while I find being a cleaning lady quite an exhausting challenge.
There is a point of no return, I’ve noticed, or at least a point of the chaos where I feel compelled to let it all go for a while and I throw up my hands and join in the fun of trashing the place.
But when I clean I like to think I’m just like the guy painting the Bridge, which I can only imagine must be a slow and methodical task.
I do it room by room, starting at one end, the front, in the event that I soon lose interest – then, at least, the front room is somewhat in order. I push it (trash, magazines, books, socks, clothes) all back from the living room, through the piano room, then into the TV room until everything lands up in the kitchen.
Once it hits the kitchen I separate out what’s Max’s – he’s has his own set of toys with which he ruins the house – what’s Nate’s, what’s Thulani’s, and what can be recycled, dumped, restacked on bookshelves, placed in drawers, hung on a hanger, or filed in the “important documents” file I keep losing.
We moved into “122” (creatively named for its street number and which has had very few updates since it was built in 1886) when Thulani was about two – and I have been getting it in order ever since. Nate joined us in 2002. Max, in 2009. The house- attachment, at least for the boys and Max, is strong. When I talk of selling Thulani reminds me that Rhino, the husky that was on the run for nine months and returned to die within a few weeks after we reconnected, is buried in an Air France first class cabin blanket just outside of the kitchen door. Nate reminds me of where the fat goldfish is buried and Thulani ends the litany with his inability to think of living in a house without the large tree in the front yard where he has his brother (and Max) have “peed like boys” (and a dog) for the past several years.
So. I’ll go on painting and, before you send me letters about giving the boys chores and responsibilities and assigning daily tasks and getting on top of it before it gets on top of me let me advise that you are barking up the wrong tree (sorry, Max for the dog metaphor) because we do have all that in place and it does work here and there and off and on.
I know, I know. Consistency is the name of the game for parenting and let me tell you, the ONLY thing that is consistent here is the need to keep going room by room with or without the boys (and Max) to get this little bridge painted one stretch at a time so the world can see just how organized and decent our lives are here at our beloved “122.”
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
I am regularly aware that:- I was discouraged from playing soccer in the “front” yard (in view of the neighbors) with the servant’s children. While this may seem insignificant in the light of other much more severe problems rising from racism, it was huge for me as a child on several fronts. I loved the children and I loved soccer even more. They were excellent soccer players.
- I did attend a segregated school as did almost all white South Africans while there did exist some church schools that were integrated even under Apartheid. I vividly recall my school principal scolding the entire student body (over a thousand white boys) because a domestic worker (a black adult man) was seen walking in the neighborhood wearing a school blazer.
- Although, by no means wealthy, I was waited on hand and foot by a full-time servant.
- In the late 80s I was warned not to pray publicly for Prisoner “Nelson” Mandela from my church pulpit.
- A member of my family did balk at my request that I bring black children to his home-swimming pool to swim.
- Even as late as 1987 I was embarrassed that a young black boy whom I’d “helped” in his squatter camp had shown up at my door unannounced. I recall wondering what the neighbors would think seeing a child arriving at the home for a social visit and not to work in the yard.While I am aware that these are piddly problems in the light of what millions faced under the Apartheid regime, I am also aware that these factors in my immediate environment “shaped” me into believing perverse things (like in my own superiority and in “their” inferiority) about persons of other race groups. More significantly, I am frequently reminded that my children and I could not have shared life as we now do if we were still living in the era of Apartheid.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
That’s the upside.
We are a 10-hour-drive to the nearest coast – and, most of the east coast beaches are not worth the drive. The west coast, which has many wonderful beaches comparable to where I was reared, takes three full days of driving to reach.
Being landlocked is one thing but another is the weather. Indiana weather is erratic, neurotic, and downright psychotic.
Days ago I could’ve (but I didn’t) ice-skated across the street. Now, as I write, there’s a small lake in the street next to the sidewalk from last night’s rain. The weather is so brutal and extreme (it is as hot as blazes in the summers) that when we do drive anywhere (there are no grocery stores in walking distance) the streets are often full of potholes making some of America’s finest suburban streets resemble stretches of road you’d find in a rural stretch of South Africa’s Wild Coast. So, I am exaggerating but really not too much. Washington Boulevard is a challenge to drive right now, you have got to dodge potholes and loose pavement or, unless you drive a tank, you stand to severely damage your suspension.
But I do love living here. My neighbors are some of my best friends. My children are free and safe in the neighborhood and everyone knows everyone’s children. Even as I write Joseph (born a week or so before Thulani) from down the street has wondered into the house and it is quite likely he will eat with us, stay the night, and then wander down back down the street to his home sometime in the morning. His mom and I will talk sometime between now and nightfall unless he of course chooses to wonder off home and be gone just as quickly as he showed up.
Potholes and crazy weather won’t send us running, although we will drive to church in the morning – even though it is really close. I’m not sure I want to brave the elements which could be a snow-storm, an ice storm, the threat of a tornado – or a little or a lot of each. What else could you expect during March in Indiana?
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper. Of course you can go baby-stuff-shopping, get a room painted, stencil yellow ducks on the wall – if you know long enough in advance your child is coming. But painting a bedroom with ducks and rainbows and a pot of gold, and getting a truck load of stuff from your local one-stop baby emporium will only fill your home with a lot of weird and wonderful, and mostly unnecessary, equipment.
Children interrupt everything. It is the child who is really ready to teach you, whether you are or not. Once he arrives he will become the hub of all your scheduling. You will be fine with this because the child is not an interruption to your life but rather, from this point on, central to it.
The baby will make you ready and you can’t really prepare for the baby until he is breathing in the crib right next to your bed.
Life inside the Smith household
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33 Comments
Confuddled
I think that the answer that this person has given you is correct, I am going through the same thing with my boyfriend and my mom, I don’t think they like each other too much. Sometimes they talk bad about each other and I just tell them I don’t want to hear it and I stay out of it and just try to say nice things about one a nother to the other person. For example, i told my mom that i wrote my boyfriend a love note when we were having a hard time, and he cried because he thought it was sweet. When i told her this, she realized that he really does love me and she hasn’t talked about him that way since. But she still doesn’t even talk to him. But I think your husband should be making more of an effort to try and bond and your parents’should too, if they all love you then they should do this for you. But don’t worry too much about it.
09 May 2006 11:05 am
Dr. Love
I am currently in your situation and constantly talking to my husband about building a relationship with my mom. I have always been very close with my family and would love nothing more than for my husband to atleast show up to events that my family invites him to. His lack of interest in my family is starting to steer me away from my love for him, so I would advise you to start as soon as you can to get them involved with one another. It starts to make you think negatively about your husband when every one of your family functions hes not present but when ever it comes to his family you are always there. To save your marriage and your family relationship please continue to let him know how important your family is to you and how important him building a relationship with them is to you! Good luck
God Bless
10 Apr 2010 09:04 pm
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Dear Confuddled:
Thanks for your affirming response.
It is very difficult to stay out of other people’s relationships,
Rod
09 May 2006 03:05 pm
my dad » steponthis
[...] My husband and my parents; I want them closer [...]
Not Gonna Give It
Am I the only one who thinks this is rotten advice? Her husband’s and parents’ relationship is her business, since they are the 2 closest people to her in the world. She has the unique opportunity to bring them together. The key, I think, is to encourage a closer relationship, not demand it from anyone.
Maybe introducing more fun into their relationship? It sounds rather dull currently. Do her parents and husband like board games or poker, fishing or attending sports team events? Fun usually equals friendship. Bordom usually equals lack of interest.
Best luck to you!
28 Jun 2006 07:06 pm
AMBER
I have the same problem. Of course I think helping them get along includes you!! It is important for them to get along. Especially if you have kids like I do. My parents think that my husband is no good for me and thats why they do not get along. Of course if you’re a daddy’s little girl like my dad considers me, then no one will ever be good enough. I have just decided to put the matter into God’s hands and let him deal with it. They have gotten a little better, but there still is some tension. I just have faith that the Lord will help them!!
16 Sep 2006 06:09 pm
caught in a rock and a hard place
Trying to work it out sometimes backfires. I had my husband and parents air-it-out once and it backfired. Now I am in the situation where my husband hates my parents and has even made me make the decision that if they are in his house he will leave and possible divorce. This has been brewing for a long time and other things are involved of course but sometimes it is best to leave things alone.
07 Aug 2007 11:08 pm
Rod Smith
Your letter perfectly demonstrates my repeated suggestion that family members ought to stay out of relationships that do not directly include them – your husband and your parents have a relationship that does not include you, even though you are his wife and their daughter.
People naturally resist any form of coercion, and the person who tries to intervene will normally feel the resistance from both parties.
Your parents and your husband may well find peace with each other sometime in the future, but it will probably not be as a result of your attempts to pull them together.
08 Aug 2007 09:08 am
So Sad for all of us
I do agree with the idea people resist coercion but, why consider it coercion? That has such a negative ring to it. Why not support, or consideration or empathy? I know if my husband explained to me that if my getting along with one of his family members (granted they weren't abusive, rude etc..) I would gladly try to make him happy. I believe that is what marriage is about compromise, listening, and trying. Not shutting people down because some one agitates them when they come over for 2 hours every few weeks to see their grand child. He is an adult and acts like a 3 year old sometimes. In life we have to deal with people and inlaws are apart of life. I don't always see eye to eye with my mother in law but I don't shut her out because of it. That is not fair to eveyrone involved expecially our son. Who will feel the tension and miss her. So sorry Rod I think your advice in some respect works out of favor of the solution. Which I believe to be communicate wisely.
11 Apr 2010 11:04 am
Frustrated
my problem is similar, but not quite the same, but i would really appreciate feedback, because I am at the point where I think I need to go and see a councellor. I have been married for 2 years and in that two years we have had a constant battle on our hands – how often we should go and visit my parents. My husband put in place his rules of “creating appropriate distance” with fortnightly visits at the most, and this is often pushed to visits every 3rd or 4th week. this is extremely frustrating for me. Initially I would have thought we would visit each others parents atleast weekly (given our backgrounds of Greek and Egyptian) but that idea was quickly terminated. It is really hard because I have my parents saying to come over for dinner and they really like my husband and there have never been any fights.
I think part of the problem is that my husband is a bit of a control freek because he used to tell me that I should behave like someone’s wife now instead of someone’s daughter – whatever! I also find that when he does go over – eventually – he makes very little effort and would rather sit and read the paper than make idle chit chat – saying he has nothing to learn from my parents and that because he disagrees with their political and religious views there is nothing else to talk about, and only so much he can say about football. this really irritates me because I feel like he places himself above them – and this is also the case whenever we have any of my family functions to attend – if he attends, it is kicking and screaming. He is 36 – you would think he wouldn’t continue such childlike behaviour into his adult years.
I don’t think I expect too much – I am not an orphan – I have family, and I expect him to behave appropriately, visit for dinner and make effort when he sees them.
Over the weekend it was Fathers Day and my mum had arranged lunch for both sets of parents, grandparents and all the kids at a restaurant. even before we left the house my husband told me that if my parents tried to arrange coffee at their place after lunch that he would not attend and that he would want to be dropped off at home – he sets these rules in place when it comes to my family and his attendance at any of my family functions. After lunch, his mum offered to have everyone over – well – shit hit the fan didn’t it – I pretty much refused to go, but because his brother was in the car with us and wanted to go he insisted, not knowing what my husband had said to me that morning.
My reasoning for not wanting to go is: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. why should we go to his parent’s house, when he specifically said he would not attend if it had been at my parent’s house? Needless to say, we haven’t spoken since sunday and I am still really annoyed with him. I am just sick of this childishness – it’s been going on for 2 years – and if he loved me, he would make the effort that is required every couple of weeks for my sake and stop creating “rules” that just apply to my family – I have never been that way toward his family, but since it has been happening, I have lessened the amount I visit his parents also – I just don’t see why I should make the effort when he doesn’t learn from my example.
I would greatly appreciate any feedback or hearing from someone with a similar experience.
04 Sep 2007 02:09 am
Rod E. Smith, MSMFT
Dear Frustrated….
I’d suggest you visit your family at will, and, having extended to your husband an opportunity to join you, if he refuses, proceed alone. Do not be his press secretary = direct questions regarding his absence to him. Persist in this manner and you will be behaving as a wife and daughter! While your husband will probably not “get it” (”adolescent men” seldom do) your determination to avoid his control will do your husband and marriage a wonderful service.
Rod Smith
05 Sep 2007 05:09 am
Frustrated
Do you mean that if people ask me questions that I should just tell people to ask him themselves. I just find it really hurtful that he is like this when my parents have not done anything to him and he is just using his political and religious beliefs as a reason to not visit because he has nothing to talk about – mind you – i never talk with him about those topics, so why does he think that he needs to talk about it with them.
It has really made me feel very distant from him – I know I shouldn’t feel this way, because this is really the only issue I feel so strongly about. but I just can’t feel close to someone who is so rude and to be quite frank i think it is a reflection of his priorities and values which are clearly not aligned with mine. am i making too much of this?
05 Sep 2007 11:09 pm
tired of it
Dear Frustrated,
I know how you feel. My parents are elderly and have always been kind to my husband, but for over 25 years he almost always refuses to visit them with me, so I go alone. We have most holidays here, but when they arrive, he rarely, if at all, even acknowledges them. My mom has will greet him wih “Happy Thanksgiving”, and he just looks at her. Other than this, we get along fairly well, but I’m really tired of it. It’s embarrassing and hurtful to my parents and to me. I know what you means about feeling distant from your husband. It’s almost like it’s a control thing. I wish you luck, and I’m hoping for some suggestions. So glad I found this site.
29 Nov 2008 01:11 pm
Anna
Will I feel just as bad as all of you I thought it was just me with this problem. My parents are not that old but they are both very ill the doctors have told us that my dad my not live long. Ever since I got married my parents have always helped us out and give us as much as they have and could. But this year has been the worst we had a problem and my husband does not want anything to do with my parents he does not even want them to come to my house to see me nor my kids. I was very sick for the last two week and he has not let me see my parents nor has let them come over to see me. He gets mad even when my sisters come over. He can have all his friends and relative over whrn ever he wants but when mine come over he gets very mad. He will stay in the bedroom until they leave but once they are gone he comes out and yells at me. Says very mean things and even start yelling at our daughter. I do not know what to do any more. I used to fight back but now I just stay quiet and get my kids and go to their room and try to put them to sleep with me. I am to the point where I wish I was dead I honestly think that would be the best thing to do is for me to be dead. Because I do not have the strength to leave him and I do not even feel strong enough to fight back. Everthing he does is the right thing and anything I do is wrong. PLEASE SOMEONE HELP TELL ME WHAT I CAN DO!!!!!!!!!!
11 Dec 2008 10:12 am
So Sad
Anna,
I am in the same boat. I feel sad for all of us women. Why when all we want is for everyone to just be happy and get along do these men just want discord? Why cant they get past their own selfishness for what ever reason and make harmony? I would do that in an instant if my husband (whom hates my father, for reasons unknown) asked me in a sensisitve way as I have asked him "to just get along, make an effort, try to se past what ever he has against my father" for my sake. but NO..He has to keep this strange elephant hanging in the room. My father is obvilous thank god but I am not and it hurts me deeply. I would in an instant do it for him.
15 Jun 2009 08:06 pm
cassandra
My husband and I have been married for 4 and 1/2 years. From the very beginning, it has been an unstable roller coaster. We are both believers, so it makes me angry to see non-believers have better marriages than us.
Over Thanksgiving, my husband betrayed his loyalty to me over his parents. His parents (especially his mother) have a strong control over him when they are around. His mother has attempted to cause division in our marriage several times. She is very manipulative and comes out looking good after she has created a mess. In addition, his parents profess God and have self appointed themselves in ministry positions.
Since I was 12 years old, I have been praying for my husband. I got married at 24 and am now 28. I also prayed that we would have a ministry together. I look back and think…did I marry the wrong person? After all, my marriage to this man has beeen upsetting.
Thankfully, we are going for marriage counseling (which he is willing to do) and we are starting to take a 13 week study on Dr. Gary Smalley’s “The DNA of Relationships.” Still, I am scared and wondering if this is all in vain.
My husband has humilated me deeply…in so many ways…to his family and to others.Afterwards, he apoloigizes, but he makes me feel like dirt. I don’t tell him that I love him anymore. I used to tell him that I love him several times a day and after Thanksgiving….those words can’t utter my mouth.
I don’t know what God wants from me. I feel lost and confused. No matter how much I read the Bible, pray and press in….it still feel hopeless.
Since then, he was making effort and I was seeing progress. Until last night….I am sick with bronchitis and he made me get in the car to “talk in private” because my mom is in our home. I asked him to leave me alone because I am sick, can’t breathe and am on antibiotics. He insisted that we talk because my father is going into bankruptcy and that my father is a f*@&in lunatic because of his irrational decisions he has made with finances. And because of that, he is blaming my father for our suffering. Now, my mother has pneumonia again and is really, really sick. She is out of work until she gets better. Now he is saying that the situation my father has gotten into financially is going to make my mom incapacitaed and kill my mom. His mother had said once that I was going to “kill my mom” last time she was ill. I find this twisted because my mother is my heart and I am very close with my parents. Theya re my only supprt.
My father is a good and kind man and despite all the crap from him (and disrespect he has given my dad), my father has been nothing but loving and supportive of us. (Unlike his parents) Does my father have a problem? Of course, but he is really trying to seek help…especially now that he is about to lose everything.
For the past few months, we have gone for counseling and we haven’t even addressed the issues with his parents. Because there is so much crap with us…especially his temper. But of course, he still thinks they haev done nothing wrong and still belives that his mother never said what she said and is a perfect angel. She is a jezebel. He has absolutely no devotion to me when it comes to his parents….but he loves trying to get me against my father. Once again, my father has made some mistakes, but he has shown nothing but love to Ricardo…and he doesn’t deserve this.
This life is terrible. It breaks my heart to see my parents lose everything in their old age and I am trying to be strong. But to have my spouse be this way to be is sickning. I have no support. And I can’t be with someone who treats me this way. I can’t even run to my parents because they have no home!!!!! I can’t run to him because he treats me like garbage when I need comfort, prayer and security. Then at other times he is the most supportive and lving man….I am confused.
My parents may not be smart and have been clumsy but they are not evil.My parents dont plan on staying here. My mom is here now and she expected her to saty this long. She doesn’t want to be here.She despritely misses her son and husband. She is trying to get well. She is SO SICK right now. My father is making the steps right now to get over here.My father loves my mother. He’s just not well, Now he is trying to make me belive that my dad is trying to kill my mom. What type of sick behavior is this? And he has always tried to get me against my father. I have always felt hatred from my spouse towards him.
He was saying that my father’s issue with money is runing our life. But my father is not taking our money. They plan to get their own apartment. But he keeps on rubbing in my head that my mom wont be able to work and my parents will be out on the street. I don’t need to hear that. I am beyond stressed and traumatized from everything. However, he denies that what his parents did to me hasn’t runied ours. Oh no…because I’m supposed to “smile” even though they have encouraged my husband to divorce me and have emotionally and mentally abused me. And it looks liek he has joined iinto their sick games. I’m going through therapy and I’m about to get on anti-depressants because of their treatment.
For the most pasrt, my husband has been good and he gets help, but then he snaps and doesn’t apply any of this.
Have you met a marraige that has survivedall of this? What should I do? Where is God?????
18 Feb 2009 11:02 am
So Sad for all of us
Hi,
Why do these men that we marry want us to turn against our fathers? I have always chose men who don’t like my father. he who raised me alone after my mother died when I was 4. I know he is not perfect far from it, but so am I and so is my husband. I think the problem is that these men think they are perfect. Or are so deeply insecure that they feel like they need to get us away from our fathers. For so long I sadly even turned on my father and put him through such hell because a boyfriend I had convinced me that he was evil and no good. I refuse to ever do that again, I was miserable not speaking to my father for a year. That guy turned out to be a creep. Now I married a man who is doing the same thing. I have pleaded with him to get along and to try. We have a 4 week old son and I fear that he will start to feel the tension between the family. I cant stand it. I love my father and this hurts to the core. I feel torn and that is just not fair. I guess I imagined a life where the important men in my life would get along, watch sports together and take my son out to amusement parks, etc…Thats a pipe dream.
15 Jun 2009 08:06 pm
Frustrated
Hi there - it's frustrated here... the last time I wrote was in 2007 - and can I just say that things have not gotten any better. I went to councelling - trying to learn techniques for how to deal with him - nothing works... now we have a beautiful daughter - she is a dream - an angel - and now that I have gone back to work my dad looks after her twice a week and my inlaws once a week - they are 75/80 while my dad is mid sixties - not only the age - they expect that I will drive her up to their place - while my dad comes over to our place during the week and looks after her. my husband says that it is my responsibility to get off my ass and drive our daughter up there because it was me that wanted babies. I am pregnant with our second... and now it is just my objective to have my family - I want four or five... how our marriage pans out is just a secondary concern - I make sure I spend time with my parents and if he wants his parents to see our daughter more, then I get him to take her on the weekend... and ofcourse he does - he hasn't made the separation from the womb yet. I dread weekends - we inevitably don't have anything on and so every saturday he runs to visit his parents. I have nipped the expectation that I will go too - especially since he does not come to visit my parents with me. His excuse now is that he sees them all the time because they look after our daughter - but my parents love to have us over as a family - for lunch or dinner... I am lucky to get him there once a month. Granted we often have a number of functions anyway, but he makes absolutely zero effort to come to my parents...
In hindsight - I should have separated when I first wrote this email - back in 2007 - it was never going to get better... now... for the sake of the children - I will just stick it out - in this loveless relationship - and bide my time...
good luck to all of you - but my recommendation would be this - it is unlikely to get better so get out - this person is a selfish and controlling person - the relationship you have is not one of love - a person that loves you will love who you are and where you come from and if there is no reason for disagreement, will love your parents and want to spend time with them, because that is where you are from. Don't waste any more time than you already have - life is too short.
11 Feb 2011 07:02 am
Rosie
You all must be married to my husband………..sounds just like him. Most of the time he is very caring and loving, however he can just snap or be terribly rude. My parents have bent over backwards to be nice to him, and in the last couple months he won’t hardly even speak to them.
He is so rude, yet expects me to be SO nice to his mother.. I swear I think they kiss her hand when they walk in the house. I mean….. my mom made him a dessert the other day (because she knew he liked it), and when we got to their house, he wouldn’t even stay and eat a piece.
He is an asshole, and sounds to me like your husbands are too. He won’t work with anyone on family holidays. He just gets mad about everything; My family tries to work everything around him so he can get there after work etc. and everyone can be together, yet he shows no appreciation year after year. he acts like a child and won’t even try to work it out for the best of everyone.. he just gives it an all or nothing approach, like “well I just won’t go.. or you don’t have to go to my mom’s” belligerent is what he is.
It makes everything extremely hard on me. I think he would like it if I had no family and just him – and we lived in a secluded apartment…… he likes to act like he rescued me from the streets or something…… I really think he is jealous of my family and that I had a fabulous childhood and have great parents. Which is so strange, because they treat him just as if he were their own son..that’s what I can’t understand. We live close to them, and I think he resents it, although they don’t bother us.
My family is close and he considers “any interaction” a bother. When the phone rings, he acts like it’s terrible (because it might be some of my family I’m sure) he told me to just go live with them. What an ass. I’ve learned to not be combative when he says hurtful things to me, because he just screams and then says REALLY terrible things to me about myself and my family just to hurt me. He says later of course that the didn’t mean them, but I think he does. He’s a nut.
I’m so stupid to have married him and I wish I hadn’t. His family is a bunch of degenerates and he doesn’t like anyone except his mother ..and his children (from a previous marriage–ya I really love that.) I married the wrong man. I am isolated from my friends, so my family is all I have and he resents it I guess. I will not live like this for 25 years (as stated above) I will be miserable but I will divorce his sorry##@$$. It will be hell to divorce him. Because there’s no telling what he will do which is why I have tried to keep the peace so long.
If they are “imbalanced” you can never change them with any amount of therapy. At least I’m not the only one as I see here.
13 Oct 2009 10:10 am
So Sad for all of us
Rosie, You are not the only one. Anna, I hope you can find some peace and want to live. These men are ruiners. They are selfish control freaks and I have a feeling they are also emotional abusers. I often wonder if I married the wrong man. I am so ashamed to say it. I want so badly to make everything ok. But the truth is since we have had our son we havnt had any sexual relations, not that I want any and dont even sleep in the same room, which I also dont want to do. We are roommates who pass in the night. Which is sadly the way I like it, though I would love a more loving relationship. I am just so disenchanted with the way he leaves me to feel after I plead with him to get along with my father I am exhausted. I feel like the more I push him to spend time the further away he gets. I often think what impact this will have on my son.
28 Oct 2009 07:10 pm
REPLIER
Hi Everyone – I truly feel for each and everyone of you. I am going thru the same situation myself. All I can say is be patient and calm and try to think of what his reaction will be to what you have to say. I actually tried that myself and I must say I was able to predict him – this forced me to avoid a lot of uncessary arguments with my husband. My husband is a truly loving man but he appers to be possessive about me especially when it comes to my family. He doesn’t stop me from seeing my family but he also doesn’t join me when I visit my family. I also am becoming more open minded as I see that my family although they think the very best for me – tend to put a lot of pressure on me about visiting them often. I just think this kind of pressure is unnecessary and if it’s causing tensions in your relationship, try avoiding talking about it. Keep it to yourself and maybe couple days later venting in front of a positive minded friend. This truly helps ! – REPLIER
30 Oct 2009 01:10 pm
REPLIER
One more thing -
it’s a phase let it pass – husband do change and that’s a fact. You just have to give them space, time and most importantly TRUST them.. and you will see the magic happen. REPLIER
30 Oct 2009 02:10 pm
mainkaun
what magic are you talking about Replier? I have been waiting for this "phase" to get over since past three years. Can you share your experience as to what we should or shouldnt do to make things better ?
25 Jan 2010 12:01 pm
So Sad for all of us
Dear replier,
I think that is a wise approach. Every time I push the issue he moves further away. Its like a tug of war game I didn’t sign up for. I always end up feeling like I lose. I try to please my family by visiting and then try to not nag my DH but somehow it seems like I do. Which is never my intention. I always promised myself I would never be one of those nagging wives but I feel like he puts me in that position.
Though, dont see him changing any time soon. He is a strong minded man who takes pride on being stubborn. ARG!!!
30 Oct 2009 06:10 pm
Renee
What kind of horse$#%& answer is that!?!?!?! “Stay out of it”??? In that situation the wife/husband is in the middle of it. I am in this situation right now and I’m getting caught in the cross-fire daily – like it or not. This is my problem as much as it is the problem of my husband and parents bonding. You get pulled by the parents – you get pulled by the spouse. All I want it to have a family that can have a holiday together without me on the verge of an anxiety attack constantly that someone is going to say something to set off a huge family war!!! “Stay out of”? (Edited responder’s poor use of language)
10 Nov 2009 05:11 pm
Magdalena
I know how you feel because i went thru the same staff the same story and i ended my realationship in a divorce . He never allow my mother even came to our home nor to travel to my country . I could not live like that it was always his family never mind I could not stand this situation and i showed him that i can visit my parents so i packed and left for Poland . I though he loves Max and Me but never he did not give a chance to came here and ask WHY and to try to work this out . Insted he file all the court orders on me and make me look like I’m a monster . I loved him but i could not look when my family suffers because he was taking me away from them . If a men loves a woman he does not do this , this is not love and parents you have only once in your lifetime but husband can be many . So family is number one and a husband shoud know that and respect this and at least tolerate them
23 Nov 2009 01:11 pm
REPLIER
Renee – you seem like you are already on the edge ! I got married and then move in with my husband.. but it took me almost 2 years to think of my new home as something that is mine – I always wanted to go back and visit my family and maybe relieve the life I had or just get a feel of my life the way it was before.. so i kept on pushing my husband to follow me to my home as well.. which obviously he didn’t enjoy.. instead he started pushing me to get close to him by avoiding coming with me to see my family.. I literally realized one day.. My 1st family from now on is my husband and my child .. my parents they are my family but they are secondary.. my obligations and duities are more to my first family now.. everyone will recongnize me by Mrs. d ** and if i am setting a good example of being a good wife and a mom.. it took me a while to let go and start trusting my husband… but i eventually did.. I am not saying to forget your family.. I am only asking to think as your husband as someone who has replaced your mom and dad.. cause this is the person you have to grow old with and share a zillion moments togather..
02 Dec 2009 10:12 am
Anonymous
Speaking from a male point of view. I am having this problem with my wife’s parents. They are control freaks and have broke my marriage. I have tried everything to save it but they are “perfect” in my wife’s eyes. They are her family for better or worse and I am just her husband. My wife will not cut the umbilical with her parents, that’s why I’m here i was hoping to find advise. What I’m reading here sounds exactly like what I’m going through. My wife has the ability to not remember or just not hear the disrespect her family shows both of us. How many of you are allowing your parents to affect your marriages? I know not all men are perfect but neither are parents or women for that matter. Maybe you should all step back and ask your partners what the problem is and if he says your parents are interfering and your allowing it, admit it. If he’s just a control freak than there is nothing you can do. But if you are ignoring what is being done by your parents, take it from experience wake up or pack up because it gets a lot worse. You just might have a decent guy looking out for you.
28 Dec 2009 05:12 pm
stephanie
I am in a similar situation but a little bit different. I am an only child and I have elderly parents with mutlitple medical problems. They live about 10 minutes away from me and were used to me being at their beck and call during my single years. I am now married and I love my husband dearly, but they have been nasty to him from day one. I think my parents are narrcissitc people. For example, shortly after we were married my husband left work to go with my mother to calling hours for a friend of hers that passed away. He went right from work so he was in his work clothes (business casual). My mother looks at him and says “don’t you have anything better to wear than that?!” It goes on and on. They never wish us happy anniversary because we did not get married in the catholic church but they expect us to have a big fancy party for them for their 50th anniversary. He wants nothing to do with them but it is hard on me because I have to help them and go to their house at least 2 times per week ( my father is legally blind). They always talk bad about him and I tell them to knock it off or I will stop helping them, but then I feel guilty because they are so sick. But I am also afraid that if I push my husband to vist them we will end up in divorce. I am always anxious and do not sleep well.
30 Jan 2010 08:01 pm
A-mW
I feel very angry and sad reading these stories. I think that my husband gains pleasure just by being plain awkward. He is not the biological father of my 2 boys – although he has been a step-father to them for 17 years. If any functions concerning my boys or family members arise, he just coldy says ‘No thankyou’. When I ask for an explanation – he just says ‘ I don’t have to give you a reason’.
My son’s have been badly bitten by his spiteful behaviour, and I have had many sleepless nights . . wondering how anyone could be so cruel.
I have looked in to the psychology behind such spiteful behaviour – and are now convinced that these men have an underlying desire to want to have the woman all to themselves, subconsciously they are hoping that the woman cuts down the amount of time she gives to the other people she loves (or sever any emotional ties altogether!)
These type of men are secretly jealous of anyone else that the woman loves and will never change their behaviour unless they tackle the root cause. They have very controlling behaviours that are often very subtle and hard for the woman to make sense of.
After 17 years of emotional bondage to a control freak – I am finally considering divorce as I can’t spend the rest of my years being hurt. It is a form of emotional abuse, as they know that they are hurting you. How can someone who supposedly loves you expect you to compromise your relationship with your own parents/children? . . and all for them!!
These men simply don’t love you for who you are – but for themselves!
My husband is supposed to be a born again christian – but I don’t see or feel the love of God in him whatsoever.
Don’t spend the rest of your life stroking this man’s ego – because the only way you will be able to make him truly happy is to devote yourself 100% to him!
This statement applies to men who find themselves in controlling relationships also.
Love & blessings,
Annie
19 Nov 2010 10:11 am
angel
Mine is a love marriage, when we were in love we used to talk about my parents at that time he was very interested and used to listen, but after marriage he is treating my parents like a slve and enemy…I realy feel like crying, since its alove marriage I am not able to console my parents, but they dont mind it since it will hurt me…Even if i ask him why do u act like this his reply is Your parents are nicely playing game with you, they are using u as a source for ev everything,,but not so they have just left me for him after marriage,,,but he doesnt understand…even for his house function he is not ready to invite him, his thought is it their duty to come and attend I wont call them!!!!!How can this happen, but my parents didnt mind it..Now I hate my husband..i hate my love..He takes care of me like a Queen and he also gets everything for my parents but he doesnt talk or see them..but I dont want any belongings for my parents I want only his love for them..atleast a relationship Hi..n Bye…Hope God will hear my prayers…
20 Dec 2010 09:12 am
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