Let me start with giving my info, My H & I are both 21, our 2 year wedding anniversary is Monday, and we have a 20 month old son. We have seperated 2 times in the past 10 months, once 4th July weekend, once in October. Neither seperation lasted more than a few days. My mohter in law is building a house and has offered the house they have lived in for the past 20 years to my H. We would make 3/4 of payment and his parents the other 1/4. I do not get along with my in-laws, therefore, I do not want to move into their house. This might be seen as selfish by some, but I am just trying to cover myself and my son should something happen to my marriage again. For the first year 17 months of our marriage we lived on the same road as his mom. But for the past 7 months, we have lived on the same road as my parents. We now are renting a house with 4 acres that my landlord mows and is in a nice neighbor hood. My mother in law's house is literaly falling apart and is in a bad neighbor hood. But my H does not see this because this is where he was raised, and his mom has him brainwashed. He is just thinking I am being selfish and saying that his moms is not good enough for me. The house we are in now is ours, not my moms, not his moms, but ours. If I was to move, it would be his moms house. He has been planing on moving there without our son and myself, so we discussed it and said that we would be getting a divorce. But the past 2 weeks he has been sending me mixed signals. I think he is hoping to get me to move in with him. I still refuse to, but is it possible that he would stay in our house? I am completely lost on what to do, am i just being selfish? Should I just move, or should I stand my ground and do what I think is right. I do not want a divorce, but I cannot move into her house and time is running out, her house will be ready in May. Thanks in advance!!

I really dont have much advice for you, but I do understand where you are comming from and do not feel you are being selfish, just careful. But from what I have read just today, it seems there are great people on this site that will help you as much as they can. Just remember, keep your head up. Good Luck, I hope everything works out for the best.

Question?
Why did you seperate? And when you did, HOW did your MIL handle it when the two of you were seperated? What was her take on the whole thing?
When you seperated who went where? Did you leave or did he? Did he go to his mom's/visa versa??!!
Answers to these questions could help you with your answer.

Post deleted by Jenn15505

the first time we seperated because he was going to the casino for his 21 birthday with his mom, step-dad, brother, his girlfriend and a "friend of the family" this friend of the family is a woman who I do not care for. she calls him at all hours of the night, texts him, wants him to drink with her, and leave me at home. She is best friends with my MIL. I saw no reason for her to go especially since I could not (my 21st birthday wasnt for 2 more weeks) The got drunk night before the casino trip and told me that I needed to get out, because he was mad that I was mad about the trip. We were renting a trailer from his uncle, so I had to leave and went to my parents. 2nd time, We got in an argument about him going out with his single friends all the time and not coming home. This particular night he went out on Friday, and he shut off his phone and I had no idea where he was. And he did not come home that night either. I have no idea where he ended up staying. So he got mad and left that time and went to his moms. She tells him that she just wants what he wants, but she sends him subtle signals, (that I have seen) about how she disapproves of me. and my mil and I used to get along great before we got married. The OW is still in the picture and he still talks to her, but that is another problem all in itself. I feel like once his mom moves,(2 hours away) the OW will distant herself cause she wont always be able to be around the family as much. An update to my situation, we went out Saturday night to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary. We spoke about the situation, and he wanted to know, again, why I would not move with him, so I told him. he seemed like he was considering not moving becuase he mentioned that two of his friends would move into the house if he did not, so I assumed this meant he had thought about just staying. Then last night, he says he is moving into the house. And I tried to explain to him that if he would have come to me and the two of us had discussed the situation, then there might have been a different outcome, but instead, he sat down with his parents and made the discussion without me. He then said that we would talk about it more later. Am I being selfish, or is it good that I am sticking to what I feel.

jenn..

you have to be very very smart about this...

the thing is that you have a 20 month old son...
and the goal needs to be that you both raise together that son in a home....where mom and dad love and respect one another....

OFTEN....very very OFTEN....
the way to illicit change in others...is to first and always change ourselves.....

one fact is...
you can't MAKE or CHANGE him...
none of us can...

You need to start with you....
you need to work on you....and THEN see where that gets you...

1. You have to act and be the person he WANTS to come home to...

you have to do some soul searching here....and think long and hard about your actions and behaviors....

his mom is his mom...which is NOT to say that he needs to seperate himself from her....
BUT
you need to guide him in this through your actions....

if he only hears from you all the horrible things about his mom....
if he only hears complaints from you about her...

then you are creating and feeding a battle field...a known and comfortable battle field that never addresses the real issues....and keeps you two at eachothers throats...

can you STOP all complaints about his mom...

how often do you bring her up
how often do you say negative things about her (EVEN) if they are true...
he can't change her

what you need to do is be very smart about this..
and offer him alternatives that are MORE exciting then spending time with mom and OP...

YOU have to work at creating that envrironment of love and compainship that fills his needs for these things....

Jenn..this is a great place to be honest about your actions
the ones that can help fix your marriage....

when first married fights between my husband and I would break down in to riduculous name calling and the throwing back and forth of stupid painful untrue things....

and make no mistake I WAS the offender and the one to first throw the mudd...I was a professional at it....he retlaliated and defended...but I was the one who went for the verbal darts...

infact they would get so silly would even forget what the initial complaint was that were mad about...and just be off on you said this and I said this rant....

it became predictable
known
and so very very non-productive...

I changed me...
I vowed to never ever call him a name again in anger...
I had to bite my tongue..
I had to yell superlatives in my head....
At first he didn't even notice that I wasn't engaging in the name calling part....

the next step was after several months of me not calling names....
the next time he said something mean...
I said very calmly..
please don't call me names...
he first tried to say...well you called me........
and there was nothing...

but the pattern was so instilled in both of us...

that it took him a moment to realize that that familiar pattern wasn't there....

he apologized for calling me whatever it was....
and slowly our pattern of argueing became more focused and more productive...
and in reality less....a lot less...because stuff that would normally make me mad or selfish or even stupid...it wasn't worth it...

once I stepped back..
took a good look at things that I was doing and saying that I KNEW would tick him off....
once I changed me...
it illicited great change in both of us...

YOU have to do this...

you have to stop the war...and figure out a different way to get from point A to point B...
you have to remove your participation in the known of what you do....

his MOM is NOT the problem....
she is the familiar scape goat in the real issues....

what you have been doing hasn't been working time for YOU to change tactics...

you can do lots of things to improve the environment to draw this man to you....

what do you think?
I know it's not the answer anyone wants to hear...but honest to god it's the one that works...

cause onnce you have done all you can on your end to change you...
and things don't get better..

you know you tried the best way how...

you have to cherish your husband inspite of his mom
you have to learn to love him and be a safer place for him than his mom...

ARK

Ark, First let me thank you so much for your help. Your post has helped me see that my H and I argue over some very petty things. The past couple of days, I have been trying to watch what I disagree with him on. Because like you said, most of the time when a couple fights, they dont even remember what it was about the next day. So thank you. But on the other tips you have given me, I have been doing these things. I treat my H like a king, I wait on him hand and foot, literally, I clip his toe nails that he couldn't pay anyone else to clip. I do these thing though because I love him not because I want to try and "beat" his mom. I spoil him more than he has ever been, even he says that. And I do not talk down about his mother to him. And I realize that she is not "The" problem, nor am a putting blame on her for all of our problems. But at the same time, i feel like she is a factor in some of our problems (but i would never tell my H this). I realize our problem is our communication. We are both young, and very hard headed. Neither wants to "give in" but dont take this wrong. We do both give in, we just have a hard time doing it. But the moving thing should be a compromise. And like I said before, if he would have come to me and discussed it with me, who knows what could have happened. But I feel like my opinion does not matter, and I dont want in a marriage where my opinion does not matter.