My husband and I got married while he was still in college. He had a difficult major and worked a lot so he didn't have much free time at all. I was lucky to get to spend anytime with him during the week. The time he was home on the weekend was spent doing homework all day. Then when he did have free time on the weekend, which was nearly every weekend, he would go to his parents house and visit, or help them with building their bakery. I don't go to his parents house because of mean things his mother has said to me, so that's why I didn't spend that time with him. Spending time with his parents was his main piority and not me, anyway. It was amazing that he had enough enery to help build a bakery, but when he finally found time to have sex with me he would fall asleep on me half the time. I told him how I felt and nothing changed untill he graduated from college. That is when we negotiated that he would go visit his parents after work anytime he wanted during the week because during that time he spends it sleeping on the couch or going on the inernet, anyway. Then he would also have one weekend day durning the month to go also. He broke our negotiation because his family had a party that he wanted to go to on the weekend, I objected to it because I wanted to spend that time with him, and he went anyway. He said he went because he wanted to see certain realatives that he hadn't seen in a while. I tried to negotiate with him by suggesting we go to dinner with them, instead of him going to the party to see them without me, because his mother was going to be there. He wouldn't negotiate at all. The month before he had to go over twice on the weekend because he wanted to help with the bakery as usaul. I'm not trying to be controlling; I just want to come first for once, since I never did. I don't like having to limit him but if we hadn't come to this negotiation he'd still be there every weekend leaving me at home. I am very resentful towards him now that he can't even make it up to me by sticking to our negotiation. I am truly thinking of giving up on our marriage since I am not number one to him, and he'd rather spend time with his parents than with me. I've told him that in the past, and he still broke our negotiation. He says that I am unreasonable.

Welcome, TLA, to MarriageBuilders...

Have you read all the articles on this website, especially Harley's Policy of Joint Agreement? It's part of his Four Rules of Marriage...

What do you think of your H's perception that your position of not being around his mother is unreasonable?

Have you said cutting things to others in your lifetime? Do you usually cut out acquaintances or friends when they do this? Your H's mother isn't someone your H can negotiate to give up...he loves her, he loves them. His job is to support you in your healthy boundaries and shared boundary enforcements around you and your marriage.

Sounds like you have a lot of unmet ENs right now...have you done the Emotional Needs questionnaire on this website? The Love Busters (LBs) questionnaire? Have you considered looking over the Recreational Companionship (RC) inventory (really fun to do, in my opinion) and see if you and your H can come up with something you both would love to do together, rather than separate hobbies?

Harley recommends no less than 15 hours of Undivided Attention (UA) together each week...making it a top priority for partners to reconnect, play and remember why they fell in love to begin with. In my experience, this advice made a huge change in my marriage...so I'm passing it on.

Harley's His Needs, Her Needs is a great book for learning how relationships work...and Fall in Love, Stay in Love, as well.

You can't make someone make you number one...there's a whole lot of pain and anger in experiencing life that way. You can stop feeling that way...by choosing to believe it's not possible. If you choose to make your marriage your number one priority, and firmly know you are married to your equal, your partner, each half of the marriage, then you and H are number one...fact, not fiction...not wanting your partner to change...changing YOUR stuff.

Do you have children together? How long have you been married? Would you consider that what you learn now will affect the rest of your life? And what you don't learn, you will repeat...as many times as it takes for you to realize that it's not finding the right partner, it's being one?

Kinda like going through this much pain right now instead of years of it later.

LA

Of course, everyone has said cutting remarks to someone in their life time, but my husband told his mother to stop and she wouldn't. She totaly disregaurded my feelings. So I don't think I'm unreasonable for not wanting to be around her. I think you misunderstood me. I'm not asking my husband to give up his parents. I asked him to give up a family party because I'm asking him to limit the time he spends with them so he's not there every weekend anymore. Like I said in my original message, our negotiation was for him to go [color:"red"] [/color] ANYTIME DURING THE WEEK AND ONE DAY A MONTH ON THE WEEKEND TO HIS PARENT'S HOUSE. [color:"black"] [/color] That isn't asking him to give them up.
I checked out the entire website. My husband and I are very incompatible. We disagree on everything. I realize he's not even close to what I wanted now. Finally, one day he told me his favorite recreational time wasn't with me. I suspected that already. The only things that thrill my husband are working on the bakery and cars with his dad, or going hunting alone. And I don't want to do any of those things. I've tried to think of other things we could do together, but nothing really excites him like those activities. I guess that's why he doesn't choose to spend his time with me.
My husband doesn't put the marriage first. I am willing to change my hobbies, and be happy with new ones, he isn't. I'm willing to change anything, except for associating with his mother. The problem is that he spends too much time with them and neglects our marriage. I don't understand what you are really trying to tell me. Are you trying to tell me it's ok for my husband to spend all of his free time with his parents? I make my husband number one in my life. Should I just change and let my husband spend all of his time there and be happy about him neglecting time with me?
We don't have children. Thank goodness, because I don't think our marriage will last. We have been married for a year and three months. I think I have learned a lot from our marriage. If I end up getting divorced, I'll know to not marry someone that is so incompabible with me the next time. How can I be the right partner for someone who doesn't want to spend time with me?

I interpretted what LA said as being "Sweetie, you can't make him hold up his end of the bargain. He's making his choices."

Now, you can avoid LoveBusters. You can reassess your stand with his mother.

Have you talked to him? Does he want to be married to you, or does he feel he made a dreadful mistake too?

Things in my marriage started going downhill after 3 months. I refused to face that I had made a terrible mistake for 5 years. After that I still fought to save my marriage for another 2 years. I wouldn't wish that kind of protracted pain on anyone.

Ask your husband to go to marriage counseling with you. If he won't, start considering your options. I know that isn't the typical MB line, but when marriages go bad immediately, I wonder if an annulment isn't in order.

Just make sure you do your due diligence and make the effort now so that you won't have any regrets later.

TLA,

I believe your MIL is a challenge in your life. I believe she's there, a part of your life, to grow from. Boundary enforcements are predetermined and progressive.

You say that you did tell her to stop saying hurtful things to you, and that your H did, also, and she didn't stop. You say she disregarded your feelings. For a stranger, there would be a three-step boundary enforcement, the last being you won't associate with them again.

For an acquaintance, most likely, same number.

For a friend, five or six would be healthy.

For a MIL? Eight or nine before final enforcement.

Boundaries go around you...your before...they define your code and to what you hold yourself. If MIL says something you hear as derogatory, your first boundary enforcement can be (if you choose) to listen and repeat...you restate what you heard her say and ask is that correct...gives her the opportunity to correct or clarify. Then you state that she crossed your boundary of respect, honesty, which one she crossed. Helps you to identify the crossing.

Next crossing, you state the crossing and that you are removing yourself for five minutes (set your time) while you handle your own hurt feelings. Third one, after you return to the conversation/presence, you state that you will be removing yourself for the day. Fourth one (these are consecutive enforcements for the type of crossing...mockery, gaslighting, defining, judging), and you do it for a set number of days or weeks. Each time, you state the crossing, your feelings, your goal (to have a healthy loving relationship with her) and you enforce calmly, from your respect that you cannot control someone else...only your own choices. You continue the listen and repeat so you are clear on the crossing...not reacting from hurt feelings, acting from your code.

Practicing healthy boundary enforcements improves all relationships...because it solidifies your half.

The Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) isn't in play with what your H promised about his family...if he wasn't enthusiastic about it, then it's not an agreement. Both of you have to brainstorm a really great solution...which you both will be behind and feel rewarded with.

Cutting yourself out of a relationship with his MIL may be a HUGE LB for him. After all, he married you for how much of his mother he saw in you...positive and not so positive. We work out our FOO (family of origin) issues through our adult relationships. Which is why your relationship with H's mother is important. Not about compatibility between you and H...we can change our actions...our priorities...our lives. You were attracted to H for your own FOO issues...and will be again and again, so changing H's doesn't change issues. They are yours. They aren't bad or wrong...

Marriage is for two whole people to live and grow next to each other within one union. It's as layered, complex and difficult as the two people who form it. Complicated...not cut and dry.

You don't like being discounted...told you're wrong, not seeing things correctly. That's reasonable. Your opinions matter...your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, perceptions and perspectives are yours. They are valid. They aren't The Truth...they are your truth.

So are your H's. He wants you to work out a relationship with his mother...may include his desire to have family events together...seeing down the line to grandchildren...that in marriage, you marry the person and their family, for life. He knows his mother's awful actions first hand (what she does to you, she does to others), the zinging hurt she can inflict...he also knows her loyal, consistent love, presence and the rest of her really well...he loves her as a whole person, his mother... which tells you when you choose awful actions, to LB, to SD, he will love you, his wife.

POJA really works well when both people are heard and not discounted...when they can listen and repeat, share their filters and get beyond the word "unreasonable" by breaking it down...into wishing you made different choices...something to help him in his relationship with her, as well, which didn't feel punishing...more rewarding...and learning to let the outcome go...empowering, not draining, tearing the marriage and individuals in two.

That's growing side by side...and not forecasting "If I do this, he'll think/feel/do that" to base what you choose to do in this life. That's a manipulative life...probably very much like his mother.

Instead, you can choose what you live from...from who you really are..."I want to live from respect and experience a respect-filled live." "I want to live from my choice to love and experience a love-drenched life."

Your choice. You choose to create and nurture resentment...which is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

It will corrode like battery acid every relationship you have because YOU are part of every relationship.

Learning how to rid your life of resentment would be a marvelous change for you...to free yourself. Not perfect.

We all fall in love and vow to our partners for our lifetimes before really finding out all about them...we're so complicated, takes a lifetime to really know our partners and to be known by them, too. It isn't bait and switch...it's about choices.

Your H can fall in love with you over and over again...Harley's stuff works. I don't read in your post you doing your half of the four rules of marriage...where you consider and ask about HIS FEELINGS...and most likely, you are disregarding them...that's how humans work...what strikes into your heart the most will be what you are doing...like a signal.

He may fear you, feel pain which he distracts from with the bakery and his hobbies...he may fear his own anger, which he feels intensely at times with you, because he feels controlled, criticized, a failure, unloved and engulfed by your neediness...the pursuer/distancer...and that's his, too. His stuff...not you making him. The further he pulls away, the more you pursue...get to know this man...you haven't even scratched the surface yet...

So you learn and grow.

I don't believe marriages go bad...divorces don't just end up happening...like events that randomly strike. You choose to have half of a bad marriage...you choose to divorce or not...you own your choices...you choose to enforce your boundaries or not...and when you feel grievously betrayed when you don't...know half of it is your own betrayal. You did that. To yourself. It really hurts.

You choose to create and maintain resentment, which hardens into entitlement. That's how to live full time in fantasy, not reality.

Is there another man you've been thinking about, corresponding with, sharing your stuff with while your H spends all his time with his family?

Take a look at the very lengthy Recreational Companionship (RC) Inventory here. It's really fun to see all possibilities...doing something new together is a marriagebuilding practice because it echoes when we fell in love with our partners...we were new to them and they were new to us...each new experience we have together brings that bouncing off our marital walls...refreshes and reminds us we are new every day.

Play, engage, enforce your boundaries and hold yourself to your code...you may suddenly discover that he's more than the man you thought you were marrying, and live in abundant love. Your choice.

LA

Some of the many things my mother in law said to me were worthy of me not seeing her again in my eyes. And if other people don't see it that way, it's because they aren't me. They haven't had my life. I haven't had a good life in the past. I'm done dealing with people who physicaly and mentaly asbuse me, and even the people like her, who try to make me feel like I'm not good enough, and try to tell me how I should live my life. I now realize that I deserve respect. One day I woke up after I gave up all the medication and therapy and thought I'm not going to be depressed anymore, because I am good enough the way I am. I gave up my eating disorder(my husband knew I had it when he married me) that I had for almost seven years, not because I'm afraid of death, but because I feel like I'm in control of my life for once. I feel like God is giving me a new life, dispite the problems I have.
When my husband and I told her we were engaged she told us everyone would think I was pregnant. She told us she didn't want us to get married when we planned to. I told her that I was not pregnant and still a virgin, and she did not appologize. All I really wanted was an appology I'm guessing she said this because we didn't have a long engagement. We were together 2 years before we got married so it wasn't like we totally rushed into marriage. My husband said he didn't want a long engagment, so we didn't have one. And I was still a virgin when I married my husband. It was the same as her telling me everyone was going to think I was a w****e who got knocked up, in my eyes. And in the bible any woman who sleeps with a man who isn't her husband is refrenced as a w****e.
My husband and I aren't the same religion and I don't ever plan on changing to his religion. He doesn't have a problem with it, but of course his mother does. Many times I sat and listened to her go on about how I should convert, and many times I told her I don't want to. I feel that no one has the right to tell anyone what religion they should be, except maybe your spouse. I still don't think they really should either. I except that my husband believes differently and that is fine. And if we have children they will learn both religions and decide what they want to believe in the end.
My mother in law could not except that I did not go to college. I went to Beauty School after high school, and became a nail technician but that wasn't good enough for her. I told her over and over that if I decided to ever go I would go, but right now I don't want to go. I told her that I can't think of any thing that I would want to go to college for, and that I am happy doing what I am doing. My husband is fine with me not going to college. We are not hurting for money. He is a civil engineer. He told her to stop also, and she ignored him too, and just said she speaks her opinion when she wants to. She just kept on nagging. Those are just a few of the ways she has disrespected me.
My mother in law would love to dictate every aspect of my life if I would let her. I don't understand how a person can be that way and disregaurd the other person's feelings when they never did anything to them. I am the kind of person that is shy, quiet, and always worried about hurting the other person's feelings. People always seem to pick on that kind of person. They think they can tell them how to live, and belittle them, and that they will be too afraid to stand up to them. That is how I was treated by many of my so called friends in high school, and by many of the people I used to work with. I fell into a deep depression, and felt like I couldn't do anything right to anyone, after having so many people in my life treat me badly. I realize that I can't make everyone happy and do what they want. I don't have those people in my life now and I am so much happier without them. I want to be surrounded by people who love and except me for me. My husband and I went to a counsoler in the past and she supported my decision to not associate with my mother in law after I explain the whole situation to her(I didn't explain everything here, it would take too long). My husband doesn't like that I don't associate with her, but I am not going to change my mind about it especially when I have a counsoler backing up my decision.
There is no other man in my life. I don't have any friends that are men either. I'd never cheat on my husband in any way. The only man I ever wanted was my husband. My husband and I have made a new agreement regaurding when he goes to his parents house that he says he is happy with, but what happens if he becomes unhappy with it? What happens when someone says the are happy, then breaks the negotiation? I'm almost positive he will. I think the only way he will really be happy regaurding that situation is if I was ok with him going there every weekend and neglecting spending time with me. Even if I loved his mother, and spent every second with him when he was visiting her, we would still need time alone, and he doesn't understand that.
I was not attracted to my husband because of any traits he had that reminded me of my father because I don't know my father. So there was no way I could see my father in him. I don't totally disregaurd my husband's feelings. I know he loves his mother, and I don't want that to change. I know he needs time with his mother, but not every spare minute he has! I will not sacrafice my happiness and go to his mother's house be miserable. I don't make him go to my family events. He goes only rarly, and he doesn't like my family either. He goes and pretends to get along with them when he really can't stand them. In my eyes it's just like he's lying. I have read on many christian websites that you are to leave your mother and father and cleave to one another. They also state that your marriage with your spouse is suposed to come before your parents, and even your children. I don't feel that my husband has emotionally left his parents, or cleaved to me.
I don't sit around thinking about my mother in law, or anyone else who has hurt me. They hardly ever cross my mind. I can let it go and not harbor my feelings toward her dispite the fact that I'm never going to see her again. It's especially easy to let it go when I know she is never going to be able to say anything to me again. I would not be able to let it go if I had to deal with seeing her. Then I would have to deal with all the remarks that never end comming from her. The only way they would end is if I would do as she says.