Thank you for reading and considering my marital problem.

After 30 years of marriage, the tension between my wife and my parents has been increasing. She just does not get along with my side of the family and I have danced and hidden the issue with excuses and lies for many years.

Last month at my daughter's wedding, my wife and (my) mother/father had numerous issues and verbal confrontations. Minor comments and disagreements by most social standards, but none the less, my wife came home smoking angry.

On the holidays, we usually make the rounds to both families. Last week, my wife tells me she will not set foot in my parent's house or have anything to do with them from here forward. Now, nearly a month has past and I asked her, "is this really that big of a deal, that you cannot work out". Well, she hit the roof at my comment.

At this point I'm going to add some history to my issue. This is (IMO) a re-occuring theme in our marriage and has been for a very long time. My wife, (IMO) cannot forgive and forget anything she deems has "done her wrong", period, nada! It has been the source for countless arguments and huge verbal fights. We've done the counseling thing; even the therapist asked her "why can't you forgive someone"... to that my wife stormed out of the room. End of therapy.

Anyway, I feel out of options at this point and have gone way into the Withdrawal stage. We have tried to talk this one out many time so far, with no luck. The Takers seems to come out in full force every time. I can't figure out what to do and am ready to get out of the marriage all together. I cannot live with someone who harbors so much anger and vengance over such small things in life. I'm 50 something and life is too short.

Advice and guideance welcome. I'm lost (emotionally) and spending my first Thanksgiving alone in 30 years, but I had to make a stand. If she would not go to my parents, I would not go with her either. OK, the Takers won. I realize that now.

Thanks for hearing me out.

James

Hi James, welcome to Marriage Builders. The solution is to stay away from your family until you BOTH enthusiastically agree to see your parents. Trying to force her into seeing your parents against her will and telling her "can't you forgive and forget" is disrespectful and manipulative. Trying to force her to do something against her will has about destroyed your marriage.

A better way to handle it is to stop this insane dance. The fact that your parents are fighting with her is very alarming and you should all have nothing to do with them until and unless that is resolved.


Great counselor!

MelodyLane - thanks for your feedback. I was raised to "forgive and forget" / "work to get along with people". I was not forcing my wife to see my parents, just not understanding why she escalated a verbal disagreement into a life altering event (IMO). In life, people say and do things to me in many walks of life that I don't like or agree with, but I don't draw a line in the sand and refuse to never interact with them again. I work to resolve the issue or take the high road. I'm not saying my approach is always right, but my wife's problem with working out differences and confrontations is a "real" issue in marriage. This Thanksgiving, my "bank account" ran dry on tolerance. Sorry, but mean and unforgiving people have to be faced and called out. What else am I missing here?

The fact that my wife doesn't get along with my parents is hard to explain. Like a democrat and republican; cat and dog; they see common views in everyday life very differently and both are strong minded/voice individuals. Receipe for confrontation.

Thanks again for your help.

How can your wife "forgive and forget" when the behavior that leads to fights is continuing? What is causing these fights? Your mother is surely old enough to know better. What is going on here?

MelodyLane - good point. My mother is very outspoken. About our kids, lifestyle, you name it. A frictional topic usually his hit when my wife and mother come together during any family event. My mother is in her 80's; I will admit, she is not the most socially-correct individual and I do my best to keep two women away from combative topics. My wife has no tolerance, not only for my mother, but the issue is similiar in our own disagreements. I was raised as a Christian and learned early on when and how to chose my battles. Also, I have level of respect my elders and give them some "latitude" in situations where no physical or major damage occurs. IDK. Maybe I'm the social whimp here and should stand up more for my wife. I think that's what you're saying?

I guess I thought she would support me in good times and bad and asking for us both to go around to our parents on the holidays didn't seem like the end of the world. It sure did to her!

Thanks for the view of the coin from the opposite side. Appreciate it.

People "forgive and forget" when the offending behavior stops, though.


If you are not forcing your wife to see your parents, then why all this manipulative talk about "forgive and forget?" That is a disrespectful judgement that is designed to force her into compliance with your will and is profoundly disrespectful.

Look at the definition of disrespectful judgement:



What you are missing is that you are being mean and manipulative and are attempting to force your will onto your wife.


What is more important is that YOU don't get along with your own wife. So lecturing her about not getting along with your parents is outrageous. You should be focusing all of your efforts in learning how to get along with your own wife.

And bullying her into submission will never, ever, ever achieve that. All you are doing is creating an incompatible marriage by trying to force YOUR desires onto your wife. You will NEVER win that way.

The solution is stop your disrespectful behavior and start seeking solutions that make you BOTH happy.

Your wife should NEVER support you in enabling a mother who treats your wife shamefully. You should never tolerate such a thing. I would NEVER, in a million years, expect my son to tolerate an unkind word out of my mouth to his wife. I would never be stupid enough to wreck my relationship with my son and his wife by doing so. I never put my son in such a position.

Your vows committed to supporting you in sickness and health, NOT when you decide to enable your mother to bully your wife.

I guess she thought you would support her in good times and bad but you are not!!! You are sitting back trying to force her to do something that you know makes her unhappy because you are afraid of your mother.

MelodyLane - Hmmm... I will certainly give your approach consideration. My "lecturing" was more from a common sense perspective that I felt was a basic social and Biblical norm that we operated by in our marriage, but I'm clearly wrong on that point. Yes, my continually pointing it out, has not worked. That's my Taker... hard at work.

IMO, no bullying. I'm not that type. I function by reason and logic, like a trial lawyer. If anything, I feel I am the one being bullied by being "told" she will not accompany me to my parents (functions) from here forward. That sounds more like bullying to me!

I disrepect her attitude and response, but I see your point on this. I cannot "dump" my family because my spouse doesn't get along with them; IMO, there needs to be a middle ground.

You ask the hard questions. Thanks again.

MelodyLane - I understand the points you've made. You've been a big help with your views and comments. In my mother's defense, she's old and doesn't always understand the ramifications or impact of what she says to people. I don't know how or if you can account or insert tolerance for that by your standards. Yes, the relationship between my mother and I has been weak and rocky over the years; you hit the nail on the head with that one. I see your point that I need to be on wife's side more than my mother's... yeah, it's likely I went overboard with my expectations. OK. I'm going to re-read and re-think all of this in light of your advice. Thank you again.

James

So refusing to be bullied into going to see your parents is bullying?

Forcing someone to do something against her will is bullying. Refusing to allow you to bully her is not bullying. so yes, you are bullying her.

And I do not see you employing reason and logic in this situation. You continually try to force your wife into seeing your family even though you have vast evidence that this tactic does not work. All it has done is greatly increase the resentment and incompatibility in your marriage. Yet you keep using the same tactics.

A better tactic would be to a) stop trying to force her and b) make visiting your family so pleasant that she will WANT to visit. And if you can't achieve that, then stop ramrodding her.


So, the answer is to dump your wife? I thought you said you were a Christian? Wrecking your marriage on the alter of your family of origin is NOT honoring your marriage. Your marriage has to come first, not your parents. You CAN and should dump your family if they will not honor your marriage.

But more importantly, you should learn to get along with your wife before you destroy your marriage. If you don't learn it in this marriage, you will wreck the next marriage too.

Thank you again. I'm going to re-think and re-work my actions long and hard. God Bless You!

(hope you're a professional counselor, because you sure have the calling!)

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm going home now.

James

There is no time like the present to break bad habits. Don't allow your mother to destroy your marriage, my friend. She is a old woman who knows better than this. I have a grown, married son and we know how to act. Help her be a better person and stand up for your wife at the same time. And most of all, stop trying to force your will on your wife. You are creating YEARS of resentment by your behavior. Your will never forget you did this to her. So stop now and start using different tactics before it is too late.

Happy Thanksgiving to you too, James!! Please think it over, my friend. We can help you work through this in a way that will help your marriage while giving your relationship with your mother the BEST CHANCE. [if she straightens up]

Come back after you have thought it over and we can help you with next steps. And no, I am not a counselor, just an avid reader of Dr Harley's works.

Your lecturing was disrespectful, regardless of your intent. It is extremely disrespectful to assume that you must straighten out your wife with your view of "common sense" and "Biblical norm." Any attempt at any point to educate her like this is disrespectful, and will get you nowhere.

Yes, you are. You are using disrespect to try to get your way. That is bullying.

Why?
Your wife should just put up with your family treating her poorly? Without you standing up to them for her?

One of the best things my husband ever did for our marriage was cut off contact with his parents because of how they treated me. They were rude to me and treated me poorly, and so he stood up to them and told them that they would either start treating me with respect, or they would not be allowed to be a part of our lives. As a result, we had no contact with them for 2 years.

Now we are reconciled with them because they decided it was better to change how they treated me than to have no contact at all.

Hi, infotechguy, welcome to Marriage Builders.

It sounds like you and I have a lot of things in common. First off, from the name infotechguy, I'm betting that we have a lot in common career wise. And second I can see from the way that you talk about the Bible that we have faith in common. And finally it looks like we both have had problems with our wife's in-laws, i.e., our parents.

I would strongly recommend you get the book Love Busters and read through it. Toward the end of the book is a chapter with Dr. Harley's recommendations for how to resolve conflicts over friends and relatives. This is one of the most common marital conflicts. I used the procedure Dr. Harley recommends, and it worked wonderfully in my situation.

Would it surprise you to hear that from your description, it sounds like you have an abusive marriage? That might sound like a strong word to use, but it is the word Dr. Harley uses to describe fights like this, and fights like my wife and I had, before Marriage Builders. I would assume that you guys tend to have fights over other conflicts as well. The book Love Busters will teach you what habits you need to eliminate and what new habits you need to form in order to stop fighting in your marriage.

What could be more Biblical that not fighting any more? Tonight I was just reading to my kids in the Bible Isaiah's prophecy in chapter 2: they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation won't lift up sword against nation any more, and they won't hurt or destroy in all of God's holy mountain. As dwellers in God's holy mountain, it's up to us to stop fighting! Especially with our wives. As Paul said, when did a man ever harm his own flesh? But that is what our wives are.

To me your basic stance toward your wife is one of control and abuse. I used to be the same way. You have particular beliefs and understandings about what people ought to do in certain situations, and you don't have a lot of tolerance for your wife having different beliefs on the subject. So you insist that your wife ought to forgive your parents for their disrespect - but you don't seem ready to forgive your wife for not being willing to do what you think she should do. There's no allowance in your thinking for the possibility that her beliefs and feelings on the subject could be right. It's not a respectful exchange of perspectives between two people who aren't God and aren't infallible - it's an expression of frustration and disrespect from you toward her because you believe you know what is right and she won't do it.

I've also got some pretty strong beliefs about what people ought to do, and one of those is this: you and your wife should never do anything unless you are both enthusiastic about it. Because God has made you one, you are joined together and should not take separate directions. Out of all the many possible directions in life, whichever direction you pick on each decision ought to be one that both of you agree is a good idea. Otherwise, one of you will be dragging the other (controlling and abusing the other). Move as one. And until you are both ready to move, wait patiently for each other.

You are trying to pull your wife in a direction that she does not want to go, in a direction that she does not think is a good idea. And the Bible is very clear: from the very beginning it says that marriage is when a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife - your wife outranks your parents. It is your parents who should swallow their pride and modify their behavior to be acceptable to her if they want to be around the two of you - not your wife.

There is a great bit of wisdom in your wife's perspective on this. God gave her to you as a help for you, so use the wisdom that He is giving you in the person of your wife. She sees things that you do not see, and vice versa. Together you can see more than either one of you can see alone, and if you will take her perspective into account instead of trying to force her to follow your perspective, you will make better decisions in life.

In this case your wife sees a very important thing: people should not put up with disrespect and abuse. Instead of forgiving your unrepentant parents and permitting them to abuse the woman who should be more important to you than anyone in the world, you should protect her. In my case, I told my parents that we would not see them again until they apologized to my wife for their disrespect and promised never to be critical of her again. It took nearly two years but they finally did so, and we have a great relationship with them again. And they know not to treat my wife in such a horrible hurtful way any more - they know that if we do so, they will not see us or their grandchildren. We were perfectly capable of living a fulfilling life without seeing or talking to them for two years, and we can do it again. The result of us actually confronting them for their sin (as the Bible says to do) is a much much better relationship, much healthier for us, for our children, and much more glorifying to God.

If you read your Bible you will find that God commands people to repent if they want to be forgiven. Since your parents have not repented of their disrespect toward your wife, it is almost unbelievable that you would be suggesting her to make the superhuman effort to forgive people who are still abusing her! Even God does not require this level of forgiveness, so why would you put her through it?

My guess is that the two of you probably need help to eliminate the abuse and control that is dividing you. It took a lot of work to turn our marriage around. In addition to the book Love Busters, I've been listening to Dr. Harley's daily radio show for almost four years now. It look a LOT of work for me to change! I was a very angry and disrespectful and abusive man, and I expected my wife to just put up with it. She and I were very unhappy and fought all the time. Our children were being raised in a terrible home with terrible ideas - now they know that we used to fight but that we learned here at Marriage Builders how to not fight any more. Now they are seeing an example of a husband and wife who love and cherish each other and are truly ONE as God intended.

Really not very many marriages turn out well. About 60% end in divorce. 20% end in permanent separation - husband and wife separate and stay that way until death. 20% stay together but are unhappy and independent instead of one flesh. Only about 20% of marriages appear to be happy. And sadly even among church goers and Bible believers, the statistics are not any better.

With Bible principles in mind, Dr. Harley studied the successful marriages. He took note of the things that they did and did not do, and the result is the recommendations he makes as part of this Marriage Builders program. Here you can learn how to be part of the 20%. If you haven't read through the Basic Concepts, take a look at them. It'll be your first glimpse of a new way of living with your wife, and a new way of resolving conflicts with her.

Here's the Marriage Builders Basic Concepts:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=3

Here's the Marriage Builders Radio program. It runs for an hour a day each week day, and then the show repeats every hour until the next day's show, so you can listen any time, day or night:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=12

And here's the book Love Busters - it's your guide to learn how to stop fighting with the wife God gave you!
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Busters-Protecting-Marriage-Romantic/dp/0800718941

Happy Thanksgiving!

BTW, James, your Taker is not bad. It's a God-given part of you. You have to remain firmly in control of it and not allow yourself to follow all of its ideas, because it wants you to be happy even if it is at the expense of other people. But your Taker and your wife's Takers both have to be satisfied - that is the part of you that wants you to be happy. God wants you to be happy, too, infotechguy. And he wants your wife to be happy. That's why He gave you to each other. Ignoring the Takers or expecting each other to suppress them misses the whole point of marriage.

God wants husbands to please their wives, and vice versa. So don't insist on a course of action that isn't pleasing to her.

That was a disrespectful thing for you to say to her, simple as that. Any time that you make a comment that sounds like you are talking about what your wife should do, it's disrespectful, because it presents you as the expert/critic who is enlightened and knows the right way to do things and is there to shine your light on your poor ignorant wife.

One chapter of Love Busters is called "Disrespectful Judgments: Who wants to live with a critic?" If you are like me, you are going to have a hard time learning to recognize disrespectful judgments. But you'll need to do so - they need to be eliminated. As my wife pointed out aboe, Disrespectful Judgments are actually a bullying tactic that people use (often without realizing it) to pressure or force their spouse to do things their way.

Of course your wife doesn't like this! Nobody likes to be disrespected like this. Don't hate your own flesh (your wife) - nourish and cherish her instead of disrespecting her.

Infotechguy, You are getting a lot of really good insight here from some valuable posters who are very familiar with the MB program. I want to add that I have been in your wife's position and my H in yours and it was the makings for some very deep resentment in our marriage.

My MIL was extremely critical and negative. The longer we were married, the more I grew to resent having to put up with her bad behavior. My H never, not once, did anything to protect me or our daughter from her critical comments. I thought that as a Christian I was to be respectful and loving and the peacemaker and all of that. I prayed before their visits and throughout their visits, but in spite of my deep faith in God as my Savior, her behavior continued to withdraw love units. In time, her account in my love bank was empty, then it went into the negative. I never was disrespectful to her. However, I did begin to hate being with her. I even began to hate her and was repelled by her presence.

My H finally started to understand that his part in defending his mother, forcing us to visit with her, and not protecting me from her was creating a rift in our marriage. We began to minimize our contact with them. Now my H greatly regrets that he didn't defend his family from the beginning. His defense of his mother against me was a cause of huge resentment on my part. Not only did I not like my MIL because of her constant criticism, but now my own H was not willing to stand up to his parents and protect his family from her.

Your M will have to end her bad behavior in order to enjoy your family's company. She will have to force herself to stop being critical and to be courteous instead. That's actually really good for her.

Everyone - I owe you all, especially God, a huge "thank you" for your comments and advice. As I drove home last night, I could not stop replaying the words and perspective receieved from MelodyLane; and thanking God for somehow directing me to this website in my time need. At the moment feeling somewhat "lost" in how I would start reconstructing the relationship with my spouse. Where do I start when we're both parked in the Withdrawal stage. Big time.

Markos & LongWayHomeFrom: thanks for your comments and perspectives as well, I have taken all of this to heart and plan to move forward with repairing my marriage. I only hope I can open my spouse's heart and there is hope left to build on what's left of our martial foundation. I'll give it my best shot.

I have thought of printing this thread and giving it to my wife. IDK. Not sure how she would react and feel. I'm hoping she'll consider engaging in the Dr. Harvey's program here or at least giving it consideration in light of our martial situation.

Again, my sincere thanks to you all and God Bless You! I will be back with updates; I have made the commitment to implement postive change and will pray that it takes flight from my spouse's perspective as well as mine. Will get the book (Love Buster's) too.

Best Regards - James

Wow, what a fantastic post Markos. Every word of it. I wonder if the mods might save it?