I'm concerned about my husband's relationship with his mother. His mother has been divorced several times so my husband has always been the "man of the house." His mother has often referred to him as her "rock" and "true soul mate." During an argument, my husband told me I just don't understand him - but his mother does. At one time he wanted me to pierce my ears a second time, noting that his mother wears two earrings in each ear. His mother once told me that she is looking for a man who is a good Christian, passionate, romantic, and as needy as she is. My husband describes himself as Christian, passionate, romantic, and needy!! Whenever his mother is around, he tends to ignore me and has even accused me of being jealous of his relationship with her. He won't go to counseling so I don't what to do. I don't know where I fit into his life because Mom is #1.

Hi Gina. I thought your post was interesting because my husband and I have been attending a marriage class at our church. It's a video series, led by Bruce Wilkenson, called "A Portrait of a Biblical Marriage". This speaker, in the first video "chapter" is absolutely adament that the husband "LEAVE" his mother and father and "CLEAVE" to his wife. He said it's imperative for both the husband and wife leave their parents--physically, financially, and emotionally--and for their parents to "let them go". You both are no longer part of your parents families, but have made your OWN family. <p>You say that your husband is a Christian--maybe he would be interested to know what God wants him to do in this situation. YOU need to be #1, not his mom. Of course, our parents continue to be important to us, but not at the expense of our spouse, and not to come before our spouse. I would suggest for you to go out and look for Bruce Wilkenson's (I think I spelled his name right) book, or video. He takes everything he says about marriage right from the Bible.

Does the phrase, "leave and cleave" sound familiar to your Christian husband and his mommy? <p>My husband put his family and their wishes ahead of mine for most of our marriage. Fortunately, we've always lived in different states so it only comes up a couple of times a year when it was time for a visit. Finally, I just decided to quit making an issue out of it and, after a while, he finally saw the light. Seemed that when I called him on it and we argued about it, he got more determined that I was the one that was all wet. But when I stopped bringing it up, he quit digging in his heels and finally admitted that he had failed to put me first on numerous occasions. Seems that he was pretty defensive about the whole thing without realizing it. And when you challenge a defensive person, they just hold their position all the more.