My husband and I just got married 2 weeks ago. We had been dating for 4 years. But the last year has been tremendously hard on us. His parents have a ton of wealth and power and are very controlling. He gives in to them all the time and this has become so apparent in the last year. His parents never used to pay attention to him. THey were so focused on their careers and money. In the last year due to his mother's illness they have put so much stress on our relationship. They demand that he spend all his time with them or they leave him feeling guilty. I end up going and spending all my time with them because otherwise my husband and his family would take temper tantrums. But tonight after starting my new job I was tired and put my needs before theirs. They wanted us to go to dinner. I politely refused because I wanted to stay home and unwind. My husband said he had to go and left. Three hours later he is still there. I would like to talk to him about my first day of work but he calls me and tells me I should be supporting him by being with him tonight. I don't understand why I can never put my needs first. He won't stand up to his parents. If he told them he wanted to spend the night with me he would be made to feel guilty and have a horrible evening. He really does want to spend the night talking with me but he is too scared of the consequences from his parents. What do I do when he takes the frustration out on me and makes me into an unloving and supportive person. I have spent the last 7 days and nights at his parent's place supporting his family but I need a time out for my sanity. What do I do? Any resistance from me just causes more conflict and I am so tired of conflict from everyone.

NewLove,<BR>It sounds to me like your husband needs to understand that your marriage is made up of two people: you and him. Although his parents are a part of the family and surely shouldn't be neglected, it does sound like he's taking this way overboard. My husband and I went through some similar issues with my parents when we were first married. It caused a lot of stress in our marriage until one day I finally realized that I was letting my parents run our lives and our marriage. We had to sit down together and actually establish a list of limits for both of our parents. For example, we set a limit for how often we would spend time at his parents' house compared to how often we would spend time together. We also set some boundaries of things that we would not discuss with our parents (ex: marital problems, financial issues, and anything about each other that we hadn't discussed first.) This did take us a little while to get used to, but once we established and maintained our boundaries, things started to get better. If your husband won't agree to these boundaries, maybe you should set your own boundaries. After a few nights of going out with his parents alone, I'm sure that he'll begin to see your side of things and realize that your time together to relax is of utmost importance.<BR>Good Luck!

You should have your H read Boundaries by Townsend and Cloud. Great book. Should be quite helpful in dealing with his parents.

Thanks Guilty 1. I just ordered the book online and it should arrive this week. I am looking forward to reading it ASAP. Thanks for the lead!

NewLove:<P>Hi there! I am sorry you're going thru this. I'm in a similar situation, minus the wealth part, but I know exactly what you mean. I hope you'll be able to deal with it better than I did. <P>------------------<BR> <A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/zbucketmouse" TARGET=_blank>http://www.geocities.com/zbucketmouse</A> is where my page is. Oh yeah, THANKS EVERYBODY FOR REPLIES!!!:) Very much appreciated!:)

at the risk of repeating myself...<P>therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.<P>try it. it works.