I deeply sympathise with you.
I think the best thing you can do is be strong and decisive with your wife. She will find that attractive. As to what you actually do, you have to decide. But I think you should make a symbolic gesture somehow that shows that you wish to put your mother at arm's length. Prepare a speech for your wife that displays your great love for her, and indicates that she is your woman.
Your wife sounds as though she's being unreasonable, and doesn't have the capacity or willingness to obey you, which may scupper your marriage. But if you can hoe her in, you my manage to save it; I hope you do.
Oh, for heaven's sake, have you even read the thread?
And yes, as
@D.T. so rightly observes, an unwelcome echo from the Dark Ages.
I'd just ignore all that, sounds like it's from the dark ages ...
Or, perhaps, Saudi Arabia……
Here's my $0.02, that I'd frame by saying I have a spectacularly fantastic relationship with my wife. We're peers, partners, we're in business together, play together, we're still passionate, it's pretty golden (we just had our 14th anniversary, and have been together for 17-ish years) We also have an amazing little girl, we're a super tight family unit, and we spend 90% of our time together, just the three of us.
Work backwards from your child, and put everyone into an order of importance, and that little person is THE most important of any of you, period. The next most very important people in this are you and your wife, again, end of story, no compromise. I'd actually say at this age, your wife is the more important of the two of you. You have to support her 100%, she's the mother of your child, you should treat her like a goddess, she brought a life into this world for the two of you two love and share. I think people are way too unappreciative of the act of creating a life.
If your mother isn't paying any bills, if you're not living with her - and I'd still put things in order regardless of that being the case, but I'd understand a tiny bit more - it's pretty simple. Your family, that's your baby, your wife come first, they're the priority, there's no other worries. Seriously, if never seeing your mother again would solve this, then that's the answer. If involving your mother, effects your wife, which in turn effects your CHILD, then that's a non starter.
You tell your wife she is the most important women in the world, that you want to share the joy of raising your child with her, and it's up to her to decide when and IF you allow your mother to be involved in your family's life.
Excellent post. And one well worth heeding.
I hear you completely. Let me ask you though, so do you not feel that there's any place for me to approach my wife and ask "Hey, I would really like my parents to have a close relationship with their granddaughter. Can you try to accommodate and accept them? It would make me happy if you could be happy with them having a close relationship with her."
I mean, she married me, promising to support me, make me happy, etc. Why is it unreasonable to want to give my parents the relatively close relationship with their granddaughter that they want?
I am playing devil's advocate here, and would love to hear your thoughts.
Not for the first time, Stephen, you wish for others to solve your problems, and the only answer your ears seemed attuned to receiving is the one which supports the position you would like to be able to take.
For what it is worth, I have read a number of your threads you have posted here: They include the ones where you doubted whether you were attracted to the woman who became your wife, the one where you thought a girl who smiled at you fancied you (she didn't, she was being polite), the one where you asked whether your fiancée should continue with school as you wanted a 'traditional' life and school costs money, the perfectly ludicrous obsessive one about your gambling habits, the one about RSVP etiquette, others I probably missed, but these are the ones that come to mind. And now, there is this thread.
Now, Stephen, it may surprise you to learn this, but, it is not your wife's job to sort out your problems with, or the problems attending upon your relationship with, your mother. And that is what this is all about.
You are trying to make the thread about your wife's problems with your mother, when we know that the issue is, in fact, your problem - or, your problematic relationship with - with your mother. In fact, if you persist in this state of obtuse denial, the issue of your problematic relationship with your mother, will be followed - and I wouldn't blame her in the slightest - by a very problematic relationship with your wife.
Now, we know - or suspect - what it is that you wish to hear from those who respond to you: What you really want to hear, here, is that this is a woman's problem, not yours, and let them sort it out between them, together, in a way that makes you happy and takes the problem - and its solution and resolution - and the responsibility for its solution and resolution - well away from your unwilling shoulders.
Yes, she 'married you, promising to support you, make you happy'. And I seem to recall that you wrote somewhere that your interpretation of such things tends to be rather traditional.
What vows did you take, if you don't mind my asking? What support did you promise to give her? She is a young mother of a young baby, and, at a time when you should be concentrating on supporting your new family in the role of husband and father, you undermine her, and have shown 'disrespect' to what she has stated are her needs and her position - in the only role she has, which is the mother of her child - by making it clear that your needs and the needs of your mother take priority for you, as they always have.
Being devil's advocate, no, she doesn't have to accede to your desire to enable your parents to have a close relationship with their grand-daughter. That is not her job. Her job is to be the best mother possible for the daughter you had together. Your conduct is undermining her desire to be a good wife.
As to why it is unreasonable, you have made it clear that your wife has said that she does not feel at all supported by you at all in the relationship. And, you may end up risking your marriage, as it is clear your wife feels that her wishes are neither acknowledged or respected. Your wife has made it clear that she is unhappy with the situation, and - not for the first time, while you appear to hear what she has said, you are not listening to her.
And, when this is happening on top of the pressures of being a young mother, inevitably, it must put serious - if not insuperable - strains on the marriage. At a time of pressure and stress and strain, your wife's stated experience is that your support is absent, or conditional. At this stage of your life as a young couple, your support of your wife - and your new family unit - should be absolute and unconditional.
Above all, you are seeking to invalidate and undermine and dismiss and make light of what she feels and says, by suggesting that she change her stance, when the actual problem, or issue, is the relationship between yourself and your mother. It is not your wife's responsibility to solve, or have to solve, or, to be made responsible for, your relationship with your mother. That is your concern.
Again, my sense is that any conflict in your relationship is only ever managed or met by acceding to your requests; her needs - as seems to be the repeating pattern here - are subordinate to yours and - worse - to your mother's.
As with your earlier threads, it seems to me that this is all about
you, your wants, needs, and desires. Not hers.
The bottom line is that your wife feels that you do not respect her role as a mother; you see her as a domestic servant who minds the baby, not as a human being with legitimate needs and desires. Re-read your own post describing the catastrophic visit.
The issue was not that you wished to take the baby to her grandmother: Rather, it was that in trying to do so, you didn't - and clearly don't - recognise (publicly) and publicly (that is, in front of your own parents) acknowledge and - by your behaviour,
respect - your wife's role as the mother of this child. Thus, your wife is the person who gets to call the shots on when and for how long, - which means showing her that this is her call before doing anything - the child gets to see Granny.
By taking the child so eagerly, in her eyes, you were treating your wife as an inconsequential childminder, a 'nanny' in her words, not someone who needed to be consulted, and whose views needed to be taken into account and respected.
Parents and me too, but i live my life, they live theirs... They quickly forget, either that, or they will be frustrate themselves and give up...
