Talk About Marriage - View Single Post

Phenix70 · 05-20-2012, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shad

Update: I passed my weigh in, with help from my wife. I basically crash dieted for about a week and was able to make weight by about a half pound. Close, but I passed!

Now for the not so good news. My mom is here visiting (she lives across the country) and it's putting a lot of stress on my wife. In my opinion, my mom isn't the type to cause conflict or anything like that. Maybe I'm being partial to her because she's my mom and I grew up with her. For instance one of the first things my mom did when she got here was to start working outside on our landscaping. That's always been her thing - but my wife took it as an offense to our (lack of) landscaping. She becomes easily offended...
There are at least 3 other examples I can think of where my mom (unintentionally) offended my wife. And I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I listened to my wife's complaints about my mom for about 30 minutes this morning, and afterwards I told her I'm sorry they are coming into conflict. This lit her up like a top and told me I wasn't being supportive enough. She once again told me she doesn't see our relationship lasting. Ugh... Just when I thought we were doing better...

I would have been offended if my MIL showed up at MY house & started doing my landscaping without first discussing it with me. Your mother is oversteeping her boundaries, boundaries that YOU need to lay down as her son. This is your home with your wife, your mom is only a visitor, family or not, the onus is on you to make sure your wife doesn't feel overwhelmed in her own home.

I can certainly relate to your wife, I feel conflict with my inlaws as well.
Last year when my husband was commissioned, my MIL & FIL came out to our house for almost two weeks without first asking us if it was okay to come for that long. It was very stressful having them in our home all that time, even my husband, who rarely says anything to his parents finally had a enough & had a "Come to Jesus" talk with them. My MIL & FIL have issues with boundaries & just assume that since they're family that they can overstep those boundaries. It's only by telling them what WE find acceptable can we alleviate further conflict. I just hope they remember our boundaries for my husband's redeployment & don't show up his first day home.