Dadof3greatkids

I will definitely give the Awareness book a read. Thanks for the advice.

The MC agreed with a lot of the advice here. She basically agrees that my wife has huge unresolved issues with her parents. She also agreed that I can't force her to deal with them, but just continue to work to make myself stronger so that my wife's actions do not harm me.

I decided to take a "if you can't beat them, join them approach" tonight. I told my wife that I understand that she was raised in a way that her happiness is tied to the approval of her parents, or, at least in the active pursuit of the happiness of her family. I told her that I realize that she and her family perceive me as an extension of my wife that when I act in a way that undermines her efforts to seek or obtain approval this makes her feel less connected to me. I told her since her family's happiness is tied to going to restaurants that I would realize that from now on when we all go out. I will represent her in a positive way by not being rude and troublesome about the food and restaurant and to engage with everyone while there.

From past experience, I KNEW this is what she wanted, but also KNEW she would not offer her appreciation for my statement. Instead, she basically said that she did not trust that I would be "a man of my word" and that I should write down (this is a new one) what I said so that I couldn't later say "that's not what I said." Instead of getting upset at her for her negativity, which often happens, I embraced her idea and said "that's a good idea, I will send it to an email to both of us so there's no confusion in the future as to what I said."

She then said that "I don't need to see it, just write it down for yourself." Undaunted and keeping positive I said, I don't want there to be any confusion that I am writing down what I said. She then said "I don't need a legal document - if you truly mean what you are saying, you will write down what you just said." I then sent the email anyway and never once reacted or otherwise showed that she was getting to me.

Not sure if I am just encouraging bad behavior and her dysfunctional relationship with me and her parents, but I figured it was worth a try, just to show her that her behavior was not bothering me.