I have had quite a bit on my mind about my marriage lately, but at the moment, the topics of resentment and double-standards are first and foremost. As I think about the topics more, I realize they are part of the same problem. Anyway, here’s what’s on my mind:
My wife and I have been together a little over two years, married only a few months. Things have always been a little rocky with us (see this thread for more info on that http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/301482-opinions-my-wifes-bahavior.html), but the good has always outweighed the bad. Hence, here we are now in both of our second marriages. She has two children and I have two children. Her children stay with us 100% of the time and my children are with us 50% of the time.
I can feel the twinge of resentment beginning to creep in. I have been here before and I know this is not a good place to be and this will only get worse if the problem is not resolved. What makes this issue more difficult is that I feel I cannot discuss my feelings openly with my wife without her becoming extremely angry with me, and throwing all civility out of the window while we try to ‘talk’. Any time we try to talk about anything serious like this, she escalates the disagreement to saying hurtful things like, “Why don’t you just go f$ck the waitress from the other night? I’m sure you’d be happier with her anyway.” or saying that she may have made a mistake marrying me and that she would be happy if she was alone.
One problem is the way she allows her children to rule the house, and my children are relegated to second-class citizens while they are with us. Here are a few examples:
- Our children come home in the afternoon after school and stay with a sitter until my wife gets home from work (my wife and I work together, but she leaves work first). Her son (who is 13) comes home and begins eating almost continually until she gets home. He will work his way through an entire bag of chips or box of goldfish in one or two afternoons. I approached my wife and asked if she would speak to him about moderation and she responded that he is a growing boy and if he is hungry, she is not going to tell him he cannot eat something. However, the other day we got home and an entire new bag of chips had been eaten in one afternoon. We asked the children what happened, and her son blamed it on my daughter (age 10) saying she ate the entire bag in one sitting. My wife pulled me aside and said, “You need to talk to her. She doesn’t need to eat an entire bag of chips in one afternoon.” While I do agree with the idea, I don’t like how it is unfairly directed at my child only. I responded, “Why it is OK for XXX (her son) to eat a box of goldfish in one afternoon but YYY (my daughter) cannot have chips?” She responded, “There is a big difference in chips and goldfish. Chips are junk and goldfish are at least a little healthy.” I told her that was BS and that each were junk food, but either way, I wouldn’t tell her she couldn’t have anything since she doesn’t with her son. I also told her that didn’t sound like anything my daughter would do. This caused a big argument between the two of us, with her accusing her son of being a lair (which he is prone to do, and she will admit that when it suits her). We went back to talk to both of them about the situation and I pressed her son a little more. He finally admitted that he helped with eating the bag of chips… and in creeps a little resentment…
- Her children are unruly and both have had behavioral problems in school. These behavioral problems carry over into the home, with them both not doing what they are asked to do, and often outright telling my wife or me ‘NO!’ or being very argumentative when asked or told to do something. When they do this to me or my wife, I look at my wife, the expression on my face saying, “Are you going to allow them to talk to you/me/us like that?” Each time, the answer is ‘yes.’ She will usually placate them by saying she will get them a treat if they do what she wants. Her son will often get in trouble at school, or at home, and lose his privileges for a day or a week or a month, whatever the time is. She will say, “That’s it. Your privileges are gone for 1 week, and I MEAN IT this time.” However, we all know she will forget about it and he will be right back at his video games in two days, sometimes not even that long. It’s interesting, because she will ask me questions like, “Why are my kids so bad? Am I doing something wrong?” And I will sometimes (when I am feeling particularly fed up with the situation) give her honest feedback such as illustrating that her children know she will not hold them accountable for their actions, and they know there are no consequences for their behavior. She gets upset at this, and just argues with me saying she is busy or tired and just doesn’t have the energy to stay on top of them all the time. She will usually lash out at my kids in this situation, saying something like, “OH, AND YOUR KIDS ARE PERFECT?!” in a sarcastic tone? To be fair, both of her children have been diagnosed with ADHD and mine have not. On the other hand, if my daughter gets sassy with me, my wife will pull me aside and DEMAND I punish her. She will demand that I not let her talk to us, and have respect for us…and in creeps a little more resentment…
- And money, don’t get me started on money. She will spend hundreds of dollars on her daughter and clothes, shoes, underwear, haircuts, etc… but if I say I need to get my daughter socks or more pants or whatever, she will say to me something like, “Does she really need that?” … more resentment…
Another problem is that I am a clean and orderly person and she is an absolute mess. Now, I knew this going into the marriage, so this one is sort of on me, but the problem comes in when I try to clean (I also end up doing her kid’s chores because she doesn’t make them do them), she will get upset at me and ask me why I am cleaning all the time. She says that it makes her feel guilty and she doesn’t like it. Before we got married, she said to me, “I hope you don’t get upset with me when I don’t clean.” I responded, “I hope you don’t get upset with me when I do.” She asked why I thought she would get upset at me for cleaning, well, this is exactly what I meant. Often times I will get home from work and the kitchen and house will be a wreck. I will proceed to clean it up until about 10pm, because if I do not, no one will. I also clean the toilets, vacuum and sweep the floors, etc… on the weekends while she sits around playing games on her iPhone.
There are plenty other examples of these types of double standards and issues causing resentment to creep in, but I am going to leave it here for now. I found out in my other thread that she acts like this because I allow her to. I allow her to act like this and she has lost respect for me. I have purchased No More Mr. Nice Guy as was advised, and hope to start reading it soon. Maybe I was just posting this to vent, but maybe I can get some good insight as I did with my last post.
Thanks for reading and thanks even more for any help.
My wife and I have been together a little over two years, married only a few months. Things have always been a little rocky with us (see this thread for more info on that http://talkaboutmarriage.com/general-relationship-discussion/301482-opinions-my-wifes-bahavior.html), but the good has always outweighed the bad. Hence, here we are now in both of our second marriages. She has two children and I have two children. Her children stay with us 100% of the time and my children are with us 50% of the time.
I can feel the twinge of resentment beginning to creep in. I have been here before and I know this is not a good place to be and this will only get worse if the problem is not resolved. What makes this issue more difficult is that I feel I cannot discuss my feelings openly with my wife without her becoming extremely angry with me, and throwing all civility out of the window while we try to ‘talk’. Any time we try to talk about anything serious like this, she escalates the disagreement to saying hurtful things like, “Why don’t you just go f$ck the waitress from the other night? I’m sure you’d be happier with her anyway.” or saying that she may have made a mistake marrying me and that she would be happy if she was alone.
One problem is the way she allows her children to rule the house, and my children are relegated to second-class citizens while they are with us. Here are a few examples:
- Our children come home in the afternoon after school and stay with a sitter until my wife gets home from work (my wife and I work together, but she leaves work first). Her son (who is 13) comes home and begins eating almost continually until she gets home. He will work his way through an entire bag of chips or box of goldfish in one or two afternoons. I approached my wife and asked if she would speak to him about moderation and she responded that he is a growing boy and if he is hungry, she is not going to tell him he cannot eat something. However, the other day we got home and an entire new bag of chips had been eaten in one afternoon. We asked the children what happened, and her son blamed it on my daughter (age 10) saying she ate the entire bag in one sitting. My wife pulled me aside and said, “You need to talk to her. She doesn’t need to eat an entire bag of chips in one afternoon.” While I do agree with the idea, I don’t like how it is unfairly directed at my child only. I responded, “Why it is OK for XXX (her son) to eat a box of goldfish in one afternoon but YYY (my daughter) cannot have chips?” She responded, “There is a big difference in chips and goldfish. Chips are junk and goldfish are at least a little healthy.” I told her that was BS and that each were junk food, but either way, I wouldn’t tell her she couldn’t have anything since she doesn’t with her son. I also told her that didn’t sound like anything my daughter would do. This caused a big argument between the two of us, with her accusing her son of being a lair (which he is prone to do, and she will admit that when it suits her). We went back to talk to both of them about the situation and I pressed her son a little more. He finally admitted that he helped with eating the bag of chips… and in creeps a little resentment…
- Her children are unruly and both have had behavioral problems in school. These behavioral problems carry over into the home, with them both not doing what they are asked to do, and often outright telling my wife or me ‘NO!’ or being very argumentative when asked or told to do something. When they do this to me or my wife, I look at my wife, the expression on my face saying, “Are you going to allow them to talk to you/me/us like that?” Each time, the answer is ‘yes.’ She will usually placate them by saying she will get them a treat if they do what she wants. Her son will often get in trouble at school, or at home, and lose his privileges for a day or a week or a month, whatever the time is. She will say, “That’s it. Your privileges are gone for 1 week, and I MEAN IT this time.” However, we all know she will forget about it and he will be right back at his video games in two days, sometimes not even that long. It’s interesting, because she will ask me questions like, “Why are my kids so bad? Am I doing something wrong?” And I will sometimes (when I am feeling particularly fed up with the situation) give her honest feedback such as illustrating that her children know she will not hold them accountable for their actions, and they know there are no consequences for their behavior. She gets upset at this, and just argues with me saying she is busy or tired and just doesn’t have the energy to stay on top of them all the time. She will usually lash out at my kids in this situation, saying something like, “OH, AND YOUR KIDS ARE PERFECT?!” in a sarcastic tone? To be fair, both of her children have been diagnosed with ADHD and mine have not. On the other hand, if my daughter gets sassy with me, my wife will pull me aside and DEMAND I punish her. She will demand that I not let her talk to us, and have respect for us…and in creeps a little more resentment…
- And money, don’t get me started on money. She will spend hundreds of dollars on her daughter and clothes, shoes, underwear, haircuts, etc… but if I say I need to get my daughter socks or more pants or whatever, she will say to me something like, “Does she really need that?” … more resentment…
Another problem is that I am a clean and orderly person and she is an absolute mess. Now, I knew this going into the marriage, so this one is sort of on me, but the problem comes in when I try to clean (I also end up doing her kid’s chores because she doesn’t make them do them), she will get upset at me and ask me why I am cleaning all the time. She says that it makes her feel guilty and she doesn’t like it. Before we got married, she said to me, “I hope you don’t get upset with me when I don’t clean.” I responded, “I hope you don’t get upset with me when I do.” She asked why I thought she would get upset at me for cleaning, well, this is exactly what I meant. Often times I will get home from work and the kitchen and house will be a wreck. I will proceed to clean it up until about 10pm, because if I do not, no one will. I also clean the toilets, vacuum and sweep the floors, etc… on the weekends while she sits around playing games on her iPhone.
There are plenty other examples of these types of double standards and issues causing resentment to creep in, but I am going to leave it here for now. I found out in my other thread that she acts like this because I allow her to. I allow her to act like this and she has lost respect for me. I have purchased No More Mr. Nice Guy as was advised, and hope to start reading it soon. Maybe I was just posting this to vent, but maybe I can get some good insight as I did with my last post.
Thanks for reading and thanks even more for any help.