peevedaddy

Hi Everyone - I'm new to this forum. I'm here in hopes that someone can shed some light on my wife's recent behavior and perhaps even provide some advice on what I can do about it. Honesty is appreciated, even if you feel that I am being unreasonable or controlling.

A little background - my wife and I have been married for just over 3 years now. We have a 2 year old daughter together, as well as a 13 year old daughter from my wife's previous marriage. I work full time while my wife is a stay-at-home mom. We live in a luxury apartment building, with a doorman, swimming pool, etc. and generally have everything we need to live a comfortable life.

Until last month, my mother-in-law was living with us as well. She helped us with the kids, as well as with preparing meals and general household chores. During this time, my wife was not working. Having my mother-in-law there was a huge help, especially for my wife, as it allowed us to take vacations and go out pretty much anytime we wanted to. Just in the last year, my wife and I have been to St. Barths, Amsterdam, Italy, France, London, and Canada on vacation, while her mom stayed home with the kids. Now that she decided to retire and move back to her home country (Philippines), my wife is forced to take on a bit more responsibility and sacrifice her social life and vacations to a degree.

Since my mother-in-law left, I notice that my wife is still making frequent plans to spend time with her friends. She is making long term, time-consuming commitments, such as signing on as a chairperson for a dance show, which required her to be out until 2am 3-4 nights a week for 2 weeks to help with organization and choreography. She's also become actively involved with her friend's charities, which required her to spend a few late nights away from home.

I was a bit upset at having to work all day to support our family and have to come home at night and be a single parent. When I discussed this with my wife, she mentioned that she made all of these plans prior to her mother announcing she was leaving, and that she felt bad cancelling on her friends. She assured me that once the dance show was done, there would be no other cases of excessive time spent away from home, especially late at night and on weeknights.

The show finished last week and my wife is now organizing charity meetings at our apartment on Friday night. We live in a humble 2 bedroom apartment, and her meetings have 10-15 guests come over for 4-5 hours at a time. I didn't want to criticize my wife for this, as it was on a weekend and she wasn't going out - the guests were coming to us. However, I still felt that having that many people at our house late at night was a bit excessive.

Aside from all of the outside activities she's been engaged in, another problem I've been having is that even when she is home it seems that her mind is elsewhere. She spends countless hours on the computer and on the phone, talking with friends, watching soap operas, playing games. She goes to sleep late and wakes up late. Throughout all of this, our daughter is forced to play by herself. She too is spending countless hours playing with our IPAD and watching TV instead of devoting time to healthy activities like going outside or learning. Our teenage daughter even confided to me that she feels her mom is neglecting her because every time she wants to talk to her she tells her to come back later because she is busy (either on Facebook or talking on the phone).

When she tried to talk about her feelings to her mom, my wife through a temper tantrum, screamed and threw things, and basically got very defensive. When I try to talk to her, I get similar treatment. It seems that her friends and social life are taking precedence over her family and that she still hasn't quite gotten used to life without her mom there all the time.

I try to be supportive of her. I know that the transition is difficult and I tried to work out a compromise with her - maybe she can go out 1 night a week while I watch the kids, preferably on a weekend. But it seems any breach of the subject or the concept of having to compromise (or limit her freedom in some way) just leads to her sulking and steaming, not talking to anyone and just acting cold.

Am I missing something here? Am I being too controlling by asking my wife to spend more time with our family and not go out late at night? She seems like she is longing for her youth (she used to organize beauty pageants and charity events before we got married), but I feel like she is neglecting her responsibilities to our family and being selfish. How can I even approach the subject without risking her getting angry at me? Any honest feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Acorn

I don't mean this harshly, but your wife sounds very childish.

MIL leaves, and she doesn't help fill the void? I'd be very worried that you and the kids are outside of her world-view. She just assumes "someone will take care of that" and keeps on doing her thing.

Without you or the kids in her world view, she'll eventually fill that void with something. The worst case would be an affair, but it could be silly things like Facebook too.

You are NOT being controlling. Your wife needs to grow up.

PBear

Honestly, it seems like neither you or your wife are big on "parenting", and were using your MIL as a live-in nanny. So the easy solution is to hire another nanny to replace the one you lost.

Plan B... Family counselling

C
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Hicks

Your MIL retired from being your wife's doormat. She had to run to another country to escape it. You have all the information you need. Left to her own devices your wife will not be a wife nor a mother to her children. Don't play nice. Give her the choice of being a proper mother and wife or a single mother.

Good Dog

I've been in this situation myself over the past year or two. I think it's often almost like an MLC when a spouse does this, though my wife was nowhere near middle age when she did this. But I think often it's tied to feeling older and less secure about oneself, though I can't be sure of that of course. My wife still does the whole going out all the time kind of thing, though she no longer ignores me at home like she did for a long time. Has your wife gone through any major crises recently (meaning in the last few years)? Because that can be a factor as well, as can issues with her FOO. There can be a variety of things at work in this, including affairs (my wife had been involved in an EA around the same time), though that's not necessarily the case and it can be other issues instead. I don't think your wife getting angry should be a barrier to talking about this, in fact as long as you bring it up respectfully then she has no valid reason to get upset. But it sounds as if your wife is getting everything she wants in life and is taking you for granted. So you need to address this aspect of things as well. I'm still working on these problems in my own marriage so sorry if I can't be a lot of help, but just some things to think about as you decide how to raise the issue with her. She needs to shift more toward family life for the good of your children and the health of your marriage.

peevedaddy

Thanks for the quick feedback.

PBear - I try to be a good parent, but I can't be at home all day like my wife can. I usually get home at around 6-7pm and spend the next couple of hours having dinner with my daughters (and sometimes my wife), going over my teenage daughter's homework, and reading to my 2 year old. On the weekends, I make it a point to plan excursions with our children. It's true that while my MIL was here, we took a few extra vacations, but being a good father and providing a healthy, nurturing upbringing to my kids is vital to me. I don't want a nanny (nor can we really afford one on my salary alone) - I just want an equal partner.

Acorn - I agree that my wife has been behaving pretty childish lately. She's always had someone do the heavy lifting for her and doesn't seem prepared to be a full time mother. How do I approach her about this without offending her? Is there any hope to change this?

peevedaddy

Thanks for the candor. There haven't been any crises that we've went through recently - the last one was my wife's sister passing away, but that was 18 months ago. I definitely feel there's a bit of a mid-life crisis aspect to this. My wife seems like she's longing for her youthful carefree lifestyle where she can do whatever she wants without answering to anyone. I'd love for her focus to shift more toward our family, just not sure how to do it without offending her.

peevedaddy

The thought has certainly crossed my mind, but quite frankly I love my daughter a great deal and don't want her to suffer because her parents can't get along. I want to be there for her and watch her grow up, so separating from my wife just seems like it's not an option. Ideally, I want my daughter to grow up in a loving environment with two parents.

Acorn

She not prepared to be a mother because she's never had to before. Like Hicks said, when MIL left, you filled the void, so she didn't.

Get some activities of your own, and also, go to some of these late night charity events together. Do not let her have this dual-life that she's set up for herself, but rather involve yourselves in each others' lives. Schedule more family time.

If the carrot doesn't work, the stick might. An unemployed single-mother lifestyle is quite a bit different than she has now. Explain it to her directly in the method of your choice, making sure she knows you'd rather be with her, but only if she's a partner in life and not a tag-along.

PBear

The problem I see is that your contribution to the situation is that you've enabled your wife's behavior by enjoying the nanny situation with her. As a family, you need to start over with relearning how to cope with your MIL's absence, which is why I suggested family counselling. And I suspect you will have to break a few eggs to make this omelet.

C
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Hicks

You already are separated. Your wife is not bringing much to the table as a mother to your daughter the way you have described things. Another option is that you make your family life so fun and complelling that your wife wants to be in it rather than out with her friends.

peevedaddy

I've suggested therapy but my wife is against it. She feels that her friends are the only therapy she needs and that counseling is for suckers (her words, not mine). That's part of the reason I came here. Unfortunately these friends that she's turning to are the very ones who enable her recent behavior. You're absolutely right that I was partially responsible for enabling her behavior while my MIL was around - I just hope it's not too late to fix it. Thanks for the advice.

Ten_year_hubby

peevedaddy,

Your wife gets tons of outside messages every day telling her that the stuff you want her to do is worthless and the key to her having true self worth is to engage the outside world. Tv, internet, magazines, friends, family all these sources tell women constantly that homemaking, childcare and being a wife are beneath them and degrade them and they should be out of the house doing something for themselves. So you try to make a case for the value of the home and family but you are outnumbered by a massive margin. How can you expect to win?

You need to confront her with the facts that she is a mom with a little kid and she has to recognize her responsibilities. To the extent that you avoid this because of her bad reactions, this is your contribution to the problem. Let her know you are sympathetic to her feelings and her need for external accomplishment. Let her know that you support her and insist on developing a plan where both of you participate in finding a balance for her life.

NextTimeAround

Would you feel differently if she were getting paid for all the work that she is doing for these charities?