Re:Heavily Conflicted teacherwriterguy: You really cannot proceed in a relationship or a marriage from the perspective of being adversaries - a common theme that I believe in quite a bit and I think it applies here.
You went to great lengths in this post to consider or imagine reasons of how your wife might feel, how she might react, what she might be thinking. What's happening puts a wall between you and your spouse - you are thinking of her as "other" rather than part of self.
Think of it this way - you are considering your 'market value' and when it will be higher or lower; this is not a thought that's conducive to keeping you married. It's a train of thought that eventually leads to separating because you're already envisioning how you might do better or worse or really just how you might be apart from your wife.
The time to intervene in the process is now - talk to your wife. These problems need to be handled as a team. They can't be handled independently - you can't "adopt" a pose or behavior and have it change her. The two of you need to react to and grow with the problem of children together.
twg
Re:Heavily Conflicted Mesflicted: Thanks Amy
And everything you say makes sense, and it the kind of feedback I was hoping for. Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread.
We are in the process of looking into adoption as a team. I still feel uneasy about it, and my wife knows it because I told her. We've talked about it, but I feel I'd truly hurt her if I told her all my thoughts. She knows my thoughts on some of my fears, but not all. When we communicate, and I believe we do it fairly well, we get closer, but then, after sometime, opening up to her seems to backlash, she'd get moody and mockingly repeat back an insecurity, or a deep thought, which I didn't care unless it was in front of her family (which she did a lot). I never truly understood why, until I started studying psychology. It gave me a deeper understanding of where she came from, and I had to look at her family, who I already had heavy conflict with for no apparent reason. Her family is large and primarily female. They have a great relationship with each other, but the males of the family don't fair very well. And the ones that do well, are highly respected for example, are your typical alpha male, one of which is a good friend of mine. He is much older than me, but he gave me some advice when I was in conflict with the women of the family, and it was not to back down. I told him, if I see reason in their arguments, I would listen. I naturally have a very strong personality, one they thought I didn't have, I guess because of my age. And some of their reasoning made sense, but occasionally, and this was years ago, certain members of her family initiated unwarranted personal attacks to degrees I never experienced before. Things were bad at the beginning of our marriage, especially after some of these attacks. I don’t think I was unfair with any of them. I always conducted myself with reason and approached things as logically as possible, and they seemed to bounce on me more and more when I conducted myself this way, my wife included (probably the root cause because she had bad communication problems with me, but not her family and I discovered this from her own mother), and I understand now it was because they took it as a sign of weakness, I let my guard down.
Re:Heavily Conflicted Mesflicted: For example, a turning point in our marriage, was when her family asked for help from us (it had to do with money), but “expected” us to deliver this help in the fashion they wanted at all costs. I was actually very, very happy I could help, really happy, but there was one standard stipulation I had to make sure was setup. Once the family heard of my of stipulation, through my wife, they were enraged, at least some of them were. I was at fault too for being head strong, but I had my principals. Basically, how I saw it, they wanted my unwarranted help and no questions asked, and that’s exactly how it came across. It was either their way or no way. They staged a planned intervention, and they exploded on me, some with personal attacks. I in turn exploded back badly, and held my ground, which I think set them back. There was no reason to their logic and to this day, I still see no reason to their logic at that time. I didn’t cave in on that day, but as gesture of good will, which was my intent all along, and to save my marriage, I did it their way, and they in turn attempted to fill my stipulation, but only after. Ultimately, over the years, they are good people, I know this, but from my experience, I have to be smart about it. I know they highly respond to strong personalities, and eat the weak. And this personality trait is subconscious. Unfortunately, because of all this conflict that happened, along with other problems in my own life, I’ve become something very different than what I was. I too now follow the “eat of be eaten rule” which I don’t like. I have virtually lost my patience for anything that doesn’t make logical sense, which is bad and I’m personally trying to work on it. I have become very aggressive on all aspects of my life, and the “funny” thing, is my wife respects me more and our marriage for several years now has been fairly good, we have been really close, again we have our differences, but all marriages do. Just ultimately, I’m losing the essence of who I truly was. It’s like Anakin Skywalker being seduced my the Sith. All good intentions, but very angry. Throw in the midst our current situation, you can almost call me Darth Mesflicted.
Re:Heavily Conflicted Mesflicted: [quote author=teacherwriterguy link=board=1;threadid=11585;start=0#msg94128 date=1116243331">
Think of it this way - you are considering your 'market value' and when it will be higher or lower; this is not a thought that's conducive to keeping you married. It's a train of thought that eventually leads to separating because you're already envisioning how you might do better or worse or really just how you might be apart from your wife.
[/quote">
You are soo right, but that's the thought I've been having, but only recently, and only because of the thought of being childless. I know thoughts like this happened when flirtation happens with someone else, but that's not the care here.
Re:Heavily Conflicted AmyMarie1972: My family are very similar to your wifes. Things are done their way or not at all and their way is always right, even if it is me doing a favour for them. My mom is worse for it and the thing is that because i dont agree with her methods and I am forever battling with her trying to make her see that she is wrong, she becomes worse. You should however never back down. They do see it as a sign of weakness. Although my mother disagrees with the choices that I make in my life, my ex husband being one of those choices, she does respect me for sticking by them despite her continuous critisism. A problem that you have though is that your wife see's nothing wrong in the way her family is acting and to be honest she probably never will do. My sister is the same and her husband backs down to everything. I will talk to my sister and tell her what our mother is doing is not right and immediately she will defend her.
I really can not offer any good suggestions on what you can do with a family like this. I end up fighting against mine and they have now come to realise that i am just as strong willed as they are and things that I do I do my way. They still make suggestions and when they are right, sure I follow them, but when I disagree I will say politely no I think I would rather do this.
Continue to try and talk with your wife and if she becomes moody while you are talking then take a break from it. Get a drink and change the subject to something completely unrelated. Then try again later.
Wishing you loads of luck
Stay strong
Amy
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