I don't know what to do with my marriage.

Oh, just to add to the parent thing. She spends about, I would say, 25% of the year with her parents. So they get quite a bit of face time with our kids. That's just to put in perspective the 3 times in 2 years my kids have seen my parents who live just 35 miles away from her's. Although I have not made enough of an effort to get my kids to my parents. She spents quite a lot of time at her parents without me and make no effort what so ever to get the kids to my parents. She content that if I don't make an effort or my parents don't, then there is no reason for our kids to even know them. My parent are old fashioned and feel that we should go to them, not them come to us. It's just something I have to deal with. But my wife is not sympathetic to that. I should make more of an effort. Maybe this will help your opinions more, I travel a lot for my job. I think someone mentioned this before that this could be an issue. I am gone at least 1 week a month on average, depending on what type of case I'm on and where it is. She uses that oportunity to go to her parents and I don't blame her. I never question it. I let her go to her parents as often as she wants to and never object.

What sozobe and butrflynet say is surely part of it, but I do see davrukr's point. Remember Dav'r said the kids have had serious problems from time to time under her care, such as possible drowning. Why shouldn't she trust him, they do take care of the kids together sometimes and he is the father and loves them.

I do see that belligerant insistence will not get you anywhere, or... get the both of you together anywhere, but you will need to express your feelings and have her listen and then listen back and so forth. Which is why I rattle on about counseling, in that a third party with no investment towards either person can help draw underlying problems out and keep matters from shutting down while you work things out, or not, as the case may be.

Oh ... that's interesting. Way I read it, this:


sounded like Davrukr had tried taking them to his parents often enough, but that she'd blocked it.

But then, you know, we only hear such a little bit of a really big story, and we all have our own way of reading it! For example, Sozobe asked,


whereas I'd interpreted Davrukr's "We are not the emergency response type so anything that did come up, I would have plenty of time to make arrangements" as meaning he'd actually been home pretty regularly.

Ah, all the assumptions one instinctually makes when hearing or reading little bits!

Can you tell us more, Davrukr, if you want? (Just so we dont give you the wrong advice! (Tho again, I have to be going anyway ...)

I agree about counselling, btw.

Yeah, I had asked how often you were gone. That was the impression I had.

Again, definitely, not like she is blameless in this. But I am getting a clearer and clearer picture of how this all came about. Lots of pride involved all over the place -- yours, hers, your parents'. You seem to be willing to do what it takes, and I really think that you can break the dominant pattern if you go about it right. Tough, but possible.

You might consider starting with something as simple as the visit to McDonalds but invite your wife along. Take separate cars and tell your wife you're taking the kids to the mall afterwards to help them shop for her Christmas present and that you'll have them home in two hours.

Maybe I should clarify what I do and don't do with the kids alone. She has no problem leaving the kids at home with me so that she can go to the grocery store or something, we do that all the time. I haven't "tried" to do things alone with them outside the home mainly because I always try to do things as a family when we go out. If I want to go to Lowe's or Walmart or other places, we all go. She is stuck at home most of the week, so we all get out and do something together. I guess what I'm getting to is that around here I have never thought of it as a point to do something "alone" with the kids when we could all do it together. I've taken them a couple of times by myself to stores, but she questions it and it makes me feel uncomfortable. They were very simple, go there and come back kind of deals. Anyway, my point is that it's not that I have NEVER been left alone with them.

sozobe, pride is obviously involved, but we have to distinguish between "good" pride (that is, having a healthy ego) and "bad" pride (harming yourself and others in order to keep a desired image of yourself).

Same thing goes for humbleness. One thing (good) is to be humble; another (bad) is to humiliate yourself.

In both cases, the dividing line is thin, and it depends on the context. When you don't know in which side of the line you stand, you get anxious... and sometimes you ask for advice.

This is a very good point. All I am getting is advice from my parents and relatives, who have other motives. I want to believe them to some extent. But I try to take what people say with a grain of salt. I am trying to figure out if my feelings are reasonable or unreasonable. We are going to go to counseling starting Monday, I've already set it up. But I wanted to get other advice also, and this is a very, very interesting discussion. I am one that considers all sources and I appreciate all the replys. I am trying to be truthful with myself in my replys as much as I can, but also defend myself. Forgive me if I skip over some people's comments, but as you seasoned forum people are, you understand it's a little hard to read and answer each post.

Davru

Changing yourself is necessary--but it will not be easy. You can't make it easier by deciding that you "shouldn't have to do it".

That is what counseling is all about--both parties changing to create a better future.

I don't say that your wife is without fault--but your wife hasn't asked for advice and you have. You can't change her--you can only change yourself.

Your wife's mother getting extremely upset about the toys is also interesting. Uh, this isn't her house is it? One can put some toys away in the garage to leave room for more in one's own house, can't one? I dunno, that seems really inappropriate to me and points to one more controlling person.

I guess I see some long time lack of communication on this whole child raising business. There might even be cultural issues, in that your wife may expect to have total reign re the children because that was true in her own experience.

Well, with any luck, you can talk it out.

Please let us know how it goes. It really isn't our business, but we all wish you all well.

One last comment. I think fathers need to be alone with their children, walk with their children, show them things, have dad-child talks. Not just that you need to be trusted for pride, even handed sharing of child raising, equal voice in matters points of view, but that it is good for the children.

That does make a difference about having the kids alone occasionally. Doesn't your wife want to spend some time by herself? Or maybe she does but feels guilty about it, another layer of discord?

This stuff is soooooo complicated.

Looks like you have been doing a great job of looking at this situation with your eyes open, Davrukr, and I wish you the best of luck with counseling.

fbaezer, I know what you mean. Again, and as Noddy says as well, I'm coming from the perspective of what HE can do. Ideally he shouldn't have to bend over backwards -- ideally he could be met halfway -- and hopefully counseling will help accomplish that. But in terms of what HE can do, putting aside pride temporarily can accomplish a lot. I have seen it happen so many times, in my own experience and in others', where one person lets down his/ her guard and thereby starts a process by which various barriers which have been gradually erected, and are themselves are large part of the problem, come crashing down.

Good luck, Davrukr. Please keep us updated.

Here are some other underlyling issues that contribute to our problems.

She always agrees with or doesn't object to things until the last minute or until it's too late. For example: We agreed before we got married that we didn't want kids for about 5 years. After we were married, she wanted to have kids sooner. Then she talked about how long it might take to have kids. We agreed that we would both have to work and the kids would have to go to day care. (I have to agree that I think it was the best thing for her to stay at home, the point is, we agreed to otherwise.) We started trying and, sure enough, she was pregnant within a month. While she was pregnant she was still agreeing that she would go back to work. The closer it got to delievery, she started saying she wanted to stay at home for a year. Then, on accident she was pregnant with our daughter. Then she wanted to stay at home for a few years. Before I knew it, she wanted to stay at home until they entered Kindergarten. I don't doubt that when it's time for the kids to go to school, she will say she wants to home school them. We had fights about it all along the way. I get the feeling she knew all along what she wanted to do, she just satisfied me at each point in time and then took a little bit at a time. I wish she would have allowed me to make a more educated decision at the beginning and told me up front what she wanted to do. She is doing sort of the same thing in first topic of this discussion. She wouldn't object to what I wanted when there was plenty of time. She waited until the last minute.

Yeah.

I dunno, so many moms I know say something similar to that, though. So many of us didn't get what it would be like to have a kid, how heart-rending to go back to work. It's a pretty well-documented thing. Doesn't mean she planned it all.

(I planned to be home for at least the first three years well before I decided to get pregnant, but I'm a freak in terms of planning ahead and researching obsessively.)

Could still be a general pattern, of course, and I'd already commented that she should have just told you "no" at the outset re: hunting camp, rather than dragging it out. But changing her mind about staying home... that's super common, really.

Forgive me, I am thinking of this things as I go, these are more underlying problems:

I feel I have been deceived all along, but have tried to deal with it as I could. For instance, she went hunting with me while we were dating and seemed to like it. Now she doesn't want to have anything to do with it, almost acts like I shouldn't do it and talks about how I don't know if my son will like it. Well, our kids won't like anything they are not introduced to, but why even make a comment like "you don't know if he will like it"? If he doesn't, fine, but you don't know unless he is exposed to it. I'm not going to push anything on either of them. She acted like she like football. We went to college football games before we were married. Now she could care less. She looks at me like I'm an idiot when I tell her the score of a football game and I'm excited. It's not like I expect a girl to like these things, but if you act like you like them before your married and then you don't after, one begins to wonder about the others motives.

I'm so glad you guys are signed up for counseling.

I'm not a professional, exactly, but I have counseled married couples in a professional capacity. (Was part of a wide-ranging job description.) I saw this sort of thing ALL the time. Husband says the above, Wife says, "Well I liked him a lot and I wanted him to like me so I went ahead with whatever. Then we got married, and I didn't worry so much about him liking me. That's what marriage is about -- security."

(I disagree with that way of thinking, btw.)

My general message here is that it's not necessarily nefarious, evil, planning, blahbedy blah... could be just a fairly normal if somewhat clueless person who will hopefully figure some things out in counseling.

I have to get to bed. I hope we can continue this tomorrow. Thanks for all the help. I don't believe I am totally clear of fault. I feel that if I can see the whole picture before we start counseling, the better off I'll be. I like to get as many opinions as possible to make an informed decision about how right or wrong I think I am. You all are helping in that, so I appreciate it.

Goodnight!

One last thought...

IF you guys do follow the pattern I mentioned above, you can expect that she'd also say something like, "I'll pay attention to football when you bring me flowers and write me poetry* like you used to."

*Or whatever you did to woo her.

Davrukr
I personally wouldn't have gone for the hunting camp, but I sure would have appreciated it if my sons father would have taken as much an interest in his life as you want to take in your childs life and I commend you for that :-)