"I'm Leaving"

Well... Sure. You CAN, but...

Would be interesting to know what makes her dislike this person so much. Can't think of anyone Bi-Polar Bear could invite over that would make me leave my home for a few days.

I think there's more to it than boredom on her part. Her feelngs about this person seem rather hostile and strong for it to just be about boredom.

I agree with Squinney. I also think that playing "tit for tat" is a dangerous game. After he has gone, why don't you sit down and talk it out with your wife?

All right here's the background: My friend got out of jail about five months ago after spending two years there on charges of child pornography based on two photos of two naked underage girls found in his house that were supposed to have been taken with his camera in his house. He insists he was framed by the woman he was living with at the time whose goal was to sell as much of his belongings as she could and indeed did just that while he was in jail. That woman did some time herself for having swung at a policeman once with razor blades between her fingers. Anyway we went up and visited him and his new girl a month after he got out and enjoyed a pleasant day together barbequing and walking around the village. Everything was fine. Some time later he came to Cali and stayed here the night. Unfortunately he can be rather out spoken and commented that all television programming is for dumb people or something to that effect. My wife watches television. Since that visit she has become increasingly more critical to the point that now she insists he must have been 100% guilty as charged and is an all around despicable person who she never wants to see darken our door. I have refrained from bringing up the fact that her own brother in law spent two years in the slammer for being right hand man to the Orejuela brothers, the two most famous narcotraficking bosses in Cali and I've never suggested that we deny him entrance to our home. So that's the story...

family is family
There is a difference between family and friends. She is not forbidding your friend to come, or acting ungraciously by removing herself from a situation that would most likely cause both of you stress, much less your house guests. As far as leaving when family comes over- family is family, and you find ways to avoid/ engage in family activities. Avoiding stressful situations can sometimes build resentment. If the two of you are able to discuss the reasons why you feel the way you do- it makes the somewhat awkward situation easier to swallow. Tit for tat is not healthy for a marriage or any relationship for that matter.

Pitter, I assumethat by brother in law you don't mean your brother...so...you must mean her sister's husband. But she doesn't make decisions about who her sister marries, whereas you do decide who your friends are, so there's a difference.

That beign said, I'm curious as to how your friend got caught with the underage photos. Did his girlfriend call the cops in to see them? I don't get it.

Anyway, it sounds like it may very well be that she is being irrational and unfair. But still that doesn't mean you should play tit for tat. Phoenix seems to have good advice.

And yes, I agree with squinney also that boredom is much different than hatred..if she had some relative or friend who you hated, she would probably expect you to get otu of ther house also.

You and your wife really need to talk about some of these little passive-aggressive games that keep getting pulled. I know there's a cultural difference, but it often sounds like you're trying to deal with a pouty teenager, not an adult woman.

Good luck, pitter.

Not being a pouty teenager myself I know full well that tit for tat behavior doesn't work and only escalates a bad situation so that question was really just rhetorical. This is just one of a number of recent incidents where I sense I'm being controlled and manipulated by her "bad moods" and silent treatment being punished with them if I don't tow her line. Time and again I have tried to reason and it's seems hopeless. To her way of thinking one person has to win and the other lose in any discussion. "Discusision" in Spanish means argument by the way. As to my friend yes it was his woman who supplied the photos to the police.

I couldn't stand being married to someone who plays head games, has bad moods and gives me the silent treatment. I might be out of line here Pitter, but if I were in your shoes I would immediately get the two of us in marriage counseling. If your wife refuses to get counseling or if it doesn't improve the marriage in a year I would seriously consider separation and divorce.

I agree with Doglover. The symptoms of a decaying marriage are distressing you and your wife's actions may not reflect her real discontents.

An objective opinion might be very helpful.

Doglover I can't stand it either and you're not at all out of line. Feedback from people lke you and the others is the reason I post. But a YEAR?!! At my age I don't think I have the time.

Pitter...I wanted to be liberal with the timeline to be sure things could not be worked out. Whatever timeline YOU feel is appropriate is the only one that counts. Life is too short to be unhappy Pitter, you know that. Maybe it's time to admit that marrying this woman was a mistake and immediately take the steps necessary to correct it.

I wish you well and support you Pitter in whatever course of action you decide to take with regards to your marriage.

Pitter ~ Have you really gotten to the core reason as to why your wife feels so strongly about your friend?
Possibly she senses something; maybe the charges against him weren't fake.

Never underestimate the power of women's intuition.

Maybe she's handling this the best way she can.

In this instance, I think your wife is being pretty gracious. If I were in her shoes, and I truly thought the guy was guilty, I wouldn't let him stay in my house.

As for the rest of your marriage, it seems like counseling is a good idea. Some of your posts seem negative, but then there are some that are quite positive (like the one describing your wife's first encounter with snow). It seems to be human nature to discuss unpleasant things as a way of dealing with them; the good stuff doesn't need 'dealing with', so we don't discuss it. So I'm guessing we are hearing more of the bad than the good. But that's just a guess...

Anyway, good luck. I like reading about your life in Colombia, and about the 'cultural exchanges' you have with your wife - so perhaps I'm a bit biased in hoping it will work out.

Wow! I'm not sure I would jump to the conclusion that head games or power struggles are being played out. Maybe thats because I would likely do the same if I were your wife. However, Bear would also respect my wishes and NOT invite someone to our home that I felt that negatively about.

Heck, I even have family on my side that, by Bear's wishes, are not welcome in our home and I honor that. Didn't sit too well with me at first since I have always had strong family ties, but he ended up being right. (Gawd, please don't tell him I said that) I guess that means we have to honor male intuition too. : )

Anyway, that's my two cents. Whether she is communicating it the way you want her to or not, it is her home too and some attention should be paid to respecting her view on this.

I very much appreciate the above comments but I assure you all my wife is not being gracious she is being uncompromising. And hold on just a dang minute there. My friends are arriving tomorrow morning at ten am. My wife had to leave this afternoon for her mother's house fifteen minutes from here to avoid them? Like I said, "for extra measure".

And my point was that I probably wouldn't be very gracious either if a convict was being invited to my home against my wishes and without any respect from my spouse concerning those wishes. I'd probably be mad / fed up enough to go ahead and leave early, too.

I haven't read your other posts and am not familiar with other situations mentioned above, so I may be way off base, but I can see her side of this.

Stop! Hold the presses! Your mother-in-law lives just fifteen minutes from you? LOL...God, it's worse than I thought. Put your life jacket on Pitter and jump ship ASAP!

I'm with squinney on this one, Pitter. If my husband asked a friend of his to stay at our house, knowing full well that I detested the person, I'd be angry at him, too. It's MY house, too, and I should have some say about who's allowed in it.

What choices did she have? Start a big fight with you over him coming? Stay there and play hostess to a guest she doesn't want in her house? Or leave, and let you play host alone? Those are really the only options she had.

In this case, you're putting your own feelings and that of your friend above your wife's feelings. No wonder she's angry.

Last Christmas, my husband wanted us to host a party at our house for his office. This meant I would have to invite a certain co-worker of his who has backstabbed my husband repeatedly and openly insults him at work. Needless to say, I never wanted this guy anywhere close to my house. My husband said there was no way to have the party at our house and not invite him. (How he manages to co-exist with this guy is beyond me.) But my husband said he would leave the decision up to me...if I couldn't stand it, he wouldn't offer to host the party. After thinking about it hard for 3 or 4 days, I decided to go ahead and invite him. Of course I hoped he'd have the decency not to attend. Wrong...he came. I was as polite as I could be, but my stomach churned for the entire 3 hours that the s.o.b. sat on my furniture and ate my food. If I'd had to put up with him actually SLEEPING at my house, I would have called the whole thing off.

My husband was very wise in giving me the choice, since I was the one who would be most inconvenienced. That gave me the opportunity to either be incredibly gracious or stubbornly rude. Could you do the same when it comes to having people to your house that your wife doesn't like?

OK good points and I'll take them to heart. As I said I spent many nights as a guest in his house before he went to jail and having to tell him "sorry buddy you and your lady will just have to find a hotel" rubs me awfully wrong. Fact is I haven't even gone to vist them for quite a while since my wife resents it when I do. What the guy and I have in common are long walks in cloud forest for bird, orchid and poison arrow frog identification. Now it is a day later and my wife has gone to visit her mother and left without animosity.