Trying to Find a Resolution That Works

I'm by no means an authority on marriage and probably not even qualified to answer (just ask my wife! ). Anyway, here's the first thing that popped into my head:

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

The first thing you should be doing is taking care of your family and making sure everything is good in your house. If problems are coming from the outside (your family, her family, whatever), it may be good to shelter yourselves for awhile from that until you can build a stable base within your own walls. You need to make sure your wife knows that she is number one in your life (God is #1, but you get what I mean), and that your parents, while deserving of your respect, are not ahead of her.

If i was in your situation, based upon the little I know, I'd work at making my marriage stronger and ignoring outside influences for awhile.

 

I'm a "shoot from the hip" kind of person, so I hope you dont' mind my candor here.

First, there seems to be a fair amount of strife between your wife and your family. That's an easy one. Your first priority is your wife & kids. If your family intereferes with that, then you need to distance yourself from your family. No questions asked.

Second, you noted that you tend to ignore problems when they first arise. I don't believe this appropriate behavior for a husband/father. That only makes the problems worse later. The thing to do is to recognize an issue when it first comes up, have a discussion with your wife about her concerns, and then the two of you come up with a solution on how to handle them. Lastly, and most importantly, you as a husband need to commit to resolving thos situations when they're small.

Lastly, a marriage is two people, not one. You cannot handle those situations on your own, nor can you expect your wife to do the same. I suspect that she feel like she's dealing with it all on her own, and that's a problem. Spouses should always feel like they're working on issues together.

 

Marriage can be very difficult. CS Lewis in his problem of pain points out that anytime you bring two people into a relationship that have free will; will cause problems or pain. Primarily because of the exercise of that will. Unfortunately, there are not enough specifics on your problems for a person to be able to evaluate properly. It seems that there are several issues here that I've noticed.
1) how you handle conflict resolution may not be the best. Ignore the problem until it goes away if I understand your post correctly.
2) you have two different family cultural backgrounds that respond differently to certain issues. Issues that are "not important" to you may very well "be important" to your wife. Working in human service field for several years I've noted that its important to validate the views of others. In other words if an issue is important to you wife. It is indeed important no matter what you think of the subject.
3)Sides. I'm not sure what you mean by going agianst your immediate family side on a matter. I think more clarification is needed here. However, I suggest that your immediate family (ie wife, and children) are very much your side. The scriptures say "for this reason a man will cling to his wife". This becomes more priority than extended family on issues.

Finally I will note Ephesians here:

Note that I'll pray for the best resolution for you and your wife and family. If I misconstrued something in your post I ask your forgiveness.

 

I will begin be saying that I concur with the previous replies. Your first and primary responsibility is to your wife and children. Whatever you must do to save your marriage and your family, it is worth the cost.

From my own experience, my wife and I at separate times had to set our families straight. It is not an easy thing to do and the process of healing will take time. I had to figuratively draw a line in the sand and tell my parents, specifically my mom, that my wife is first and foremost in my life and if forced to choose sides, I side with my wife, I don't care what the issue. You cannot side with your family against your wife and expect your marriage to survive, you cannot be passive, allowing your family to take issue with your wife and expect your marriage to survive. You are her warrior, you are her protector and if that means protecting her from your own family and going to battle against them on her behalf, then do it, I does not matter if you feel the issue is trivial or not. To your wife it is a major issue, so charge the mountain and show yourself a man.

My problem was not what my mom did and said when I was around. It was the things my mom would do and say when I was not there. Then she would deny it when questioned. I had to go to battle against my mom to protect my wife. I even had to tell my wife not to answer the phone if they called, to only let me talk to them. When we visited, I made sure that she never left my side, we kept visits short and cordial, and went home.

 

Reluctantly, I agree. If having your parents over and interacting with them is causing strife, then it's best not to interact with them. Doesn't matter who the instigator is. Now, if YOU want to interact with them privately (jsut you, no one else), that's fine, just don't involve the wife.

I might be off the mark here, but women communicate by venting, without us trying to fix everything they vent about. I suspect that, when she's venting these things, that you simply listen to her, and empathize with her (such as "wow, that must be frustrating", or "I'm sorry you had to deal with that"). What WON'T help is if you try fixing things by saying "you need to do this or that".

 

Brother, you are in a difficult situation. There are no easy answers or quick fixes. This will take time. I understand your concern about your wife finding something else to obsess about if you eliminate your family from the picture. But that can be prayed through and handled later. First and most important, save the marriage. Eliminate the stress from your wife, in that area. Pray in earnest for your wife and children. Pray specifically that God would give you wisdom beyond your years, to know what to do, what to say, how to handle the situation, how to lovingly lead and guide your wife to be less sensitive.

This may not be the case in your situation, but many times women take suggestions (especially from her mother-in-law) the wrong way. She feels as though the M-I-L disapproves and is being judgmental. She feels inadequate and as though the M-I-L is constantly looking to find fault so that she can point it out. That is very stressful for a woman, and no they do not forget and forgive and let by-gones be by-gones. Anything that happens today is just added to and compounded by the past.

It is not a win-win situation, somebody is going to be offended, somebody is going to get their feelings hurt. For me and my situation, I determined that it really did not matter what anyone else thought or felt or believed, I was going to make sure that the one I laid next to a night was going to be happy.

Be kind, be gentle, let her vent and do not be critical or tell her the solution to her problem. We like to fix things and move on. But she needs a hug and to be praised and to be loved and to know that she is loved unconditionally.

I am praying for you and your family.

 

So in the light of Ephesians that I quoted what do you plan on doing?

 

I'm with Matt Wade on this one.
You love your mother and your family, and that's fine, but you're your own family man now.
Her opinion don't count anymore, and she has to accept that.
My mother moved in with me and my wife, a long time ago before we came to the USA, and that not because she loved me, unfortunately, but because she gave me up when I was a kid to my father's family, and then when I was married and had a pretty stable job, she wanted to "make up" for the lost years.
Fine.
I understood where she said she was coming home.
But I was already married, and she began inching my wife out, opining this was the way to do this, and that, and this was the way I liked my food, and that, and so on, and it began to be stressful for my wife.
I told my mother to get out of my house, and that's it.
And anyone who tried to offer unsolicited advice to my wife, or myself, on how to "do things", was pointblankly told to shut up.
Period.
You are your wife's husband, she is responsible to you, you are responsible to her, and both of you are responsible to God.
Solicited advice is good and welcome.
Unsoliticited ones are best left unsaid.

 

You have gotten some great advice about telling your family to stay out. But I would expect that even if they do you are going to have some problems.

Are you all still going to a marriage counselor? If not, get back into it.

 

Been there and done that, I had to put my foot down and tell mom to but out. It took a few years and us moving out of state (for work) to make things better, even when my daughter got real sick I had to tell her not to come to the hospital. that was hard to do. All that was about 3 years into our marriage, we have been married 32 yrs. now. GOOD LUCK.