What can you do if You Are Living In A Loveless Marriage? Learn important questions you should be asking if Your Marriage Is Loveless. Love can come back.
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Nothing can disrupt marital bliss like strife between your wife and family. If you’re a man who’s ever said, “My wife hates my family,” you know what I mean.
Meddling in-laws is a stereotype that spans the ages. There’s probably a cave somewhere with pictures depicting a wife and mother-in-law squabbling over the right way to do, well, everything.
But feeling like your wife hates your family is an extremely uncomfortable and painful position. It can leave you feeling caught in the middle and pressured to pick a side. An impossible choice when each occupies such important, yet different, places in your life.
Unfortunately, there are many men who find themselves in this situation.
If you’re one of the men out there who believes your wife hates your family and are wondering what you can do about it, there are some steps you can take.
One of the first things you need to do is determine if what your wife feels toward your family is really “hate.”
Misunderstanding your wife’s feelings can compound the problems by making her feel,
which can cause her to shut down. When this happens it creates an environment within your relationship that can lead to bigger problems.
Not getting along or having different viewpoints isn’t the same as feeling hate for your in-laws.
So, ask yourself the following questions:
Has she ever actually said, “I hate your family”?
Or
Have you ever accused her of hating them?
Both behaviors are damaging and will need to be addressed, but one is on her and the other on you.
If she hasn’t expressed hate or even extreme feelings of dislike, it’s possible what your wife is actually feeling is,
by your family and these feelings are what’s contributing to the tension you notice.
The good news is that these are sentiments that can be worked through with proper communication.
To be clear – good communication doesn’t sound like,
If your wife does indeed dislike your family in the extreme, you’ll need to understand clearly what has led her to this point.
Dr. Kurt works with couples weekly who are struggling with family conflict. According to him,
This is pretty common. I'm actually counseling several couples right now where the wife hates her husband’s family – and for good reason. In one, the husband 'runs back to his family' as his wife puts it, anytime they have a fight. His parents (not a friend) have helped him move out several times. In a meeting with the other couple last week, they disagreed on how many times a day he talks to his parents, so she counted the calls on his phone. It was a minimum of 5 times and as high as 9 times a day, every day, over the past week. Neither of these guys have healthy boundaries with their families and it's caused huge problems in their marriage."
When a wife ‘hates’ her in-laws there’s typically a complicated trio of responsible parties including,
The percentage of responsibility each person holds will vary, but all three of you have a hand in the creation, sustaining, and eventual resolution of this complicated and damaging conflict.
So, just what are the most common reasons wives come to feel they hate their husband's family?
One of the biggest reasons for animosity is a lack of respect. Lack of respect between your wife and in-laws can present in a number of ways:
Where’s the responsibility?
Your family: Disrespectful behavior is always out of bounds.
Your wife: Putting a stop to disrespectful behavior can’t be done in a passive-aggressive way. She’ll need to speak up and address the problem. Staying silent will only encourage it.
You: By ignoring it or making excuses you’re alienating your wife and giving unspoken permission to your family to treat your wife with disrespect.
This is a tough one. At your parents’ age they may need more from you. And if a family member is in trouble or needs support your instinct may be to be there for them regardless of the effect on your wife.
Knowing when and how to make them your priority can be tricky.
But if you're,
then she may have good reason to feel like she hates your family.
Where’s the responsibility?
Your family: They need to be realistic about when they need your attention and not demand more than is necessary.
Your wife: Should be understanding and supportive of you and your feelings of devotion and responsibility to your family.
You: Need to be realistic about when your family needs prioritization. Unhealthy relationships can develop between adult children and their families that are based on misplaced guilt and emotional manipulation.
One of the biggest chasms that can develop happens when grandparents overstep and interfere in the parenting of their grandchildren.
This issue tends to be a larger one for wives (mothers) than husbands (fathers). A mother whose in-laws try to undermine her parenting can become extremely defensive and angry. This may indeed lead your wife to feel she hates your family.
I have a friend whose wife hasn’t spoken to his father for a year over what she considered the final straw in backseat parenting.
When she excused her son from the dinner table before he had finished his broccoli, her father-in-law said that it was wasteful and demanded he come back to finish. She wouldn’t support his demand – they exchanged words and haven’t spoken since.
Where’s the responsibility?
Your family: Parenting decisions are solely for the parents to make – not the grandparents. Even if they feel they know better or have more experience.
Your wife: Family generally means well. While it can be difficult and tiresome to entertain an in-law’s opinions on parenting, some care and respect need to be given when misplaced attempts at helping occur. It’s also likely they’re trying to feel needed and relevant in your lives.
You: Need to present a united front when it comes to parenting and set appropriate boundaries. This is important for your children to see as well as your family. Doing this with sensitivity and respect is the difficult part.
A difference in values can occur because of a few things. Among them are,
There’s no easy way to get around these differences outside of tolerance and acceptance. If your wife hates your family based on mismatched values, you’ll need to encourage both parties to tread lightly when it comes to these topics.
Where’s the responsibility?
Your family: Respect and tolerance.
Your wife: Respect and tolerance.
You: Encourage both your family and your wife to look for middle ground or topics that aren’t divisive.
The question that almost always follows the statement, “My wife hates my family,” is “How can I fix it?”
Things can be fixed – just not by you alone.
The only thing you can do directly is to be aware of your own behavior, take ownership of it, and make any needed changes. The rest is their responsibility.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do to help them work together to find common ground.
Consider the following:
There are a couple of caveats, however.
If your wife suffers with anger issues that are uncontrolled and unfairly triggered by your family, she may need counseling.
If the issues that make your wife feel she hates your family are too large or complicated to sort out on their own, family counseling may be in order.
No one wins when there’s family conflict. If you believe your wife hates your family, keep the following in mind:
Ignoring things won’t make them better. If you’re one of the men saying, “My wife hates my family,” it’s time to make an effort to initiate positive change.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published September 08, 2022 and has been updated with new information for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
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Interesting article but it’s missing the whole topic of enmeshed families which is usually what wives are reacting too and their pain is completely invisible while usually dealing with a whole enmeshed family system if the husband that they are dealing with. With their loyalty bonds that do not allow any of the children to prioritize their own families instead they need to prioritize the mother and other siblings otherwise the man gets guilt tripped.