Hello Everyone,
I've stumbled across this website while seeking advice about conflict in my marriage with my wife, I feel somewhat awkward asking for advice/thoughts on the trouble in our marriage from strangers but feel in this case it may be good to get advice from people not involved, I usually turn to family for advice when I am dealing with hard situations and need advice but I feel any advice my family would give me would be biased and may indeed make the situation worse, I plan to seek help from a therapist or marriage counselour in the near future. This may be a long opening post but I want to share as much as possible in order to have other gain a decent insight into our marriage.
My wife and I will have been married for 4 years in April, we have a 2.5 year old son and another on the way, before marrying we had a long distance relationship for about 2 years with her living in Mexico and me in the U.S, I would see her every few months during this time when I would visit family as I am also from Mexico, she is 26 and I am 27, she lived in Mexico all her life up until marriage , I've lived in the U.S since I was around 7 years old but basically grew up in a Mexican household and visited Mexico often.
Our marriage has not been easy, during our first year we had many arguments about many little things as we adjusted to each other and as she adjusted to life in the United States, however one of the constant trouble points in our marriage has been my relationship with my family in the eyes of my wife I believe, it seems every time we visit my family there is some argument between her and I about things that are insignificant such as where to eat at, what to eat, etc. This has been happening for the entire 4 years now and it's brought about a severe crisis in our marriage, these little arguments do not tend to happen when we are not in the physical presence of my family so it really mystifies me why it only happens when in the presence of my family, this has really strained her relationship with my family as they are "tired" of all her drama and have relayed to me that they wish to no longer to participate with her in any type of activities. She doesn't have any outright confl ict directly with family members but rather seems to focus her anger/displeasure at me at little things especially me changing my mind about something while we are with family, if we are by ourselves there is no issue with me changing my mind or deciding what to eat etc, there was some of that the first years of the relationship but she has learned that it's one of the parts of who I am and she mostly laughs it off or shakes her head when I do this.
Last weekend when we visited my sister for my Brother in Laws birthday, it was mostly my wife's idea to go, her and I had a huge argument after we left in a hurry on Sunday morning because I changed my mind about breakfast, we were originally going to eat at Restaurant A.(everyone present agreed) on recommendation of my sister but later I switched to getting a take home breakfast. because my brother whom was present didn't want to go to A, in order to be diplomatic I said ok we can eat breakfast here, this seemed to upset/anger my wife tremendously and she became upset and retreated to bedroom we were sleeping in. I was shocked at this as it was just breakfast(my attitude was who cares what we eat), and became very frustrated because this was about the 7th or 8th time something like has happened over were/what to eat in the last 12 months while in the presence of family.
Now I'm not dumb enough to believe that this is really over were to eat/what to eat , I feel like she is trying to tell me something via these arguments when in the presence of family but has been unwilling to verbalize it because she knows how close to my family I am, this I've just realized after deep thinking on the issue all week. I've thought that perhaps she has BPD at times or some other disorder because these arguments tend to come out of nowhere and the anger tends to be quick but this only happens when in the presence of my extended family not hers. I've also thought perhaps this was due to her father and mother splitting when she was just a baby, and as a consequence she has never had a relationship with him, this is what my family tends to think that it has something to do with her not having a "stable home". She has confessed when she was younger in her teenage years she was quick to anger, and during these arguments has expressed that "we think our family is per fect" vs "hers", etc. These arguments tend to get very bad and hurtful things are said as I have a strong relationship with my family and I defend their actions it's been the only issue in our marriage that I have refused to budge an inch on.
I'm now coming to the realization that perhaps I have an improper relationship with my family(parents, siblings) at my current stage in life, and it is no longer healthy even though they all love me and respect me very much, my personal boundaries with them are not very high/hardly present and there has been much turmoil with a younger brother of mine in which I have been expected to help out emotionally/financially and I have done so for the entire time we have been married, I'm thinking that perhaps my wife has realized this/picked up on it from the beginning of our marriage and it's manifested itself with the outbursts, she does not act out with extended family such as my grandmothers/uncles etc. with whom I do tend to have boundaries.
I feel dumb about saying this but I had never really thought about the above until our last argument, what prompted me to consider this is that over the holidays in Mexico even I got tired of all the drama with my brother/parents and was thinking perhaps it was better to get away from all this drama for awhile and let them be , for my own emotional health and my son and the baby coming, I'm now thinking how my wife must have felt all these years dealing with all this stuff and the constant drama and the emotional energy it may have robbed her and now my kids.
Does anyone think I'm thinking about this the right way? It's going to be hard for me to set some personal boundaries with my parents/sibblings but I'm willing to do it to save my current marriage. I don't know if my wife has a disorder or not, I'm starting to lean no at this point, she is pretty constant on everything else but this, I don't have any other marriages to compare my situation to other than my parents which is not the marriage I want to model mine after, so it's hard that's why I am asking for your advice. We are both currently on break , she has left to visit family in Mexico for about a month to take a break from things and we are both willing to work at the marriage but I would like some viewpoints to decide how to proceed, doing the same is not an option as I firmly believe we will get the same results, as we have both agreed it's better to split if we can't reconcile this difference. All of this may sound childish coming from a 27 year old but unfortunately the models I was raised with in terms of relationships may not work in our marriage as my spouse has very little if any family in the U.S, in Mexico these things tend to not become such an issue due to cultural norms/very social country so there are lots of "relief valves" but we aren't in Mexico anymore so we may have to adapt.
Your opinions?
I've stumbled across this website while seeking advice about conflict in my marriage with my wife, I feel somewhat awkward asking for advice/thoughts on the trouble in our marriage from strangers but feel in this case it may be good to get advice from people not involved, I usually turn to family for advice when I am dealing with hard situations and need advice but I feel any advice my family would give me would be biased and may indeed make the situation worse, I plan to seek help from a therapist or marriage counselour in the near future. This may be a long opening post but I want to share as much as possible in order to have other gain a decent insight into our marriage.
My wife and I will have been married for 4 years in April, we have a 2.5 year old son and another on the way, before marrying we had a long distance relationship for about 2 years with her living in Mexico and me in the U.S, I would see her every few months during this time when I would visit family as I am also from Mexico, she is 26 and I am 27, she lived in Mexico all her life up until marriage , I've lived in the U.S since I was around 7 years old but basically grew up in a Mexican household and visited Mexico often.
Our marriage has not been easy, during our first year we had many arguments about many little things as we adjusted to each other and as she adjusted to life in the United States, however one of the constant trouble points in our marriage has been my relationship with my family in the eyes of my wife I believe, it seems every time we visit my family there is some argument between her and I about things that are insignificant such as where to eat at, what to eat, etc. This has been happening for the entire 4 years now and it's brought about a severe crisis in our marriage, these little arguments do not tend to happen when we are not in the physical presence of my family so it really mystifies me why it only happens when in the presence of my family, this has really strained her relationship with my family as they are "tired" of all her drama and have relayed to me that they wish to no longer to participate with her in any type of activities. She doesn't have any outright confl ict directly with family members but rather seems to focus her anger/displeasure at me at little things especially me changing my mind about something while we are with family, if we are by ourselves there is no issue with me changing my mind or deciding what to eat etc, there was some of that the first years of the relationship but she has learned that it's one of the parts of who I am and she mostly laughs it off or shakes her head when I do this.
Last weekend when we visited my sister for my Brother in Laws birthday, it was mostly my wife's idea to go, her and I had a huge argument after we left in a hurry on Sunday morning because I changed my mind about breakfast, we were originally going to eat at Restaurant A.(everyone present agreed) on recommendation of my sister but later I switched to getting a take home breakfast. because my brother whom was present didn't want to go to A, in order to be diplomatic I said ok we can eat breakfast here, this seemed to upset/anger my wife tremendously and she became upset and retreated to bedroom we were sleeping in. I was shocked at this as it was just breakfast(my attitude was who cares what we eat), and became very frustrated because this was about the 7th or 8th time something like has happened over were/what to eat in the last 12 months while in the presence of family.
Now I'm not dumb enough to believe that this is really over were to eat/what to eat , I feel like she is trying to tell me something via these arguments when in the presence of family but has been unwilling to verbalize it because she knows how close to my family I am, this I've just realized after deep thinking on the issue all week. I've thought that perhaps she has BPD at times or some other disorder because these arguments tend to come out of nowhere and the anger tends to be quick but this only happens when in the presence of my extended family not hers. I've also thought perhaps this was due to her father and mother splitting when she was just a baby, and as a consequence she has never had a relationship with him, this is what my family tends to think that it has something to do with her not having a "stable home". She has confessed when she was younger in her teenage years she was quick to anger, and during these arguments has expressed that "we think our family is per fect" vs "hers", etc. These arguments tend to get very bad and hurtful things are said as I have a strong relationship with my family and I defend their actions it's been the only issue in our marriage that I have refused to budge an inch on.
I'm now coming to the realization that perhaps I have an improper relationship with my family(parents, siblings) at my current stage in life, and it is no longer healthy even though they all love me and respect me very much, my personal boundaries with them are not very high/hardly present and there has been much turmoil with a younger brother of mine in which I have been expected to help out emotionally/financially and I have done so for the entire time we have been married, I'm thinking that perhaps my wife has realized this/picked up on it from the beginning of our marriage and it's manifested itself with the outbursts, she does not act out with extended family such as my grandmothers/uncles etc. with whom I do tend to have boundaries.
I feel dumb about saying this but I had never really thought about the above until our last argument, what prompted me to consider this is that over the holidays in Mexico even I got tired of all the drama with my brother/parents and was thinking perhaps it was better to get away from all this drama for awhile and let them be , for my own emotional health and my son and the baby coming, I'm now thinking how my wife must have felt all these years dealing with all this stuff and the constant drama and the emotional energy it may have robbed her and now my kids.
Does anyone think I'm thinking about this the right way? It's going to be hard for me to set some personal boundaries with my parents/sibblings but I'm willing to do it to save my current marriage. I don't know if my wife has a disorder or not, I'm starting to lean no at this point, she is pretty constant on everything else but this, I don't have any other marriages to compare my situation to other than my parents which is not the marriage I want to model mine after, so it's hard that's why I am asking for your advice. We are both currently on break , she has left to visit family in Mexico for about a month to take a break from things and we are both willing to work at the marriage but I would like some viewpoints to decide how to proceed, doing the same is not an option as I firmly believe we will get the same results, as we have both agreed it's better to split if we can't reconcile this difference. All of this may sound childish coming from a 27 year old but unfortunately the models I was raised with in terms of relationships may not work in our marriage as my spouse has very little if any family in the U.S, in Mexico these things tend to not become such an issue due to cultural norms/very social country so there are lots of "relief valves" but we aren't in Mexico anymore so we may have to adapt.
Your opinions?
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