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Tags: Relationship advice | Mother in law | husband | marriage
OPINION

In Marriage, Spouse Comes Before Parents

In Marriage, Spouse Comes Before Parents
(AP)

Dr. Laura By Wednesday, 30 September 2015 01:01 PM EDT Current | Bio | Archive

Some folks too often forget they made their vows to their spouse – not their parents. This confusion is a prime source of discord in marriages.

On my radio show I recently took a call from a frustrated wife. She married a man whose father had disappeared soon after her husband was born. His mother then drop kicked him to grandma’s house so she could take off, too. He was raised by his grandparents, who loved and cared for him his whole childhood.

Now that he is a married man in his 30s, he can count on one and a half hands how often he has been contacted by his mother.

My caller described the situation: “We were planning our vacation. My husband said he made a simple mistake by telling his company that he would take the same week off as their special needs child still had school.”

The wife was annoyed but tried to make the best out of it by suggesting, to his agreement, that after dropping their daughter off at school they would take romantic, interesting day trips and then pick their daughter up after school. They had five wonderful days planned and she was content that they could focus on each other.

Then he called from work to tell her that his so-called mother contacted him and wanted to visit the same week the vacation was planned.

He told his wife that he invited his so-called mother to stay at their home!

He didn’t talk to his wife about it – he just announced it to her and she was fit to be tied.

I suggested that when she hangs up from our conversation that she call her husband and say, “No. This is our special time and I don’t think it is reasonable for you to have your non-mother in our home, especially without discussing it with me, and having our vacation plans put aside.

The answer is no. No, I will not have her in my home. You can go to a motel with her if you want to spend time with her.”

Adults who have been betrayed, abused, abandoned, and even tortured by their parents often still have a fantasy that mommy or daddy will come back to love them. While I explained that aspect to the caller, I urged her not to let him abandon his responsibilities to her, as his mother had done to him.

The caller got back to me on the air again and said that after she gave him all this information, he very emotionally said, “OK, I will tell her to stay home.” He was angry that his fantasy would not have an opportunity. Sad – really sad.

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Dr. Laura (Laura Schlessinger) is a well-known radio personality and best-selling author. She appears regularly on many television shows and in many publications. Read more reports from Dr. Laura — Click Here Now.

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DrLaura
Some folks too often forget they made their vows to their spouse – not their parents. This confusion is a prime source of discord in marriages.
Relationship advice, Mother in law, husband, marriage
486
2015-01-30
Wednesday, 30 September 2015 01:01 PM
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