Sleeping on the couch again.... Same old probs don't go away

Hi,

Well tonight I'm sleeping on the couch again. Seams to be a pretty regular occurence lately, maybe once a week. Sometimes she sleeps on the couch too. I guess it depends who got into bed first on the fight night.

Mainly we fight about my family. Tonight our fighting is based around my brothers wedding. My wife doesn't get on with by brothers fiance. The only reason that I can see for that BTW, is that my wife is jealous of her. But thats not my main concearn today.

My main concearn is that I am tired of listening to her complain about my family. I understand that not everyone is perfect and my family certainly have their fair share of flaws (as do I), but there has to be a point when you have to forgive the past, accept one anothers faults, and move forward.

At my brothers wedding I will be the best man and I will obviously be involved in the wedding ceremony. I have also volunteered to help out with some of the preparations. It's my brothers wedding and I want it to be a great family day. But my wife is so totally anti the whole thing and that's becoming very difficult for me to deal with. I am frustrated that she cannot be happy about the wedding and get involved herself.

Here is what's bothering her:

We have a 10 month old daughter and the wedding is out of town. We're flying there, as are the bride and groom and all the other guests. My wife is upset with my brother and his fiance because she feels they were inconciderate to have the wedding so far away. She feels that she was not concidered when they made that decision in the fact that we have to take our daughter with us, and she is probably right.

But... it is THEIR wedding day and they can choose to have it where they like as far as I'm concearned. She can always choose not to come, but that presents another set of issues. i.e. She'll feel left out, My family will feel rejection, blah blah blah.....

There may also be a litttle bit of jealousy about the wedding. We had, as a lot of people do, control issues at our wedding between my Mother and my wife.

We do have other forgivness issues between her and my family, but I guess I can't unload everything in one posting. But lets just say that I feel like I owe it to MY family to defend them more but it causes a lot of arguments between my wife and I, so it inevitably just builds up inside me while she just gives me a good earbashing about how terrible they all are. I try to justify their behaviour but I don't push to hard, to avoid a large conflict between us.

How can I get her to feel more apart of my family? Her family live overseas, and whenever we visit them, I feel very much a part of her family. Her family is lovely! I love them, and I feel that it is reciprocated. I would like the same thing here for her, but it seams an impossibility. What is most important to me is that I don't want her to impart her ill feelings toward my family onto our dughter. I feel that the relationship issues between my wife and my family are preventing my family from having their fair share of interaction with my daughter. She has a right to have good, frequent contact with her grandparents and her uncle too. What can I do?

Anway, I guess for tonight, I probably deserve to sleep on the couch. Our exchange ended like this:

Her: "Everyone in your family are selfish!"

Me: "No.... you're the one who's selfish"

Comfy_Couch

it might be as simple as she's hurting for not being able to be closer to her family. Is your family close? She may have a hard time being around your family because it makes her long for what she cannot have right now w/ her own family. But the way she's realizing or expressing her own emotions...persay this is even the case for her....is wrong.

I have to agree w/ you. She is being selfish. Well so far as I can judged based on one short post! I would tell her that this is your family and she needs to respect that. Because her actions are not respecting you and your feelings either. She doesn't have to attend. And if she feels left out....she only has herself to blame. I also agree w/ you.....your brother and his fiance can have the wedding anywhere they wish. It is THEIR day....not your wifes. It is so hard to plan a wedding and please everyone. And it shouldn't be about pleasing your family....it should be about what the bride and groom want. If she feels she does not like your brother's fiance....ask her for valid points as to why she does not care for her. See if she can give you them or if she just gets angry and says "look...I just don't like her ok"? Maybe she is jealous. Maybe she's not. Maybe she doesn't realize it's not even about the fiance. When did she start to have issues w/ her? When she heard about the wedding??? She didn't have to agree to the involvement and if she decided too..then she needs to shut up and leave her emotions out of this. She does not need to be petty and put her grievences on their day and ruin it.
My husbands family is scattered. His sister just got married in Florida this summer. We had to miss the event simply because we could not afford to fly to florida. I certainly didn't get upset that they didn't have the wedding back here where most of the family is from. That'd be pretty petty and selfish! I was bummed we couldn't go but that falls on no one but us!

Somehow the two of you need to find compromise and middle ground in this situation. First see if you can find out exactly what her reasons are to be so angry about any family issue on your side. If she can be open and honest....that may help you settle things. Again...maybe it's more to do w/ her feelings about her own family not being near and it just being too hard to watch your family getting to be so close. But then...she should learn how to embrace her 2nd family....not reject it because it's not happening in her family.

She doesn't have to like your family....but she has to decide then how she really feels for you....because...unless you agree w/ her about your family and want to cut all ties....she has to love you enough to accept you and your family are a package deal. She needs to sit down and figure out just what exactly bothers her about your family and decide if this makes the whole person in each case and in her mind they should therefore be written off or if what she is judging is more character flaws that we ALL come w/...including herself...and then she needs to accept a few things as they are and learn to find the good in people and focus more on that instead of those little flaws. It seems like she is more about take take take and her her her then she is about your needs. All or nothing on this one won't work out for either of you...on either side of the issue.

Now take my thoughts w/ a bottle of salt!....because I can only judge based on what little you share. I could be way off base in my interpretation.....it's the net!