Where to from here? A spiritual conundrum

[Savis]

First off, thank you for taking the time to read this post and fair warning that it is a long one. As an introduction, I feel the need to give a bit of history as the problem currently experienced is a long time in the making.

History
My wife and I have now been together for 17+ years of which we have been married for 10 and produced two beautiful children. We actually started dating all those years ago due to getting to know each other in church. Our parents were also close friends even before we really started showing an interest in each other. We both come from very religious families, my in-laws being in the ministry full-time (father in law is a pastor) and my own parents being very devoted but not taking up a full-time calling. Our own marriage has flourished due to the principles instilled by our parents and we continue to raise our kids in this manner.

About 11 years ago, just before our marriage, my parents decided to make a change to their lives and moved on from their corporate careers to become farmers in a rural location. My younger sister followed shortly afterward. I support them in this decision and still believe it is what is best for them. Comparing the people they were before to who they are now and the ravages stress was putting on their lives I doubt I would find anyone who would differ. Time, and the distance between us, has naturally resulted in us all changing.

I can't pinpoint an exact moment when things started going wrong and I'd love to mention all the small incidents which may have led to this situation but I'd simply be writing for days.

The problem
I need to approach this from two sides as I am somewhat stuck in the middle here. For the first part it is in my marriage and then in the second its between my marriage and my parents.

My Marriage
Currently I am faced with a situation where my wife refuses to have interaction with my family, specifically my parents. This has been building for quite some time and we had minor incidents before but things came to a head last Christmas where after a big argument between my wife and my family we decided it would be best if we rather just left.

The crux of the matter is that my wife does not believe that she, or our children, are deemed to be part of my extended family and I'll shed further light on this now.

I will also confess that I made the mistake on many occasions of not standing up for my wife to my family and left her to resolve these matters by herself choosing to rather be a peacemaker. I have however acknowledged this was wrong to my wife, her family and mine. I went back to the principles of leaving and cleaving and reaffirmed these in my marriage and made this as clear as possible to my family.

As to my wife's concern relating to not actually being part of my family this has developed exponentially as our kids have grown. The crux of the matter is that as time has passed our lifestyle has diverged from that of my family and what they view as normal in terms of raising kids is unknown to us.

As I mentioned earlier my family now farms in a rural part of the country with my parents and sibling staying in separate houses in the same yard. Between them they also have about 5 maids to do the cooking, cleaning and attend to the minding of the kids. As such their general lifestyle is a lot more carefree and my sisters' kids are raised in more of a communal sense. There's always an eye closeby to watch but nobody is taking specific responsibility.

In comparison my wife and I are very much on our own, we both have full-time jobs and generally get through the day by scheduling, planning and dividing the household/kids between us. My in-laws assist when they can but their time is limited as they have a ministry to run. Our lives are organized, planned well in advance and have become dependent on routines.

I don't view either way as right or wrong, both work, they are just incompatible when put together. This gave rise to a situation where when we did go visit, or go on holiday together, you'd end up with a bunch of people in the same house generally doing everything separately. Meals, naps, bathing, TV and playing all became points of contention. The kids didn't mind as such but for all adults involved it has become a problem.

In addition to this, and it's something that eats at me as well, there seems to be no effort from my parents to have a relationship with us or their grandkids and that we are expected to keep those going. For a number of years I have been asking my parents to come and actually visit us for an extended period to get to know us again, to get to know their grandkids, but nothing has come of it. It is not that we don't see them, they do spend the occasional night when they do come to the city for a specific purpose, but that is about the extent of it.

On the other hand, we always made a point of it to go to them for a long weekend at least every 3 to 4 months. When the issue of our routines initially came up we even started taking meals along for our kids, and food/snacks for everyone else, so that we wouldn't cause an inconvenience but could stick to what our kids knew. In addition to this, despite us trying to make it clear that we were coming to spend time with them, they would somehow always end up having other guests over while we were there. I personally still call my parents every day to check that they are ok and how things are going but I've come to the realization that I do this because I know if I don't I won't hear from them often. In the years since our first child was born they haven't once even made a courtesy call to say hello to them.

I know the items above seem selfish and look trivial but sadly they have carried on for so long that they have caused a rift between my wife and my family. While in isolation each incident may have been trivial they are the straws that broke the camels back. This gradual breakdown in the relationship also put undue strain on my marriage which has now been resolved with me realizing that I wasn't being the husband I was supposed to be.

My Family
Before my parents' decision to move away we were always a very close-knit group, the kind of family that would get together every Saturday night along with my aunt and grandparents for a dinner and to watch sports together. Every Sunday would be the official family lunch held on rotation at somebodies house.

After my parents moved away though this somehow became my responsibility. I would regularly get messaged that I (being me, my wife and kids) needed to go visit my aunt, my grandparents or elder siblings. We've never had a problem with this and actually built good relationships with everyone.

Since the incident in December though we have somehow become the pariahs of my family. Even while driving home I was getting messages that I was welcome to go and stay with so and so or if I needed anything I should just call. The message was rather clear my wife had somehow offended everyone and they were taking my parents' side.

The incident as such was also something small but it basically cemented positions. We were at my parents holiday home at the coast and the lodge was putting together a carols evening. I was on my way to the house to be in time for this and everyone started getting ready. Everyone that is apart from my wife who was left looking after the 4 kids. As things would happen my sisters youngest child kicked a bicycle our youngest was riding at the time causing him to fall off, my wife caught him just in time before he knocked his dead against something and then shouted at my sister's child for kicking the bicycle. All hell then broke loose as it was my sisters/brother in laws view that they don't parent that way and my wife's view that they should rather start being parents than leaving it to everyone else and if they couldn't do that then they needed to accept the way other people parent. Needless to say, my parents, my sister and her husband with their kids and my eldest sister with her teenage kids rallied together and left the house to go watch the carols leaving my wife and kids on their own. I got there just after the incident and started packing to go home.

We were all supposed to have spent Christmas together, big happy family and all, but it didn't turn out that way. My sister called on the day to tell me my dad was crying and I needed to sort this out. My mom hasn't spoken to me about what happened since. In the meantime I was at home coming to grips with what had happened and trying to figure out a way to fix it again.

I came to the realization after a few days though that this wasn't a situation I was supposed to be fixing. I needed to mend the damage done between my wife and I as in the first instance I once again wasn't there to stand up for her and in the second I had cut her out completely in my anger at what was going on.

At some point during all this my dad had said to my wife that he was of the view that she had a spirit in her causing all this conflict and to be careful as a storm was coming. My wife's interpretation of this was that he was threatening her that he'd make sure we got divorced. I confronted him on this and he made it out to be that they believe she suffers from a form of depression as they recall a time when she was a happy bubbly person which she simply isn't anymore.

Irrespective of which the current situation is that my wife does not speak to my parents and I have no intention of forcing her to. As such though we are basically cut off from the rest of the family and on the occasion where we do run into each other its merely civil greetings. My mom hasn't spoken to me about what happened again since, she doesn't mention my wife at all for that matter. My dad still has a full go at it bringing it up every conversation and saying that I need to fix this, that it is ripping the family apart and they had always only done their best.

Despite all this though my wife still wants our kids to have a relationship with their grandparents. This entails that I go and visit them with the kids but she doesn't come along. We had one such visit earlier in the year and I was expecting another one last month. I hadn't brought it up again with my wife as I don't think it's an ideal situation but the intention was there. Just before finalizing the arrangements though I had a niggling feeling to reconfirm all the arrangements. The original plan was for us to fly down to the coast for a long weekend. On inquiry with my parents they had thought it would be good if my sister and her kids were there as well, so that the cousins could play together. This then expanded to my elder sister and her family as well at which point I had to ask where everyone was going to be staying. I got a message back from my mom that my elder sisters kids were bringing friends along as well so space would be a problem at which point I told them to just leave it and we'd come another time.

The situation got more absurd when my dad messaged me during that weekend that my younger sister had decided to go visit one of our cousins who was here from the UK for a short while. His problem with the situation was that because of the problems with my wife she couldn't stay with us and had to stay at a gay friends house. He went on to say that this was unchristian of us and I need to desperately get this thing fixed.

I, unfortunately, lost my cool and simply said that this one wasn't on me. In the 10 years since my sister had left the city she had stayed with me once and stopped in at my house to visit twice. They keep placing it on me to resolve these issues but are blind to the fact that they have created a different set of rules when it comes to my family. I reminded him that I was supposed to be visiting him with his grandchildren but couldn't because they had asked my sisters to come, thus filling up the house, and then didn't even have the courtesy to let me know the plans had changed.

The response was simply that we all needed to forgive and forget in order to start over.

Next Steps
At it stands now I am conflicted as to the way forward. On the one hand I still feel bad about the entire situation and would like to resolve it somehow but on the other I feel I would be betraying my wife by doing that.

I somehow got stuck between the biblical principles of "leaving and cleaving" and "honour your father and your mother".

My wife and I still discuss it amongst ourselves and both realize we can never go back to the relationship we had with my parents/family in our younger years yet still acknowledge that we should have some form of relationship with them. I know however that any relationship will be on their terms or none at all.

They were in the city a few weeks back and I told my wife I'd like to invite them over for some coffee and to see the kids. She said that it was fine and that she would just go shopping as she wasn't ready to be with them. I called and tried to arrange it but the response I got was that they would only come if my wife invited them and she was there as well. So it ended at that.

I'm planning on trying to go visit my folks again in another week or two and this will surely be the only topic of discussion. I can already see the way the conversation is going to go though and if that is the case it is not even worth the effort. Our concerns relate to:

- My family acknowledging my wife as my equal and part of the family;
- Realising that things have changed in 10 years;
- That we can't simply drop our normal way of doing things and fit into theirs at the drop of a hat;
- That we can't be the only ones trying to maintain the relationship all the time.

The response will be (as I have raised these items before):
- To not let trivialities get in the way;
- My wife has some form of depression and needs help;
- They are doing more than their best and being accommodating.



Any insight on a way forward or a word would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dave G.]

Ephesians 5:31 English Standard Version
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Your parents have nothing to do with your marriage or how you run your household together with your wife. Follow God ! And in 1 Corinthians 13 a man will lose his childish ways, it's part of the command of agape love. Reading the whole of 1 Corinthians 13 together should tell you a lot about what real love looks like. It is not selfish etc etc. I refer to it often myself.

 

[Savis]

Ephesians 5:31 English Standard Version
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

Your parents have nothing to do with your marriage or how you run your household together with your wife. Follow God ! And in 1 Corinthians 13 a man will lose his childish ways, it's part of the command of agape love. Reading the whole of 1 Corinthians 13 together should tell you a lot about what real love looks like. It is not selfish etc etc. I refer to it often myself.

So just to clarify, my wife and I are one in this and I stand by her. The problems with my parents did cause issues between us and I made my choice on that.

I'm trying to determine how leaving your father and your mother reconciles with honoring them and then after that how to go about attempting to mend what's been broken.

In our discussions my wife and I both agree we can't go back to what we once had but we need to have some form of relationship with my family.

 

[Endeavourer]

Your very first loyalty is to your wife, your kids and your marriage.

You need no loyalties to relationships beyond that if they are not building up your wife and your children and your marriage.

All family interactions depend on the relationships being healthy for the marriage and family. It REALLY stinks to lose fellowship with your extended family, but your children are depending upon you to keep their home and your marriage strong.

I would consider letting your family know that you & yours won't be seeing them again until they apologize to your wife, and until she feels comfortable and safe seeing them again. Then I would block any whining and manipulating towards your wife they may attempt until you feel their apologies are genuine.

If you continue down the path of seeing them without your wife, she will likely begin resenting the situation (most wives would) and it will cause problems in your marriage.

I'd make sure she feels very supported by you, and be careful that you don't make her feel bad about your withdrawal from your family because SHE is not the problem. The incidents you related are quite uncaring and cavalier on the part of your family; she is not being over sensitive at all.

I know this sounds like it's easy for me to say, but I have had to take a similar step as well. My husband will not stay overnight at my parents' home until my dad apologizes for something. When we visit we stay at a hotel (which in my family is not customary at all, and is really hurtful to my mom), but my husband has to come first. I hope the day doesn't come when my husband doesn't want to visit there anymore, but if it does, I picked him to be first, and promised accordingly, on our wedding day.

 

[Endeavourer]

I'm trying to determine how leaving your father and your mother reconciles with honoring them and then after that how to go about attempting to mend what's been broken.

The offense was caused by them; once they understand your position about their offense, you do nothing until they are interested in apologizing to your wife. You are also to love and honor your wife, and when there is a conflict, the wife wins priority.

The Bible supports this by commanding you to leave and cleave.

In our discussions my wife and I both agree we can't go back to what we once had but we need to have some form of relationship with my family.

No, your children need an intact home and marriage. They do not need some form of relationship with a family that his hurting the marriage of their parents.

I understand it is VASTLY desirable that they have a healthy and functional relationship with their grandparents and extended family (although some of these incidents did not sound like it was very healthy). I hope and pray your family will sincerely desire a reconciliation with your wife and reach out accordingly.

 

[Savis]

Thanks for the replies, it does provide some clarity.

I guess the way forward is to go and have a discussion with my family, clearly put out what is bothering us and to remind them of the history behind it. They need to recognize that they are also at fault in this and some form of apology is due. This won't fix things in an instant but it will prepare the way for something more sustainable.

If they can't/refuse to do that then that's the end of it. I won't be putting my marriage at risk.

 

[LinkH]

Tension between your parents and your wife-- that's an unenviable position to be in.

It would be great if your parents had been the ones trying to keep up with you, but maybe they have less energy as they get older. I noticed that with a recent visit with my mom. She gets headaches a lot, and didn't interact with her grandchildren, my kids, like she did with the older ones. The Bible says to honor your father and mother, so part of that can be you going to see them.

I think it's easy, at least for Americans, to use 'leave and cleave' as an excuse when we have difficulty with our parents. Remember that 'leave and cleave' while true, was spoken by Adam. 'Honor thy father and mother' was spoken by God Himself, out loud, after Adam said that about leaving and cleaving.

Do you think there was something your wife said when you weren't there that you don't know about?

You can try to be peacemaker. Ask your wife what it would take to make peace. Ask your father the same thing. Spend some time with them. If they are all Christians, bring them together with the intention of praying together and reconciling. Read something out of Matthew 5. Have them pray to ask the Lord to help them to make peace. Maybe you can do that with your sister and wife, too.

If your wife just decides she wants nothing to do with your parents, IMO, that's not fair. They don't sound like serial killers. Does she have a family? You could ask how she'd feel if you cut the family off from them. She's your wife. She should try to get along with your parents. She needs to at least be willing. If you can't talk her into it, you'll have to pray. Until then, maybe you and the kids could visit grandparents. They don't live forever. And it is a blessing if you are living close enough to them to actually be able to visit them.

 

[Savis]

Tension between your parents and your wife-- that's an unenviable position to be in.

It would be great if your parents had been the ones trying to keep up with you, but maybe they have less energy as they get older. I noticed that with a recent visit with my mom. She gets headaches a lot, and didn't interact with her grandchildren, my kids, like she did with the older ones. The Bible says to honor your father and mother, so part of that can be you going to see them.

My parents are still relatively young (mid 60's) and young of spirit. Energy isn't an issue at this point, as I mentioned they also have my younger sister and her children around most of the time so are quite used to kids and do keep up well.

I think it's easy, at least for Americans, to use 'leave and cleave' as an excuse when we have difficulty with our parents. Remember that 'leave and cleave' while true, was spoken by Adam. 'Honor thy father and mother' was spoken by God Himself, out loud, after Adam said that about leaving and cleaving.

This comes back to my initial question. How to you balance honoring you father and mother with leaving and cleaving? I do agree with the other posters though that my family (me,wife and kids) aer the priority at this this point and I won't be jeopardizing them in order to sustain the relationship with my family.

Do you think there was something your wife said when you weren't there that you don't know about?

You can try to be peacemaker. Ask your wife what it would take to make peace. Ask your father the same thing. Spend some time with them. If they are all Christians, bring them together with the intention of praying together and reconciling. Read something out of Matthew 5. Have them pray to ask the Lord to help them to make peace. Maybe you can do that with your sister and wife, too.

My wife is very outspoken and wouldn't keep something from me to protect my feelings. She has spelled out very clearly what has caused her to be upset and why she has withdrawn. The problem is coming in that my family is refusing to accept her reasons (and I agree with her reasons) and keep maintaining that she is actually suffering from depression or something else that needs to be treated.

[QUOTE[If your wife just decides she wants nothing to do with your parents, IMO, that's not fair. They don't sound like serial killers. Does she have a family? You could ask how she'd feel if you cut the family off from them. She's your wife. She should try to get along with your parents. She needs to at least be willing. If you can't talk her into it, you'll have to pray. Until then, maybe you and the kids could visit grandparents. They don't live forever. And it is a blessing if you are living close enough to them to actually be able to visit them.[/QUOTE]

My wife does have a family who we are very close to. They stay a couple of minutes away and we see them every couple of days and I get along with them very well. My wife actually raised the topic though that if we ever reached a point similar to where we are with my family she would cut them off as well for me.

 

[Savis]

So to continue with this story I was speaking to my parents again today, they are coming to the city again in the next week or so to get my grandparents for a holiday. I simply asked if we'd be seeing them to which the response was only if my wife would be there as well followed by my dad swearing about how tired he is of this and I need to get her to come right.

Now my feelings of this are that:

Yes, it's a bad situation and we eventually need to resolve it.
It is an opportunity though for them to see their grandkids (irrespective if my wife is there or not) which they are once again missing because of being stubborn.
They still only want to resolve this on their terms. It is my dad's view that irrespective of anything else that may have happened or been said they are the parents and we need to accept that.


I was thinking about it while driving to work and I will discuss it with my wife, I have no reason to hide it from her and get her feelings on the matter again. I'm not going to force her to see them and if they then choose not to come that is on them.

It also does need to come to a head though so irrespective of if we do see them or not I think it would be best if my wife and I call them before they plan on being here. My intention is for me to explain again why my wife specifically feels that she and the kids aren't viewed as part of the family. I'd like her to sit in but don't want her to have to justify herself. I speak on our behalf and we are one in this.

I hope my parents will listen to what we have to say and pray that we can come to some common ground.