Parenting/marital advice

[lordxizor]

I appreciate the insight. I do wish that I could just make it not bother me. In this particular case it's just that she goes on and on and on about it. One or two stories wouldn't be a big deal.

I guess I can appreciate the story telling aspect of socializing. I guess it just bothers me that she's essentially bragging about experiences that she no longer considers a good way to live. She turned her whole life around the year before we met to escape a lifestyle that was leading her nowhere good. So to hear her talk positively about those days make the insecure part of me worry that she wants to go back to that instead of the great life we've built together. Which I know isn't true.

[cramx3]

Well, none of us are in the room to be able to read the room and know how everyone is feeling, but it seems like your family isn't bothered by it (you didn't mention anyone rolling their eyes once the next story begins), so my gut tells me maybe you shouldn't be too bothered by it either, however, I get that you are and if you are, sucking it up isn't always the right way to go.  BUT if its just one night a year, I really have a hard time thinking anymore than a conversation about how you feel is the appropriate way to go here.  She can listen to your feelings and maybe make the appropriate changes next year, but if it's also important for her to have that one night where she can "live in the past" per se, it may not be a big deal to maybe compromise somewhere that allows her to drink but maybe keep her voice lower and limit the stories. Also, it's the holidays.  If everyone is being merry but maybe you aren't feeling it, that's OK, but I wouldn't make it something bigger than what it is.  Tell her how you feel, let her know you think those stories don't portray the woman you love and while you're happy she is having fun, it makes you upset that she will go on and on about her past that you didn't like.

[Stadler]

^^^ You'd think this guy was married for a decade or two.    

[lordxizor]

That was basically what I was leaning toward doing. I don't want to make a huge deal out of it or try to make her feel bad. I acknowledge that this is mostly my issue and not hers. But I also think it's perfectly reasonable to ask her to tone it down a bit so I can enjoy the night as well. Right now I'm leaning towards waiting to talk about it until next year when my frustrations with her aren't so fresh and I'm less likely to get mad about it. I waited a year after last year's annoyance and she understood and agreed to do better this year, which she did to a small extent. Just not as much as I hoped.

[cramx3]

Baby steps, if she made some adjustments already then she's trying.  next year maybe another baby step and this is a non issue.

^^^ You'd think this guy was married for a decade or two.    

  I'm a king of failed relationships at this point.  I don't often listen to my own advice and emotions can get the best of me.  I find it really difficult to talk about the things that bother me about my SO with my SO, I'm a king of sucking it up and did so for so long in many of my past relationships to the determent of my own emotions and eventually the relationship.  But recognizing that is a big part of self improvement that I've been working on.  Also reading this thread about "talking to your spouses" from the previous discussion is so spot on and while I can't relate to a long marriage, I feel it makes a lot of sense and something I need to be better at myself if I ever want to get to that point of having a long successful happy marriage.

[Stadler]

Well, I meant it purely as a compliment.  If only we were all able to take that objective wisdom and turn it into personal successes.  I'm certainly no better than you in that regard. 

[lordxizor]

I was a suck it up person for the first 13 years of my marriage and it was awful at times not feeling like I could say what I want to say. I'm done with it. I want to ask her for what I want and tell her what I want. In many ways it's been freeing, but I also feel suddenly like I want to talk about everything, which isn't good either. I needed a little outside perspective on this issue because I have a tendency to overthink and blow things way out of proportion in my head.

[cramx3]

Well, I meant it purely as a compliment.  If only we were all able to take that objective wisdom and turn it into personal successes.  I'm certainly no better than you in that regard.

Oh I know, but I'm not sure if anyone else reading knows I'm not actually married and maybe my own advice isn't worth much.  But I am inspired by what I read here from the marital advice even if I don't have that exact experience.

[bosk1]

I don't mean to make light of anything being discussed currently by saying this, but I can't help but give an amused chuckle whenever I see this thread bumped, because the title was meant to be fairly tongue in cheek, and lightheartedly venting about a personal situation that, ultimately, probably wasn't a very big deal.  But don't get me wrong--my amusement isn't meant to brush off the things being discussed here. 

That said, I actually think it's pretty great that folks have used this thread to post about some pretty significant issues and get some good advice. 

And along those lines, I want to go back to this:

One thing my wife and I talked about before we had kids was making sure we knew, and our kids knew, that our relationship was our number one priority. Even to the expense of our kids sometimes. God willing, my wife and I will be together for another 40+ years. The kids will move out in 8-14 years (hopefully). While we're certainly not going to neglect our kids and they do get the lion's share of our attention. They need to understand (and we need to remember) that our marriage needs to come before them frequently. We sort of forgot about this and have remembered it again with our conversations these last couple weeks.

Good advice for sure lordxi.  The jingle.marriage suffered at times over the years from prioritizing our role as parents vs our role as husband/wife.  We've struggled over the last couple of years to find meaningful time together doing something that we both enjoy - and I wish we'd put more effort in to that earlier in our marriage.  We were only together for 2 years before getting married (and only living together for 13 months before marriage), and then less than a year and a half before kids - so we don't really have a lot of time together just as us.  Now that the kids are grown (and one is mostly out of the house), and a couple of handful of other variables... we're finding it very challenging to do 'together' things, and simply enjoying one another.  I'm not saying we can't stand each other, but we're back into the scenario where our marriage is more of a business relationship / room-mates.  We've been there before when the kids were younger, but it's much different now that they are both adults.  We no longer have the role of 'parent' (ie, the kids NEED us to take care of them) to fall back on as our common bond.  Not sure I'm making sense, but for those of you in that situation with younger kids, and you find that most time is dedicated / for the kids in your role as parent, please - PLEASE - do not neglect your role as spouse.  It doesn't get any better or easier as the kids age - if anything, it is harder to get out of the hole that has been dug.

Not sure if any of that makes any sense or not.

Blaming the kids is really just an excuse for ignoring your own failings as a couple.

Bingo.

I just want to say that, although my wife and I made a similar commitment and have voiced similar things about the fact that the marriage relationship takes priority over the parent/child relationship, the practical problem you both have mentioned is something I see happen SO pervasively, even among people who intellectually KNOW better, myself included.  You guys both nailed it with your posts, and I appreciate those comments immensely.  I just wanted to add that it is such a common thing, and if anyone else finds themselves in a similar boat, just know that it's natural, and during those times when you are able to identify that you have neglected the primary relationship too much in favor of the daily "immediate" needs of parenting, don't shrug it off and keep doing what you are doing.  Address it and make corrections.  This analogy obviously has its limits, but I like the general point: Maintaining a car isn't a one time thing.  You don't put gas in today and forget about maintaining the car ever again, or else you are going to have problems.  You don't "maintain" a relationship once either--it's an ongoing, day-by-day, moment-by-moment thing.  And also, don't despair and think you are the only one.  Again, it's very common.

Anyhow, just wanted to say that.

[Cool Chris]

It seems like there are 3 issues to Xizor's post. 1) the alcohol consumption, 2) being nostalgic toward alcohol-fueled memories, 3) sharing of memories no one else was a part of.

Working backwards, starting with #3, as it has been an issue with me and my wife before. When we get together with her parents, there is a lot of "Did you hear what happened to so-and-so?" I figured early on they were going to spend a lot of time talking about people I have never met, and eventually detached myself from the conversation. Naturally I got called out on it. I had to explain that since I didn't know anything about who or what they were discussing, I didn't feel I had anything to contribute. But that shouldn't dictate what they should or should not talk about.

In so far as #2 goes, I have a hard time when my wife talks about her youth/college days. I didn't enjoy teenage/20s years so it is hard to hear about how awesome it was for someone else. I have told her that, but acknowledged that is 100% on me, and I don't want my crappy transformative years to keep her from looking back fondly upon hers. Aside from that, anybody who begins a majority of their stories with "This one time, when I was so wasted..." will probably get an eye-roll from me. But still, they can tell whatever stories they want, though they should have some awareness if 1) people seem to care and/or 2) they are doing all the talking.

For #1, I have dealt with my own alcohol issues, but don't want to get in to them here because it doesn't speak to the topic at hand.

[Podaar]

lordxizor,

Been there, Mang. I feel for your situation. My answer, to a very similar issue, was to hand my wife an occasional glass of water between wine glasses. It helped keep the volume to normal levels, and the retelling of the same tales to a minimum.

Mind you, that was my second wife. 

[MoraWintersoul]

It's almost always annoying to be around people drunker than you are. Drunk people do annoying things. I'm a lightweight, most of my friends can handle a lot of booze, and my husband can't really get drunk at all, so I never drink as much as I like, and it sucks, because I'm an adult and I'd like to blow off steam using alcohol at least a couple of times per year, but I'm too self-conscious to handle being the circus monkey about 2 hours before anyone else has gotten drunk. I feel like you may have a problem with it because it reminds you of her past life, and she has a problem understanding the social cues around being drunker than the rest of the dinner company. What Podaar said is a pretty good suggestion.

[lordxizor]

In fairness to her, it was clear form the beginning of the night that she committed to not getting hung over like the year before. She was drinking water and electrolyte drinks regularly throughout the night. I guess next year I need to be more specific that it's not just being hung over, but how she acts when drunk that bothers me as well.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. For now I think I need to just stop thinking about this and bring it up with her before the next situation like this presents itself.

[lordxizor]

For now I think I need to just stop thinking about this and bring it up with her before the next situation like this presents itself.

So it turns out the next situation presented itself today when we were texting about my sister's birthday party in a couple weeks. Should have just kept my damn mouth shut about it. Arg... tonight will be fun. Say a prayer for me!

[Podaar]

If you're diving in tonight, the only advise I can give you is to own your feelings and present the issue to her in those terms. Make it clear that you don't expect her to fix it for you, but you are simply sharing your struggle and providing her the opportunity to be part of the solution.

[lordxizor]

I actually ended up running home for lunch and we had a chance to chat for a minute. Things seem fine. She was annoyed with me, but understood my point of view. No idea if it will make any difference in the future, but we'll see.

[jingle.boy]

If you're diving in tonight, the only advise I can give you is to own your feelings and present the issue to her in those terms. Make it clear that you don't expect her to fix it for you, but you are simply sharing your struggle and providing her the opportunity to be part of the solution.

This is brilliant advice, in a multitude of scenarios.  If all goes well with this approach, the other side will empathize accordingly, and you end up letting them have your way.   

[TAC]

That was basically what I was leaning toward doing. I don't want to make a huge deal out of it or try to make her feel bad. I acknowledge that this is mostly my issue and not hers. But I also think it's perfectly reasonable to ask her to tone it down a bit so I can enjoy the night as well. Right now I'm leaning towards waiting to talk about it until next year when my frustrations with her aren't so fresh and I'm less likely to get mad about it. I waited a year after last year's annoyance and she understood and agreed to do better this year, which she did to a small extent. Just not as much as I hoped.

Lordixor..

Just reading the posts and I would say this...

How you feel about your wife's social drinking habits are NOT your issue. They are hers. If she turns into a complete asshat, you have every right to make a stink.

You say you've been married 13 years? That likely makes you in your 30's. At some point you (not YOU personally) grow the fuck up, stop getting trashed and going on and on about the good old college days.

I was a suck it up person for the first 13 years of my marriage and it was awful at times not feeling like I could say what I want to say. I want to ask her for what I want and tell her what I want. In many ways it's been freeing, but I also feel suddenly like I want to talk about everything, which isn't good either. I needed a little outside perspective on this issue because I have a tendency to overthink and blow things way out of proportion in my head.

Yup, understood. You need to pick the important battles, and from the sounds of it, this is one.

[MoraWintersoul]

TAC has a huge and important point. Men nowadays aren't typically socialized to care about whether their wife drinks too much - the view that getting tipsy "isn't appropriate" for a woman is thankfully a thing of the past and we can all enjoy our two (three) glasses of wine in peace. So you get the feeling that this isn't something you should care about and that you're antiquated and oppressive if you're thinking about this as a problem. But you 100% have the right to care.

If one of my friends told me her husband gets drunk, tells 20 college tales and needs time to recover before he leaves, and only sees that last part as a problem, I would tell her to try and solve the problem diplomatically (by helping him not get drunk in the first place), and if that doesn't work, to have a big discussion about maturity. And when you gender flip it, it's clear it's still a problem. It's nothing to get divorced over, and going on the offense about it increases likelihood that she will get defensive, and then it's a bigger problem than you intended it to be. But you're well within your rights to expect her to modify her behavior just a bit.

[Podaar]

TAC and MoraWintersoul, I have to respectfully disagree.

In my experience, it is never a good idea to have expectations for other people; especially in regards to the effect of their behavior on you personally; especially when the other person is someone you love and exchanged vows with. Both of you have commented on maturity, are you seriously suggesting the lordxizor should tell his wife to "grow up". Um, I'm sorry, but that's probably the opposite of the intent of this thread. 

[lordxizor]

I'm certainly not going to tell her to grow up. I explained yesterday why the heavy drinking and her carrying on about her college days are so at odds with her character that it bothers me. She understood where I was coming from, but also defensively said "I'm an adult and can do what I want". Which is of course true. We'll see if it makes any difference. It's such a rare occurrence that I'm not going to sweat it too much.

[MoraWintersoul]

Both of you have commented on maturity, are you seriously suggesting the lordxizor should tell his wife to "grow up".

TAC said "grow up", I said "have a discussion about maturity". I did mention going on the offense makes the other person more defensive, and "this thing you do sometimes makes me look at you and see a child" is pretty much the nuclear option in arguments. I hate it when it's pulled on me. Still, if I listened to a friend complain about this, that's the word I'd use: "oh my god, why is he/she behaving so immaturely?", and that's what I did in the thread as well.

However, xizor has clearly stopped his bit of the discussion, so we should probably drop it as well.

Maybe this is a good next topic: "In my experience, it is never a good idea to have expectations for other people; especially in regards to the effect of their behavior on you personally; especially when the other person is someone you love and exchanged vows with." I don't know if I agree or disagree with this. Marriage is a complicated relationship; you are as close to them as you are to your family members, so plenty of chances for them to annoy you; at the same time, those specific annoyances will have an effect on parts of the relationship you don't have with your other family. If I think there's a handful of situations where my brother behaves annoyingly, that won't affect the love I have for him because I can just tell him he's being an ass and then change the subject; if my husband does the same, it snowballs into "damn, my husband annoys me and I have to deal with this for the rest of my life". It affects attraction, the romantic and sexual part of love. On the other hand, it gets really easy to veer into micromanaging your spouse if you have a type of relationship where you agree you will change for each other so you can get along better and avoid those tiny annoyances.

[TAC]

TAC and MoraWintersoul, I have to respectfully disagree.

In my experience, it is never a good idea to have expectations for other people; especially in regards to the effect of their behavior on you personally; especially when the other person is someone you love and exchanged vows with. Both of you have commented on maturity, are you seriously suggesting the lordxizor should tell his wife to "grow up". Um, I'm sorry, but that's probably the opposite of the intent of this thread. 

Just to follow up.

...I need a keyboard.

[Podaar]

Great post MWS! I'll have more time for detailed discussion tomorrow.

...I need a keyboard.

I'll await your eloquent response with all due eagerness, Tim!  This should be the pinnacle of maturity... 

[TAC]

Great post MWS! I'll have more time for detailed discussion tomorrow.

...I need a keyboard.

I'll await your eloquent response with all due eagerness, Tim!  This should be the pinnacle of maturity... 

Ok, let me start with this first...

She understood where I was coming from, but also defensively said "I'm an adult and can do what I want".

Did she follow that up with "Na nana nana-na"?


I am certainly not going to tell Lordixor's wife to grow up, as I don't have all of the facts and a view into the Ixor's lives.

But simply reading what has been presented, it does come across to me as a maturity, or an alcohol, issue.

I know if I acted as Ixor has dexcribed his wife, my wife would certainly tell me to grow the hell up.

TAC and MoraWintersoul, I have to respectfully disagree.

In my experience, it is never a good idea to have expectations for other people; especially in regards to the effect of their behavior on you personally; especially when the other person is someone you love and exchanged vows with. Both of you have commented on maturity, are you seriously suggesting the lordxizor should tell his wife to "grow up". Um, I'm sorry, but that's probably the opposite of the intent of this thread. 

That doesn't make sense. I most certainly have expectations for my wife. Like, I expect her to not bang every dude she sees. I expect her to not steal my 401k. I expect her to not poison me when she makes dinner. And as husband and wife, we expect each other to act in an acceptable and respectful manner.

Expectations of acceptable behavior should not be confused with being controlling.


If my wife gets trashed, it is my problem. That is until I decide that I will not accept it anymore. Then it becomes her problem to confront. Plenty of marriages have failed because of alcoholism, or social overdrinking.

If a husband is going to let it fly for now, then it obviously doesn't bother him enough. And that's ok. If a marriage can tolerate that, great, but one spouse getting trashed acting like a sorority co-ed, at some point, may ultimately find themselves incompatible with their husband.

If this is a small chink in the wife's armor, then one can try and tolerate it as best as they can.

And again, I'm trying not to comment on Lordixor personally, as I most certainly don't walk in his shoes and understand his whole family dynamic, but using his example to speak in generalities.

[lordxizor]

Again, in my particular case, if this was happening every weekend or even every month, it would be a huge issue for me. I'm willing to forgive once a year even though I find it super annoying. 

[TAC]

Again, in my particular case, if this was happening every weekend or even every month, it would be a huge issue for me. I'm willing to forgive once a year even though I find it super annoying.

Totally cool.

I just wanted to follow up with Podaar's comment.

[Podaar]

Great post MWS! I'll have more time for detailed discussion tomorrow.

...I need a keyboard.

I'll await your eloquent response with all due eagerness, Tim!  This should be the pinnacle of maturity... 

Ok, let me start with this first...

She understood where I was coming from, but also defensively said "I'm an adult and can do what I want".

Did she follow that up with "Na nana nana-na"?


I am certainly not going to tell Lordixor's wife to grow up, as I don't have all of the facts and a view into the Ixor's lives.

But simply reading what has been presented, it does come across to me as a maturity, or an alcohol, issue.

I know if I acted as Ixor has dexcribed his wife, my wife would certainly tell me to grow the hell up.

TAC and MoraWintersoul, I have to respectfully disagree.

In my experience, it is never a good idea to have expectations for other people; especially in regards to the effect of their behavior on you personally; especially when the other person is someone you love and exchanged vows with. Both of you have commented on maturity, are you seriously suggesting the lordxizor should tell his wife to "grow up". Um, I'm sorry, but that's probably the opposite of the intent of this thread. 

That doesn't make sense. I most certainly have expectations for my wife. Like, I expect her to not bang every dude she sees. I expect her to not steal my 401k. I expect her to not poison me when she makes dinner. And as husband and wife, we expect each other to act in an acceptable and respectful manner.

Expectations of acceptable behavior should not be confused with being controlling.


If my wife gets trashed, it is my problem. That is until I decide that I will not accept it anymore. Then it becomes her problem to confront. Plenty of marriages have failed because of alcoholism, or social overdrinking.

If a husband is going to let it fly for now, then it obviously doesn't bother him enough. And that's ok. If a marriage can tolerate that, great, but one spouse getting trashed acting like a sorority co-ed, at some point, may ultimately find themselves incompatible with their husband.

If this is a small chink in the wife's armor, then one can try and tolerate it as best as they can.

And again, I'm trying not to comment on Lordixor personally, as I most certainly don't walk in his shoes and understand his whole family dynamic, but using his example to speak in generalities.

Hyperbole aside, that's what we were talking about, Tim. If you read his original post carefully, you will see that not only was his situation not even closely related to a chronic situation. It was a mild and occasional thing. Your advise was pretty harsh.

If your spouses behavior isn't destructive, why have the expectation that they must behave a certain way or they won't be mature? Let me put it to you this way, what would your advice be to a woman who's husband is constantly on the internet sharing pictures and stories of his teenaged years. Someone who, no matter the subject, will pop off with a personal photo, and a sad anecdote reliving his glory years?

What I'm talking about is approaching minor friction in ones marriage with an eye toward being as responsible as one can for ones own feelings. I may be wrong, but that's my thought.

[lordxizor]

What I'm talking about is approaching minor friction in ones marriage with an eye toward being as responsible as one can for ones own feelings.

This is exactly why I have mentioned multiple times that this is largely my issue, not hers. Yes, her behavior is annoying, but no one else seems as bothered by it as me, which means I need to learn to deal with it. Hopefully she'll be more self aware and tone it down in the future, but ultimately she's not doing anything terrible. Just out of character in a way that bothers me (for lots of reasons not worth getting into here). And that's mostly on me.

[Podaar]

 

I saw that, and realized that's what you were saying. I apologize, for my role in derailing the conversation away from your original question, lordxizor.

[pg1067]

Wasn't sure where to put this.  Not looking for "advice," per se, but....

I have two kids.  17yo son, who is a senior in HS.  Starting with his sophomore year, he started HATING classroom learning, and his grades suffered.  After his junior year, we decided to home school him.  We discovered that he could actually finish up his senior year with 4 1/2 semester classes, one of which is a combo drivers ed/drivers training thing.  The other is a 15yo daughter, who is a sophomore.  She's very motivated and an over-achiever -- especially when it comes to music, which is what she wants to make her career.

I come home from work yesterday.  My wife is out doing something.  My son comes out of his room, and I say, "so...any news?"  He then confirms that he completed his final exams in his last two classes and is now DONE with high school (save for some paperwork).  He and my wife are meeting with his home study adviser today, and he should be an official high school graduate shortly (and four months earlier than his classmates at his former school, by the way).  Holy shit!  He did it!  I have to admit I wasn't sure he was going to do it, but he did.  YEA!!!

Then my wife gets home.  We talk about my son, and then she asks if the daughter told me about her friend.  i said no.  Turns out one of my daughter's friends told my daughter yesterday that she had been diagnosed with something (cystic fibrosis maybe?) and that it would be a miracle if she made it through her senior year.

Gut punch.

I don't know this particular friend.  I only know her from her profile on the school newspaper's web site (she and my daughter were both on staff and in the journalism class as freshmen).

So now my kid, who has everything else going for her, is really sad.  And I think about this poor kid AND HER PARENTS and how absolutely awful it must be for them.  I can't even imagine.

[bosk1]

Wasn't sure where to put this.  Not looking for "advice," per se, but....

Well, this thread wasn't designed to be about "advice" either, but was just kind of a tongue-in-cheek rant.  But people apparently misunderstood, so... 

[Cool Chris]

Question/comment for parents here... how do your kids' friends (or children in general) address you? How do you refer to adults when talking to your kids?

When I was a kid, any adult was Mr./Mrs. <last name>. Now it seems like kids refer to adults by either their first name, or Mr/Mrs <First Name>. If I am not explaining this well, for example our adult friends will tell their kids "Go ask Mr. Chris if he can get you a snack." It has started irking me. I want to be addressed as Mr. <my last name> and I want my kids to address and refer to adults in the same manner.

Am I out of line? Not hip with the times?

[Podaar]

Usually, whatever they were comfortable with. It ran the gambit from formal to familiar. I never really thought it mattered...to be honest.

[TAC]

When I was a kid, any adult was Mr./Mrs. <last name>. Now it seems like kids refer to adults by either their first name, or Mr/Mrs <First Name>. If I am not explaining this well, for example our adult friends will tell their kids "Go ask Mr. Chris if he can get you a snack." It has started irking me. I want to be addressed as Mr. <my last name> and I want my kids to address and refer to adults in the same manner.

I'm with you, Mr. Chris!
Seriously, I agree.