There is a shit test (or several) heading my way on a specific issue and I could use some opinions on what my next steps should be:
To make a very long story short, my wife lacks respect towards my immediate family, namely my mom and sister. It wasn't always like this, but it has been going on for the last 7 years of our 15 year relationship. Over those years I have been a beta bitch and have acquiesced to my wife's shitty emotions, ultimately resulting in me seeing my family less.
For the last 3 months since finding MRP, I've been covertly setting the following boundary with my actions: I need to manage my relationship my my bio family. Ideally I have a partner that supports and helps me do that, but I can do it on my own. If my partner is not going to help me - or worse, if my partner is actually the one causing problems - I will remove them from my interactions with bio family.
Thus far, my actions are congruent with this boundary - I usually talk to my parents 2x/week, sometimes it's just my mom sometimes it's both of them on speaker. For the last several years I would have these calls on speaker phone and my wife would literally just sit there and listen. I now take those calls privately, even if just in the other room.
I've also been setting up 1-on-1 time with my mom and dad separately, and lately doing more to interact with my sister individually (texting/sharing insta shit, trying to make plans for dinner)
Wife knows I am doing this but has not asked about it, but it is clearly aggravating her given the shit tests that follow when she realizes she's being excluded. That's fine, it's just shit tests, but I anticipate she's soon going to overtly ask me why I've been excluding her from these conversations.
Thus I feel I am left with a choice: if she does ask, do I overtly communicate the boundary (basically as written above), or do I continue to STFU and do as I've been doing?
[–]Kevlar__Soul 12 points13 points14 points (3 children) | Copy Link
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