Should family criticize a spouse?

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=Endemic]
No, they divorced years ago. My wife and I are on fine terms with him and his new wife (whom by the way I accept completely).

Yeah, I don’t communicate well with my bros. I have lived out of the country for most of the time in question and haven’t done a good job of keeping up. I don’t think we have any problems per se, but I suspect they have heard a lot more negative about us from my mom than I have counteracted through direct experience with them.

Dude, that’s a big MIL. You got you some cojones!

Unfortunately my wife and I did take a similar stand against my mother at the very beginning, but we were in her house and it ended up in us having to leave abruptly. It was also unfortunate that we took the stand under her roof, because to this day my mother speaks about about how we crossed the line by disrespecting her in her own home.
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My dad’s the one with the cojones. I was clever enough to marry a trim little athletic woman, whom I tower over. My dad grew up on a farm, throwing hay bales from a wagon to the second floor of a barn. My dad was about 6’, but I’m sure grandma outweighed him. I’m equally sure grandma knew my dad was quite capable of physically carrying her out the door.

I’m glad you get along with your dad. It might be one reason your mom is being such a b, um, problem. Maybe you can turn the disrespecting her in her own home around. When she visits and misbehaves next, tell her in no uncertain terms that this is your home and your wife’s home, and no one may disrespect either of you in it. Make it clear it is her choice to stay or go, but if she continues with her behavior you will throw her out. And mean it.

Refuse her next invitiation to her house. Tell her you and your wife will only go where you (both) are respected, and since your wife is not respected there, you will not go there. She (your mom) is free to behave as she chooses within her home, but you are free not to be subjected to it. If she wants you to visit, she must behave.

Trips elsewhere are problematic, but once you establish the boundaries within your homes, they should be easier.

22

This is pretty much the reason I’ve never had a relationship with grandparents and have no sense of extended family. In my case, both sides of my family hate each other and my parents being together (ironic since it was an arranged marriage). My parents have kept the relationship with them to a bare minimum to preserve their own marriage. I met my grandparents 3 times before they died.

It really sucks. I don’t feel like I have much in the way of a family network beyond my mother, father and sister but they’re great so I know I’m luckier than most people. It did, however, cause my parents a lot of worry when we were minors in terms of who they would have appointed as our guardians in case anything happened to them.

23

[QUOTE=Endemic]
Cute idea! But no, I’m as white as can be, and she is an Indian Hindu.
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Ha, I guessed as soon as I read the line in the OP…
“My wife’s culture, however, places a lot of emphasis on close relationships with my family, and this consistent cold shoulder really upsets her”

that she was Hindu. Yes, Indian culture values the in-laws very highly. And she will most likely consistently place herself second, to be respectful. It’s up to YOU not to let this happen, and to let her know she is most important.

One does not choose their family. One chooses their partner, however, and she ddeserves the allegiance (in this case at least). And if it means cool relations with your mother, so be it.

I come to this from exactly the opposite direction - I am Hindu, and my partner is Chinese, and my family doesn’t like it. To me it’s deal with my choices or don’t, it’s up to you, but I won’t hear any criticism of him from them. They have no right. Most of my family is OK with it, now, my mother isn’t, but she no longer critizies him to me. Our relationship is cool but my relationship with him is wonderful.

24

[QUOTE=anu-la1979]
This is pretty much the reason I’ve never had a relationship with grandparents and have no sense of extended family. In my case, both sides of my family hate each other and my parents being together (ironic since it was an arranged marriage). My parents have kept the relationship with them to a bare minimum to preserve their own marriage. I met my grandparents 3 times before they died.

[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry to double-post but this made me a do a double-take! It’s an arranged marriage and they still can’t stand each other? (The families, not your parents). Who are they blaming; didn’t they arrange it?? GAH! People can be so stupid!

25

My mother has had that relationship with her mother in law for 41 years. Hence my grandmother wants to know why she has three granddaughters that never take her to lunch or call her. Its because she spent my entire life being a bitch to my mother. (She also spent her time unfavorably comparing her granddaughters to her neices.)

If your mother doesn’t see why she should bother to be nice to your wife, perhaps an illustration is in order - stop tolerating it. Don’t visit, don’t invite her over - and tell her why. Perhaps she will understand why being nice is important.

26

[QUOTE=Endemic]
Anyway, to get toward my question, I want to know whether it is acceptable for families to express their dislike of a member’s spouse. I told my mother that I don’t appreciate those sort of comments and her response was that she is entitled to her opinion and that I shouldn’t try to change her. I do believe that everyone in entitled to their opinion, but do they have a right to express it?
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Sure, your mother has the right to do whatever she wants, and you have the right, actually I’d say the obligation, to tell her to shut the hell up and she either cleans up her act or your gone. I’ve been married 12 years, but seperated for the last 6 months, and ran into a little of this visiting my brother over Thanksgiving. Both my brother and my mom started in a little on “Well, I’ve always thought…”. I don’t know if they were just trying to make me feel better in some way or what, but that stopped right away. We may be separated and we may wind up divorced, but right now she is still my wife and I will tolerate no disrespect to her from my family (or anyone else for that matter).

27

I’m Korean and I’m dating a half-white half-black American, and as you can imagine my mother is not terribly fond of her. Due to the circumstances, they’ve never met and I think both my parents assume (or hope) that it isn’t anything serious. In fact my mother never refers to her as my girlfriend but just my ‘friend’.
If we get married I hope I don’t run into similar problems.

28

I really believe that old Bible adage about leaving your parents and cleaving to your wife. You picked her, you love her, and if your parents don’t like it, that is their problem…you should definitely not make it your wife’s problem. I wouldn’t want to be around people who don’t like me because I am different from them!

My brother married someone who is a different nationality, race, and religion from us (and very much younger than him, on top of that!) She’s a swell person. If any of us treated her poorly because of these differences, I would expect him never to speak to us again…I think he would be completely justified in that.

29

You could always try quoting the Bible at her:

I haven’t really got anything else to add; everyone has already said it. When you married, your wife became more important than the rest of your family. If they insist on treating her badly, then they have got to go. That is the consequence for the exercising of their rights of expression. (However, if you’re planning on having children one day, it’s amazing what a grandchild will do. Previously hateful people will frequently soften right up in order to get to a grandchild.)

30

Hey, dangermom! Simulpost on the cleaving! :slight_smile:

I wanted to add that the title of the thread is interesting…should a family criticize a spouse? I wouldn’t necessarily say no to that, but certainly not for being a different race or religion!

31

Well, on the other side, my mother doesn’t particularly like my brother’s wife. She’s welcome at the house, and my mother isn’t mean to her, but my SIL doesn’t discipline their kids and let’s them run wild in my mother’s antique-filled home, forcing my mother to be the bad guy with the kids. My SIL has also taken her kids out of school, preferring to home-school them, although she’s not well-educated herself and has poor grammar, etc. My mother feels the kids aren’t getting the education they need to suceed because of this. So yeah, she’s doesn’t love my SIL like a daughter. But she doesn’t trash-talk her to my brother, either.

You can’t force affection. But you can insist on polite behaviour, if nothing else.

StG

32

Families don’t necessarily like the person the marriage ends up being arranged to, actually. Especially because they had a more liberal version which was that they both got the final say and picked each other rather than being told to get married.

My mom’s family doesn’t really hate my father, I just think they get on his every last nerve and I’m pretty sure they do it deliberately. My father’s family thought my mom was going to be the submissive type (funny, because that is the Marathi side of my family that is very progressive) and she stood up to them.

I wouldn’t marry someone my parents had a huge huge problem with…mainly because they are reasonable people and don’t have a race/religion bias (okay, anyone other than a Muslim is the standard we’re at now) and I have no other family besides them. When my grandparents died I didn’t feel a single thing. I don’t know any of my cousins. I don’t want to get into the same situation they did, where I feel like my kids are going to be shit out of luck if I passed away. Fortunately my sister and I are best friends and my brother-in-law and I really like each other.

33

[QUOTE=Endemic]
She accuses my wife of manipulating me and of driving a wedge between son and family.
[/QUOTE]
That much seems clear to me as well. Your wife keeps telling you your mother is not doing right by her.
Well, my personal advice is to tell the wife to just not worry about your mother, and not keep harping how the wife’s culture thinks the mother should do such and so.
You owe your mother the respect that she does not have to like your wife. You are two different people. Nobody gets liked by everybody else, and no two people have the same set of friends.

34

To me, there’s a difference between “not liking someone” and “overt hostility” which, in my opinion, is what a cold shoulder is. Doesn’t she care that she’s hurting her son by being rude to his wife? No one says they have to go shopping and get pedicures together, but it’s bad form to be rude to a guest in your own home.

35

And don’ chu fogeddit!
:wink: :smiley:

36

One point: do not take your mother’s word on how your brothers feel about your marraige. Your mom (no offence) sounds like she’s not above lying about how your bros feel to manipulate you.

37

I’m going to differ slightly here and say that I think it would be all right for a parent to, once and once ONLY, very respectfully let the child in question know how the parent felt about the spouse. I know it would be an ultra-sensitive topic, but I could see it being motivated by genuine concern on the part of the parent. As long as the parent was sure to treat their child like an adult, and thereafter let the subject drop, I think it could even be a healthy thing.

38

I actually agree with you OneCentStamp, but you’re talking about a situation with reasonable parents. My parents are really nice people who only want me to be happy-if they had an issue I’d apply a reasonableness gauge to it and think about whether their issue is something that might come up as a problem in my relationship in the future.

However, some people don’t have parents who are genuinely looking out for them. Some people get parents who are assholes and controlling. And personal opinion on reasonableness can vary. I consider hating an S.O. for their race and nationality to be entirely unreasonable (personally). I can give a little leeway on the religion issue because my family is not extremely religious and I do think my parents would have a point if I hooked up with someone very into their faith (even our own faith), or from a faith that is so starkly different from ours (like Islam) that it would present long-term problems for me.

39

I have a slightly different take as well, based on your OP, which is only that if you “seldom challenge [your] mother on her treatment of [your] wife,” it seems a not 100% fair to your mom to be “cutting ties with [her] once and for all.” After all, you’ve put up with it for seven years, apparently without objecting much – how is your mom supposed to know it’s suddenly not okay when it has been to date? I also think there’s criticism and there’s criticism: “Honey, we’re worried that Dan’s drinking too much.” “Son, we wish Mary Sue wouldn’t smoke in the house; you know how your mother feels about smoking.” That’s ]maybe okay, if handled with kid gloves. But criticizing your spouse for things he or she cannot change and wouldn’t want to change – race, religion, personality – is never okay.

And it’s never to late to start challenging your mom on this stuff. Tell her it’s been bothering you for a long time that she is so unfriendly to your wife and so mean and rude about your wife. Tell her that after nine years it should be clear that you are committed to your wife, you are not breaking up, and you can no longer live with your wife being hurt and offended by your mother’s treatment. Tell her you expect her to behave appropriately to and about your wife, or you won’t be able to have a relationship with her anymore. Then, if she can’t or won’t fix it – well, you’ll have to choose, and I hope to heck you choose your wife. She sounds like a lovely woman. Your mother – not so much.

So I totally agree with everyone else, except I think it’s not really fair to cut your mom out of your life with little or no warning. Give her one last chance to behave like a decent human being.

40

[QUOTE=Jodi]
And it’s never to late to start challenging your mom on this stuff. Tell her it’s been bothering you for a long time that she is so unfriendly to your wife and so mean and rude about your wife. Tell her that after nine years it should be clear that you are committed to your wife, you are not breaking up, and you can no longer live with your wife being hurt and offended by your mother’s treatment. Tell her you expect her to behave appropriately to and about your wife, or you won’t be able to have a relationship with her anymore. Then, if she can’t or won’t fix it – well, you’ll have to choose, and I hope to heck you choose your wife. She sounds like a lovely woman. Your mother – not so much.

So I totally agree with everyone else, except I think it’s not really fair to cut your mom out of your life with little or no warning. Give her one last chance to behave like a decent human being.
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I completely agree with Jodi on all fronts. I would add that when you speak to your mother, do your best to communicate how much it hurts you to have this barrier between two women who are both very important to you. It seems like she sees this as a “mom vs. daughter-in-law” situation and it’s not. Her criticism of your decision to marry a woman is an attack on YOU. Her implication that you cannot be trusted to choose a good spouse is painful and it’s eroding your relationship with your mother. I would wager that your mother loves you very much and doesn’t see her offhanded remarks as an assault on your character, but they are.

It would serve you to be VERY clear that you are not choosing your wife over your mother, you are choosing your happiness over allowing destructive forces to keep you unhappy. Your mom needs to understand that it is her choice to be a destructive force or a loving, supportive mother.

<personal beef> And from a purely Italian standpoint, I wouldn’t mind you chewing her out a bit for stereotyping our culture. My Italian father and his family have always been bright, entertaining and welcoming to our significant others. Using one’s heritage to excuse one’s character flaws? Despicable. :mad: </personal beef>