Marriage in Trouble. Catholic advice needed

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If all else fail, let her leave with daughter and you stay put. Let her see all the problems she’ll encounter and decide for herself if what she’d done was right or not. Maybe she’ll appreciate you more when she’s aware of what she’s missing. Reality check. Ususally, no argument will do except to let the person do what he/she wants and therefore, learn his/her mistake.
 
My advice is to write a letter to your wife. Letters are nice because she can’t really interupt you and it gives you a chance to read over what you are saying to her so you won’t say anything unneccessary or that you will regret. Tell her how you feel, tell her what you fear and that you would do anything for her but moving just b/c her father wants her to is unfair. Tell her that you want to provide for her and your daughter and don’t feel that it would be right to leave right now. Also, invite her to write back to you, ask her to tell you why she wants to move so badly, but more importantly to explain why, and not just “because my dad…” but make sure it is her opinion, her reasons, not her fathers. Perhaps even ask her if she believes that it was a mistake marrying you and bringing your daughter into this world, tell her how much you love her and your child and how no matter what you will never regret that. Let her know that you are willing to listen but only if she 1) talks about how she feels (as opposed to how Daddy feels) and 2) is prepared to listen to you in return. I get the feeling that this will be a long conversatino because this problem seems rooted in something deeper and older than this move to CA. I am praying for you!
 
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cathgal:
If all else fail, let her leave with daughter and you stay put. Let her see all the problems she’ll encounter and decide for herself if what she’d done was right or not. Maybe she’ll appreciate you more when she’s aware of what she’s missing. Reality check. Ususally, no argument will do except to let the person do what he/she wants and therefore, learn his/her mistake.
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I certainly hope it doesn’t come to anything like this but I’d hesitate to let her take the daughter out of state without getting some legal counsel first. The daughter needs to have her right to be with her father protected.
 
GMmartin42-
Since there is no way for any of us to know the complete dynamics of your family, rather than giving too much specific advice I would recommend the above advice for the Marriage Encounter and I have heard good things about Retrouvaille. In addition, seek a Catholic family counselor as opposed to a “marriage counselor” or even a psychologist. A psychologist will have the goal of solving an “issue” for the patient rather than for the family.

A Catholic marriage counselor should work with both of you & discuss this with (name removed by moderator)ut from both of you-with the goal of maintaining the marriage bond. If she is opposed to going to a counselor, it may be because she fears that you are going to try to convince her not to move.

So decide what is the bottom line, staying in the Midwest or keeping the marriage together. If you have decided that your goal is to keep the marriage together, be clear that your motivation for counseling is not to keep her in the Midwest, but to keep your marriage together.

If she still does not want to go to counseling you can go alone, but be clear about you goal with the counselor, to keep your marriage together.

You may want to prepare yourself for the idea that after counseling there is a chance that even you may change your mind and decide, as a family, to move.
The only right answer is to follow God’s way.
Imagine the decision that St. Joseph had to make, against his own intellect he followed God’s way.
Joseph was a descendant of the House of King David. After marrying Mary, he found her already pregnant and, being “a just man and unwilling to put her to shame” (Matt. 1:19), decided to divorce her quietly; but an angel told him that the child was the son of God and was conceived by the Holy Ghost. Obeying the angel, Joseph took Mary as his wife. After Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem (modern Bayt Lahm, Jordan) in Judaea, where the holy family received the Magi, an angel warned Joseph and Mary about the impending violence against the child by King Herod the Great of Judaea, whereupon they fled to Egypt. There the angel again appeared to Joseph, informing him of Herod’s death and instructing him to return to the Holy Land.
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St. Joseph is the patron Saint for Retrouvaille see the link about St. Joseph and Retrouvaille: retrouvaille.org/joseph.htm
Pray for the intersession of St. Joseph.
 
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SMHW:
I certainly hope it doesn’t come to anything like this but I’d hesitate to let her take the daughter out of state without getting some legal counsel first. The daughter needs to have her right to be with her father protected.
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I’m all for you to have your daughter with you but isn’t the mother, by court order, if it comes to that, usually the one to keep the child unless there’s a good reason not to.
 
Thanks all for your advice. Most everyone was pretty much dead on with the family assessment. In fact, over the weekend I called the father-in-law, and told him to “butt out”. Unfortunately, he responded with an “I love my daughter *and granddaughter * more that you ever will”. The father-daughter relationship i understand, however, the comment about loving my daughter more than I do is just ridiculous as I am sure that you’ll all agree with. The relationships are simply not comparable. Thats my life. But thanks, all, again for your time and words of encouragement…
 
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cathgal:
I’m all for you to have your daughter with you but isn’t the mother, by court order, if it comes to that, usually the one to keep the child unless there’s a good reason not to.
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Not necessarily - the person who wants to leave no longer gets the option of taking the child with them…in fact, the courts look to the continuous stability for that child and are more likely to let the parent who REMAINS IN THE HOME be the one who keeps physical custody.

The old days of it automatically being Mom who gets the kids are over.
 
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gmmartin42:
Okay, its taken me some time to go ahead and post my situation on this Board, but I’ll give it a shot. I’ve spoke with a “professional” marriage counselor, who told me to get a good attorney. Not the advice I wanted to hear.

Over the past year or so, my marriage of 4 years had begun to crumble, slowly. My wife and I have a 2-½-girl year old who, as you can imagine, is my entire life. In August of 2004, my father in law quit his job, moved cross-country to California, and has since become an overbearing strain on my relationship with my wife. There were some issues that he was dealing with at home that may have drove him to make the move. I also think he had some sort of mid-life crisis. Who knows? All I know is since he moved out to CA, he has tried to convince my wife that his life is so much better out there, that if she stays in the Midwest with me she’ll regret it forever, and that I should quit my job (if I truly love her) and get an apartment out there as well, until I find a full time job. By the way, I currently have a good paying job, and am finishing my graduate studies this fall. There is no need to move, nor any reason, other than my wife threatens to divorce me every other day if I do not move. Also, we do not have any marital issues that should divide us. Its not like there was domestic abuse, or adultery on any of our part. Her father and I never got along, and just yesterday he told me, in front of her, that I was the biggest mistake of her life, and that she is better off with him and her mother.

What can I do, or where can I go to get some good, Catholic advice. I have tried to convince her to speak with our Parish priest, but she declines to do so. We have a new priest, he’s only been at our parish for only 2 months, and she said that she does not want him to get a negative view of our family. She refused to speak with our former, retired priest, because it would be “embarrassing” since he also baptized her, and married us.

I fear that she is going to leave me for her mother and father, now “permanently” living in CA. Plus, she and I have our baby to raise. I just do not know where to turn. I mean, we took vows before God “for better or for worse”, but she is not living up to the vows we made together. Where are some good resources in the Catholic Church that I can turn to about this? Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks-
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Hear ya friend!! I am currently reading the book “Toxic In-Laws” by Dr. Susan Forward. Read it today! It will help you and your situation, just like it has mine! PLEASE go buy it NOW!!!
God Bless~~:)
 
Tell her she can go but you won’t and the baby won’t and there will be NO DIVORCE. Also tell her that since she’s abandoning you not only will you not send her any money, she better get off her butt and get a job because you’ll be expecting child support to arrive right off the bat as soon as she leaves. Then tell her that if she doesn’t understand that you’d be happy to have a lawyer explain it to her.
Or that if she doesn’t like that senario at all she is free to come with you a speak to the priest.

THEN DO IT.
 
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LSK:
Not necessarily - the person who wants to leave no longer gets the option of taking the child with them…in fact, the courts look to the continuous stability for that child and are more likely to let the parent who REMAINS IN THE HOME be the one who keeps physical custody.

The old days of it automatically being Mom who gets the kids are over.
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Yeah, our neighbor has custody of both his children (his wife took off recently). Since she deserted, it’s likely that he will be granted full permanent custody of the kids when the divorce is finalized. People are finally wising up and realizing that the kids aren’t automatically better off with mom.
 
I’m afraid I’ve had enough uncharitable thoughts about my own in-laws today, so I skipped the responses. My dh refused to stand up to his parents who were literally ruining our relationship. We got to the point of being “done.” He defended them. They would get their family together and bombard him with phone calls, emails, and pages saying I was the one making everyone else miserable. Even when he agreed with me, he was unable to bring himself to do anything about it. Most of the time, he didn’t agree with me that his parents were crossing the line. They told him constantly that I was going to leave him and he honestly thought that his parents were the only ones who would be there for him always, no matter what.

We went to counseling, and again, even when he agreed, he wouldn’t do anything. Once in a while he would honestly intend to do something.

Here’s what helped us:

His Needs, Her Needs (radical honesty, filling the love banks, putting the other first, enthusiastic agreement on all things. He did not actively participate, even though he agreed in theory. It wasn’t long before he found himself responding to me without even realising he was following this model.)

MarriageBuilders.com (from the same author)

Toxic In-Laws (Small and quick to get through, written for you–the spouse–but this is what turned my husband around completely. He finally realized that his parents’ behavior was out of line. She also has other books that get rave reviews like Toxic Parents that I haven’t read.)

A break. (No joke, filling our time with each other and not visiting with them every evening was SO SO SO beneficial for us! They moved a few blocks away, and I was ticked. In protest, I refused to go to their house and limited contact to the bare minimum. My husband saw that I needed to be angry and decided to go along with it. In that time, we read Toxic In-Laws. The time away from them was so wonderful! He really was able to get his bearings straight.)

The Toxic In-Laws book covers The Critics, The Engulfers, The Controllers, The Masters of Chaos, and The Rejectors. The advice was pretty generic in my opinion, but the sketches of the different in-laws and how they operated to undermine your relationship was what was helpful for us. He was able (with only a few helpful reminders) to see his parents in these sketches and he heard my same words that I’d been saying for years echoed by the people in the book. It was a huge turning point for him.

The His Needs, Her Needs book has a WONDERFUL process for you to work on your marriage. It does NOT require your wife’s assistance. The needs break down did not fit our relationship, but it allows for this and centers on the discussion. The beginning info with the Love Bank and enthusiastic agreement and radical honesty is what we took from it. (And how to do these things even if your spouse is not willing to work on the relationship. As well as when, after trying all this, to start looking at giving up.)

If you still love her, why not read these books and give it 6 months more? Work on the process in His Needs, Her Needs and hopefully start having some honest and charitable dialogue in about 2-4 months, then work on the in-laws issue. I know it seems counter-productive to ignore the in-law issue for several months like an elephant in the living room, but she is probably incapable of handling it now. Work on your marriage and make sure she feels like you are the best thing on earth since sliced bread, then gently discuss how the in-law issue is hurting your relationship.
 
If it were me (which it isn’t), once I felt secure in what I was going to do, I would say to her, “Holly, I love you so much. I love the way your eyes spearkle when you laugh. I love the wonderful mother you are to Little Pumpkin. I love how passionate you are. I love your quirky snort. I love everything there is about you. We have some issues in our relationship that I want to work on with you, so we are both happy. I know you aren’t ready to do discuss them now, but I want to let you know that when you are ready, I am going to listen to you, and respect you, and do everything I can to make you happy. There’s nothing I love more than to see you smile.” Then start living it out like in His Needs, Her Needs. If she has any desire to stay in the marriage, it won’t be long before she responds to your love in a like manner and wants to make you happy as well.

This is when it becomes more difficult, because it is easy to be happy when you pretend the in-laws don’t exist. When you start facing that, the problems start again. You have to continue in your love and patience. And you have to understand that she probably is not seeing her parents in the same light as you, and that even if she did, it would not give her the strength and courage to stand up to them. It is a long and difficult process, one in which she will need a support system and a dedicated and sympathetic husband.

Make sure to do things together to build your friendship. Have a strong support system in place at church or through some other means. Then she will not feel like her entire world is gone or like you yanked the rug out from under her feet if you talk about limiting contact with her parents. Put her first in your every thought and deed. You’ll be surprised how short a time it will (most likely) take for her to come around. Then it won’t be long before she comes back around. And back around. And eventually, you two will actually have dealt with the issue and will find yourself realizing things are great.

It won’t be an easy process. It will most likely take years to play out to the very end. But the benefits will come along sooner. And, after all, what’s a couple years of working on your marriage in order to be happy for a lifetime?

You can do it. There is still hope. This is actually a VERY common problem. It is one plenty of people have overcome in their own marriages. My prayers are with you both!
 
Absolutely do not be the one to leave, and do your darnedest to keep your daughter with you. A friend of mine had his wife basically kick him out of their home, under the guise of a “trial separation” to “work things out”. As soon as he left, she filed for divorce and now has principal custody of their son, even though my friend was a SAHD before the divorce and has the better relationship with him. Terrible thing on kids, divorce is.
 
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