New wife advice from old(er) wives

[mrsjennymulhall]

I shared a nugget of advice just now on a thread started by a young lady who is soon to be married. I thought it might be fun to ask if anyone has any newly married advice they received from their Mums, friends or just learnt the hard way!

I’ll begin…

My Mum told me to never let the sun set on an argument and to keep petty annoyances to myself. Consequently, the Hubster and I have an unspoken arrangement… When one of us (usually Himself) storms off to the spare room, the injuring party (usually Mysrlf) is obliged, after a period of time sufficient for the saving of face, to come and fetch the injured party, telling him to stop being an eejit and come to bed. Thus; the sun doesn’t ‘set’ on the argument, whatever time it is!!

The petty annoyances one has saved the Hubster from being murdered for ‘toilet roll infractions’ too numerous to mention…

Any others?

 

[EasterJoy]

I shared a nugget of advice just now on a thread started by a young lady who is soon to be married. I thought it might be fun to ask if anyone has any newly married advice they received from their Mums, friends or just learnt the hard way!

I’ll begin…

My Mum told me to never let the sun set on an argument and to keep petty annoyances to myself. Consequently, the Hubster and I have an unspoken arrangement… When one of us (usually Himself) storms off to the spare room, the injuring party (usually Mysrlf) is obliged, after a period of time sufficient for the saving of face, to come and fetch the injured party, telling him to stop being an eejit and come to bed. Thus; the sun doesn’t ‘set’ on the argument, whatever time it is!!

The petty annoyances one has saved the Hubster from being murdered for ‘toilet roll infractions’ too numerous to mention…

Any others?

Just to comment on your post: When one party responds to criticism by refusing communication about it or by physically refusing contact, it is called “stonewalling”. This is one of the four habits of conflict response that the marriage researcher John Gottman called “the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”–that is, one of the four recurrent relational problems that can foretell divorce.

What you are suggesting as a response, however, is something Gottman calls a “repair attempt”. One of the features of marriages that are likely to survive conflicts in a healthy way is when repair attempts are routinely made and routinely accepted. IOW, it is not that durable marriages never have fights. That is not why they are different from marriages that don’t last or that are not happy. The difference is a) how the conflicts are conducted and b) whether or not couples make the effort to make up.

In short–the research says that you are doing exactly the right thing.

 

[grasscutter]

The petty annoyances one has saved the Hubster from being murdered for ‘toilet roll infractions’ too numerous to mention…

Oh!!! the toilet roll infractions!!! I just don’t get it! Even when I’m at work… I’m left to conclude that somehow this is a task that is too complicated for anyone else to manage and somehow I’m the only one who’s been given the esoteric know-how to accomplish it.

That said, I also very much like the idea of not going to bed angry. If one doesn’t reconcile before morning, a little problem can end up being so much bigger.

As to advice, I guess I would say don’t be invested in having the last word.

 

[MJJean]

Before you say anything that could start an argument ask yourself “Will this be important in 6 months? Is it worth it?” If the answer is “Nope!” then sometimes you just have to shake your head, smile, and not say a word.

 

[Phemie]

Remember that things that are said can’t be unsaid. The “I hate you” in the midst of an argument will be remembered long after the 100 "I love you"s when things are going swimmingly. Bite your tongue before you say anything in anger and ask yourself if you’d want to hear it coming at you.

 

[tawny]

Remember that things that are said can’t be unsaid. The “I hate you” in the midst of an argument will be remembered long after the 100 "I love you"s when things are going swimmingly. Bite your tongue before you say anything in anger and ask yourself if you’d want to hear it coming at you.

Amen.

 

[EasterJoy]

Remember that things that are said can’t be unsaid. The “I hate you” in the midst of an argument will be remembered long after the 100 "I love you"s when things are going swimmingly. Bite your tongue before you say anything in anger and ask yourself if you’d want to hear it coming at you.

Also very true, although we can train ourselves to let go. It doesn’t keep harsh words from hurting, but forgiveness lets the wound heal cleanly, instead of festering. It does not work if the person shows no sign of repentance. When someone repents and the offense is passed over, that is forgiveness. When someone does not repent and the offense is passed over, that is being excused. There is a limit to how much can be excused in a marriage without any repentance. Faults that the forgiving spouse believes the offending spouse is blind to without bad intention, that can work. Otherwise, there is a limit.

 

[fencersmother]

I always try to remember that my “job” is to make my husband, King of My Castle, glad that he is home. In His home, with His wife and family.

Does that make me subservient to him? Maybe sometimes. Does that make him eager to make me happy? DEFINITELY!

When our kids were small and there were a lot of them and we were homeschooling, I would ask my husband each day before he left for work, “What is the one task you would like to see done here at home today?” (Assuming the food made it to the table, the laundry was at least in front of the machines, and the beds made) He usually made a small request, “If you have time, can you and the kids run the sweeper?” and we did our very best to comply.

He came home happy and the floor was vacuumed (even if the dogs did shed and cheerios spilled and mud tracked in).

So, for a long-time married to a newly married: make sure your spouse WANTS to come home every night. He’ll love you for it.

 

[EasterJoy]

My advice is that if you’re wrong, apologize, even if you’re not the most wrong. Sometimes the person who has committed the lesser offense is the better choice to get the ball of reconciliation rolling. Most of the time, however, both of you believe yourself to have committed the “lesser” offense. Great–better to have two people apologizing than two people refusing to apologize because each believes himself or herself guilty of the lesser offense!

You do, however, have to be willing to apologize in the knowledge that you may not immediately get an apology back! It needs to be a real repair attempt. Otherwise, this advice could work out very badly!

The other piece of advice is to know the difference between an apology and an excuse. An apology puts the reason first, and the expression of regret second. An excuse puts the regret first, then follows with a reason. Make apologies, not excuses.

Example:
EXCUSE: I’m sorry I yelled at you, I shouldn’t have done it, but it drives me crazy when you do X.
APOLOGY: It drives me crazy when you do X, but I still shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m sorry.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Consequently, the Hubster and I have an unspoken arrangement… When one of us (usually Himself) storms off to the spare room, the injuring party (usually Mysrlf) is obliged, after a period of time sufficient for the saving of face, to come and fetch the injured party, telling him to stop being an eejit and come to bed. Thus; the sun doesn’t ‘set’ on the argument, whatever time it is!!

I have never been married so take this question from where it is coming. It sounds like the person in the wrong tells the person in the right to quite sulking for nothing. I honestly don’t understand. When someone else is clearly in the wrong, nothing would boil my blood more than telling me I am wrong for being upset over it

 

[Groo]

I don’t want to speak for Mrs Jenny, but I didn’t read her advice to say anything about right or wrong. One might be injured without being wronged (I.e. too sensitive or misunderstanding)

Also, I don’t think it matters who is right or who is wrong - not on 99% of things.

 

[EasterJoy]

I have never been married so take this question from where it is coming. It sounds like the person in the wrong tells the person in the right to quite sulking for nothing. I honestly don’t understand. When someone else is clearly in the wrong, nothing would boil my blood more than telling me I am wrong for being upset over it

She’s implying that they have a conflict, he takes offense at something she says or does, and in retaliation he resorts to stonewalling, which is to say he shuts down and withdraws from the whole conflict. It does not have anything necessarily to do with who is really “right” or “wrong” in some juridical sense. Judging one party right and the other wrong requires an impartial judge, and impartial judge is exactly what marital conflicts that go off the rails do not have. She is also saying that she has developed a sense of how long to let the collective blood simmer down before attempting to call off the conflict by a mutual fiat. Stonewalling can be deadly to a marriage, but she doesn’t take it personally. She takes it as a force of nature that can be dealt with. That transforms it from a stonewall into a mutually-agreed-upon cool off period. She also implies that she and her husband can have a sense of humor about their conflicts, once they have that cool-down period.

The important thing is that after a conflict jumps the tracks in her marriage, one person comes and says, “I want to make up” in a way that leads to the other person to say, “yes, let’s make up” before too much time to brood has gone by. Whose job it is to say one and whose job to say the other is not that important, provided that the two spouses agree.

I’d very much encourage unmarried people to read John Gottman’s books and to come to some mutual idea with a prospective spouse about how to communicate without kicking the train off the rails.

 

[EasterJoy]

…Therefore my advice as a wife would be that sometimes it is okay to go bed angry…

Not all conflicts can be solved in a day. It is a bad habit to brood over injuries, though. I’d say it is OK to go to bed without agreeing, but you ought to go to sleep in mutual affection. There is a difference.

 

[heidi_storage]

My advice is, “Don’t keep long accounts.” If something bothers you and you can’t brush it off, bring it up then; otherwise, let it go–but really let it go. Do not keep a list of grievances that come out when you two are arguing about something.

Also, praying together and engaging in some non-house, non-child-related activity are very important for your unity!

 

[Lorelei12]

Don’t keep score of who is doing what around the house. Nothing wrong with assigning chores and trying to make it fair, but one of you will be more tired, one of you might be sick, one of you will forget something…always do what you can and don’t throw yourself a pity party if you think you’re picking up all the slack. There will be times you carry the load, and there will be times your spouse will have to. And if you want something done a certain way, it’s easier to just do it yourself rather than make your spouse resentful of you because you’re nagging him or her.

Also agree with Monicad that never going to bed angry does not work for us either. Sometimes we are both just too tired and going in too many circles with each other for it to make sense to stay up and lose sleep. We’ll talk about it later. One thing we never do, though, in the wake of an argument, is sleep separately. We might go to bed still mad, but lying next to each other all night makes it harder to stay mad, at least for us. Same goes for attending Mass together. My pre-marital prep wasn’t the greatest, but one thing that stuck was when one of the instructors mentioned how hard it is to stay mad at your spouse when you’re standing next to him at Mass. It’s true.

 

[paperwight66]

My advice would be ‘Never force a man to choose between loyalty to his mother or loyalty to you.’ In other words, if his mother seems too demanding, for instance calling him over to cut the lawn even though yours needs doing, don’t make a fuss. If she is critical of something and it gets back to you, acknowledge she could have a point, or make excuses like she is tired/worried etc.
If you do make him take sides, resentment and guilt could fester, however irrational it might be.
Disclaimer : I’m not talking about situations when sadly, the mother-in-law is really toxic, but in normal circumstances.

 

[MJJean]

Huh, I am an old married lady and have learned something from this thread.

I always felt bad about going to bed angry, too, because of that saying. But my husband is a truck driver, often has to be up between 3 and 5 am, and needs to sleep in order to operate his rig safely. No question, tired drivers make mistakes and those mistakes could cost the driver and/or other people their lives.

Because I believed I’d end up divorced if I let us go to bed angry I’d try to resolve the disagreement before we went to sleep. Sure enough, we were very rarely able to resolve the issue before it got very late. Poor man lost so much sleep over the years before I finally stopped trying to force resolutions and just went to bed with him. For the most part, by the time we woke up we’d be over it and ready to start getting along again.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

My advice would be ‘Never force a man to choose between loyalty to his mother or loyalty to you.’ In other words, if his mother seems too demanding, for instance calling him over to cut the lawn even though yours needs doing, don’t make a fuss. If she is critical of something and it gets back to you, acknowledge she could have a point, or make excuses like she is tired/worried etc.
If you do make him take sides, resentment and guilt could fester, however irrational it might be.
Disclaimer : I’m not talking about situations when sadly, the mother-in-law is really toxic, but in normal circumstances.

My advice was going to be the opposite. Both partners must be all in in the marriage, and recognize that their number one loyalty and responsibility is to their spouse. It is such a common and universal problem in new marriages that one partner feels torn between their new family and their family of origin. Both people have to consciously commit to putting their new family first. This goes for both men and women. I wouldn’t want to see either partner running off for several hours because their mother called wanting the grass cut, when the grass needs to be cut at home. Newlyweds have to set boundaries, and being at someone else’s beck and call for chores just isn’t conducive for a healthy marriage.

It doesn’t make you a bad wife to expect to be placed above a man’s mother. A man’s wife should always come first, that’s what marriage is!

 

[Groo]

My advice was going to be the opposite. Both partners must be all in in the marriage, and recognize that their number one loyalty and responsibility is to their spouse. It is such a common and universal problem in new marriages that one partner feels torn between their new family and their family of origin. Both people have to consciously commit to putting their new family first. This goes for both men and women. I wouldn’t want to see either partner running off for several hours because their mother called wanting the grass cut, when the grass needs to be cut at home. Newlyweds have to set boundaries, and being at someone else’s beck and call for chores just isn’t conducive for a healthy marriage.

It doesn’t make you a bad wife to expect to be placed above a man’s mother. A man’s wife should always come first, that’s what marriage is!

What if the spouse does not agree to put the new family first and continues to cling to the family of origin? Interested in people’s thoughts as this is relevant to my personal situation.

 

[mrsjennymulhall]

In short–the research says that you are doing exactly the right thing.

Glad to hear it! Once, I fell asleep before I could tell him he was being an eejit and he stomped back to bed all offended that I had slept through my bit… I’m surprised to see there’s method behind our Tomfoolery!

Oh!!! the toilet roll infractions!!! I just don’t get it! Even when I’m at work… I’m left to conclude that somehow this is a task that is too complicated for anyone else to manage and somehow I’m the only one who’s been given the esoteric know-how to accomplish it.

LOL! So sayeth women the world over! LOL!!

When our kids were small and there were a lot of them and we were homeschooling, I would ask my husband each day before he left for work, “What is the one task you would like to see done here at home today?” (Assuming the food made it to the table, the laundry was at least in front of the machines, and the beds made) He usually made a small request, “If you have time, can you and the kids run the sweeper?” and we did our very best to comply.

Thank you for this!!! I’m home all day and many, many times the Hubster has come home to a spotless house and everything Dandy but will say ‘Is my shirt still not washed?’ This not-so-new wife is happy to take this piece of sage wisdom; thank you!!

I have never been married so take this question from where it is coming. It sounds like the person in the wrong tells the person in the right to quite sulking for nothing. I honestly don’t understand. When someone else is clearly in the wrong, nothing would boil my blood more than telling me I am wrong for being upset over it

Tee-hee! No problem. When we row; the Hubster is very vocal and I’m the quiet-then-explode type. The stomping off to the spare room usually occurs after a ‘full and frank exchange of opinion’. Once the ‘stop being an eejit’ part happens, we snuggle and chat about it like civilised folks. I have no idea how this silly little routine evolved, but there it is!

My advice would be ‘Never force a man to choose between loyalty to his mother or loyalty to you.’

Excellent advice. I adore my MIL (I am her carer) but too many of my friends have allowed unmanageable situations to evolve; especially when the children happen along. It’s distressing for everybody concerned.

What if the spouse does not agree to put the new family first and continues to cling to the family of origin? Interested in people’s thoughts as this is relevant to my personal situation.

So far as I have seen; the problems occur when this one is allowed to rumble on. A dear friend of mine is still going to her MIL’s for Sunday dinner after FIVE YEARS because she didn’t want to make a fuss about it after her marriage. They have two kids, they both work Monday - Friday and Sunday is their only real day together but it’s become to entrenched now that it would be a huge problem to change things. My advice would be to start as you mean to go on but this is a tough one; no doubt about it.