Wife does NOT want any help moving?

[faithfully]

Actually, it’s very clearly inconsistent. You’re ignoring the difference between “her” and “their” business, or family. She mentioned “our business”, not “my business”, and marriage is always about both the man and the woman, not just about the woman (or man).

It is manifestly inconsistent to speak about “our business” (as spouses, i.e. wife and husband) but include the parents of one of the spouses (either wife’s or husband’s but not both).

It’s as inconsistent as taking 2 as the sum of 2+2, actually. I’m utterly shocked and perplexed that you see no inconsistency in the unequal treatment of the respective sets of parents/in-laws (on either the wife’s or the husband’s side) while talking about “our business”.

To make a more blatant inconsistency than this, one would need to say “our family” and then exclude one set of in-laws. I do hope that we would all agree that would be inconsistent.

And I’m not talking about her reasons for not wanting to involve her husband’s family. Those are unknown to us and may be either good or bad. Yeah, she may have a good reason e.g. because the in-laws may possible already have pried into their business, in which case she wouldn’t be inconsistent, there would only be missing information. Without additional information (a good unknown reason), it is inconsistent to treat the sets of parents/in-laws unequally when talking about “our business”. “Our business” is not “my business”.

Illustration: Suppose you and I enter into a general partnership agreement (50/50 split) and open up a computer hardware shop, which is a very cool thing to do in life. We make a big success and we’ve got to move to a bigger office. I ask my friends to help us move stuff but I exclude your friends, on the grounds that I don’t want anybody prying into our business. Isn’t this flat out inconsistent to you (not even to mention that I’m not including you in the decision-making process as an equal partner)? Because to me it’s as inconsistent as taking 2 for the sum of 2+2.

And this is scary to me, which is probably why I communicate more easily with computer hardware than with women.

Sure, based on your assumption there is NO REASON for her to care, then it’s inconsistent. We may not know the reason, hard to believe there is NOT a valid most likely emotional reason.

But it’s entirley possible she’s another princess. We seem to have the assumption that all the men here with problems really only have problems because they married princesses. Not women with any sort of scruples, feelings or anything like that.

 

[EasterJoy]

Actually, it’s very clearly inconsistent. You’re ignoring the difference between “her” and “their” business, or family. She mentioned “our business”, not “my business”, and marriage is always about both the man and the woman, not just about the woman (or man).

It is manifestly inconsistent to speak about “our business” (as spouses, i.e. wife and husband) but include the parents of one of the spouses (either wife’s or husband’s but not both).

It’s as inconsistent as taking 2 as the sum of 2+2, actually. I’m utterly shocked and perplexed that you see no inconsistency in the unequal treatment of the respective sets of parents/in-laws (on either the wife’s or the husband’s side) while talking about “our business”.

To make a more blatant inconsistency than this, one would need to say “our family” and then exclude one set of in-laws. I do hope that we would all agree that would be inconsistent.

And I’m not talking about her reasons for not wanting to involve her husband’s family. Those are unknown to us and may be either good or bad. Yeah, she may have a good reason e.g. because the in-laws may possible already have pried into their business, in which case she wouldn’t be inconsistent, there would only be missing information. Without additional information (a good unknown reason), it is inconsistent to treat the sets of parents/in-laws unequally when talking about “our business”. “Our business” is not “my business”.

Illustration: Suppose you and I enter into a general partnership agreement (50/50 split) and open up a computer hardware shop, which is a very cool thing to do in life. We make a big success and we’ve got to move to a bigger office. I ask my friends to help us move stuff but I exclude your friends, on the grounds that I don’t want anybody prying into our business. Isn’t this flat out inconsistent to you (not even to mention that I’m not including you in the decision-making process as an equal partner)? Because to me it’s as inconsistent as taking 2 for the sum of 2+2.

And this is scary to me, which is probably why I communicate more easily with computer hardware than with women.

This is “scary” to you? We are not talking about a Vulcan marriage, here, you do realize that?

Seriously, though, working out mutual comfort levels is a necessary part of both business and marriage. Smart people don’t do it based on what is “fair”, but on what works. This is particularly true when the project is a family and your “partner” is in charge of carrying your child. It isn’t about what is fair, but what works. The OP’s wife is pregnant, which has been known to result in some views that are as strongly held as they are internally inconsistent. The OP doesn’t need to give in on everything, but he’d be wise to pick his battles.

I don’t think the OP cares that his wife wants only her parents to help so much as he cares about taking a week to do a job that could be done in a day, if only more bodies could be brought in to do the lifting. If that is the case, he’d be wise not to make this about something peripheral that doesn’t really bother him.