Freedomain Call In - Husband and Wife

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Get access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, and the 22 Part History of Philosophers series!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Husband:

We are married for three years now, we have two daughters, and we had a really good relationship. I would say, we were in love--we are still in love--and we also had a really good world view. We had almost the same opinion on everything, we did not have any argument and so on. And even before our first daughter was born, we thought we also have the same view on how to raise the child and so on.

But when the daughter was born, I don't know, we had some slight disagreements. In general, we still had the same general view on how to do it, but we had individual agreements here and there, maybe related also to the other family members and so on. But it was nothing so serious.

But then after two years, we had a second daughter--she's now seven and a half months--and after that I think it became really hard for some reason. We started to argue for no really apparent big reasons. I think the worst of it all is that we argue in front of our daughters, really, really big arguments sometimes. I feel this is really terrible, the worst thing we can do for them, and for us as well. Anyway, the thing we argue in the first place is not good for me, from my point of view, And the fact that we do it in front of the daughters, it's really unimaginable for me. Before two years ago, I would never have thought we would be doing it. And my concern is I absolutely don't know what I could do differently. I thought I'm really doing my best in the relationship, in taking care of the daughters.

I have a feeling that the more I try, it's even worse. So there must be something wrong I do. Perhaps I should do less, I don't know. It's really concerning because the matter of the arguments, the topics are really crazy. It's like nonsense. say I bring a smaller plate to serve the breakfast. It's non-argument. I'm pretty sure the reason for the argument is not what the argument is about. So there must be some deeper problem. I just don't know what it could be. What I want to say also in front is that I think that my wife is starting the arguments more often than I do.

I want to help, but at least this is my opinion. And maybe it's not true, but I have to find out somehow. And since my wife is listening to your podcast, yeah, I must admit I never really listened. So she brought this idea to call you.

Wife:

As my husband said, seven months ago after the daughter was born, I think things changed a bit for me. But, it's not because of the daughter, it's because other things, especially in my family, happened. And I think it might be the cause. I didn't have a good relationship with my mother. We were always very distant. And we tried, me and my husband, we decided to have a relationship with her, but just see her on occasions. And that way it worked for us when we were alone, just two of us together or with one daughter.

But after my second daughter was born, my mother visited us unexpectedly when I was the first day from the hospital. It was really shocking that she just came here. She didn't let us know even one hour in advance. And she just came here and she wanted to bring us some soup and she wanted to see the baby. She made our toddler daughter, who was two, not even two at that time, she made her cry. And then she made me cry. And I realized, like... I think from that moment I became more angry with my husband.

And I think maybe I expected him to be like more protecting of me during the time, yeah, that he would not let anyone we didn't want visit us, but I know it's not his fault because it's my mother and I kind of had to have the relationship with her. I didn't ever really finish the relationship. But the worst part after this unexpected visit was that yeah she made all of us cry basically it was really horrible visit really short visit and after that she could just apologize and just say like look I came unexpectedly I made your daughter cry I'm sorry but she sent me a really horrible message and basically ever since I have not talked to her. I think it's better not to have a relationship with her. I feel better.

But it's not something that is finished for me. Because now I have a feeling that she can call me anytime and just start talking to me again. I don't know what to do with that relationship. I don't know what to expect, you know. I don't know if she can contact me again or not. I never told her not to contact me ever again. Maybe I should do that. But it just feels like it's so open.

My husband, because we were talking about it a lot, he called her and he told her, because I said if she wanted to apologize, she would have apologized already. But my husband called her and he talked to her and he explained to her that I'm really hurt about it and that if she wants to be in touch she has to apologize to me first, and then she has to let us know in advance before she comes for a visit because this was not like an okay visit.

And then she said she will think about it and that she would like to apologize, she needs some time to apologize, but she never contacted me. So now I feel like it's really open and she can really contact me anytime she wants. It's been seven months. So I think it's good, but I think we should somehow finally close it. And I don't know how to approach it. Then it makes me look at the other relationships with even my husband's family and you know some things that are not ideal and I don't know how to deal with that.

He agrees with me about my mother and maybe about my father but it's difficult because I have siblings so we cannot if we start talking to her and my father then I still have siblings that I like to talk to, but they still have the relationship, so it will really exclude us from any family gatherings, et cetera, and my husband likes those gatherings, and yeah, I think that's it.