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My wife is too attached to her mother.

My wife and I have been married for 1 year now and have one beautiful son together. We are a happy family when my MIL is not in the picture. My problem is that she's ALWAYS in the picture.
My MIL lives at a convenient distance from us. Not too close, yet not far enough.but she stays at our home every time she shows up (2days as minimum)
I understand that she needs time to be with her mother and That's why I don't complain about not seeing and talking my wife at times my MIL is around
my MIL and FIL live together for over 26 years however my FIL is complaining sometimes about his life with her in between my FIL is such harmless person I truly respect him, what it really hurts me is that the women in this family were all trained from birth that mother knows best and that mother is the only thing that matters in this world.
My MIL thinks that I, as a 30 years old man don’t know shit and she is the only one knows everything and she is always right,

Excuse my French, but that's bull $h!t. I agree that mothers are certainly very important in our lives, but they are not EVERYTHING in our lives. I love my mother more than most things in this world. However, I'm married now. I can't shove my wife's and kid needs aside in order to make my mother happy.

I don't want my MIL to be in the picture while I so desperately try to enjoy QUALITY time with my family.

This lady craves more attention than a 6 month old child. She's constantly complaining about being tired about how much she is helping us and etc. Let me add that she's only 51 years old. It's sickening to me how my wife falls for her manipulation.

I've spoken to my wife on a number of occasions and she always changes for a while. Then of course the MIL always manages to make my wife feel guilty. I love my wife so much but I cant take this situation any longer, my wife is so attached to her mother and her mother knows everything about our lives even she asks my wife how is our sex life can you imagine? I can't take this situation any longer and even though I love my wife so much but I feel I cant pretend to be happy anymore, im puzzled ,im so tired I don’t know what is the right thing to do 

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i forgot to mention im iranian and she is belarusian
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plz help me
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I think you may have more luck on another site. This site is geared towards helping caregivers that are caring for elderly spouses, parents, etc. Especially caring for those with dementia.
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I don't mean to sound insensitive but I agree with the first reply that's says you'll probably have better luck getting advice on a different site - one geared towards relationships and marriage. Since your MIL is only 51 your difficulties with her likely stem from her personality and not her age - and looking after/ caregiving to a more elderly population and all of their age related difficulties and decline is what this site is geared towards. Still, I wish you luck.
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Have you thought about going with your wife to see a marriage counselor?
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Your MIL has groomed your wife with fear, obligation, and guilt. In the event your MIL does become incapacitated, I expect she will manipulate your wife into believing she should be allowed to move in or your wife must become her caregiver because no one else will do.

Get busy. Plan outings for you and your family so that you are busy people. And no, MIL is not invited to come along. Both of you need to learn about healthy boundaries.

And you should request that your wife stop talking about your sex life with her mother. If you do not speak up, nothing will change.
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thank you all .
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Boundaries need consequences. The next time you talk with your wife about boundaries tell her there will be consequences if she breaks them. It sounds to me that you could benefit from seeing a therapist to help you with these boundary issues and setting some reasonable consequences.

My wife was too attached to her manipulative mother. It was a real struggle for her to get her freedom but she did get help from a therapist. My therapist gave me some ideas about consequences. For example, my wife broke a boundary that she had agreed to about her mom. The consequence was that our boys and I left the house to stay in a hotel while her mother visited. Now that got my wife's attention. Things began to change after that. I'm not saying to do this in your situation, but it worked for me.

Your wife is enmeshed with her mom and thus has failed to truly bound with you as your wife. If she will get help and get her freedom, the intimate bound of your marriage will be much better. I wish you the very best.
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fmylife, you are dealing with a situation where you wife comes from a culture that has deep family ties, especially between mother and daughter. It takes time to change what your wife was brought up to believe in. Be persistent, but patient. Couple counseling would be beneficial for you and your wife to help mediate the differences in your cultures.
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labs4me, well i guess you are right but im persian and in persian culture family is always our first priority but my MIL wants to control our lives and she thinks whatever you guys are doing is wrong and she is always right , she always says у меня есть опыт it means i have experience, my wife and i are both doctors but she even force us to give a medicine to our baby which she thinks is good for him and we know it doesnt help
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No, that's going too far!

Forcing you two who are doctors to give your baby a medicine that you know doesn't help. She must have made a very big threat to force that into taking place.
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How hard is it to say "no"? Have you tried that? As in "no, mom, we're doctors. That medicine has been shown not to work, and the baby's doctor says we mustn't give that. If you'd like to argue with the pediatrician, here is her number. This is our home and our child. We make the rules about both of those things".

How would that work? Is MIL mentally ill? Narcissistic? Borderline Pwrsonality Disorder?
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fmylife, problems with the mother in law exists in all cultures. You and your wife took vows to be true to each other. Nobody else. You must ask your wife to choose: you or the mother. No middle ground.
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Your MIL cannot *force* you to do anything. You chose to give your baby that medicine. Stop blaming your MIL for your choices. You cannot control your MIL. You can control yourself and how you rear your child.
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i wish you knew her , if we do something against her willing she would do everything to break up our marriage , so many times she said to my wife why she married me because im muslim , so many times she asked me what will be the religion of baby ,i said it doesnt matter what religion he will have but what is matter is that we want to grow him up as a good person , but she ,,, i fed up guys
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Sounds like she's already doing everything to break up your marriage. You two can't allow that.
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My dear, please find a marriage therapist and take your wife, now! If your wife won't or can't go, go yourself. Your wife may also need individual therapy to break the bonds of Fear Obligation and Guilt with which her mother has tied her.
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I don't think it's going to last. Too much of a culture difference. But you will probably fight for 5 more years until you pull the plug.
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fmylife, this sounds completely toxic. Since your wife is being controlled by guilt and cannot extricate herself from the infantile role her mother persists in placing her in, it will be up to you to leave when the MIL invades your home. Your wife is somehow believing that she is still a little girl who cannot establish herself as a woman in the presence of her overbearing mother. In some ways, you're in a cycle of addiction, where your wife cannot break free of her imagined obligations to her parents. If she refuses to join you for couples counseling, seek help yourself.
When she notices that you're gone every time her mother arrives, she'll realize that she doesn't have a true marriage.
What would happen if you did something drastic like refuse entry to the MIL? She must not be allowed to let her prejudice and hostility come between you.
This is a terrible position, because she's rejected you and is forcing her daughter to choose between the two of you. It may be that in her country, extended family living is the norm, and sadly, the cultural issues may be more than your marriage can bear.
Are there any Belarussians that your wife can lean on for support? Maybe other young wives have had similar boundary issues.
Good luck- I hear your deep anger and frustration from being around this manipulative, castrating Alpha female.
She, too, sounds deeply unhappy. Therapy for all!
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The only person he can control is himself and his reaction to this issue. I think it's not right to say tell your wife to do this and that. He's not her boss. And you're putting all the blame on her. This guy could be a jerk and the mil has every right to hate him. Who knows? If it was an issue before marriage then it's an issue afterwards. Instead of fighting, do like the other guy said, go to the hotel or change your approach with her. It doesn't seem like it's going to change especially now that a baby is here. She's obviously going to want to be near the baby.
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dude if i was a jerk i would never spent time to write here , im just tired , im tired of judgment , im tired of being judged because im muslim, im so proud of being muslim because based on what my wife is saying to her friend no one has treated her like i do , but her mother from the first day had problem with me because im not from belarus, ill tell you another issue the salary of a doctor here in belarus is max 300 USD so my wife is earning 270 dollar almost , her father as a doctor with 25 years of exp earns 300 dolalr , but me i earn 1000 dollar, ( i have a family business with my dad in iran ) 1000 for belarus is lots of money ,and i spent all for my family but her mother some days ago said: maybe you can on maternity leave and alesia ( my wife ) goes to work ... what can you say about this ? aint disrespectful ? isnt rude?
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omg get her out of your home before she kills your baby!! she has no idea what she is doing, stop being push over !! your child life is at stake!!

she just wants complete control of the home and every one who lives there !!
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I wasn't going to chip in.

Well.

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT???

You must - surely you *must* - have known that you were going to have a mountain of prejudice to overcome?

Your MIL will probably have a great many ideas about how Iranian men - especially Iranian, because the fact that you have *left* Iran clearly hasn't sunk in fully - treat their wives. Not positive ideas, either.

Your FIL probably entertains similar ideas but views them more wistfully than negatively.

Their daughter the doctor has now married a man they probably expect to treat her badly. There goes her career, now that she's stuck at home with a baby. There goes her independence. And she's chosen a husband who, who knows, may have half a dozen more wives dotted around the place and will have her veiled before long and may take her back - horrors! - to Iran any day now...

Basically, your MIL is not thrilled to have you around. Tell me that surprises you?

Europeans in general know very little about Persian culture; and even by those modest standards Belarus is not famous for its progressive and enlightened views.

Have you tried charm on your MIL?
Has your wife's family met any of your family? Do you have any sisters they could get to know, for example? Once they meet some actual Iranian ladies, as opposed to the caricatures they've read about, quite a lot of their fears might be put to rest.

You're going to have to decide whether you're going to stick to the long view, or give it up as a bad job. If you want to stay in Belarus with your wife and your baby and build your family's life there, then you will have to start chipping away at all that ignorance. It will take ages, and it will take effort, and only you can know whether you're up for it.

If you are prepared to give it enough time and patience, your child - maybe children, that would be nice - will grow up with the best of both worlds and you will teach your MIL, slowly, that she has very much misjudged you. I hope you succeed.
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FM, so......if you start getting into issues od " respect", if you are going to be the adult here, you need to tak the broad, progressive view.

Be charming ( even if it hurts)
Assume that what feels rude and disrespectful to you is actually a " cultural misunderstanding". As in " ah, mama, you think perhaps i should take paternity leave so Alessia can go to work? We've discussed that, and Alessia and i have decided.... ( here, you fill in what you and your wife have decided).

" ah, mama, you think (insert stuff anout childrearing, sex, marriage, family vacations). That may be the Belarussian way. In my country we....... But Alessia and I think......

Do you understand what I'm saying? As i mentioned before, it may take counseling.
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well i dont know what you really think about iranian i guess you mixed them up with arabs because only in arab countries you may see men with couple of wives i dont say in iran there is no one with more than one wife but its rare ,
before getting married i invited all of them to iran and they stayed in our house fore a month then we got married ( a great wedding with more than 600 guests )
the reason i left iran , i moved to hungary when i was a teen i also studied there then i came here, beside what you said she loves to go and live in iran because doctors earn a lot of money,
yes i tried to be charming but the problem is her character not culture ,
she has problem with her SIL ,with her MIL and almost all her relatives , no one actually invite her to their ceremonies because she is bossy , because she wants to leave comment for everything , i dont say she is bad no she has a good heart that what it makes it harder because you know what she says or what she does is just because of character i dont know how to deal with it i dont know how to convince my wife that she is manipulating you
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Fear FM, moost of us here know that Iranins are Persian and not Arabs.

As you say, the problem is her "character" as you say...and " disordered personality", as I would say. Do you have marriage counselors, or psychiatrist at your hospital? YOU will not be able to convine your wife of anything. She needs an objective, outside perspective from a professional.

And the two of you, together, need help.
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churchmouse i think you should visit iran once, worth it , it will help you to learn more about our culture 7000 years worth it blv me i promise u wont judge iranian anymore
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barb, yes we have but my wife doesnt want to go , here they dont really like this kind of things , last time we had argue with her mom i said alesia just gave birth i dont want her to have depression so lets stop she said russian girls wont get depression after giving birth
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once i told her lets see a psychologist she said IM NOT CRAZY
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You poor man. It sounds like you are really trying, and that your wife is very, well, backward in her thinking about how to solve the problems of daily living that you are having.

What kind of MD is she? Tell her from me ( I'm a school psychologist) that it's not crazy people who come to see us. It's the folks who LIVE with crazy folks who come to see us!

Perhaps you could ask her, for your sake, to come see a therapist so that she could explain her idea of marriage and family so that you can "adjust" to her and her family' s was of thinking.
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