Wife’s threats causes trauma
My wife enjoys her drink with me and also has a smoke after sex. But of late she has threatened to snitch to my super conservative parents about my drinking knowing that they disapprove. This happens when she gets upset with me over something we disagree on and I don’t relent. This threat to get me to do what she wants, is frankly pissing me off, and I hate being in this position. I do not want to snitch about her to either of our parents who are getting old, and who do not need any stress in their lives. This childish behaviour on her part is frankly a huge turn-off for me, and we have not been having sex of late. This has led to more issues where she threatens further to tell them if I don’t get intimate with her. I am in a vicious cycle and I am now feeling hatred for my wife who I view as an intimate enemy. What should I do to get her to grow up and act in a mature manner?
Ans: Firstly, it would be advisable to steer clear of labels like ‘friends’ or ‘enemies’. These are simplistic terms used by children and frequently turned into hilarious clichés in story books written for children. Real human relationships and human personalities aren’t this black or white. The human moral spectrum falls within a colour range that spans an infinite number of ‘shades of grey’. Real time decision making is not binary. Human beings are imperfect, habit based and nuanced creatures.
Drinking or smoking doesn’t make you good or bad. Scientifically speaking, it simply compromises your body and makes you decidedly unhealthier. No doubt, you will need to be sensitive to many factors in you and your wife’s life – but to involve your parents at the first sign of trouble means that you’re not really ready to autonomously live yet.
The way I see it, if you are old enough to get legally married, then I reckon you are old enough to make your own decisions about how you live your life too.
Whether you choose to drink or not is strictly your business and nobody else’s. On one hand you acknowledge these ‘I’ll spill the beans’ threats as childish and yet you seem to be partaking in this ‘tell-tale’ show of strength that involves parents as if parents are pawns in a much larger game of intrigue. Few people like a snitch. Least of all, snitches despise other snitches just like regular people hate snitches.
Threats are a cheap ploy to get people to relent and give in but they are also a sure shot way to antagonize someone since threats imply informational leverage, poking around someone’s private affairs and both tactile and hostile arm-twisting tactics. To threaten each other about letting the parents know is truly childish.
Your parents deserve the right to be allowed to live their lives in peace without being forced to subscribe to your lifestyle values so it’s worth a thought and perhaps even fair to not involve them in every intricate nuance or detail of your life and the choices you make.
Different generational mind-sets seldom see eye-to-eye on lifestyle and recreational choices and personal values.
Other people don’t live your life for you. You live out your own life so you are in charge of it fully and without exception. A hankering for the approval of others only means that you will always be subservient to and controlled by them. How do you think this augurs for your sense of autonomy? To be integrated, you will have to also learn to occasionally withdraw and be comfortable in your own skin. Every time you are threatened; you must learn to ‘self-preserve’ and take some ‘time-out’ from your wife so she too sees that her words come at a personal cost to the relationship.
You will also have to address her at some point and let her know of your discomfort in ‘threats’ being the ‘tools of choice’ to bend each other’s will. In time, you will need to learn to assertively put your foot down when people threaten you.
Seek marriage counselling so that you all can learn ways to communicate more constructively with each other. The sex will improve when the relationship between you both improves.
It is important for you to deal with your hate for your wife and get off this vicious cycle. You are entitled to being disappointed with your wife but ‘hate’ is a very strong emotion. All patterns can be broken in people. Perhaps your wife doesn’t know how affected you are. There has to be a way to place needs in this relationship without you’ll trying to topple each other using snide methods. Not all doors need to be kicked open. Sometimes turning a knob, will do just fine.
