How Do You Mend A Broken Relationship Between Your Wife And Parents?
I have been married for a year and have had problems with my family since the beginning. My wife always felt unwanted. My brother and his wife were not very social around her. They got gifts for everyone in my family but my wife on their honeymoon. Several other little things kept adding up until everything went bad during a visit from my brother and his wife. When my wife wanted to go out after dinner they refused and went back to our house. My wife and I eventually got into a terrible fight over that which ended with her sleeping somwhere else for the night. I emailed to voice all my concerns with my brother’s behavior and he said some mean things about my wife. She refuses to speak to him to this day (6 months later). When we finally saw them about 2 months ago there was a shouting match and my parents took my brother’s side. So now my wife won’t speak to my parents. I was always close to my family and would like to be again but I don’t know how. Thanks for any advice.
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Tagged with: Between • Broken • Mend • Parents • Relationship • Wife
Filed under: Relationship Advice
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“I was always close to my family and would like to be again but I don’t know how.”
Promote family by *doing*. Your the head of the household…begin talking calmly to her about what it is you will be doing (barbecue, dinner out, meet at at the movies, camping, etc) pick one or come up with your own. Your wife also could use to get into the habit of bringing more positivity in when it comes to family – if I’m off track than pardon me I apologize in advance. You know what’s going on in your marriage and so looking at it in the truth and then please move to the next step and “do”. If there is resistance anywhere someone has to do what is right…right now your whole family is not functioning like a family. Ya gotta get creative and put some adult effort into it.
Headship might be lacking in the home if family ties are being destroyed and in order for equality to take place there needs to be positivity. This doesn’t mean that you start man-handling your wife’s existence according to her being woman, wife, mother, daughter it means you need to get into your role of headship – man, husband, father?, son. Haven’t you ever wondered why *proper* headship results in equality?
Practice positivity when it comes to preserving family and it will become habit again.
~~~Live Blessed
Sorry Ace, but if you love your wife, you need to stick by her. She is after all your WIFE, the one you made a vow to before God. If your family doesn’t accept her, than you need to distance yourself from your family. I know it will be hard but that has to be done if you don’t want to loose your wife. She needs you to support her. My husband and I have been through the exact same thing with both families.
He and I are one. If they cannot accept him or I, we do not need to be around them. My husband and I have made it through all the negativity. My father in law doesn’t accept me, but I don’t care and neither does my husband. We stay away from him. It’s that simple.
My mother tried to say some negative things toward my husband and she expected me to side with her, but that didn’t happen. She had to realize that my husband is apart of me and if she didn’t accept him, she didn’t accept me.
It takes some time but when they see that you do not attend family gatherings, etc., they will know that you stand by your wife 100%. They will miss you and have to learn to respect you and your wife. Until then, keep your distance.
Good luck!
Ephesians 5 –
Wives and Husbands
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body.
***31″For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
well u are married. u need to 100% take her side over ur family, no matter how much it might hurt. they need to know that ur married and u will NOT bow down, when they are offending her. u love her, and she is the most important person in ur life. maybe if they lose u, they will realize how stupid and immature they being.
you married your wife so now she is your priority, not your family. secondly it’s not your responsibility to mend anything between her and them. i would encourage her to forgive them as difficult as this is for her to do. just so that she can have peace in her heart. i would encourage her to be civil to them but not ask her to be around them very often. if you want to speak with your family about it, i would say to them “she is my wife and i am on her side no matter what. i want to have a good relationship with you but i will support her first. i will not stand around and listen to you say anything negative about her. i will hang up or leave the room if you do.”
Your wife is your first priority and you are her rotector against those who come against her. she needs to know and feel that she has you inher corner. Sounds to me that your family has done her an injustice, and they need to apologize. Since it seems that you have spoken to them about the situation and they choose to be unmovable on what they believe to be the problem and/or the truth of the matter, then it is your duty to tell them how you feel, how they have made your wife feel, and that you love them,but your loyalty is to your wife. Tell them you love them and will see them when you can, and stick by your wife. Try and get your wife to forgive them at the very least though. Even though they have wronged her, unforgiveness will only eat away at her.
your wife is for life. you need to talk to your brother and tell him how this is causing friction between you and your wife ( a loving brother will understand) explain to him that even with their differences he should be respectful to your wife (you chose her) and if not for her then he should show her respect out of his love for you. Your spouse is your choice and your family is not one that you had the opportunity to choose. anyway way off the subject there. Out of love for you all your family should show you wife respect. If they have negative things to say about her then they should hold them until you and your wife are far away and cannot hear what they say. You cant’ control what ppl do but you can control what they do around your loved ones. you are the man here
I know this is hard and my heart goes out to you
good luck
You are not a very good husband if you let anybody be that rude to your wife. Your brother and sister-in-law were extremely rude to your wife. Until they apologise to her I would have nothing more to do with them.
BTW, send back the gift they gave you. If your wife doesn’t get one then you don’t get one.
Family Counseling
i think to get things started you, your wife and your parents need to sit down and have a conversation. like adults..no yelling. let her tell them in her own words how your brother is making her feel when they act anti social around her. as for the relationship with your brother i think that he needs to grow up a little…what happened in the yelling match was probably things got said by your wife that she didn’t mean and probably regrets, but your brother is probably holding a grudge against her for it. she might try apologizing and sending him an e-mail that also explains her feelings. it may help. good luck with getting your family relationships back on track
you should talk to your brother 1 on 1….ask him why they are not social with your wife…..depending on answer……also talk to your parents, see what’s up with them…….BEST WISHES!
My advice is “listen to ur heart”……might it be your wife or might it be your family??? Im sure you know your family more than you know your wife, bottom line you grew up around them..your wife might just not like them, who knows? but you have to sit down and think, Who’s really trying here? your making it seem like ur family is trying but she refuses…so that sounds like she is the one playing hard to get…remember your family will always be by your side, and they only want the best for you. Personally I dont like my little brothers girlfriend, she smokes, she’s immature, she wants everything her way, and I dont like that stuff, innapropiate behavior!! … Overall it was stupid of your wife to get upset just because the other party did not agree to go elsewhere…find out..get to the bottom of it and see who is the one causing the problem, if you see your wife is the stubborn/hard-headed one than you must have a chat with her & explain to her you are a family-oriented guy & you want everyone to get along…if you see its ur side of the family with the problem, than you must straighten them out and tell them to stay the F*%K out of your marriage life…follow ur guts dude…good luck.
if you see no change…from ur wife..then move on, you dont need drama, if you see your family is the one butting in your business then tooo bad, but you must stay away for a while but then again keep in touch, I hardly talk to my bro, due to his stupid fat girlfirend, he is a smart guy and everything started going to **** meaning (his bank acct) after she came in the picture, good luck.
I’m sure there is much more to this story, but from what you have said, your family have been openly unkind to your wife. Purchasing gifts for everyone else except her is an obvious snub and is unacceptable. Unless there is more to this story and your wife had done something to them that they are justified in being angry about, then your family’s behaviour is completely unacceptable. I understand how difficiult this is for you because you are caught in the middle – however, your loyalty must be to your wife. You don’t have to get upset at your familly, but you must tell your parents and siblings that whatever they do to your wife they are also doing to you. You must support your wife completely in this matter. It doesn’t matter whether your family likes your wife or not. It shows complete disrespect for you if they cannot manage to be civil to your wife and not do things to purposely be unkind to her. My goodness, I can only imagine how upset and isolated your poor wife must feel with all of this going on – particularly if the two of you fought over it. I urge you to remember that your loyalties are for your wife and you should support her completely and unconditionally in front of your family at all times. To do otherwise, is very hurtful and will put your marriage on the rocks in the long run. It will be tricky to mend this rift between your wife and your family, but ultimately you know both sides of the story and are the only person that might be able to bring a happy ending to this. It may not be possible to do so, but if it is important enough to you, you will try.
I can’t imagine why, but it seems like your brother and his wife are the real ones at fault. By omitting her from their gift giving and then for them to behave so badly as guest in hers and your home, is enough to make any young wife feel hurt. As long as your whole family thinks that your Brother can do no wrong, I don’t see any hope for a reconciliation.
It’s pretty clear that your family members are going out of their way to be rude to your wife, beginning with the no-gift-from-the-honeymoon thing. Why would someone be so blatantly rude? You have certain family obligations. But remember WHO is your family, now. When you married, you chose her. If you let your family come between you, you’ll regret it. Eventually, your parents will die and your siblings will have children and lives that don’t so much involve you. And your marriage will be damaged beyond repair. You OWE your wife your loyalty. Go to your family–alone–so that they know this comes from you and not your wife. Tell them that she is your wife and you love her. Tell them that YOU will not tolerate her being treated badly by them. If they cannot love her and accept her into the family as one of their own, you cannot let them destroy your lives for whatever petty reasons they have for their behavior. Tell them they can contact you when they are ready to accept your wife as a full-fledged member of the family, but not until then.
Then, go home and tell your wife what you have done. Let her know that she is FIRST in your life and ask her to be open to whatever attempts your family makes to make ammends. Then make plans for a trip or some holiday time together that does not involve your family, so that if the holidays come and go without your family having come to their senses, you and your wife will be on your way to a good life that doesn’t have such deliberate hurt in it.
Family crap is so-o-o hard. No matter what you do, SOMEone always feels short-shrifted.