Resolving conflict in a relationship is often hard, but it really has to be done. How a couple actually handles these problems is what determines if their relationship is going to last, because, unfortunately, quite often some partners just don’t understand how to prioritize their other half.
A woman asked the internet for advice after a disagreement with her husband over celebrating fathers day. When he decided to ignore her on mother’s day, she felt it was fair to do the same to him. We also got in touch with the wife and mom who shared the post and she was kind enough to answer some of our questions.
Treating your partner the way they treat you is only fair
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But one woman wondered if she was wrong to not plan anything for fathers day
Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: CounterNecessary2597
She did get some suggestions from the internet
Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
Bored Panda got in touch with the woman who made the post and she was kind enough to answer some of our questions. Firstly, we did want to know if there was any follow-up. “No real updates. Husband and I are both looking for individual therapists as well as a couples therapist and we’re both trying to take a step back from the situation with his parents and trying to be more objective and open to each other’s perspective.”
“I think a lot of people were angry on my behalf about what my husband did on Mother’s Day. A lot of them have been in similar situations or have been in relationships where they were not prioritized. That said, I think you need to be careful about upvotes on reddit. Reddit is very much an echo chamber,” she shared.
“I have actually received a lot of really amazing feedback. And a lot of it actually came from people who downvoted me or criticized me. I think most of the critical feedback fell into these categories:
• That my list of boundaries was extreme and that I’m setting my husband up for failure so I can divorce him
• Concern that I’m just like my MIL and my husband essentially married someone just like his mother
• That I’m overreacting and making a big deal over everything
• That I’m coercing my husband into changing his behavior and he’ll just end up resenting me.”
Sometimes it can be good to get a second opinion
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However, she still found the online discussion useful. And honestly, it’s all great feedback, I appreciate people taking the time to comment even if they were critical of me. Those are the ones that I think were most helpful. I came at this from a place of anger and frustration, and I think that shows in how I approached it with my husband. But there are absolutely better ways to have approached this. I am being truthful when I say that I will divorce if things don’t change – but instead of coming out with a list of things and saying do this or I’m divorcing you, I could have approached it from the perspective of being in a partnership, which we are. I could have said something like “When these things happen it really makes me feel unvalued as a and disrespected as a partner and I’m afraid of how it will affect our marriage in the long term”. I think had I treated this as a problem we can address as a team it could have been something my husband WANTED to work on as opposed to something he felt like he HAD TO do,” she shared with Bored Panda.
“The other thing someone pointed out is that I’m not necessarily upset about stuff like how often his parents call or how often he visits them. What I’m really upset about is how that stuff affects us and our plans. Like, I think it’s weird his mom called so much while we were on our honeymoon because my parents aren’t that way. But if they had called at a different time, like when I was in the shower or when we weren’t doing anything else then maybe it wouldn’t have been a big deal. What made it so frustrating is it took away from the time we were trying to spend with each other and interfered with activities we were trying to do.” If you wanted to know what happened after this first part, you’re in luck, as she later made an update that can be found below.
Some folks wanted more details
Many thought she was not at all to blame
Others thought they were not handling the situation well
A handful thought she was being unreasonable
Later she shared an update
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Image credits: unsplash (not the actual photo)
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