Q: I am not sure what to do about my wife’s relatives. They criticize just about everything I do no matter how hard I try to please them.
Of course, they do not do it in front of my wife or me so we do not have a chance to defend ourselves. They do it when we are not around.
I would like them to stop talking about me and I am tempted to call them to tell them how I feel, but my wife says that if I did that it would only make matters worse. She is probably right. What can I do?
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A: Your wife knows her family better than you do. What she also knows is that her family, in its odd way, cares about you.
Sometimes finding tenderness mixed in with the criticism is difficult, but if her relatives did not care about you, they would likely ignore you and your wife.
Most of us want the friends and families of our loved ones to approve of us. And we are hurt and disappointed when we run into wells of criticism rather than approval.
It is your hurt and disappointment that you must deal with rather than the actual criticism. The unfortunate reality is that they are most likely to continue criticizing despite your best efforts to discourage them. You cannot do much about that, but you can do something about your feelings.
This won’t be much different from how a child has to confront the teasing on the playground. You need to start isolating yourself from the criticism.
That means telling the person passing on the criticism that you do not want to hear it anymore because it causes you stress. It also means that you feel uncomfortable any time your wife’s relatives are around. The less you know about their criticism, the better for both you and your wife.
Both of you probably need to spend more time with those in your community who admire your relationship. All of us like to believe that our homes are our castles and that we are lord and master of our lands. But that is not how it works.
Most successful relationships have support from others in their communities. Sometimes that support comes from family, sometimes from the church and sometimes from close friends.
Nothing could be better than for you and your wife to walk, hand in hand, into a room filled with people who are giving you that support. It does wonders for your emotional well-being. That community support is a mere adjunct to the adoration you and your wife have for each other.
You are vulnerable when you are feeling hurt. Dwelling on the hurt makes you more vulnerable. That is when you and your wife need to remind each other of what it is that you admire about each other and enjoy what you have accomplished through your relationship.
If you bring that kind of strength to the family table, whatever her relatives are saying becomes irrelevant and trite and the two of you can continue to move forward.
Jacklin Andrews is a family counsellor from Saskatchewan. Contact: jandrews@producer.com.
