Why can't people stay out of their spouse's family affairs and disputes ?

[vito657]

Lately on reddit I've been coming across stories of men or women talking about going no contact with their parents, siblings or any other family members and if they have a spouse, their spouse would try to make them make peace with their estranged family member.

The most memorable story was when a would be wife invited her future husband's estranged mother and the man was furious and they ended the engagement.

And overall, when some men and women marry somebody, they feel entitled to know about their partners childhood and past and want to know about their personal family manners and disputes or want to know what's my relationship is like with a family member.

I have a huge family and I got a good relationship with most of them but I got a few cousins that I've haven't talked to for many years because of major fallouts. My wife knows that I have cousins I don't talk. She asked me why I haven't talk to them and why I seem indifferent towards them on the rare times that I do see them at family gatherings and why I never bothered to introduce her to them but I told her firmly to stay out of it and stop asking dumb questions.

Why can't most people stay out of their spouse's family affairs? Mind your business. It's really not hard to do.

Divorce material because I get annoyed when my wife does something I don't like ?

Divorce material because I get annoyed when my wife does something I don't like ?

Divorce material because of how you act when your wife does something you don't like.

Given the way you talk to your wife, I'm guessing you don't come out of any of these fallouts well and that you're ashamed of yourself, hence the defensiveness with regards to her asking.

It's perfectly normal for spouses to share details of their past. I don't have any secrets from my husband. I'd be questioning the value of our relationship if he withheld such information from me.

I take it you are indeed the person who didn't even tell his wife when someone died.

That is not normal.

People tell flatmates stories about their family - fallouts, funny stories and especially deaths - never mind the person they're meant to be sharing their life with

She should be running a mile.

She's your wife. You should be trusting her and absolutely assuming she has no malicious intent unless you are shown definitive proof that she actually HAS such malicious intent. If you can't trust her not to have malicious intent towards you, that is no life partnership.

You are massively overthinking if you don't want to tell her why you fell out with a family member in case she tries to convince you to reconcile. If your reasons are good, then why on earth would she even try to push you to bury the hatchet? She will probably put up boundaries of her own against this family member but at the moment you haven't given her enough information to know why that boundary is there.

In marriage you should feel that your mate is on your side, that you are on the same team, and that you have each other's back. If you don't feel that, you should reconsider whether this is the right life partnership for both of you.

Textbook Reddit Drama Llama. I suggest you head back that way OP. Your people are over there.

Why don't you trust your wife?

As saying she has malicious intent by trying to make peace between you and relatives you don't get on with indicates a lack of trust in your marriage.

Tell her why you don't get on with them. As an outsider she may either see both of you as being stupid or that you actually had a good reason not to speak to them.

Btw I showed others in my family including their spouse very calmly why I don't speak to that sibling. Likewise my DP's sibling has shown their true behaviour as well. It distresses my DP more than me.

Trying to reconcile warring family members may be a line that I personally wouldn't cross, but to describe it as 'malicious intent' is completely ridiculous.

Your poor wife. You sound like you don't like her, don't trust her and don't treat her like a partner at all. If you were my husband I'd leave you and never look back.

Divorce material for getting annoyed by a normal question and then using that as an excuse to be unpleasant, yes.

Also no one’s “top secret extra specific reason” for going no contact is that interesting. I’ll tell you why I don’t speak to family members: left my father out in the cold when his mother died, hit his wife, told my dh I wasn’t good enough. See and you’re a stranger and didn’t even ask!

obviously there’s millions of little details but it’s weird to think it’s some desperate secret. And if they (or you) murdered someone and no one knows where the body is then, as everyone else says, it’s better for your spouses sake to know

What do you mean by a lot?

In your case and some stories that you read on Reddit? Reddit where you have no idea of a story is true?

if I asked dp something about his family and he said he didn’t like talking about it, that would be fine.

If he told me to stop asking dumb questions, I wouldn’t be with him. I wouldn’t be with anyone who spoke to me like that. I don’t speak to him like that.

and to be honest, such a nasty response would raise a huge red flag to me. Not that you aren’t talking to them, but you get so nasty about it.

The most memorable story was when a would be wife invited her future husband's estranged mother and the man was furious and they ended the engagement.

I don’t blame him. I’d probably do the same too.

And overall, when some men and women marry somebody, they feel entitled to know about their partners childhood and past and want to know about their personal family manners and disputes or want to know what's my relationship is like with a family member.

I think this is understandable. And I say this as someone who doesn’t come from a harmonious or tight knit family, and have experiences that are difficult to talk about but people want to know the dynamics of the family they’re marrying into.

They also want to know about any significant childhood experiences as that can significantly shape who we are in adulthood and impact our relationships for better or for worse. It’s really just a part of getting to know who someone is.

Maybe she has a different concept of marriage from you. I regard my DH's family as my own family - for me, that's part of being married. My DH regards my family as his family too. I would be pretty offended if DH told me that stuff relating to his family was "none of my business" as it would clearly reflect the fact that he didn't actually see me as a part of his family.

I think spouses/partners should absolutely respect their partner's right to be no contact, if that's what they have chosen, and it's wrong to attempt to arrange reconciliations or reunions without the partner's consent. I think people should also respect the fact that there are some things which may be too traumatic for people to talk about. But simply asking questions isn't prying, and frankly, I'd be questioning my relationship if my DH told me that stuff to do with his family was "none of my business". They are my family too.

So you have put your wife on the same level, trust wise, as randoms you have read about on the internet. If you answer her questions she might do the same as a handful of people on Reddit out of the 7/8 BILLION people in the world. Really?

Nice. Excellent critical thinking there bro. (sarcasm in case you missed it).

You have completely missed the irony that YOU are the weirdo here. You have posted on MN and the consensus is that YTA. Suggest you post on Reddit, I suspect they wil say the same. But you wont agree will you? Because people like you are never wrong.

I am sorry for whatever happened in your life to make you such a mistrustful cruel defensive and angry person, but that doesnt make the way you behave excusable. You may want to be married but I would put a pound to a penny that she doesnt, or a least not to you. And who the hell can blame her?

Can I ask, Are you genuinely this clueless?

This demonstrates the same tactic, you say what happens, and you tell people what their reaction is permitted to be.

Really you aren’t in a marriage at all, you’re in a one sided relationship and you can’t cope with things not going your way. Your behaviour is defensive and corrosive to your marriage. You obviously don’t trust your wife and in her position I would wonder well who’s actually NC with whom here.
Even if you are fully justified in being NC with those people, the fact you can’t talk about it without losing your cool says clearly you need to be in therapy. Which you aren’t.

You are only keeping secrets from her… you have got away with it for a while, but it is not tenable in the long term and you need to know that your relationship will end and it is 100% your fault.

Most of those stories on Reddit seem very exaggerated outright lies so I really wouldn’t base my real life on them.
But I suspect your story is of a similar calibre so I’d probably just stick to Reddit kid.

You are perfectly entitled to tell your wife that this is old family stuff that you neither want to think about or discuss.

Speaking to her like you do is 100% rude and off.
Any decent woman who has self respect would think you are an arsehole and will take note of it.
It certainly would mark your card.

You sound very angry and aggressive.
Not nice to be around.

She's your wife. A successful marriage is based on trust, openness and sharing.

I doubt your marriage will last, if you speak to your wife with such contempt. If your wife has any sense she will already be planning her escape. Poor woman.

It’s still no excuse. Most couples share things. You get ‘irritated’ if your wife even asks you a simple question. Did you fall out with your cousins because they asked where you were going on holiday?

I presume you expect your wife to take sides and remain loyal to you, and not speak to these cousins too. In which case, she’s got a right to know why. It affects her too.

Are you the man who won’t be vulnerable in front of his wife because you are supposed to be strong?

If I asked why you were NC with a family member and you told me to stop asking dumb questions, I’d assume it was your fault not theirs.

Frankly, if there is always a good reason for going NC as you say, I would want to know if the good reason is you or them. On your behaviour so far I’d say it’s likely to be you.

And it’s my business if I’m in a relationship with you and planning children with you, and mixing with your family. I need to know if Cousin Frank is a danger to my kids or gets handsy when he’s drunk.

Bloody hell. It got so bad here I can't even tell if troll or not lately🙄

Why are you even posting? You’re not interested in any comments, just shutting them down too.

He is here to tell women to not ask ‘dumb’ questions.

Wow you really don’t trust or like your wife much!!!

Thats your issue here. Not the fact she was asking and you want ‘privacy’

If you had said something like ‘This was such a huge thing and I’m still processing/im struggling to talk about it to anyone’ fair enough.
But automatically believing your wife will undermine you? Because some random on TikTok are doing that? Are you serious?

@SensibleSigma or of you have behaviours/attitudes you’ve hidden well enough until today but I’m likely to have to deal with myself.