Should a husband protect his wife from relatives. “There should be no one dearer than a husband and wife

Question to the psychologist:

Good afternoon!

Help, please, to understand the situation, which has been going on for 13 years. My husband and I met for 2 years before marriage and our relationship was perfect, with my mother-in-law were also good. Everything changed after the wedding, when they all began to live together in the mother-in-law's house. Especially after the birth of a child, she simply began to wedge, she did not even congratulate me on my return from the hospital on the birth of my daughter and began to reproach me for being a bad mother and calling my daughter the wrong name that I christened. The husband did not take any part, silently sat out, did not get up on my side. In private, he always answered my reproaches: my mother is good! Of course she is good for him, but not for me. In the end, we moved out to a rented apartment, but his mother just hates me with all her heart. Now the situation has come to a standstill, because my husband's brother has also joined the mother-in-law, she sets everyone against me. I tried to talk to my husband that you are the head new family I am obliged to protect my wife and family, say a word for me at least once and this will all stop. And so the situation grows like a snowball, because his relatives understand that he will never say or do anything to them. On my last visit, forced on my father-in-law's birthday, the situation seemed absurd to me. Neither my mother-in-law, nor my brother-husband, nor his wife spoke a word to me. My husband is on a flight, without him I do not come to Lately to them. But on the DR it was inconvenient to refuse and I did not want to upset my husband. I love him and want to save my family, but he does not hear me and says that he does not understand. Without details, I told him that all this situation had a bad effect on our relationship, his mother wants me to survive from the family. He is silent again, says that it is I who is opposed to everyone, that's why it turns out that way. What to do? I understand mom and dad are relatives - it’s easier to change a wife. Leave this family and him along with his relatives, because he will never be able to stand up for me? And he himself has been calling me lately and often breaks into a scream or irritation for no reason. He was always affectionate with me and loving, I begin to think that he is cheating on me, I can’t find the reason for his behavior, which translates a lack of respect for me. Increasingly, he compares me with my mother, who is a very specific lady and we also have a difficult relationship with her. Help me figure out how to deal with my husband.

The psychologist Andrianova Anzhelika Viktorovna answers the question.

Hello Xenia.

The current family situation is divided into two opposite camps: on the one hand, you, and on the other hand, your husband's relatives. The husband himself is in the middle, but his opinion depends on the majority. Consider this situation from the outside, how two opposite sides accuse each other of various sins, there is a confrontation between the two sides, and you are a member of one of the parties. Everyone pulls a blanket over himself. Naturally, in this scenario, the strongest will win (which is what the mother-in-law does, connects her relatives). If you want to participate in this "family battle", then you need to strengthen your position and find those who will be for you, that is, support you (I have others, not a husband). there is another position in this situation, when you give up and agree with your mother-in-law that you are “bad” and you cannot be changed and let them accept you as you are, and reinforce your position with your husband and say that he loves you and what a good fellow he is.

There is another option, when you simply break off all relations with these relatives, then it will become much more difficult for your husband to live between two opposites that ignore each other.

Such options lead to tension and the collapse of either a family or family relationships. .

It is possible to consider this situation from a different point of view. Ask yourself the question: why do you need such a situation when there are opposing sides that are fighting for influence on her husband.

If you are honest with yourself, you will get many different answers, it is important to work with them, that is, to realize your actions, then you can change your life.

Hello! Help, please advice, or reference to the literature. I'm in a situation where I don't know how to help. Please tell me, should a husband defend his wife if she was offended (by word or deed in his presence or without him), and the wife is not to blame? And how to respond in a Christian way in order to reason with the offender and to support his wife? I myself think that I should, and if the husband does not immediately know how to say it correctly, then I think, after all, it’s all the same, I should tell the offender somehow gently that the offender is wrong. Help me please. Catherine.

Archpriest Mikhail Samokhin answers:

Hello Ekaterina!

The Holy Scripture sees the relationship between Christ and the Church as an image of the relationship between husband and wife. The Lord laid down his soul for His Church, so a husband must be ready to defend his wife. It is not at all clear from your letter the situation in which such protection is necessary. Therefore, visit the nearest temple and personally consult with the priest, who, having delved into specific details, will be able to give you effective advice.

Sincerely, Archpriest Mikhail Samokhin.

Together 6 years We have one common child child, and my daughter from my first marriage This is to characterize the family) I have always respected and treat my husband’s personal space, interests, I am interested in his hobbies .. I have always treated his friends well. I never allowed myself to say something bad. I grew up in a family in a family where dad respected mom, And mom respected dad, was his support and support, his dignity! especially friends.
Recently it happened that close friend at our wedding.. punched me in the face. I’m not a stupid person, I tried to get away from the conflict, I just disappeared, spoke, reassured .. translated topics to avoid conflict ... because this is a friend of my beloved ... and I didn’t want anything bad for anyone .. I tried to convey to my husband that he tries to pinch his cheek, to give a slap in the face. But my words were ignored, in the end they accused me of this ..... It was a year ago there they officially registered the marriage and to this day they asked me for forgiveness .. and another friend After a while insulted me in public and tore off my daughter's christening, where he was supposed to be a godfather of his own free will...
The model of behavior taken from his father turned out just recently and he was never the protector of the family and his woman. I dreamed that it was important for me how to save my family. I love this person, I appreciate and know what he is sometimes capable of ... was ... I do not limit meetings with friends. I respect, I even share his interests.
Belgorod try to talk to him to tell him how I feel from these moments. Not blaming, but with a request to understand how painful it is, I’m scared ... That if they treat me like that, then they don’t respect him either .. they don’t want to hear and understand me .. everything suits him ... It’s scary that when choosing between friends and me - they will not choose me, protect not me, help not me ...
I want to keep the relationship. Because I love, I appreciate everything that we have been building for a long time ... I don’t indulge in everything, I didn’t spoil it .. where necessary and put it in its place and vice versa, I understood his desires without limiting. How to make him begin to defend my honor and even more so ...
I am pretty, active and sociable.. not a blue stocking, an interesting person.. not a kneader, watching her husband in fear of betrayal... Doing nothing else... complex on legs.
How to Reach Out? explain... To protect me and not look like it hurts, insulting. They clap their eyelashes and food with happiness, that he is with golden hands, when he succeeds in doing something ... Although I can do a lot. He has support and respect in the family. She invested a lot of her energy in establishing their relationship with a child from another marriage.
I do not forget to remind him of the duties, as a man, head, a person who must secure housing for his offspring, at least...
Everything is collapsing terribly .. conversations do not bring understanding .. he says that he loves, cannot live .. etc ..
But .. my strength is not endless ... And there is pride .. what to do .. how to act ... is there a chance to change something ... at a dead end

« dearer than husband and the wife should not be anyone "

About the role of mother-in-law and mother-in-law

In the last conversation with Archpriest Vladimir Parkhomenko, we talked about what the hierarchy in the family should be like and how not to raise an egoist out of a child. Today we will talk about such serious and often unshakable family members as mother-in-law and mother-in-law, about how they should act in relation to a young family and how a family should respond to their interference.

Limit interference

- Father Vladimir, with mothers-in-law in Russian folk tradition connected with a lot of anecdotes. And these jokes are sometimes quite bilious. We have to admit that when we get married or get married, our mothers, with all their good intentions, sometimes act destructively on our family. How should our dear parents behave so that we are not harmed in marriage?

- The Bible says - let the husband untie himself from his mother and cleave to his wife. Since we are talking about the Christian building of a family, everything here should be very simple: the husband left his parents and clung to his wife. Likewise, a wife should cling to her husband, become part of him, his half.

As soon as the family was created, the ship went to sea. This is an independent unit. And what is the problem? The fact that not everyone immediately perceives it as such is well known from family psychology. As a rule, for at least three years, neither the wife's parents nor the husband's parents perceive them as a family. For them, he is still his Kolya, his Masha. And some kind of Sasha clung to her, and to Kolya - "This fool Lena" which " ruins his life...

A lot of different personalities are superimposed on this scheme. For example, the wife's mother may be overly active, and the husband's father may be overbearing. There are many options, but in each of them the task of both the husband and wife in a young family is to protect their own family, their ship that has just gone to sea from those ropes that parents are trying to throw on board to moor it.

— How to protect? You can't throw your parents overboard. Yes, and we love them, as a rule ...

- Limit their interference. I'm not going to tell all the ins and outs of my personal family experience, but I assure you - we are an ordinary family, we have nothing ideal. All the problems that everyone had, we experienced and went through on our own skin.

A husband must protect not only his wife, but his own family from his parents. When mom starts to drip on brains - yes, you have her like that, you have her like that - wisdom is just needed here. On the one hand, it is necessary not to offend your own mother, on the other hand, everything that she poured on you should be buried in yourself. You don't need to be a repeater, you need to be such a good "swamp" in which everything sinks. Because your own spouse or spouse will be extremely difficult to accept criticism of yourself, relayed by you.

Husband and wife are one. No one should be dearer or closer. And if a husband begins to express a complaint to his wife, which his mother expresses to him, this is extremely insulting for his wife. She feels that she is losing protection, she is losing in him the one who, in principle, should protect her. The same and vice versa. Therefore, it is the first task of the young - to protect their family from outside influences.

Moreover, when we marry people, we always warn them that there is such a law in family relations: as soon as you become husband and wife, you should not tell anyone anything at all about your family relations. Mom asks: well, how is it? "Everything is fine mom, everything is fine ..."

— But mom won't give up that easily. She is interested, she will continue to ask questions.

- And you continue to lull her vigilance - "It's okay mom, don't worry..." All of this needs to be blocked. You can’t allow even under a plausible pretext to get into your relationship - this is the law. If your parents, as well as numerous relatives, get used to this at the first stage, then they will stop bothering you at all.

— It must be hard for moms to get used to it right away. It is difficult to part with a child. It may start to seem like yours own son, whom you raised for twenty years, is moving away from you. Or maybe he fell out of love in general already "because of the fool of this Lena" ...

“There should be no rivalry here, no selfish attachment. A son or daughter needs to be able to let go. So what, that she raised for twenty years? Now it has grown. Don't keep it to yourself for the rest of your life.

As for good relations, if they were between mother and son or mother and daughter, if they were truly close people, then they will remain so even at a distance.

Generally the most reliable means against all problems - to resettle the young, as it has always been. In Rus', young people were always resettled, they always had their own housing right away. How was it in Russian villages? Preparing for the wedding - building a house for the young. Or, at least, some kind of outbuilding is attached, or, at worst, a separate room is allocated. It is a separate one, which they would not go into.

You understand what it means for a young family to live separately. Therefore, if you don’t have your own separate housing, but there is a small opportunity to rent housing, this is very important at the first stages. family life. And if this does not work out, then great wisdom is simply needed here. It should be borne in mind that living together will bring more difficulties to a joint relationship.

Don't corner

— You speak — no need to rebroadcast the negative. But it happens that the husband tries not to relay, and the wife still feels that his mother does not love her. She becomes offended and she insults his mother in front of him. Then it becomes insulting to him - this is his mother, he cannot endure insults against her even from his beloved wife. How to be here? Many people stumble over this tangle of contradictions and mutual insults...

- It's the wife's fault. It's very simple thing- in our life there are certain statuses, and the commandment "Honor thy father and mother" nobody canceled. And the wife must understand that she cannot provoke her husband to violate this commandment. Because it is basically a religious thing, and he will be forced to react to it.

And even if you become a family, no one cancels this commandment. Even if the parents have died, no one cancels it, because then you have to honor how? Pray for the repose of your parents. Therefore, no matter what the mother-in-law is, the wife of her husband cannot provoke. She perfectly understands that there is, for example, a commandment - "do not commit adultery." It would never occur to a normal woman to provoke her husband into violating this commandment. So it's not possible here. This is simple mathematics.

In our time, Vladyka Eugene, the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, gave a good example. He said - you can never drive a person into a corner. Because if you drive a person into a corner, he has one way out of this situation - to punch you in the forehead and go through. There are no other options...

— By the way, about the forehead. I know cases when quite calm loving husbands raised a hand to their wives for an incorrect statement about their mothers. In no way do I justify this, but I understand that this is from impotence.

Of course, what are the options? You put a person in a position in which it is impossible to put him. This is a gross mistake and should not be done. We must repent and correct our lives in this sense.

— Now half of the readers will think that we condone domestic violence...

- Nothing like this. The husband also needs to repent that he could not restrain himself. Each must repent for his own.

— And if the mother-in-law does not love her daughter-in-law for some reason, should the daughter-in-law try to earn her sympathy? Should I try to please her?

- Specially deserve, I think, is not necessary. The task of the daughter-in-law in this case is to be critical of herself and the claims expressed by her mother-in-law. If she does not see any real guilt in herself; if she is not impudent, not rude to her mother-in-law, if there is, in a word, the moral component in this “does not like”, then nothing needs to be done.

Why can a girl not like her husband's mother? The reasons may seem the most ridiculous. For example, I came across such things: for example, her mother-in-law scolds her for being slow. The mother-in-law is fast, but she is slow. And now the mother-in-law is starting to annoy - "this chicken does everything slowly, crawls there ... "

Here we see carnal relationships, this is pure physiology. That is, she does not like her daughter-in-law not because she is a bad person. She does not like her qualities, her some pure physiological features. There is no need to play any role and try to remake yourself. There is no reason for change here. You just need to humbly, in a Christian way, bear this cross, especially since it is not the heaviest. Well, don't like it and don't like it. Take it as a given.

It will pass in time, I assure you. Life is a marathon. It will take a few years, and everything will change. The hardest thing is the initial period of family life, because the family is not perceived as a family.

— And if there is a moral component in the antipathy of the mother-in-law, try to change yourself?

- Yes, sure. If you see that here you were harsh or behaved tactlessly, then correct yourself. But not in order to please, but in a Christian way. Strive for spiritual perfection and all. Correct not for the sake of the mother-in-law, but for the sake of yourself. You don't have to do something special with yourself for someone else. As Seraphim of Sarov said: save yourself and thousands around you will be saved. This is the rule for all time, for life.

Newspaper "Saratov panorama" No. 44 (1023)