My wife put up significant boundaries with my mother right after we got married. She had good reasons.
Our son and his wife have been married for several years, and have apparently put up boundaries with my wife — limiting contact, contacting her on their schedule, etc. My wife does not understand WHY. She complains incessantly to me that she does not hear from our son and daughter-in-law as often as she’d like, which would be multiple times a day. We do hear from them every week or so.
It’s always the answer, which is why I mused that your wife’s therapy hasn’t gotten real traction. If it had, then your wife would be working from the respect-and-acceptance playbook vs. the Mobius-strip-of-need playbook. Butanyway … you have an opportunity to say to your wife that of course she’s hurt, since she has such a negative association with boundaries. She used them, though, because your mom forced her hand — while this couple is in regular, frequent, voluntary contact. So it’s an almost 100 percent possibility these are apples and oranges: You’re all in good standing, they simply prefer contact on their terms.
· No adult child in the history of the world calls their parent as often as the parent would like. My mother didn’t; I didn’t; my kids don’t. They’re busy with things other than their parents.Preschool teacher is donating part of her liver to 5-year-old student