Sorry for the long post/question. I have not done anything like this before and it is a tricky and complex situation.
My wife and I have been married for ten years, and together for 14 years. We both have pretty bad relationships with our families. Her family is in a Christian cult; she escaped when she was about 19. She speaks with her family but doesn’t really have a relationship with any of them, apart from one sister (who also escaped), and does not make any effort to see the others.
My wife is from France and I am from England and we live in Australia. We have planned a visit to Europe this summer and it will be first time since 2019 that we visit (thanks COVID!) We started making plans and have planned to visit my wife’s sister and her family in France. We will stay with them for about two weeks in total. We started to plan the visit to the UK and my partner delayed the process. Eventually, after speaking about this with her therapist, my wife decided that she does not want to come to the UK. She told me that she does not think that it is important for her to see my parents as I am not close to them. She says that she does not expect me to visit her family, even her sister who we have planned to visit. I asked what she would do if I didn’t visit her sister and she said it would hurt but she would be fine with this.
This is immensely painful for me. Even though I do not have a close relationship with my parents, I think it is really important to support your partner and visit their family with them. I did not realise how important this was to me until now. I am also visiting several friends and she said that as they were mainly my friends, it was not necessary for her to see them.
On top of this, my mum has Alzheimer’s and is getting really bad. She was diagnosed about 8 years ago and so there is not much time left with her. On the phone, she has forgotten my surname and I am preparing for the fact that, on this visit, she will forget who I am.
To complicate things, my parents were emotionally abusive when I was growing up. My mother in particular, was very critical of me and treated me like the black sheep. I could never do anything right. I still cannot do anything right. I do not get on with my dad either; he does not hug, say I love you, or discuss emotions. Recently, he has become malicious and hurtful; I can see why he does it (he is my mum’s main carer), but it is painful nonetheless. I have complex PTSD as a result of their emotional abuse/abandonment and this has played a large role in other parts of my life. I have struggled to hold down work, don’t really have any friends, and struggle with regulating my emotions. I have been seeing a therapist for the last four years and it has been really helpful. I have also been on medication and have been able to stop drinking and start exercising because of how well these interventions have worked. However, my therapist retired and so I have been struggling to find a new one over the last 12 months.
When I explained to my wife that it was important for me that she visit my parents, she said she wanted to be more autonomous and it was her decision of whether or not to come. She also said that it was not important to visit them as she said she was not close to them and neither was I. She has a health condition that makes travelling difficult sometimes, and she said that because of the health condition it is too much for her to travel to the UK. While we are in France, she has planned a hiking trip with her old friends and we will be hiking for three or four days and camping. This will be difficult for her but she says that this is important to her.
She has spent time with my family in the past and I always presumed that it was important to her. I never asked as I thought that it was normal to want to spend time with your partner’s family. I didn’t question her before and just assumed she wanted to visit my parents. She told me that she only came before because she felt controlled by me. She says that working with her therapist has demonstrated that she needs more autonomy and this is one area where she wants to work to improve her autonomy. I understand her need to be autonomous, for example, she planned the hiking trip and made the decisions about that. She has also planned much of the rest of our trip. I am happy with this and don’t mind at all. This is fair enough as I have had some very bad mental health periods in my life that have meant that she has lost all of her autonomy to me. We have worked on this a lot in the last seven years and this has improved but my mental health has continued to haunt us. She says that when I am depressed, she feels like she loses her autonomy as she does not have a choice in what she does or what happens in our house. I can see that her autonomy is important and I have worked on trying to improve this.
However, I am really struggling with her decision to not want to see my dying mum. I think that sometimes you need to put aside your autonomy and I think that this is a great example of this. We likely won’t be back to the UK for another two years and so it is unlikely that my wife will see my mum again. I have explained this to her and she said that she doesn’t understand why this is so important to me when I don’t have a close relationship with my parents. I told her that I still deeply loved my parents and she told me she doesn’t love her parents like that and so doesn’t understand why I care about this so much.
I am struggling with this so much as I am not sure I want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to visit my dying mother. Am I making a big deal about this?
​
**TL;DR**: My wife does not want to visit my dying mother because she wants to be autonomous. Both my wife and I have had poor relationships with our parents and families and so she doesn’t understand why this is important to me. We have had problems in the past with her autonomy as my mental health has dominated some parts of our history. I am not sure what to do as I am not sure if I can be with someone who doesn’t want to visit my dying mother.
7 comments
Emphasize she would be going on the trip to support you, rather than see your parents. At this point your parents may not care about seeing her. Do you care about her going through the motions of a final visit, or do you need her to standby you while you do something very difficult?
There a few things that jump out from your post, one being her own family history and it being understandable that she doesn’t really value familial ties.
Two, she’s aware that given your own family history she’s aware that this visit will be massively triggering for you and she doesn’t want to deal with the fall out.
On one hand a partner is there to support each other through the rough times
On the other hand with both your history, i dont blame her for wanting to crawl into a shell at the prospect of going halfway across the world for this
She sounds very selfish and unempathetic tbh
>We have had problems in the past with her autonomy as my mental health has dominated some parts of our history
We need more context.
Personally, I think your wife is not only in the right to stay away from your parents, but also that you should stay away from them with her.
Would you find it acceptable if your wife went to the UK, but did not go to see your mother. Instead she stayed in a hotel and visited sights in the area while you did your visiting with your mom? You wouldn’t be completely alone, just for the part that was between you and your mom. Your wife meanwhile could make a bit of a vacation of it.
The thing I see here is that your wife has no relationship with your mom whatsoever. Nor is she ever going to have one. So there is no benefit to either your wife or your mother in the two meeting each other. All the benefit would be for you — to have companionship during a hard time. But perhaps your wife can give you that companionship before and after the visit, but in a place that is less awkward for your wife, and more conducive to thinking about things other than past childhood trauma.
You’re working according to a general principle – “people should want to visit their SOs’ parents” – and I think your wife is doing the opposite, judging the situation by what your parents are actually like. I am 0% surprised she doesn’t want to spend time with the people who emotionally abused you to the point you have PTSD. This isn’t a hypothetical situation with hypothetical parents; it’s a real, specific situation where you have a poor relationship with your abusive parents but still want your wife to *want to* see them for some reason. Why would she want to see them? They hurt you!
At the same time…your mom has Alzheimer’s. I don’t blame you at all for wanting to spend time with her and wanting your wife’s support. I think you’ll have to make peace with the fact that your wife will likely never *want to* see your parents and, instead, ask her for reasonable support. Maybe she could visit your parents with you once a year or whatever. Maybe she could pop in on the occasional video call. Maybe she could be a sounding board for you and give you emotional support. I think it’s way too much to ask that your wife want to spend time with abusive people, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that she occasionally make some gesture in support of you.