My wife wants me to give up my passion... My wife and I married last November.?

Question

We just moved in together last month and have been fighting constantly about the things I can't do anymore. She misses home greatly and is having a hard time with the adjustment since she is at home all day with my 2-yr-old stepson and no car while I am at work. Not to mention she is now pregnant. We haven't been apart, besides while I'm at work, since we have been married but now she is having a problem with my volunteer work. I have been volunteering for years with a youth group that only takes up 1 weekend a month. She used to love that I did that, but now that we are married she says it takes away from valuable family time and that I should give it up, but it is my passion and it makes me feel important in the world because I am helping kids and keeping them off the streets. She is very anti-social so I have already just about given up ALL time with my friends, even my married friends, because she can't be there with me or is not willing to "socialize". Should I give it up?

She doesn't want to try and do it with me, I have offered that. Also, lately our fights start out simple but she gets frustrated and literally attacks me. What do I do? Should I just give up even trying to express my feelings about what I like to do? She won't even agree to see a marriage counselor with me. She finally agreed to do it in a month if we still have problems, but I highly doubt anything will be resolved by then.

Well, this is the wife speaking. I just saw that my husband posted this, which doesn't make me very happy, but I feel like I need to put my 2 cents in. My husband failed to mention that he's in the military. So as it is I have to deal with a lot more than what ordinary wives have to. He has deployments which can last anywhere from 6 months - 1 year. Also he can randomly be gone for a few nights whenever he has training to do, etc. So as it is he has a very time consuming job. The volunteering that he is doing is called SeaCadets, it's kind of like training the youth to join the Navy. It's a great program and I don't have a problem with it. We all the time I have to sacrifice as it is for his military career I do feel that one weekend out of the month is too much. Now let me make it clear that if this one weekend/month would be maybe 4 hours on Sat and 4 hours on Sun, I would be perfectly fine with that. But it's not. It's him leaving around 6am Sat and not getting home till Sundaynight

So he's gone the entire day Sat, including the night, and not returning till Sun night. Not to mention where this SeaCadet group is located is over an hour from us (which financially speaking we really don't have the money for the gas). At first I offered to him to do some other type of youth group in town that wouldn't take up so much of his time. I wouldn't even mind something that was EVERY weekend as long as it was for only an hour or so. It's the ENTIRE weekend that bothers me. When it comes to the way I'm feeling, yes I'm lonely. We just relocated here because of military. I'm a good 12 hours from any family or friends. We've only been living here a month, which hasn't given me any time to meet friends yet. When we got married and moved I lost a 100% scholarship that I had. I don't resent doing this because my husband is my family and I would put him before anything. I'm currently still taking classes and we're finding ways to make that work.

but yes, i'm extremely lonely here. I'm taking care of my 2 year old son (any moms out there know what that age is like). I'm in my first trimester of pregnancy, sick all the time and feeling just plain yucky. The weather's been too cold here to even take my son out in the backyard (which is all I could do since I don't have a car). And to comment on what that one girl wrote about me wanting a car just do leave my son or something. That's not the case at all. I actually don't want a car right now because we financially can't afford a second car. With money problems aside, it would be nice to have a car just to run simple errands WITH my son. Like to the grocery store or taking him to the park which is a good 15 minute drive (not walkable). I'm the type of woman who firmly believes a person's family should come first. In my situation with my husband i have always put him first in everything. We came to a compromise last night which would involve him going for only Saturday

and coming home that night. This is totally okay with me, but it still doesn't seem like that's good enough for him.

Okay, let me through one more little comment in here about SeaCadets. When we were first dating and he was involved in this program. There was a 17 year old girl who was attracted to him, sending him sexual text messages all the time. He was "friends" with her on myspace and after we first started dating I came across a message he had wrote her (before me and him were together). She was going through an emotional crisis or something and ended up emailing him pictures of her (not nude ones... just like senior pictures or something), well he wrote back a comment to her that she looked very sexy and grown up and asked her to send him more. Well.... let me say I was very upset when I read this. He claimed he was just trying to make her feel better because she was going through a "hard time"... yeah... you don't say that to an underage girl no matter what the circumstance

So.. my main focus is him spending that time with the family. But I felt I also had to mention my somewhat negative feelings towards the program because of the girls involved in it.

Okay, I think I just about covered it all. I think everyone can get my side of the story now.

Answer 1

If you have all this free time with your friends... How are you spending time with your own child??? She is pregnant with your child and probably is hoping you will spend time with the child you have committed to, her son, and the child you are getting ready to have... Why can't you include her instead of leaving her at home with no car... That is just stupid with a two year old and pregnant... Supposing something happened?? Maybe she feels trapped and if you are always gone, she is more trapped... Get her a car... She is STUCK without one!!! How mean is that???

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

As an ex-military man, now retired, I can understand the
lonliness that your wife feels, however any wife of a mili-
tary person can be lonely because of what the job entails.
It's good that you help kids and see if your wife can't get
into something that she might like as just because she is
pregnant does not mean that she has to stay home all the
time. Money is an issue as it was when I was first in the
military and married however the job is secure and money
is always made. Sit down with her and ask her what is it
that she would like to do when you are helping the kids
out. Also if you volunteered only all day on saturday then
you would be with the family all day sunday, and maybe
that would help the situation out as after all as a volunteer
you can adjust your time away from home, Talk to her
and get her feed back on what would make her more
tolerable with you volunteering. Good luck.

Answer 4

Well it sounds like you have a Christian marriage, which is good. Have you prayed about it? Have you prayed about it with her?

Women need men a lot more then men need women. Our dreams are for our husbands and our children. Our family. Men always have a passion outside of relationships. Music. Church. Whatever. Women normally live for their families. It's just how we are.

Marriage is about sacrifice. And only a fellow Christian will agree with that. It's really not about you, or your wife. It's about pleasing God.

Ask your wife how she would feel if you stopped doing the youth group. Ask her if there's anything you both could do together, that she wants to do.

It sounds like your time with the youth group is important, and very valuable. You are, after all, serving God. Your wife should understand that, but at the same time, you need to understand her desire to have you all of the time.

As a pregnant wife she is emotional and tired. Maybe it would be a good idea to take some time from the youth group without telling her, plan a romantic evening, and tell her she is more important than anything in the world. Any passion, any dream. God wants us to hold our marriage and family as way more important than our side-dreams and passions.

Plan a romantic night when she's expecting you to go to youth group and tell her that you think you should both do something together to fill that passion for helping people. Tell her you want to be with her more than anything in the world.

She needs you right now. She's lonely, in a new place, with a new life, and a new baby.

Answer 5

No you should NOT give it up. But you should try to do as much as you can to help your poor wife adjust to this new life she's been thrust into. Suddenly she's stuck at home 24/7 taking care of YOUR 2 year old. And she's pregnant?! She is probably severely depressed, and that is not good for your future child. I can understand why she wants and needs you there as much as possible, but you giving up your life, dreams, and hobbies is not going to help anything. What will help is getting HER a life, dreams, and some hobbies. And you need to be there to make that possible.

Maybe she can put the 2 yr old in daycare (churches often have free/cheap ones) one or two days a week and go get a manicure, take a walk, go to the mall, or meet some friends. She needs to feel like she has some autonomy and control of her life. You need to offer to babysit one or two nights a week and let her do whatever she wants, even if that's just taking a hot bath and not cooking you dinner or putting the kid to sleep.

And you both must have friends/family to be social with and rely on for support. Join a church or some other organization or group so that she feels involved in something.

Answer 6

Could this all be hormonal because she is pregnant. Some women are moody while they are pregnant. Was she like this before? If so, she sounds very controlling. My brothers wife does him the same way. When he married her one by one she found fault with his friends. Once she got them out of the picture. Then started on his family. That was twenty plus years ago. Now we are lucky to see him at Christmas. She all ways has an excuse why she can't spend one day with his family. He is my only brother he is a lot older than me and I miss him. But your story sounds like your wife is headed in that direction.

Answer 7

remember she is pregnant, no car, home all day, with another child, lonely, and she wants more time with you. These are all normal adjustments, and feelings, you should not give up your volunteering efforts, offer to have her participate, I'm sure she would love that. Encourage her to take the car 1 day a week and drop you off at work so she has more freedoms. Be patient, don't give up this soon, she has major adjustments and changes going on in her life. You married her for good and bad, so take the bad with the good and listen and be there for her

Answer 8

Mike, listen to this very carefully, your wife knew of your passion for volunteering one weekend a month when you dated...If she didn't like it, she should not have married you. She knew this and we women seem to think that it's ok for us to manipulate you men into doing things because we make it seem like we're the victim. This is not ok. This is very selfish of her to be doing this, it is not acceptable.
She sounded like I used to. I had a horrible time leaving home. I cried and I was miserable. All I wanted to do was to go home. I didn't realize until recently that my HOME is with my HUSBAND. She chose to stay at home with your stepson. If she would like to abandon your son so she can have a car and have a sense of belonging, that is her problem. She should be at home with him, but if she's b*tching about it, she can either deal with it, or throw your son in daycare so someone else can raise him.
I was anti-social when we first married. We just had each other. You need to have friends, but you need to make sure that your wife comes first. She can't tell you that you can't have friends just because she doesn't feel the need to socialize. She is manipulating you!
What was her childhood like? She is now acting as if she's the child, so I'm assuming that she didn't have a normal childhood.
How long have you two been married? Is this her first or second marriage? Did you see any of these signs when you were dating? If you did, that is your own fault, but I highly doubt it since men aren't as manipulating and naive as we women are. Email me if you'd like, I know I'm asking you some personal questions, but I know what she's going through. Been there, done that, learned from it, happier now!

BTW, you knew that he was military when you married him, you had a feeling that you were going to lonely, and now you are b*tching about it. I wish your husband well.

Answer 9

There is much more going on here than whether or not you should give up your volunteer job. This is about autonomy and who will be where with whom and when. This is about freedom and trust and time together and about dreams and goals and plans. These are things that should have been discussed long before the marriage but since they weren't they are causing you heartache now. So instead of having the one specific discussion about the volunteer job let me suggest that you go back to the beginning, to loving one another and discussing your life's goals and your respect for one another first. When you have begun to understand the things that are important to each other, and when you have decided what the most important things to the relationship are, this question will resolve itself.

Answer 10

OK, first let me just say im glad to know im not the only woman in the world that has felt like your wife! I was also pregnant the first year that my husband and i were married and my Dr took me out of work due to complications and stress. My husband worked all day and then came home and wanted to go drink and hang out with his friends, or go hunting or fishing on the weekends. I wasnt feeling well and i missed my husband so much! I just wanted him to spend time with ME! Yes, it sounds sefish, but its really difficult to be pregnant...and on top of that your wife is all couped up with YOUR 2 year old son, and doesnt even have a car to get out! She doesnt have a problem with your volunteer work...she just needs you right now. she needs you to be home with her, helping her, loving her, making her feel special. When i was pregnant i felt so left out and very awkward in social situations, plus i was moody and didnt feel well most of the time. Try to understand that her body is going through soooo many changes and it effects her mood and emotions. She is not selfish or anti-social...she is pregnant, and unless youve been pregnant you most likely dont understand.
Try explaining to your wife that that volunteering is something that you really love and youd rather not just give it up alltogether, but maybe you can put it off for a while, or cut back to 1 weekend every 2 months.
Also, this is VERY important!! The reason why women complain about their husbands doing things like fishing, hunting, golfing, etc...is because they need to have some special attention FIRST! This means, make a habbit of planning something special JUST FOR HER once a month. If husbands would just do this women wouldnt be so pissed off all the time! Get a sitter for your son, and make the night/weekend ALL ABOUT HER! This means do what she wantsto do and ont have a bad attitude about it! I promise if you start doing this she wont have such an issue with you doing your own thing every now and then.
Good luck and congrats on the new baby! It gets easier, btw.

Answer 11

Lets take a pragmatic view.

If you don't give it up what happens? Well, knock down drag out fights with your preggie wife. You are miserable, she is miserable and your 2 year old miserable. But you get to be happy for weekend.

Try and give it up. Now you aren't so happy but the wife and son are better off...or at least happier.

From her point of view...she is literally trapped at home. All day. All night. And one weekend per month. She needs you at home if for no other reason to relieve her loneliness. She needs you like whatever this group does. Wait. Does the group need you? Can the group function w/o you? Or do you need the group?

Take a break from the charity. Stay home and be a hero to your family. At least try it...