Wife undermines my parenting

Dr. Holly Schiff, a licensed clinical psychologist who works with families and relationships, identified a few ways you might be undermining your partner:

• complaining about the other parent in front of your children
• encouraging your child to not tell the other parent about something
• changing or reducing a punishment set by the other parent
• saying “It’s no big deal,” when your child has misbehaved
• routinely sleeping in your child’s room rather than with your partner
• feeling as if you’re always the “bad cop” to your partner’s “good cop,” or vice versa

Discussing punishment when the child isn’t present can help parents agree about what’s appropriate. If you’re hashing out discipline details regularly when your child is present, you might be undermining each other.

These examples and the importance of being on the same page applies to both partners who are parents and co-parents who are separated or not in a relationship.

We all slip up and make mistakes, especially when faced with a strong opposing opinion. It’s the ongoing pattern of undermining that’s most important to avoid.

Help for domestic violence

If you’re undermining your spouse because you’re afraid of their anger or violence toward you or your children, you have several options for finding help.

You can reach out to a trusted friend or therapist. If you’re experiencing abuse — whether it’s physical or emotional — you can also call the Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 800-799-SAFE (7233).

Several things can cause a pattern of contradicting a partner in front of the kids.

The simplest: A difference in opinion on how to raise your children.

“Differences in parenting styles and views on how to raise children can lead to one partner interfering with their spouse while they are setting boundaries and disciplining their child,” says Sue English, a licensed clinical social worker and family therapist.

Talking with your partner early on about how to raise your children can ease any differences in parenting styles. Also, as your child gets older, you’ll likely want to adapt your approaches. Committing to regular communication without your child present is critical.

Undermining behavior might not be about parenting at all.

“If there’s conflict within your relationship that includes pent-up frustration, undermining your partner’s position could be a passive-aggressive move to regain a sense of power or control,” English explains. In this case, communication and mutual respect are crucial — especially for co-parents.

The behavior could also stem from feeling insecure as a parent.

“If you feel insufficient in your parenting role, overriding your partner’s direction for your child could be a type of defense mechanism to mask your own parental insecurities,” English says.

The pattern of undermining can all be avoided when you begin to understand why it may arise and work together to prevent them.

While it’s common to sometimes disagree with your co-parent, constantly contradicting each other in front of your kid could harm your relationship with your partner and have a long lasting adverse impact on your child. Children tend to learn more from what they see than from what they’re told.

Some effects undermining your partner could have on your child:

• learning that being honest with someone in a relationship isn’t important
• learning manipulation is acceptable and helps them get what they want
• forming a habit of breaking the rules or not taking consequences seriously
• lack of respect for authority
• parental alienation, where the child’s relationship with the undermined parent is damaged

“Children may also no longer take either parent seriously and not follow rules, boundaries or consequences, or punishments that are issued,” Schiff says. “They will develop the same inconsistency and may have problems with authority.”

If any of this sounds familiar, that’s OK. There’s hope to overcome this behavioral pattern and restore relationships with your partner, co-parent, and child.

Everyone has their own beliefs about parenting, and that’s OK. What’s important is being on the same page with your co-parent. There are options for overcoming a habit of undermining and its root cause.

Identifying an issue or asking for professional support doesn’t mean you’ve failed as a partner or parent. Instead, it shows your children that people have to work together to solve problems and build healthier dynamics.

Here are some steps to consider:

• find a couple’s therapist or co-parent mediator
• have a conversation about your ideal parenting styles and values
• agree to not discuss or argue about discipline in front of your child
• face one issue at a time and find common ground
• communicate your boundaries often

You might also want to check out esteemed couple’s therapist Esther Perel’s podcasts or Instagram psychotherapist @SitWithWhit, who shares relatable parenting advice.

Parenting isn’t easy, and overcoming this pattern can take time and effort. Learning to work together can make for a smoother and more rewarding time parenting.

how women undermine the health of their loved ones

Relations with some relatives negatively affect the body and psychological health of a person. The results of the corresponding study by Professor of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Abar-Ilan University of Israel Shira Offer and sociologist of the University of California Claude Fisher were published in the journal American Sociological Review.

Researchers conducted a network study during which 1100 respondents were interviewed. Participants named people with whom they have some kind of social connection, with whom they open up and who they would ask for help in a difficult situation, as well as those with whom they consider relationships “difficult”. It turned out that at least 15% of "difficult" people are relatives. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the norms of decency often do not allow breaking this social circle and completely stopping relations with these people. Social connections with people that harass, control, blackmail, manipulate, exert emotional pressure are called “toxic” by researchers, and their consequences are harmful to health.

Researchers say that "The devil is not as scary as his mother," and argue that the most difficult people in practice are relatives - sisters, mothers, wives, mothers-in-law, mothers-in-law. Unable to break off relations with loved ones, people continue to endure their manipulations and active participation in their own lives, even when no one asks their relatives for it.

“It's not easy with female relatives – it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, these are the people on whom you are most dependent, and on the other, they are the ones who torment you the most,” explains Professor Claude Fischer.

“Difficult” relationships with friends are much less common, because a person is not limited in his freedom to choose his own environment.

Scientists came to the conclusion that the specifics of "toxic" relationships are significantly influenced by the age factor - it is he who arranges the "problem" relatives according to the degree of pressure on the respondents. So, most often, young people aged 21 to 30 suffer from such relationships. For them, “difficult” to communicate are sisters – 30%, wives – 27% and mothers – 24%. In people aged 50 to 70 years, this list is topped by mothers - 29%, followed by wives and mistresses, as well as fathers and neighbors. In addition, with age, people are more likely to complain about relationships with colleagues and acquaintances.

Russian experts assure that these tendencies are true for the Russian society as well. The thing is that it is relatives who are most often in co-dependent relationships, which lead to the psychological and emotional destruction of one of the participants, psychologist Larisa Surkova told MIR 24. Education does not allow Russians to stop such attitudes.

“Relationships that involve any kind of violence all too often end in tragedy. Note that this is not only about physical violence. Psychological violence in the same way leads to victims. It is important to know that a mentally healthy person cannot torture another either physically or emotionally. If the pressure builds up, this is a serious problem.

Relationships like this often grow out of childhood. In Soviet times, it was customary to maintain relations at all costs. The value of the family was replaced by the value of maintaining a formal marriage: “for children”, “to preserve social status”. People smiled sweetly at each other in public, arranging a branch of hell at home. At the same time, children grew up in a terrible atmosphere of hatred and enmity. What effect did this have on them? Whatever, nobody knows. Nobody knows also because in our country it is not customary to examine this part of your health - mental.

It seems that going to a psychologist will make you "unmanly", "subhuman". Friends are more likely to advise you to go to a bar and have a drink to “relax”. At the same time, the emotional stress from such a method will only increase, the pressure on the individual will increase. A person thinks - I feel bad, and I can’t cope with it, which means I’m a weakling.

Abroad, the situation has swung in the other direction. For example, in the US, antidepressants have become so affordable that people eat them instead of vitamins. Negative phenomena are largely extinguished, but this is hardly good either,” Surkova explained.

The fact that it is women who are most often the cause of "toxic" relationships, the psychologist explains by the "complex of excellent students", which is brought up in girls from early childhood. It is because of him that women are much more emotionally involved in family affairs.

“Among my patients with the “A” complex, 99% are women. From childhood, girls are taught that they are all around and everywhere “should”. They must help their mother, brother, at school, look, strive, comply.

The feeling of total obligation is easily coupled with the feeling of desire for total control. Control is achieved by any means. In the post-war period, when there were few men in our country, the man was declared the main value. The man needed not only to be found, but also to be kept. Children, headaches, heart attacks, any kind of manipulation - everything went into action in this battle.

At the same time, the girls' feelings were devalued - "to endure, fall in love", and the boy was generally forbidden to experience emotions, because it was "unmanly". Men are less likely to suffer from the “excellent student syndrome”. More often they act as a victim or come to a psychologist with the attitude “everyone got me!”. Indeed, everyone got it. The mother “turns on” a migraine, because for her it is a natural “test” of love, and an excellent wife requires the strict execution of all the assigned tasks, otherwise the world will probably collapse, ”adds the psychologist.

If you can still part with your partner, then psychologists advise you to start defending your opinion with sisters, mothers and other relatives. Silence and acceptance in this case do not play into the hands.

“We need to show will and sit down at the negotiating table. Thank you for the wise advice, for everything good that has been invested in you, for the wisdom of the ages, for the endless support and love, and tell me that you are on your own somehow. The manipulator, of course, will not let you go just like that. So maybe I'll have to turn off the phone for a week so that the tantrum subsides. If you want the best for your children, you still have to do it. Because communication with relatives can turn into a nightmare not only for you, but also for your child, if you are not firm. Pay your mother, grandmother, aunt some medical subscription. And let her talk to the experts. This, of course, is a distraction, but it will allow you to start living your life without swearing and tantrums. It is important to understand two things: until you take the situation into your own hands, you will not be able to influence it, and second, it is not at all necessary to swear in order to defend your rights, be more inventive,” added Surkova.

If your relatives manipulate you, you should start keeping a diary in which you need to record all cases of manipulation. In the future, it is the presence of recorded facts that will help resolve conflicts.

“I recommend keeping a diary. Often people come to me who suspect that they are being manipulated, but they have no clear arguments. There are just some feelings at the level of "after talking with this person, I feel bad." Get a notebook and after each such communication, carefully write down what you talked about, what confused you, how the conversation went, how you were met, what they asked about, according to what scenario the meeting unfolded. Having such records in hand, if there really is a manipulation, it will be easier to catch it. It is important to understand that sometimes the manipulator himself does not really understand what he is doing and why. He just has some kind of behavioral tracing paper that he considers effective. Reducing everything to emotions in an attempt to open his eyes is useless. If you are convinced that you are being manipulated, but you firmly know that this is more an element of habit than a thoughtful game, you can dissuade a person from continuing only using facts, ”advised the psychologist.

Good and Evil - Orthodox magazine "Foma"

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“I scold her, but she starts crying and runs to her father. Daddy is kind, he will console. I’m the Baba Yaga,” the young mother complains. The other, on the contrary, is upset that the despot dad forbids the child everything in a row, before he has time to ask permission. And the grandmother feeds them with chocolate and allows them to watch TV for hours.

Meanwhile, psychologists unanimously advise adhering to a unified policy in the upbringing of children, common views on the upbringing of children, otherwise children from adult disagreements will only be harmed. Adults are upset, because they themselves are different, and, of course, they think differently about raising children, and children from them are only harm. In general, some especially responsible mothers say, people like us should not have children.

Even the priests do not add clarity. One priest was recently asked in some online magazine what to do when there are disagreements in the family about education. He said: they say, someone has to yield to someone. But since the father should be the main thing in the family, then let the wife give in to him.

That is, by default, it turns out that dad is always right, and mom is always wrong. And if the father wants to pour vodka for the child? And if he is put behind the wheel at the age of 11?

Fathers and mothers always have different approaches to education. Simply because some are men and others are women. It is believed that women always indulge, and men are strict. Well, that's how mother pitied Petrusha Grinev, and the father sent him to sniff gunpowder. It happens exactly the opposite: mom tries to establish order and discipline at home all day, otherwise she won’t survive, but dad came home from work - and pampering started: chocolate instead of dinner, walking until midnight, then another movie to watch.

Should we quarrel here? Not at all, experts say! Just not with a child! All disagreements are behind closed doors. No: perhaps, if something threatens the life, psyche, health of the child, then it’s not a sin and right through. Do not let the belt flog, for example. Do not allow obscene name-calling and humiliation. Don't let the drunk dad into the car.

This rarely happens. Usually, disagreements are not worth a penny: whether or not a child can brush his teeth when he goes to bed, force or not force him to finish eating soup, a child is already big to listen to a bedtime story, or still small. Things that can be decided, in general, it is quite possible to agree on all this, but adults, like sheep on a bridge in Mikhalkov's fairy tale, collide with their foreheads - and not a step back: you undermine my authority! You want to be kind at my expense! Why these senseless bans? Because I said! Why on earth are you canceling my orders? Here, in fact, it’s not even about the views on education, but about the fact that mother, woman, grandparents play king of the hill, fight for power, butt heads - who is the most important? Who will have the last word?

One would like to say - who is smart will be the first to shut up, who is an adult - he will give in. And put into play instead of “because because” and “I forbid” banal consequences: yes, you can go to bed at one, but tomorrow you both won’t get enough sleep. And don't let me sleep. Yes, you can eat a chocolate bar once instead of dinner, but then no food before breakfast - and the one who allowed it will cope with diathesis on his own.

And most importantly, calmly, without hysteria, without feeling “they don’t put me in a penny, they undermine my authority.” Wins not the one who insists on his own, but the one who is calm, unflappable and generous.

Someone should be an adult, someone should take responsibility for resolving the conflict - and it will be more useful for a child to see how adults negotiate, instead of pumping rights, pressing with authority and finding out who is in charge.

As a matter of fact, disagreements up to a certain limit are generally useful for a child. Simply because they show him many different behaviors. It is not always necessary to push ahead, sometimes you can retreat, give in. And vice versa: you don’t always have to give in - sometimes you have to insist on your own. You can do this, or you can do that. This is the flexibility that everyone needs. This adds to the arsenal of strategic and tactical means. It improves social intelligence. True, a child with a rich arsenal constantly confuses parents, but that's what he is a child to drive a parent into.

Useful when one parent is softer and the other is harder. When one can teach one thing, and the other another. When they can show different angles of view. Even when one shows the world of law and justice, it is good when there is another who knows the world of mercy and grace. When you are guilty and justly punished, it is good if there is someone dear who will regret while you cry and stroke your head so that you are not alone with your longing and remorse. And this is not pampering, not the abolition of a just punishment, but simple human sympathy for those who are having a hard time right now.

So how will the manipulator grow? No, they really do sometimes grow up in families where there is a mortal battle between mom and dad. Oh, are you like this? And then I'll tell my mother and go to live with her. Oh, you won't let me have ice cream instead of dinner? And I'll tell my dad to let him pick me up. Ahh, dad, she beat me! Mom, get me out of here. This is no longer a family, and not education, this is a war of all against all, and the child in it is either a terrorist, or a hostage, or a human shield, or a secret weapon - but in fact, of course, just a victim of a merciless adult war.

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