My husband doubts my love because I don’t always agree with him

Many people assume that married couples are more alike than different. After all, if you’re going to spend your whole life together, won’t it be easier if you agree on most things? Especially the things that are important? I don’t necessarily think this is always true, but it seems to be the societal view.

That’s why it can be quite shocking when, after you’ve been married for a while, you start to disagree on things that aren’t so minor anymore. Some examples are how to raise your children, which religion to practice, and how to spend your money and time. At their best, these differences often require careful negotiation and communication. At worst, they can put your marriage at risk.

And these differences can cause people to question their love for each other. Someone might explain a situation like this: “I love my husband very much. I want to make that clear and get him out of the way. But lately, I don’t like how he’s acting. I knew when I married him that there would be cultural differences. He’s from the north.” And I’m from the south. In my family, we gift our children. For example, when a child has a birthday, we buy gifts for all the children, because we don’t want anyone to be left out. When a member of our family is too older to take care of himself, someone will invite him to live with the family instead of going to assisted living.When you have a godchild, you are expected to love that godchild as your own and you are expected to attend all important events in that child’s life. I have godchildren who live in other states. When I try to get involved in their lives, my husband gets mad. He says we can’t afford to travel every time something happens. Someone has a birthday. From his tone of voice, makes it sound like my family is backwards or something. I feel this. And the other day I got so mad about it that I told my husband that I didn’t agree with him. I told him that it is important to me to stay close to my family and that I was not going to hold back just because he was choosing to be mean and petty. He was furious and said that he doesn’t know how I can love someone so ‘tight and stingy’ like him. I told him that was ridiculous and his response to me was that I sure don’t act very affectionate towards him. He said that I act like I love my distant cousins ​​and godchildren more than him. None of that is true. I’m lovin ‘it. He is the most important person in my life. But do I have to choose between him and my family? And how do I make him see that just because I don’t agree with him, I still love him?

What you are going through is not unusual. One of the best married life hacks is to negotiate these kinds of things so that no one feels hurt or doesn’t feel that they matter. It’s a difficult situation because both sets of families are used to being front and center. I also dealt with this in my marriage. I had never spent a single vacation away from my family when I got married. And yet now I had a husband with a family who wanted to see him on vacation and who were as close as my own family.

In the early years of our marriage, the dual family situation caused conflict. For a couple of years there, the holidays were not particularly happy for us. Until we decided that the only way to make everyone happy was to alternate meetings with no questions asked. One year are their parents and one year are mine. I will be honest. In the years that we go with his family, I miss mine. But they don’t live close enough to see both of them. And when you’re married, you have to compromise. I can’t blame my husband for wanting to spend the holidays with his family when I want the exact same thing. In the end, we are both in exactly the same situation and we are doing the best we can.

You are in a similar situation where neither of you is wrong. He wants to express his love for his family and he wants to stick to a budget and set boundaries within his married life. Both goals are absolutely understandable. Here nobody is bad. And I think if you show him that you’re willing to compromise, he’ll drop the whole “you don’t love me if you don’t agree” argument because he’ll see that you love him enough to compromise.

So I think it helps to ask yourself what is most important to you. Maybe you really like acknowledging that you’re involved with your godchildren, but would settle for smaller gifts or cards for someone who doesn’t have a birthday? Perhaps, like me, you alternate family gatherings between his family and yours. Whatever you choose, make sure you’re comfortable with him so there’s no question that you’re willing to commit.

Many families have to navigate this and it is not always comfortable because it requires a change. People get used to things one way and that is why there is resistance to change. But no one can blame them for wanting to stay involved with their families while creating their own marriage traditions. The key is figuring out how to negotiate this with love and respect. You might have this conversation with your husband: “Our disagreement doesn’t mean we don’t love each other. It just means we need to sit down and negotiate this. Neither of us is wrong. We’re both working with what’s normal for us as individuals. Now, just “We have to establish what’s normal for us as a couple. I’m more than willing to do this if you are. I don’t want this to create conflict in our marriage.”

Then state where you are willing to negotiate. You will be surprised to know that he will do the same. People often just want to feel like you’re willing to work with them and aren’t automatically dismissing their point of view.