My Spouse is Always Talking to His Family // Hump Day Q&A

Foreign. You know what time it is, sweetie?

It's hump day. Q and A time. Hump day. Q and A. Hump day Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in. It says, we have been married for a year and there is one thing I'm not sure how to communicate with my husband about. We live several hours away from his family and it bothers me that they call him constantly, multiple times a day. Their calls are always to complain to him about their problems. And it wasn't like this when we were dating. I want my husband's attention and I don't know how to bring this up to him without sounding really selfish. How do I talk to him about this? Needed boundary. That's a great question.

Yeah, that really, really is great. And boundary's the right word. You know, a book that we read early in our marriage that helped us tremendously has that same title. It's called Boundaries by doctors John Townsend and Henry Cloud. We've talked about that book a lot just because it's helped us so much. You know, they need to start sending us royalties probably for the referrals that we've sent to that book. So Drs. Townsend and Cloud, if you're listening, you know, you can at send a gift card or something.

But no, it really is a, it's a game changer.

It's a great book and I think it would really help in your situation. And it's going to come. You can't expect them, you know, the people who are trampling on your boundaries to get it, because if you don't have boundaries up, then, you know, they won't know that they're there. And so, yeah, what they're doing is clearly out of bounds, but they need to know where the boundaries are. And so that needs to be a conversation. But with you and your husband, where you find unity together. And I think the unity might just be determining, like, you know, what's a realistic amount of time that I'm going to spend on the phone per day or per week or whatever, and then not going above that, and then just him talking to his family, like, hey, listen, I love you guys, but I'm trying To really reorder and restructure my life, to put the biblical balance of making sure that my wife comes first and I'm, you know, meeting. Meeting her needs and there's peace within our home first and foremost. And then, you know, with. With whatever time and energy I have left. I always want to be, you know, a good son and brother or whatever else to. To you guys. But right now, my life's gotten out of balance. My technology use has gotten out of balance, and so I'm going to be using the phone a lot less. I'm going to be much less available than I have been. And I'm not trying to offend anybody with that, but it's just something I need to do to protect my own sanity, my own margins, and more importantly, my own marriage. And he might need to just have the do not disturb feature on his phone a lot. And his family is going to have to maybe just get in the habit of calling and it going straight to voicemail and then him not quickly returning that voicemail or maybe returning it with a text of like, hey, you know, I can't talk right now. You know, let's connect later in the week. Yeah, they're not going to like it, and that's hard. Disappointing people we love is hard. But every decision you make in life is going to disappoint somebody. And if you go through life just trying to please everybody, you're going to end up exhausted, burnout, and bitter, and no good to anyone at all. So you and your husband have to determine those boundaries. You two have to get on the same page, and everybody else can learn to live with it. I mean, I think it's really that simple.

It is, but it takes time and be prepared for them not to like it at first. They will probably kick and scream, so to speak, and. And really let you know, and let him know, I guess, you know, that they don't like that decision. But eventually they will come around because they do, you know, love him and love you. And ultimately they do want what's best. But right now, they're getting what they want. They're getting to talk whenever and be it. You know, they're getting to be at his beck and call. And so it needs to be. There needs to be, you know, some boundaries established. And it does have to come from your husband. I don't even think she's asked about that, about her establishing them. But we always say, you know, if it's your parents and they're the ones who are creating a little bit of a problem, then you as their son or as their daughter, you need to be the one going to them, not the spouse, because they're gonna be much more forgiving to their son or daughter than to the in law, so to speak. You know, you just need to make sure that you, you know, the person whose parents are having the issue need to be the person who actually goes to the parents. But I wanna say this. She mentioned, you know, is it selfish? I don't wanna appear selfish. You're not being selfish. You're just wanting to have a great marriage and to connect with your husband.

And.

And I don't think that there's anything selfish about that. I think you're just trying to have more time for the two of you. And so when you go to your husband and talk about this, go to him kind of from the standpoint of saying, listen, I miss you, I miss you, and I love your family and I love how good you are to your family. You are such a good son, but I feel like they're taking advantage of you a bit and they probably don't even realize it. Like, give them a benefit of the doubt. They don't realize it. This is a habit. This is a habit that they formed where they tend to call you a liar.

There are no villains in this story.

Exactly. And just say, I know that this may be normal for you, but I just feel a little cheated here. And I know it's not on purpose, but I want us to have an amazing marriage. And I feel like if you're constantly fielding these problematic phone calls, then it really disrupts our peace and we need to be the ones to set up these boundaries with your parents. And especially you need to be kind of the voice of setting up the boundary. But I wanna be helping you in this. And so, God, could you pray about this with me and could you read the book Boundaries with me so we can decide how and when to approach them and tell them this and then keep on reinforcing it. You can't back down. You have to keep on reinforcing the boundary. And I promise you from experience. Okay. That eventually they will rise to the occasion and there will be so much more peace in your home. Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day. Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com you can submit your question right there or you can follow us on Instagram Ave and Ashley Willis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day. Q and A.