Are You Becoming Your Husband’s Mother?

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm glad you're here today. Today's topic is, have you become your husband's mom? But first up, as usual, my win and my fail. For those of you who've been listening for a long time, you know that I homeschool my youngest now, only my 8-year-old. The others are in school on their own, college, high school. And you know, I run a business and that gets hectic sometimes. And we school in the cracks over here and not always during regular school hours or school days, but it works well for us. And I homeschool my daughter utilizing a charter school as well. It's kind of like a layer over what we do. And this year they implemented something different, including proctored testing and requiring me to log in daily attendance. Before, we used to just have to log in monthly. The proctored testing was hard because it was always during my work hours. But I figured out how to make that work. That wasn't the fail. The daily attendance is killing me. It literally takes less than a minute to log it in every day, but I just keep regularly forgetting. It's not that I forget to do school. We do school every day. I just forget to log in the attendance. I keep thinking I did it yesterday, and then it turns out it's actually been 3 days, and I'm driving our educational specialist nuts, and I might get kicked out of the program. We may get kicked out of the program, which honestly is not the worst thing in the world. In California, we can file an affidavit for homeschooling our kids. We don't have to school them under a charter program. It's just been easier, and so I do it, but now it's not so easy. I've marked it on my calendar as a daily to-do, and I know it takes a while to create a habit, but honestly, I think I might have a little passive-aggressive rebel thing going on. That's not unlikely for me. Because it doesn't make sense that I forget every single day. So yes, I'm analyzing myself, and yeah, that's what happens when you're a therapist. I try to be honest about myself and my intentions, and I don't think my intentions are good here, and they may get us kicked out of school. So that's my fail for the week. I'll try to remember to keep you updated. My win is that my client gave me a beautiful gift of a big jar of raw honey from her farm. Now if you know me, you know that I love honey. It's the only sugar that I eat at home. And she accompanied the honey with the sweetest card when she accomplished something that we've been working together on in therapy for a while. Y'all, my clients give me the greatest gifts, and I'm not talking about monetary ones. It's honestly an honor to walk on their journey, and it's an honor for me in a very small way through this podcast to walk on your journey with you too. So on to the topic: are you becoming your husband's mother? Just that topic makes me cringe, but I know I need to talk about it today. So okay, ladies, I might be stepping on some toes today, but I promise it's in your best interest. So here we go. Are you acting like a mother or a wife to your spouse? Is your daily mantra a constant telling him to do the things, backseat driving, taking over his tasks because of course you're better at it? Are you asking him to pick this up, put this away? Listen, I know how easy this slippery slope can become. As a mom, you take care of the kids, you manage their schedules, you hold them accountable, you feed them, you fill in all the gaps, teaching them to be responsible adults. And it's so easy for your husband to just slip in there like he's one of the kids until it's not easy anymore. Until you're resentful, angry, frustrated, and I'm gonna say the word, naggy. Ugh, I hate that word, and you probably do too, but sometimes it's the truth. The problem is our goal in parenting is to slowly let go of the reins until our kiddos are doing it by themselves. But what happens when you start parenting your husband? What's the goal there? Are you raising him? And if so, when's he gonna be raised? How are you supposed to know if you're doing too much and actually enabling your spouse to make both of your lives miserable? Yes, both, because it's miserable being mommed by your wife, and it's miserable to feel like your husband is your child. But people take on these roles nonetheless, not realizing the trap that they're making for themselves. So here's a few signs. Number 1, you know his schedule better than he does, and you're double-checking to make sure he gets his responsibilities done. Maybe he's got a doctor's appointment at lunch today, so you text him to make sure he's on his way. Or his flight leaves tomorrow at 8, so you need to make sure he's all packed, and you know what time he needs to leave, and you're gonna make sure you remind him. But here's what happens with that scenario. If you forget one time, and yes, that happens because we are all human, you get blamed for something that wasn't your responsibility to begin with. Then you guys have created this unspoken agreement that somehow it was your responsibility to make sure he's doing his responsibility. Even just saying that feels like too much. Here's what you should do instead. Let him make his own mistakes. I know, sounds easy. If he keeps missing things and not taking care of his responsibilities, there's a larger conversation that needs to be had. But the answer is not to swoop in and take care of the responsibility yourself. Number 2, you know his weak spots and you try to control them. Do you hide food or alcohol? Do you try to make sure he's not tempted by his own vices? Do you punish him with a cold shoulder? Do you withhold sex from him when he hasn't obeyed? Here's what to do instead. Simply ask your husband to take better care of himself. Let him know what your issues are. Explain how his vices are affecting the marriage, but then you erect boundaries that don't include you Policing him. Meaning, if you don't want your husband consuming porn or drinking alcohol or stuffing his mouth with donuts, make that clear. If he continues to do it, your answer isn't to hide all the porn, throw away the alcohol, make sure he can't get access to them, punish him and become his mother. Your answer is to follow through on your consequence. Now, I can't tell you what your consequence should be. That really is a very personal thing. It may look like you'll no longer live in the same house with him, depending on how big the thing is. It may mean that you'll no longer share his room or that you won't engage with him at all when he's partaking. Or maybe you might have to protect your kids from him. Whatever the consequence is, it needs to be specific, and that's different than a punishment. A punishment is trying to change behavior by implementing force in a negative way. That's not your job as his wife. A consequence is taking care of yourself and having a healthy boundary. So you need to figure out what your boundary is, erect it and hold it, but don't police him. Number 3, do you triangle yourself in his relationships? What's triangling? Triangling is when you kind of wiggle yourself in and do something, whether it's communicate for him to somebody else or somehow kind of change the relationship. Basically, you're getting in between him and somebody else. So maybe you tell him not to see friends of his that you don't like, or you remind him to call his mom, or you try to encourage him to see the friends he— that you do like, or maybe you give unsolicited advice about his relationships or communication to other people for him. All of that is triangling and it's not healthy. Now you might be thinking at this point, well, what am I supposed to do if I'm not even helping him? Isn't the role of a spouse to be a helper? Well, not really. He's still your spouse and he probably doesn't do all of those things that you're doing if you're mothering him for you. You take care of you, and the role of a spouse is to be a partner, not a helper, not a parent. A partner gives advice when solicited. A partner will even provide some accountability when it's requested. That's the operative word, when it's requested. A partner provides a joint effort but does not take on sole responsibility. A partner provides an additional brain, personality, and body to work together to further your joint mission. A partner is not a fixer. A partner is not a mother, and a partner is not a savior. Number 4, maybe you overhelp him with his career, like writing his resume, researching LinkedIn for jobs, grilling him on what he's done today, soliciting other people to help you find a job for your husband or uplevel him in his work. The truth is, is that that undermines him as a man and sends a message to him that either number 1, you don't think he's good enough, or number 2, you don't think he's capable. And that's a big hit to a man's ego, even though he may not ever say it. Or number five, maybe you control his money. Maybe you decide you're the responsible one and he's not, and you give him an allowance and give him unrealistic rules, or you double-check his account, or you go back and look at all of his spending. Now spending is a big issue in marriages, and I don't think there's one right way to do it. My husband and I have separate bank accounts. We do have some joint some joints, but our main checking accounts those are separate. And I the the very reason is because I do not want to be his mother if he does you know. So if he's cool flying by the seat of his pants, just kind of doing numbers in his head, I want to let him be the person he is and do that. It drives me crazy. So my boundary is I have my bank account, which is always double-checked. I know what's in there down to the penny, and I feel great about that. And he has his, and we both do our contributions, and that's cool, but I'm not mothering him or parenting him, and he's not doing the same to me. That works for us. That might not work for you. But what doesn't work is you becoming his mother over the finances. And the reality is sometimes some parts of couples are better with money than others. I think that's a good thing. I think that was God-designed, that where we're— you're weak, he's strong. But there's a difference in partnering up in that way and saying, hey, I'm really good at this, let me take this part. You're really good at that, let you take that part. It's very different than I'm going to control you and mother you and send subtle messages that you aren't capable. The truth is that intimacy gets compromised when you become his mother. When you micromanage his life, you lose the very thing that you want and desire so much, is that intimacy and that marriage, the healthy marriage. Instead, he becomes resentful, lazy, and even worse, he begins to act like a teenager— rebelling, sneaking, acting out. And then that makes you double down on your efforts, and we can all see what a train wreck that can be. These roles end up becoming more and more solidified over time, and then it becomes difficult to disentangle yourself from it. And I've seen this in small ways with my husband, in big ways I'll tell in a minute, but especially with parenting. When he's slipped himself into the kid role and the kids will ask him something and he'll respond with, ask your mother. And I had to remind my husband that I never say, ask your father, unless I'm saying, your father and I need to talk about this. That puts us both right back up into the parent role. When you just say, ask your mother, that's sending a message that I'm the authority. And that you all are children. He recognized this and he changed the way he spoke, but this is a subtle way that this can begin to show up in relationships. But there is hope. There's always hope. And that's why I have these conversations with you. So what can you do? Identify which behaviors are parentifying you. You probably have identified some behaviors just from listening to this podcast today. So try a run of not doing them. Yes, the action you have to take is non-action. It's amazing how difficult doing nothing can feel, but you've got to let him be responsible for something that you used to do, even if you did it better, and I know you did. When my mother-in-law got sick a few years ago, I quickly, almost imperceptibly, slipped into the caretaking role for her. We moved her into our home while we were trying to figure out what our long-term caretaking plan was for her. And the next thing I knew, I saw caretaking being added on top of my already busy life and responsibilities. And I saw where this road was headed real quickly because my husband was all too happy to not have to deal with the difficulties of caring for his aging mother. So knowing what this dynamic would create in me, I had to make the fast, hard decision to do nothing. When his mother's bed needed to be changed, I said, Here you go. Do it. Change it. When she needed to be watched in the middle of the night, or she needed her medicine, or needed to be walked or moved, I made it clear that I wasn't going to step in and take care of this responsibility for him. He was capable, it was his mother, and actually it was good for him to take care of his mother in this way. It didn't last long, we did find care for her, but by allowing that role to be put on me, I would have robbed him of growth and development that happens when the roles shift. With elderly parents. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I felt guilty. I felt bad, like I should be taking care of her. I can do it. But I knew better. I watched my husband struggle to take care of his mother. I did step in and bathe her when it was necessary because I could understand why he really wouldn't want to do that, but otherwise I let him handle it. And you know what? He's grown, and I'm not overworked, I'm not bitter, and I'm not resentful about it. In fact, I'm kind of proud of him. And you know what else? My husband appreciates me more because he sees the type of hard work I do for this family, and I was doing it for a minute for his mother before I required him to step up. And you can do it too. And once you've taken the role of non-action, think of what you need to take responsibility for in your life. See, sometimes being a mother to everyone else is a wonderful distraction from some things that you need to attend to in your own life. It's time, my friend. Remove the cloak of mothering from your relationship and learn to mother yourself better. You've got this. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Subscribe so that you don't miss an episode. Connect with me, DM me on Instagram, and have a strong week.