To the married women here, please enlighten me about this query about your marriage

Guile

I just notice that this is where the mature wives hang out so I'm asking a favor from you people to just enlighten me on some things about your thoughts about the issue that I'll be stating.

Uhmm.....my mom has 3 siblings. Two females and one male. Two of them (my uncle and aunt) settled in the United States way back. Mom and her sis (Tita), eventually followed only recently. Hatak syempre pati husband nila. Natagalan yung petition kay mom and tita kasi syempre may asawa (the original petitioner was my uncle na unang nakapunta sa States)

So naiwan na lang kaming magpipinsan dito (me tsaka yung mga anak nung tita kong nakasabay ni mama sa pag migrate sa States).

I'm a single child and I'm really close to those cousins of mine. Both families (mom and tita's) have similar set-up wherein the husband (our dads) worked abroad majority of our lives, making us being single-handedly raised by our moms.

Coincidentally, both moms are very authoritative parents. They're autocratic though not in the traditional sense that me and my cousins are being beaten up.

I don't know if it runs in the mother's side of the family. Or maybe both of them had a lust for power/authority when their husband started to work abroad. Consequently, when the husband goes back here, it becomes a pride warfare-his authority versus her authority.

Or maybe, this is just a stage in a female's life where she becomes more b*tchy after marriage.

I'm not necessarily implying that my mom's marriage nor my tita's are unhealthy. I just noticed this glaring similarity.

Currently, I have a girlfriend. My first legitimate girlfriend. We just reached our 13th month last May 2 and if she's going to be my wife (may God allow it), I would never, ever want to experience that immature pride warfare.

In my 13 months of relationship with this girl, we never had our pride shifted to high gear (which I'm very thankful for). I try to create a very democratic way of running our relationship though naturally our relationship isn't really 100% tampuhan free.

Anyway, since most of my ideas about marital relationships are based on my mom's and tita's mariage, I'm thinking that my views about marital relationships are inconsequential.

Some questions:

1. Is the eventual pride warfare between a husband and a wife a general scenario or is the case I mentioned a purely isolated one?

2. If the pride warfare (where the wife tries to hold a certain degree of autocratic power) is a general scenario, what triggers you women for that? Is it from repressed frustrations that you women encounter because of a realization that you were'nt able to change your man?

3. Or is it just a metamorphosis of a woman, that any guy (no matter how he treats his wife), should have to accept?

Guile

Ok. To enlighten you guys further, I'll describe my mom and dad.

Uhm...mom is tactless. Her words occasionally come with very sarcastic remarks that if you're the type of person who can't easily control your composure, you'll get into troble. For the benefit of the doubt, let's say that most of those sarcastic remarks are unintentional. Meaning, she may not be aware that she's sarcastic.

(Hmmmm....sounds like a typical woman here)

Dad is the more composed individual. Speaks less than mom but goes into a raging temper when continually provoked. However, he's hardly outspoken, hardly discusses issues with mom in a logical fashion, and thinks that he can win arguments by raising his voice. Mom does the same thing and misunderstndings become a voice volume warfare. Evnetually, both of them will shut up until mom starts to cuddle dad and the misunderstanding will be forgotten.

It eventually honed me into this rational (in fact, I could be overly rational), critical thinking, goes-by-the-book, assesses-the-problem-before-it-becomes-worse, composed, nice, individualistic (but not egotistic) guy.

It's a result of my frustration of how mom and dad handle (or mishandle) the flaws in their marriage.

Some people see me as a young Dr. Phil. Though unlike him, I was never initially interested about psychology. I never made a formality about my interest in inter-personal relationships.

A part of me wants to intervene, but then a part of me tells me that as a non married single guy who's just 24, what gives me the right?

Sweetkay

Some questions:

1. Is the eventual pride warfare between a husband and a wife a general scenario or is the case I mentioned a purely isolated one?

2. If the pride warfare (where the wife tries to hold a certain degree of autocratic power) is a general scenario, what triggers you women for that? Is it from repressed frustrations that you women encounter because of a realization that you were'nt able to change your man?

3. Or is it just a metemporphosis of a woman, that any guy (no matter how he treats his wife), should have to accept?

It's a general scenario IMO. Women nowadays are not the usual doormat that merely says yes and yes master.

The pride warfare I believe is a result of the fact that Mom has gotten used to being in charge because she needed to be in charge. So when the Dad comes back, there's a tug of war in authority. This is both their fault. They should have discussed things and talked about who will be in charge of so and so now. Dad can't take away all authority over things because Mom has been taking care of things for so long. There is a need for Dad to show that yes he is in charge but they should do it in a way wherein everything has been delegated. Mom on the other hand, should know when to back out and let things be.

It's not a metamorphosis that guys simply need to accept. In this situation, COMPROMISE would be the key word.

tina11

Since I'm a woman I'll explain how most wives and mothers think We worry a LOT. We want stability, security, and predictability. When a child brings home a report card with a failing grade the father will probably scold the child but deep inside he will assume, "babawi anak ko next quarter". On the other hand the mom will worry that her child will fail and have to go to summer school or even repeat the grade, won't get into a good college, etc. etc.

Women are also detail-oriented. A simple example: when a wife washes the dishes she also wipes the placemats and the table, and cleans the kitchen sink and the stove. When she delegates the responsibility of cleaning up after dinner to her husband, she may get frustrated when he only washes the dishes and doesn't complete the other tasks, and she reminds him, "baka magka-ipis o magka-daga sa kusina, you should've done this and that". The husband then gets mad and instead of trying to see where his wife is coming from, he just goes to his friends to complain and he says:

Guile wrote:

this is just a stage in a female's life where she becomes more b*tchy after marriage.

After marriage, some women (even the happy-go-lucky ones) just become more organized while others go into full-fledged Martha Stewart mode and want to sew their own curtains and pillow cases. But I think all women become more mabusisi and want things done a certain way because this is how they envision taking care of their families. They don't want to be called naggers so instead of telling their husbands how they want things done, they might resort to sarcastic remarks and hope that their husbands get the message, but as I'm sure you've noticed this often backfires.

As for your questions about "pride warfare", I think this is when the husband and wife don't walk in their partner's shoes and give up trying to understand each other. They simply label each other as a "b*tchy nagger" or "irresponsible". Unfortunately this happens a lot and you may be right that it is a general scenario. You and I can be smug and say that it doesn't happen in our relationship/marriage because we're rational and logical, but I'm sure our parents thought the same way when they first got married. We just have to respect our partners, avoid labels and keep the communication lines open, and pray that the relationship stays strong enough to weather the fights and disagreements that are sure to come.

psychosonicindy

Hey Guile! I've been married for about 9 years now--I guess altogether my husband and I have been together for about 11 years now and we have 1 daughter. The situation u described with ur mom and tita sounds like a scenario from MY mum's and dad's marriage--mum's a control freak and dad's immature yet feels that HIS authority shouldn't be undermined...well, well...
I've experienced a little of what it's like to raise our daughter on my own when my husband went to Saudi for 2 years (thank God he hasn't returned)...I guess when he returned I just got very irritated cause I was used to doing things in certain ways but I really missed the time before he left too, when we needed to talk about most things and needed to compromise. When I was growing up,I resolved that MY marriage would be better than my parents but I wasn't really sure how I would do that. I guess I'm a little different because I grew up abroad and I guess I'm more lenient, "looser" or whatever but I still really want what's best for the 3 of us and I guess we get along best because we think of us as 3 individuals in our family-my husband, me and our daughter and that everyone gets an equal vote in everything. Granted, this'll guarantee a lot of arguing but at least, everyone's COMMUNICATING! I think it's a common situation in many pinoy families because of the "traditional" father and mother roles and in what areas their authority should lie but I guess this is really outdated...for example, my husband is a lot more knowledgeable about food, cooking, shopping (well, he does it professionally so...) so I leave that up to him mostly and this is generally regarded as a feminine "chore"....I'm not sure if I've been married long enough to advise u, Guile but it's been 11 years of hirap, saya, poverty, radical change (yes, basically a roller-coaster) and if u put it into ur mind that u will respect ur partner no matter what, I guess you'll be ok more or less. And remember, NO (absolutely NO) argument is important enough...u know when u want her to see that YOU'RE right and SHE'S wrong and vice versa....that u end up sacrificing that precious part of ur relationship (mutual respect) and start dragging up each other's dirty laundry. If u love someone enough that u need to speak up to tell them when u think something's wrong then u should also love them enough to know when to shut up and let things be....

baklita

whoever has a stronger personality has the tendency to dictate marriage as well as family upbringing. usually when it comes to home territory women dominate. for mothers or fathers who easily get upset and start to blah, blah, blah to their children is a normal scenario. I'm sure everyone has similar experience to share about parents yelling, talking in loud voice and reprimanding their children at their disposition.

someday you'll find out you're no exception...

aihihihi!!!

baklita