Wife refuses to cut apron strings

[BKLovesWho]

Those who know my pervious posts know I can't stand my wife and for good reason. We just had another all out argument about cutting the apron strings for my 19 year old son. I want him and his younger brother to be self sufficient and independent. My other wants them near her at all times. Everytime I tell them to go out and have fun go on dates with "Girls" not guy friends she freaks out. I am at my wits end with this BS.

 

Is there no way to convince her that she needs to let go. She is making them like fungus. Is this a personality or metal defect. When I met her she had been on her own since 14 because she didn't get along with her mother.

[missdeathwish]

I guess my best suggestion is to have your sons talk to her. If it's bothering them, and they tell her, she'll probably make more of an effort to curb her efforts to keep them in the nest. She obviously loves her boys and wants them to be happy and successful. It's possible that she thinks that they like the attention/affection.

[2sure]

I'm not sure I have advice - but did recently have a similar conversation.

I have a daughter, younger than your boys. It seems to me that many young adults these days do not have the sense of or ability to, be as independent as previous generations. For example - kids moving back home after college because the real world is too much for them. Cause for concern I think.

 

On the other hand...kids are younger these days than we were at the same age. I think its because nearly all of them are going to school longer (a college degree is required) , so more focus is spent on academics than being social or even working. The focus has to be there , they will need to compete. So our kids spend more time with that then we did. Add this to the fact that we, as the previous generation , have learned that youthful mistakes like not finishing college, getting pregnant, getting drunk , accidents ...these mistakes are easy to make but have life long affects. A child is still a child until they are finsihed with college. Its too hard these days to get all the skills life needs - school, job, social - before the age of 21-23.

 

Like I said - my daughter is still young. I anticipate having this same conversation in the future.

[EnigmaXOXO]

Is there no way to convince her that she needs to let go.

 

I don’t know, BK. Sounds like you need to figure out how to “let go”, too.

 

Just read your other threads, and seems like your resentment (or hatred, as you describe) towards you wife is starting to manifest itself in some harmful ways. And now the power struggles between the two of you are being played out through your boys.

 

You want to be “free” ... so you are imagining that your boys are somehow cuckolded like you, and by “freeing” them you might somehow live your own dreams vicariously through them.

 

Meanwhile, your wife wants the close mother/child relationship she never had growing up and might somehow be overcompensating for that by clinging to her own children for the validation and emotional support she isn’t getting from you.

 

The best advice I ever heard regarding parenting was: “Don’t ever make your children your second chance to get it right...”

[Shnuggles]

Those who know my pervious posts know I can't stand my wife and for good reason. We just had another all out argument about cutting the apron strings for my 19 year old son. I want him and his younger brother to be self sufficient and independent. My other wants them near her at all times.

 

Wow. I understand your point but I believe the problem is with the family communication. Why dont the 4 of you sit down at dinner and talk about it like a family?

[LucreziaBorgia]

When I met her she had been on her own since 14 because she didn't get along with her mother.

 

Knowing this, and judging from your hatred and contempt for her why would it surprise you that she would overcompensate with her own children, and cling to them in a subconscious effort to be the mother that her own mother never was?

 

I'm sure she is well aware that once her kids are gone, your family will be basically over, she will be left with just you. And I'm sure that is a depressing thought for her.