Dispute About Where to Live

[basil67]

1 hour ago, BaileyB said:

Is that not essentially what has happened here?

Lets not forget, there are cultures in this world where the women are the head of the household. Men move into their wife’s family home. Just because OP happened to be born into a society that has a history of being more “paternalistic” does not make it the natural or right way of being...

Ah, thanks, I missed the last sentence of the first post.   This was always going to be the outcome and no degree of patriarchal traditions would have avoided it.  

[basil67]

1 hour ago, Wave Rider said:

This sounds like the relationship scorecard: "I made XYZ sacrifice for you and now you owe me something."  She did compromise but wasn't happy about it and spent years not letting it go.  If the other way around had happened - if they had stayed in Colorado - my dad would have spent all my teenage years complaining about the cold and talking about how he wished he lived in a warm climate.  No resolution either way.  Either decision would have been a win-lose.    

It would only be a win-lose in terms of that individual argument.  Overall, the result is lose-lose because of the resentment carried in the marriage as a whole. 

[Wave Rider]

1 hour ago, basil67 said:

Lastly, your parents poor marriage would have been the cause of the disconnect on where to move.  I love my husband and respect him - so I'd follow him to the ends of the earth.  And he'd follow me.   But if I didn't love or respect him, I'd dig my heels in so that I could be close to people who I did love.  If, under a patriarchal society, I was forced to leave the people I did love, I'd probably try to figure out something with my parents so that he could go and I could stay.

I think this is probably the best answer.  The issue of where to live was more of a surface disagreement masking a much deeper underlying problem, namely the lack of emotional intimacy, support, and closeness in their marriage.  I think that if my mother had been generally pleased with her relationship with my dad then she probably would have followed him to a warmer climate without much objection.  And if my dad had been more supportive and emotionally available he would have encouraged my mom to visit her parents more frequently.  

As it was, my dad was emotionally distant and withdrawn, which made my my mom very unhappy.  And my mom was very critical and verbally emasculating towards my dad, which made him withdraw even more. .And then there was me, the child wondering why my parents ever wanted to be married in the first place or why they wanted to have children such as myself if they were so miserable and unhappy with each other.  

[BaileyB]

2 minutes ago, Wave Rider said:

I think this is probably the best answer.  The issue of where to live was more of a surface disagreement masking a much deeper underlying problem, namely the lack of emotional intimacy, support, and closeness in their marriage.  I think that if my mother had been generally pleased with her relationship with my dad then she probably would have followed him to a warmer climate without much objection.  And if my dad had been more supportive and emotionally available he would have encouraged my mom to visit her parents more frequently.  

As it was, my dad was emotionally distant and withdrawn, which made my my mom very unhappy.  And my mom was very critical and verbally emasculating towards my dad, which made him withdraw even more. .And then there was me, the child wondering why my parents ever wanted to be married in the first place or why they wanted to have children such as myself if they were so miserable and unhappy with each other.  

^^^ It becomes a vicious circle, unfortunately. 

[snowboy91]

14 hours ago, Wave Rider said:

Egalitarian marriage has no such tool for resolving disputes.  If a dispute arises in an egalitarian marriage and all efforts to come to an agreement fail, then the couple has no choice but to either accept a win-lose solution, or to break up.  I'm not convinced that this system produces overall better outcomes for relationships than the patriarchy system.  If you think it does, make your case for why you think that, in the case of an unresolvable dispute, it's better to break up the family than than to have one person have the final say (the man in patriarchy).   

 

The key point here is whether "all efforts to come to an agreement fail". Ideally when there's a dispute, you would explore all avenues and be open as to what you are willing to compromise. If you get to the point where it all fails, it's a pretty big problem regardless of whether you have an egalitarian marriage or a patriarchal one. In the former, it's as you describe - accept a win-lose or separate. In the latter, the woman has to simply put up with the decision and breed resentment, which doesn't make for a happy marriage anyway.

Which leads to another point - the vibe I'm getting is that breaking up the family is the worst thing that can happen to it. From experience, doing so respectfully is probably going to be a better outcome than forcing the family to stay together despite the parents hating each other. 

[Ruby Slippers]

18 hours ago, Wave Rider said:

And then there was me, the child wondering why my parents ever wanted to be married in the first place or why they wanted to have children such as myself if they were so miserable and unhappy with each other.  

I felt the same way about my parents as a child. If they're so unhappy and such disengaged parents, why did they get married and have kids at all? 

You have to consider that some individuals would be varying degrees of unhappy whether single or coupled. So it's more of the same when they get married.

Though my parents' marriage has it flaws, it has it benefits to them both as well. If nothing else, they're not alone, they have a partner in life no matter how flawed, and, not to pat myself on the back too hard, but they produced a loving daughter who's a light in their lives in their golden years. All flawed, but still not too shabby.

[Wave Rider]

8 hours ago, snowboy91 said:

Which leads to another point - the vibe I'm getting is that breaking up the family is the worst thing that can happen to it. From experience, doing so respectfully is probably going to be a better outcome than forcing the family to stay together despite the parents hating each other. 

I think that breaking up a family is justified in cases where the marriage is irredeemable and where one or both people consistently refuse to confront their problems.  I think that it would probably not be justified to break up an otherwise happy family over the (in that case) relatively trivial dispute of what city to live in.  

I have sometimes thought about whether I wish that my parents had gotten a divorce.  I don't have a good answer for that.  I think that staying together has been better for them in the long term, because they are relatively happy now.  I sometimes think it would have been better for me as a child/adolescent if they'd gotten divorced so I wouldn't have to see a relationship that had a tremendous amount of ongoing hostility and conflict.    

[Wave Rider]

1 hour ago, Ruby Slippers said:

I felt the same way about my parents as a child. If they're so unhappy and such disengaged parents, why did they get married and have kids at all? 

You have to consider that some individuals would be varying degrees of unhappy whether single or coupled. So it's more of the same when they get married.

Though my parents' marriage has it flaws, it has it benefits to them both as well. If nothing else, they're not alone, they have a partner in life no matter how flawed, and, not to pat myself on the back too hard, but they produced a loving daughter who's a light in their lives in their golden years. All flawed, but still not too shabby.

I'm struggling with this quite a bit, and maybe I'll have to start a separate thread for it.  My parents' bad behavior was tremendously emotionally damaging to me, and I've had to go through a lot of therapy and self-help work to deal with all the emotional problems I inherited from growing up in my family.   I have also had tremendous difficulty with forming my own romantic relationships, as I continue to fall in love with emotionally unavailable women.  This has continued even after all the self-help and therapy work I've done with trying to get secure attachment.  I'm actually quite angry at my parents about this.   

Edited February 23, 2021 by Wave Rider

[Happy Lemming]

Do you live with your parents??

If not, are you happy with your current location??

[Ruby Slippers]

34 minutes ago, Wave Rider said:

My parents' bad behavior was tremendously emotionally damaging to me, and I've had to go through a lot of therapy and self-help work to deal with all the emotional problems I inherited from growing up in my family.   I have also had tremendous difficulty with forming my own romantic relationships, as I continue to fall in love with emotionally unavailable women.  This has continued even after all the self-help and therapy work I've done with trying to get secure attachment.  I'm actually quite angry at my parents about this.   

I totally relate. How old are you?

At a certain point, you have to realize that you're a grown-up now and while you cannot change the past or the conditions you were born into, you can change your present and future. Some metaphysical teachers remind us that major challenges in life make us stronger, more compassionate to the suffering of others, which are good qualities.

I finally got some counseling in my 30s to begin to deal with the trauma from my family of origin. It helped a lot. I'd benefit from even more counseling, but these days I mostly do self-development work, while relying on a few wise mentors for guidance. 

[Wave Rider]

3 hours ago, Ruby Slippers said:

I totally relate. How old are you?

At a certain point, you have to realize that you're a grown-up now and while you cannot change the past or the conditions you were born into, you can change your present and future. Some metaphysical teachers remind us that major challenges in life make us stronger, more compassionate to the suffering of others, which are good qualities.

I finally got some counseling in my 30s to begin to deal with the trauma from my family of origin. It helped a lot. I'd benefit from even more counseling, but these days I mostly do self-development work, while relying on a few wise mentors for guidance. 

I'm not sure yet how to respond.  I'll have to think about it more.