How to Deal with Overly-Critical In-Laws - Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg

so the wife asked my in-laws are overly critical and do not treat me kindly or with respect at all and you know otherwise we have a good marriage my I really I love my husband but I want to cut off my in-laws 100 percent and and my husband really doesn't want me to how do we deal with this issue one of the things that we emphasize that Emmett is the importance of working on children by it before the problems begin and I've had the opportunity to give a class to couples a private class before the wedding probably close to 200 times different couples and when I hear a situation where this talk of cutting off a family member which is if you think about it one of the most cruel and terrible things that should ever happen to a family member that they're being cut off by another family member I would say that first and foremost the fact that it got to that point means a real failure in the couple in the community to help people are working on relationships and I really want to give a Kazakh birth to all you who came here tonight to work on your relationships because it's you who are committed to making the effort to doing a little bit more that really is what solidifies and keeps clients all together so I would just suggest two points one I found with couples that I've been helping over the years that very often not consciously but subconsciously the couple will actually get their in-laws involved or their spouses in-laws involved and they don't even realize that they're doing it and sometimes they're not they don't have the proper maybe communication skills to communicate with their spouse so when their mother-in-law asked them how are things going they'll give certain implications that will actually encourage the in-laws to get involved so sometimes I think we do have to look into ourselves because I do find that when a couple has proper Sholem bias and respect with each other except in very very rare circumstances the parents and in-laws will not get involved or not get involved too much I do find it's a certain scenario that I see this all the time where this particular in issue with guys and it's particularly an issue with guys who with men who are nice people who have good me dote they get stuck in the following situation they feel stuck between their mother and their wife and they feel that if they do something a little bit nicer for their wife their mother feels like they're a traitor and if they do something a little bit nicer for their mother their wife says you're mama's boy and the guy is stuck and a little bit this way a little bit that way and he's frustrated he's stuck and very often when I see guys do in that situation is they blame their wife for making a problem with their mother they blame their mother for making a problem with their wife and they go hang out with their friends and that's not the right solution I think that so much so many issues in showing by it can be prevented if we realize that we're not gonna make everybody happy all the time not our spouse and not our in-laws and not our parents but it's about finding balance so much of what Tory wants from us is the ShamWow SMS is to have a balanced life and what that means is is that there are times when as rabbi Nero said we have to make sure our spouse knows that they're number one but sometimes it means that the key bit of aim comes in we have to take care of our parents but we always have to make sure our spouse knows that they're number one at the same time and our spouse will truly respect us for navigating that complicated field just a quick example let's say a couples married six months mother calls her son and she says it's a 10 o'clock at night they live maybe a half a mile from each other and she says my son whatever she calls him some sweet name please the light in the hallway went on you're the only one you're so tall you're only one who can change it you know you don't want mama to fall and what is he supposed to do they were that's a gonna go to sleep soon and now he's gonna go to his mother's house he hasn't seen her in a few days and you know what that means it's disrespectful just to change the lightbulb he has to stay and eat some food and he has to talk and this and that and it's gonna be an issue with Michelle and bite so I would suggest in that situation that he maketh such bone and figure out is she actually in danger or can she keep the bathroom light out or something else to keep her out of danger and he should say to her I'll come in the morning and he should get up a half hour earlier and actually go in the morning to change the light bulb and if he doesn't do that he's actually gonna create a shaman by issue on all different sides but if he does do that right thing it's gonna make things better all around all right so you know one things I want to mention like we hear this like at almost every sheva brothel and vise cage everyone says that if you need Hashem in your marriage but if you take you know the you wood and the hay out of each and each show you're left with an ace you're left with fire so a lot of people think that means like oh we have to be religious to have a good marriage well I'm not saying that's true or false but what really you have to do is to put a Shem in your marriage is to dive in to have a successful marriage you got problems with your mother-in-law ladies you better dive in for that to be resolved gentlemen you feel your wife is now you too much you got a braid to shrimp please a shrimp help me right we need to be able to dive into Shem in order to improve our marriage reminds me my first the first show and by question I ever got was when I was asked what should I do to encourage my husband to go learn more and I told the girl you want your husband to learn more Torah dive into Shem your husband should be able to learn more Torah because how can a Shem say nose to that prayer and we have to always remember if we really want something in our marriage we have to include a Shem we have to dive into Shem to answer it's a few loads or it's a few lows [Music] you [Applause]