You’re pushing your children away
DOM SAYS:
THANK you very much for your letter and congratulations on such a long marriage — this is no mean feat!
I think you are faced with two different problems. The first is the perennial issue of tricky inter-family relationships.
We all know there can be different dynamics between mothers and sons and fathers and daughters. It’s a cliché to talk about Daddy’s Girls and Mummy’s Boys, but it’s a cliché for a reason. Your husband has a very close relationship with his daughters, and it’s different from their relationship with you.
I’m sure that’s quite hard to manage, and I feel you might be a little bit jealous. Perhaps the first step in combating this might be to accept that it’s totally normal for your husband to interact differently with his girls than he does with his wife.
In your longer letter, you complain that he calls them several times a day. Well, I assume your daughters do ask after you on those calls, too. I’m sorry you’re feeling left out. Which brings me to what I think is the main issue here. Simply put, you are suffering from not being part of The Gang. And that can be painful.
I’ve been at parties where everyone else has been drinking, but I’ve not touched a drop. The sober person ends up on a different plane from everyone else, wondering what they’re all laughing about, thinking: ‘Why’s that funny? I don’t get it.’
The thing to realise is that your family are not deliberately excluding you. What I think you should do is try to change your attitude and modify your behaviour a bit, too. Of course, I’m not about to suggest you take up drinking. Instead, acknowledge that you won’t want to stay out late if they’re three sheets to the wind. But rather than pouring cold water on their party, simply leave gracefully. Let them have their fun. Don’t impose a curfew on your husband. Just slope off with a smile and a ‘see you later’.
You are pushing your children away by souring the end of their evening. To get your daughters back on side, leave them be. Don’t tell them what to do, or what time to go home.
Accept there will be times when your socialising as a family works, and times when it doesn’t. So retreat from them when they’re in party mode. Change your reaction — and they will, in turn, change their behaviour.