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1. Time is going to be the only thing that shows you that. I think your relationship is fine to be a priority, but that doesn't automatically mean that what he wants to do (i.e. go see his friend) comes before what you want to do.
2. I doubt he is, see below.
3. Your FI cannot be too involved in the wedding planning. It's his day too. I think your mom is kind of overbearing and as much as you love her, you need to establish a healthy break. This is probably the source of some of his resentment.
I know you didn't want to hear premarital counseling, but quit putting it off and get it scheduled ASAP. Your FI is harboring a lot of resentment and has no idea with how to deal with it in a constructive or non-hurtful way (IE-last week's hurtful treatment of you, this week's snide comments about family) plus he needs to learn about priorities. Also, your counselor should be able to help you construct boundaries with your mom, and that is important if you want to get rid of some of FI's resentment. It may take more than counseling with a priest--consider getting a family/marriage counselor who has seen this over and over again, and knows the right way to deal with it. And if the first counselor doesn't work, try another!
Good luck!
From what you've said, I would give your FI the benefit of the doubt. It sounds like he really is prioritizing you and your relationship with one another. Spending a few days together visiting friends sounds like a great way to have some relaxing quality time without the stress of wedding planning.
It can be hard to change plans with your family or to spend even more time away when your family wants to see you, but I'd hope that they could understand that you need a little time to yourselves to reconnect and reprioritize your relationship. It should give them more confidence in you and your FI to be able tow ork through the tough times.
From what you've written, it sounds like some common issues that come up during wedding planning. Suddenly there is this big thing claiming time, attention, decisions that need to be made and money. When it becomes the focus over your relationship, it's easy to get stressed out by it.
My FI and I have spent nearly every weekend since last April with his parents, because FI has needed to be there with his father's health issues. I have realized that I can't be there every weekend, and sometimes just need a weekend away, or an extra night at our apartment before we go up there, so we can relax and enjoy some leisure time alone with work, family and wedding issues in the way of us.
I'd try to give your FI the benefit of the doubt and hopefully your family will understand. Ultimately you need to do what is right for you and your FI, and it sounds like he is making an effort by cutting back on his outside demands to focus on you.
@Labor of Love- I think you were right on the money with your advice. Your fiance is showing that he is having major issues with the lack of boundries with your mom. I think puching him to be around her when he wants to be focusing on improving YOUR relationship is just going ot make things worse at this point. Get help working through these issues, the will NEVER go away on their own.
Also, if he is willing to make compromises with you regarding his work I think you should make sure you are doing the same for him in return. I am glad to hera you guys are still working on it though, he clearly is trying to make this work and that is a great thing :)
i agree with the fellow bees, i am happy to hear that you & mr.joy have been able to slowly reconcile both of your wounds/needs.
i also agree with the others about giving your FI the benefit of the doubt. it really sounds like he's trying to focus on bettering your relationship. and although, it sucks that your mom's feelings may be hurt in the process... like you've told us in the last couple of weeks... this is a very crucial time for you and your FI and i think THAT should be your main priority.
everything else willf all into place!
Hm, well, yeah that was really jumbly! Is it possible these are already committments he already made so he's just following through?
And yes, your spouse needs to come first...he's right, it's possible you can't spenD EVERY holdiay together with your family...because you two are family now. It was a weird realization for me to come to. And even now my mom is like "you must come see us this year b/c you weren't here last year....he needs to share you" etc. but it's just not always feasible with the travel.
Chances are, he's mentally made it to the poitn he realizes you must come first but is slowly transitioning over to the reality of it. It's sort of an awkward stage for many couples, giving up some things for more "family" time ya know?
You really can't makle everyone happy. What do you want? What does your mom want? Frankly, your mom will probably never be happy unless you live next door =]. But in reality, if you see her twice a year, is that ok? Even if it's not holidays (more expensive)...my family lives 5 hours away and we prioritize to go visit but holidays are hard to travel during. We do what we can though. And i'm thinking with the "get away" thing your FI wants....it's his way of saying life is stressing him out and he wants to get away with you. I wouldn't read into it any more than that. He probably thinks a mini vacay would be good for yoru relationship.
Just looking at the big picture before any specific advice: you two are dealing with the hard questions that every long-term couple needs to answer: how do you divide time between his family, your family, and just you two? When both families want to spend the holidays with you, how do you divide the time? How do you make sure you treat both families equally without counting every visit? How do you balance work and spending time with your SO? What is the right equilibrium between being demanding on his time and being a caring partner?
These aren't easy questions. Each couple needs to find the right answer for them. This takes hard conversations, trial and error, and most importantly, time. FI and I had to work our way through these same exact issues and it was very frustrating at times. We We talked, sometimes we yelled, we tried one thing and then another, and slowly, we have come to a good place. We are on the same page about relationships with both families, about balancing work and friends and "just us" time. I can't tell you what the right answer would be for you, because it's different for each couple, but I can tell you that it took a lot of time to figure out.
I think you mentioned in another post you hadn't been dating for long. I think you haven't had time to work these issues out. I would normally advise you to have some intensive conversations to get to a good place before the wedding. But your FI doesn't like talking things out, your relationship is currently fragile, and cramming so many hard conversations into a few months doesn't sound like a good idea. Is there any way you can take more time to work through all of these issues without the pressure of the wedding date coming up so soon?
Are you happy? I mean,really HAPPY? It doesn't sound like it to me, and if you look back at all the threads you've started, just about every one of them is questioning this relationship in one form or another. I think you're trying your best to find a way to make this all work out, but you really sound miserable. Do you ever just take the time to sit back,kick your shoes off and relax? All this doubt and worry is consuming you and I'm not sure why you can't see it or feel it or even acknowledge it.
Smyley--at the moment, no. I'm stressed adn worried. But I know i've been happy with my relationsihp. We were happy last night, we had fun, but I don't post about that because I'm not looking for support/answers/help with the happy stuff.
But the true happiness is where I want to get back, but we have hit a rough spot. I only post when I'm unhappy and concerned.
i'd reply more, other than THANKS!!!, but i'm at work--yikes!
I think your FI is doing the right thing here. He's taking his commitments seriously (to his work, to you). You have to take a break with these family trips you want. He needs to see that when your relationship is shaky, you will put him and his needs first the same way he is putting you first. Let that upcoming family visit go and let him take the time over Easter - the wedding stuff will get done.
I agree with snowflake. Joygirl, sometimes we DO need to take a break from wedding plans. If your FH is getting stressed, maybe you do need to respect that, as hard as it is to take a break. For you, mom is probably a break and wedding plans are more fun...right? For him, it might be a vacation that's not as comfortable because mom will always support you first. I say go with his flow this time, rest, laugh, have fun, and get back to wedding things later.
Also, you guys SO remind me of me and my fiance. I'm in college, I work for church (with youth), getting married in August, and my mom is getting a divorce and moving out right now. Sounds like you guys have a lot going on too. For me, the most important thing is your relationship and feeling well rested and ENJOYING this time in your life. Please do that, whatever you feel is best for you two. And to answer how do you please everyone? You can't. I bet that's what we're all going to learn the most in wedding planning haha. I am learning that as we speak. Good luck to you and get some rest and have fun girl ;)
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OK...........Warning: this post is chock-full of lots of things, some of which seem more related to each other than others...all are mixing around in my mind right now...
So FI and I are kind of still "getting over" our issues from last week. It's been a little over a week. We're doing better, took the past week off from wedding planning, and are just spending time on stuff we've always liked doing together. It's been mostly peaceful, but still, I can tell we are both feeling some residual stress from it, and some underlying pre-wedding nervousness that colors some of our conversations...
And I'm learning just how differently we handle stress. Me--I need to vent, sometimes to him. Him--he usually keeps it at work without needing/wanting to vent, and at home is just really quiet, occasionally moody. Last week he resigned from a demanding church job, adn the reasons he gave were: "I need to focus on myself and my upcoming wedding/marriage, get my house in order." I also overheard him say to someone: "Joygirl has to come before everything else right now." (He has 2 other well-paying part-time jobs doing computer/IT work.) The people at the church have been giving him a hard time about it, and I know this has caused him some stress--and I'm sure some of them are scrutinizing and blaming me (let them, I really don't care).
Ok, all that being said...I'm trying to be patient and see what he means when he says: "At this point, Joygirl has to come before everything else," etc...
Especially since he's still doing work for the church during a weekend when I wanted him to go visit my family with me.
Also, the week after Easter is my spring break; I wanted us to spend those free days with my family, getting some wedding stuff done. But FI wants to fly to visit an old friend of his for a couple days after Easter, before returning and doing wedding plans with my mom. He said: "As important as it is to spend time together with your family, right now I think it's more important to spend time together just us. We need to take a break from anything stressful and get away together for a couple days." While it would be easier if he would go with the flow, I do appreciate what he's saying and that he thinks it's valuable for us to take a break from everyone/everything else.
So...I know my mom is going to get upset about this, since I moved far away to be near FI, and we're moving even further away after the wedding, and she has felt left out of the wedding plan process and it's been hard for her since she lives 10 hours away...and FI had to add the comment, "You know, we won't always spend every holiday with your family our whole lives..."
A few things:
1. I want to trust him to put his money where his mouth is, as far as prioritizing our relationship. Why? He sees all his jobs as demanding his time and attention, and sometimes I feel like he perceives ME the same way--making demands on him, especially when he is stressed.
2. I hope he's not suddenly "keeping score" of how much time we've spent with MY family over HIS in our relationship, and resenting/wanting to change things.
3. I want my mom to be supportive whatever we do and not make me doubt my FI. She knows we have fought before, has seen me hurt, and she has expressed that she thinks he's a little overinvolved in wedding plans, (he is kind of a "Groomzilla") so she is pretty protective of me and wants to see him involve himself in my family, and most importantly treat me well. (And no, I didn't tell her about all the issues from last week).
Can you tell there are still some issues? Does this seem like a jumbled mess of contradictions? I'm still not feeling completely secure with him, and we're getting back to a peaceful/secure/happy place, and hopefully even stronger than where we were before.
How do you handle the balance between what your FI/H wants, what you want, what your family wants? How do you keep everyone happy?
(AND--before anyone recommends premarital counseling, let me say this: We are planning to meet with the priest who is marrying us a few times, and we are planning to read/work through a premarital counseling book together.)