Ask uncle Joe: I dislike her chat about her peers
I dislike the persistent conversations about my wife’s out with the girls. How can I tell her? Jameson M.
Dear Jameson, Unfortunately, you have not told me how long your marriage has existed. The reason why this matters is because if your marriage is new, your wife may not have found yet fellow married women to socialise with and feels comfortable to be in touch with her former friends.
There is a saying, “birds of a feather flock together.” She may have to pick up slowly on making new friends in her new life who will fill her conversations. The same may apply to you because it may be difficult for an unmarried man to move closely with the married man. One will always find friends in their category to share with them intimately.
As you stay together for long, you realise that there are circumstances which slowly lead you to associate with fellow married people for instance, children. The coming of the first baby is really challenging to most new couples. This gets them to move closer to the older couples asking them how they did it so that they may also try it out. This results in relationships with the people of your calibre. With time, she will feel out of place to go out with the girls because their interests would be different. You may have to give her time to wean off slowly from that group of people.
However, if your marriage has taken some time and she is still doing that, you may have to let your interests known to her. She converses about the girls is because she knows you are free about it. Nevertheless, you sound like you have never disclosed to her how you feel about this issue and therefore she is doing it innocently which may be wrong. This may hurt her feelings if she discovers it. She may think you are not open to her and it may cause issues in your marriage. There maybe issues of discomfort to her that she may have been disclosing to you to adjust which if you don’t do the same to her she may feel betrayed.
Marriage is all about relationships and especially for two of you. If you create time to listen to each other, you may be able to find several solutions to several issues of discomfort.
You can also seek further help from a professional counsellor.
Joseph Musaalo is a counselling psychologist
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