Q. My wife and I have just been recently married in Sep 05. She has an 9 year old child when she was 21 years old. She has never been away from him except for a few weekends over the 9 years and he has done everything with her. She is now 30 years old.We recently went back to my home town for a week without her son for my grandfather funeral. My home town is on the other side of the country, as we live in Canada, to it was far away. She was upset everyday, short, moody the entire trip and told me everyday that she missed her son ect.. and would start to cry. She even called him every night. I am in the Military and have been away for a month one time and she has never acted this way when I went away ect… I was suppose to go on a course for 3 weeks and she did not act this way prior to me leaving and it was no big deal to her. But my course was cancelled just prior to me leaving. We have been together for about 1 1/2 and how she treats her son compared to how she treats me has been an issue. She can do lots for her son, emotionally and physically, but she can’t do the same for me. We are going on our honeymoon tomorrow to Asia and she has been excited. But she is always concerned about her son on every level to the point where it is overwhelming. He son always has to be included in everything we do and she seldom makes time for us for outings ect… I have to almost beg her for that and it happens maybe once every 2 months, if I am lucky. But she has no problem doing this with her son. We both work shift work and her son often has to stay with his grandparents or we have a sitter stay overnight about 1-2 nights a week.She has been counting down our honeymoon for the past month and has seemed excited. Like I said, she hardly ever makes alone time or arranges for us to have outing or alone time if it will exclude or interrupt her son in any way. I do not agree with this as we need our time as well. For the past few days, she has been crying, uncontrollably and she said she does not know why, and telling me that she knows everything will be OK ect.. but she is crying over her son and missing him ect.. This is our honeymoon. I tell her this is about us for once. Not about him. If she does this on our honeymoon, I will be very disappointed ect.. and I have told her this.I have an undergrad BA in Psyc from the University of New Brunswick and I am wondering if this is a form of separation anxiety? Do you have any suggestions as to how I can help her overcome this problem?
A. Oh my friend, it is you that has the problem. How would you feel if you had raised a daughter alone, been with her everyday of her life and then your new wife was jealous of her and the time and love you have for her?
Here is the dead giveaway. “She even called him every night.”
Even! You find that excessive? If she were my client, I would have recommended calling him at least three times a day. I do sincerely hope that your unhealthy attitudes toward your wife and her child have not and will not ruin your chances for happiness with this woman. Try and understand how she feels. Of course she does more for him than you because you can do more for yourself, you are not a child. Honestly, I would hope that you get some counseling to help you understand the proper feelings and behaviors for this situation. Don’t be mad at me for telling you the truth. If you understand my message you will know that I am only trying to help you find happiness.
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