Your Parenting Values Must Align For Your Relationship To Work

Why your parenting vales must align for your relationship to work.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who married his girlfriend after four years together. They both have children from other relationships. Her kids don’t like him and she asked him to move out. He wants to make the marriage work, but she never backs up anything he says to the kids.

Her family says he’s the problem. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Interestingly enough, when you look at divorce data, a big reason why people split up is they can’t agree on how to parent their children. Their values are just too different. In this particular email, this guy married his girlfriend after four years together. They both have children from other relationships. Her kids don’t like him and she asked him to move out. He wants to make the marriage work, but she never backs up anything he says to her kids. Her family says he’s the problem.

So one thing I did notice in here is he was calling her son names, which you can’t do that. You can’t treat kids that way. You can’t insult them and belittle them. Yeah, they may do something stupid, he called them a name. I was like, “Man, I would never do that.” So let’s go through his email, because this is important. If you’re conservative and you’re dating a woman that’s like far left and buys into all the woke ideology, and you want to raise your child to be more conservative, and she disagrees vehemently, you’re going to have problems.

I got a friend of a friend. This guy, I won’t say which service, but he’s former Special Forces, had a son, lived in California, and after he got out, his wife basically trans their son behind his back, and he didn’t even know it until it was too late. Obviously he wasn’t happy because he’s conservative and she’s kind of a far left loon. She did all this behind his back, turned their child against him to the point where the child wants nothing to do with him anymore, and they ended up getting divorced. So now he doesn’t have a wife and he doesn’t have a child anymore, because the kids basically disowned him because he didn’t support the child being trans behind his back with the teachers and the counselors at school.

Like you hear things like that and it’s like, man, you feel for that guy. He had no choice, but he married somebody whose values differed. Then push came to shove, as the child got older and the mother had more influence because he was working a lot, he was working in the defense industry, it’s just like, God, that’s just awful to have to deal with that. So they had a really nasty, contentious divorce that lasted for a couple of years and just cleaned them out financially. They basically made the lawyers rich with his nest egg, and that just fucking sucks. If you make a bad choice, that’s going to be a problem. So you got to keep stuff like that in mind.

I had other clients going through the same issue. They’re conservative, they’re dating a liberal woman, and the more they hang out with people that are liberal and feminist and have boss-girl energy, the girl comes back with more of that feminist boss-girl energy and clashes happen. When they’re in the process, they’re thinking about marrying that person. Like one of the things that one of my clients was talking about was vaccines and talking about COVID, and he was like, “If that was to happen again, there’s no way I’m letting my kids get injected,” and she says, “Well, I would just take the kids to get injected behind your back.” She literally said that to him. I was like, “Dude, she doesn’t respect you. Doesn’t respect your authority. She’s going to do what she wants.”

So if you have a disagreement on something like that, she don’t care. She’s self-righteous and she’s going to disobey her man and she’s going to go do things like that. If a woman’s not going to submit to you and follow your leadership, trust your leadership, it’s not the right girl for you. It’s super important, but this guy, he’s married now at this point.

Viewer Email:

Hi Corey,

I’ve followed your work for about a year-and-a-half and read How To Be A 3% Man four times.

Well, why not 10 to 15?

My situation might be different from most of the dating stories you cover.

Well, it’s relationship stories. The website is UnderstandingRelationships.com, not understanding dating. You always have to date and court your wife. Otherwise somebody else will.

After four years of being together, I married my wife last year. We both have two kids from previous marriages. She was a former model, actress, and singer, and I’m a guitarist who has played in several bands. We met right before the COVID lock-down, began writing music together, and released about fifteen songs during that period. Music became our strongest bond. Our connection has always been passionate and our sex life amazing, but over time our blended-family dynamics have created serious tension.

Her teenage son was recently diagnosed with severe OCD.

I assume that’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. It’s like, everything that’s happened with Bobby Kennedy, all this stuff that’s coming out, we all kind of always known what the issue is with all these things, especially when you look at the fact that, what was it? Like one in 26,000 would get Autism 40, 50 years ago? Now it’s like one in 30, one and 26. It’s like, what’s changed? Her teenage son was recently diagnosed with severe OCD.

Through my work insurance I arranged treatment for him at a top behavioral health clinic that saved her family thousands of dollars.

That was a nice thing to do.

My wife also suffers from multiple sclerosis and often can’t handle everything on her own, so she has relied heavily on me to take the lead as a stepfather with rides, school, medical coverage, and financial support. She also supports most of her children’s needs, but lately the kids don’t want me around. Her parenting style is very accommodating and over-pleasing, with no consequences for bad behavior, while my boundaries often seem too strict.

Well again, in a marriage, you and your wife need to be like this. You and your relationship with your wife comes before the relationship with the children, because a house that is divided against itself will not stand. If the kids are able to interfere and get in between the two of you, your marriage is not going to last. You can’t allow that. You guys have to have a united front. You have to get together and agree on how you’re going to parent, and then you implement what you agree on. If she’s fighting you and going the other direction, it’s just not going to work. Especially if that’s the way she wants to be. Just like the you know, the girl that I was talking about that pose for Playboy, she was just a mess.

I had another girlfriend who was a great mom. Their fucking family was amazing, and I was so grateful that I had the opportunity to date her when I was young, get to be a stepdad, help watch her daughter and be a part of her life growing up into her teenage years and get to be a part of that because it was a great gift because again, her family was so tight. Her brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, everybody hung out together and they were closest to other people in the family.

So like when I started dating her, it’s like I basically got adopted by the family and I’m still that way. I’m still part of the family. We still tell each other, “I love you,” and we see each other and talk, and we’ll always be a part of each other’s family for life. You know, it was a great bond that will last for the rest of our lives, and I got to see what happened. My girlfriend and I were totally united. We would get together and talk about how certain things needed to be. Sometimes her daughter would try to get in between us to cause issues or whatever, and we had a united front because you got to be on the same page together. Her and I had the same values, and her daughter was an angel. You just tell her what you wanted her to do and she would do it. There was no spanking or anything like that, because she got so much love from her mom, her aunts, her uncles, her grandparents and her cousins. She respected everybody.

I mean, everybody in her family was in law enforcement, which was great too, because you had a lot of strong alpha type dudes in the family, very masculine guys, and they all had hot wives and hot girlfriends. I learned a lot just from observing them interacting with their significant others. So it is a gift when you see that versus the girl that posed for Playboy, whose family is just a mess. The house was a mess. I was like, “I’m not going to deal with that.”

So it’s important when you’re dating and you’re vetting, especially if you’re thinking about a blended family, these are things you got to pay attention to. You can’t just sweep it under the rug and assume it’s going to be great. So here, if you’re more strict and then your wife totally goes against you, that dog won’t hunt. That’s not going to work.

I do understand that her children come first…

No, you and your wife’s relationship comes first, then the children come second, because if the kids can divide you guys, it’s not going to work.

…But I believe we need to define our roles better so that love and structure can coexist without constant conflict.

One example was a night we had adult friends over for drinks. Her son started being rude and whining in front of everyone, even talking back to his mom. I told him to stop and not speak to her that way, and I called him a spoiled brat.

Don’t fucking do that. Don’t say, “You’re a spoiled brat!” Don’t do that. What you should have said is, “Son, you’re being rude. It’s not nice. We’re all having a good time here. You need to apologize to everybody. It’s the right thing to do. If you got a problem or an issue, tell us and we’ll see what we can do to help resolve it.” You know, it’s like, “You’re a spoiled brat! Get out of here!” You can’t do that, Can’t do that with kids, because all that’s going to do is be upset, and then the mom’s going to be like, “Don’t call my kid a spoiled brat!” You don’t insult your children, belittle them and put them down that way. That’s the wrong way to go about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the kid.

Yeah, but you don’t call him a spoiled brat. Don’t ever fucking do that. Your job is to fill his bucket of self-esteem so full that the world can’t poke enough holes in it to drain it dry.

We’ve gone to baseball games together and I’ve bought him video game consoles and other things he used to enjoy. But moments like that make it hard to balance discipline and love when his mom takes offense at any correction.

Well again, you and your wife need to sit down and talk that shit out. You cannot be divided in front of the children. That just does not work. I’ve been there, done that. Got the fucking t-shirt. It doesn’t work. You can’t do that. It’s not sustainable.

A recent argument was because I told her son to stop asking me questions after he was being rude and disrespectful during a ride back from his clinic. He told his mom I was being a bully, and she immediately took his side.

Well, there’s clearly issues between you and your wife.

Since then, her family has labeled me the problem, and she’s asked for a separation and for me to move out, which I did because her son can’t stand me and wants me gone.

Well, if you wanted to stay together, you shouldn’t have moved out. That was a fuck up, number one. So if you’re telling your wife you want to stay together, then she asks you to leave and then you leave, well your actions show that you don’t really want to stay and work things out.

There have been other petty arguments, and I sense growing resentment from her over the past few months.

Since the separation a month ago, she’s caught between love and guilt. Some days she ghosts me completely.

Well, you shouldn’t be over-pursuing her. I mean, at this point, you’re moved out. She’s basically put pause in the relationship. So I wouldn’t be calling or texting her at all. I would be focused on my own children, and your attitude should be, “She’s got to earn another chance with me,” not the other way around. At this point, you shouldn’t have left the house. That was your fuck up, but if things had deteriorated to the point where you guys aren’t sleeping together and she wants you out and her kids hate you, that’s not good. That’s going to be a difficult thing to fix.

Again, insulting your kids and calling them names, the other thing you got to consider is, do you really want to deal with a woman who’s got kids with all those problems? She’s got health problems, her kids have health problems. Do you really want to deal with that? You probably, I would imagine, don’t have to deal with that with your own kids, but you’re being a good guy for being a stepdad. When you just insult and belittle somebody’s children all the time, they’re not going to like you, they’re not going to respect you if they don’t like you and they’re not going to listen to you.

So the damage may already be done because you’ve moved out and she’s ghosting you. That tells me that you’re still calling and texting her and ignoring the fact that she’s not replying to you. You got to read the book 10 to 15 times, not twice. You’ve been following me for a year-and-a-half. You’ve been through the book twice. You’re not really serious about fixing this. You’re just kind of half-assing it, looking for a quick fix. It’s not going to work that way. So if she’s ghosting you, I would just let her do all the reaching out and then make dates that can lead to sex.

Other nights she texts asking if I still love her.

I would be like, “Yes, I do, but you got to make an effort to fix this.” So you got to get back to dating and courting her, and you guys got to have a heart-to-heart about how you’re going to parent going forward. Number one, you can’t be insulting your kids, belittling them and calling them names when they piss you off. You just cannot do that. That’s number one. You got to knock that shit off. Number two, she’s going to have to agree that the two of you have to have a united front. She can’t be allowing her kids to countermand her or you for that matter. If she doesn’t see it that way and she wants to be hands off, you know, let the kids basically do whatever they want, then it’s just not going to work. There’s no way to fix that because your values are completely different. You’re going to be more of a disciplinarian. I mean, you clearly have taken the disciplinarian thing too far because now her kids hate you. I never had that problem. My step kids, they love me. They call me dad.

I remember one time my girlfriend and I, we were driving in the car, I had an Infiniti Q45. So in the back seat, the armrest that came down had a little keypad in there that you could change the radio station, adjust the AC and stuff like that. So my girlfriend and I are in the middle of a conversation, and we’re driving to go hang out with our family for the day. She’s driving and I’m in the passenger seat. I think I’d been drinking already at that point because we’re going to a family event. We’re gonna be drinking, riding four wheelers and stuff like that. It was like a country thing. Shooting skeet, good fun things.

So she kept going. Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, constantly changing the radio station and the songs. I just turn around and I just said her name and I said stop. Then she stopped doing that. About a minute or two later my girlfriend looks in the back and she’s like, “Congratulations, Corey. You made my daughter cry.” I turned around, I looked and she’s bawling. I was like, “Oh man, I felt horrible.” It was like the worst I ever felt in my life. Like I wanted to throw myself out of the car on the road as we’re driving. So I apologized to her. I grabbed her leg and apologized for raising my voice at her and making her feel like I didn’t care, and told her how much I loved her, and we got through it.

This is the worst thing in the world when you’re you’re a dad, you’re a stepdad, and you make your kid cry. It’s like, that’s not fun. That sucks. So you can’t be doing things like that. It’s not going to work. Number one, you need to apologize to her children at some point for insulting them if it gets there, but you and her, when you invite her over for a date at your place, next time she reaches out, hang out, have fun and hook up, and you’re going to have to have a heart-to-heart about parenting styles and having a united front between the two of you, because this shit can’t continue this way. If she just doesn’t see it that way, doesn’t want to change her parenting, wants to basically let the kids be total jackasses and talk back to her, then your choices are to accept that and put up with it, or to just say, “I’m out. It’s not going to work.” So that’s basically where you’re at.

Again, your wife should be submitting to you and trusting your leadership. Again, you can’t be fucking calling her kids names and insulting them, belittling them and putting them down. That’s just not good. That doesn’t work. That’s not being a good dad. It’s not good parenting.

It feels like a test for reassurance and keeps pulling me into a push and pull cycle. I’ve already booked marriage counseling because I want to save our marriage and she agreed, but she continues to let her children’s emotions and her family’s opinions dictate what happens between us.

Well, if you’re going to get a marriage and couples therapist, make sure it’s somebody you both like and you both want to work with. Don’t be getting some woke woman that hates men and has no man in her life, because there’s a lot of them that go into couples therapy and they’re like that, and all they’re going to do is blow your relationship apart.

So if you’re going to get a couples therapist, it’s somebody that you both give the thumbs up to and you both feel comfortable with, and as you start to work with them, you got to feel like you’re making progress and things are getting better and when you go in there, you can’t be going in every week walking out of there more pissed off and worse than you were. So if somebody’s not helping you, fucking fire them and get somebody else. Just because they got a license from the state to be a couples therapist, doesn’t mean they’re good or they’re competent. Just because they pass the state test, again, doesn’t mean they’re good at their job.

So it’s really important the right therapist can help bring you together and save your marriage. The wrong one can fucking blow it apart. Like I said, the ones I see that really cause most damage are woke women that are therapists that have no man in their lives, they’ve got daddy issues and they fucking hate men because all they end up doing is ganging up with the woman on the man and instead of bringing the family together, they end up wrecking it. So you gotta pay attention to that. It’s very important, but she’s gotta be open to it.

The other thing is, she’s gotta defend you to her family. She’s gotta tell her family, “You need to stop talking to him that way. You need to stop belittling him,” because if you’re allowing your family to abuse your wife, she’s not going to feel safe. She’s not going to trust your masculine core. She’s not going to trust your leadership. Therefore, the legs are going to close and it’s going to have problems. So it’s your job to defend her to your family, and it’s her job to defend you to her family. So she’s going to have to give her family push-back, and anybody that stepped over the line and has been inappropriate, she’s going to have to ask those family members to apologize to you. If they don’t have anything constructive to say about your relationship, then you should limit the amount of time you spend with those people. Again, if she’s not willing to see it your way and go along with any of this, again it takes two to tango. It takes two to fix your marriage. So she has to be willing to do it.

My question is, how do I save my marriage and re-attract my wife while facing this uphill battle of her kids not wanting me around and staying out of the push-pull cycle toward me?

Thanks for all you do,

Bob

Again, you and your wife have to get together and resolve your differences first, and then you present a united front to your children. You gotta read the book, dude. Two times in a year, a year-and-a-half that you’ve been following me, it’s just shitty, piss poor effort. You’re just not taking this seriously. So how do you re-attract your wife? Well, you got to understand what’s in the book to understand what creates attraction. Your job is to create an opportunity for sex to happen. Stop chasing somebody that’s ghosting you. You shouldn’t be doing that. That tells me you don’t know the book and you’re not even following it. You’re chasing after somebody that’s blowing you off.

So I would let her do 100% of the reaching out. She fucked it up, she’s got to fix it. She’s the one that told you to move out and do the trial separation. Therefore, I’d let her do all the reaching out. I’d be following what’s in 7 Principles To Get An Ex Back in that case. Then just invite her over to make dinner, hang out, have fun and hook up, so you guys can spend some time together and repair your romance first. Then once you’ve repaired your romance and you and your wife get on the same page, then you can start working on your relationship with her kids, but she’s going to have to help facilitate that. Right now, it just sounds like she’s like, “Screw it. I’m not changing the way I parent.” So she’s basically communicating to her kids that their behavior is OK and made it acceptable for them to not like you. I mean, you haven’t helped by calling them names, but like I said, you got to cut that that shit off.

So you got an uphill battle, dude. You gotta put some time in with the book and learn the basics of attraction, because the most important thing is you hanging out, having fun, and hooking up with your wife, and getting her back to feeling in love, romancing her and getting her to agree on having a united front with the kids. Like I said, if you’re going to get a marriage and couples therapists, make sure you get a good one.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.