How to Deal with Your Husband's Dependence on His Family

According to SAEDNEWS, one of the issues some couples face in their married life is the husband's excessive dependence on his family, which can lead to serious conflicts. If your husband is also highly dependent on his family, this topic is important for you.

Husband's Dependence on His Family

A husband's dependence on his family, especially his mother, is one of the most common reasons for seeking psychological and counseling services. If you don't want to face such a problem in the future, take this issue seriously from the beginning of your courtship or engagement. Before anything else, you must be sure of his dependence and then decide whether to marry or not.

One of the questions to consider during courtship and engagement is how dependent your partner is on his family, especially his mother. To answer this question, you need to differentiate between several concepts that might be mistaken for dependence:

Affection or Dependence?

Before anything else, you must understand the difference between affection for family, including parents, and dependence on them. Everyone, including you, has affection for their parents and family. However, the difference between affection and dependence is that, for example, you can be affectionate towards your parents and still manage yourself independently miles away from them. But if you are dependent on them, you won't last long away from them, you feel empty without them, and you feel incapable of handling problems alone. Another significant difference is that those with affection have natural self-esteem, whereas dependents need their family's approval to feel valued. Your suitor or fiancé might be affectionate towards his mother but not dependent on her.

Respect or Dependence?

During courtship and engagement, you might notice certain behaviors in your partner. For instance, he might frequently say "with my mother's permission" in conversations or avoid standing up to his mother and responding to some unreasonable requests during engagement. These behaviors don't necessarily indicate dependence and can be due to respect. The important point to consider is that men who respect their family are also independent and don't fall apart if their family opposes them. Dependent men lack the ability to think independently and make decisions and fear losing their family's support, so they don't make any moves without their permission.

How to Recognize a Dependent Suitor?

A significant difference between affection and dependence is that those with affection have natural self-esteem, while dependents need their family's approval to feel valued.

Given the characteristics described about dependent men, it's not easy to identify dependence in a person during a few courtship sessions or one or two months of engagement. In many cases, girls trying to identify this trait on their own don't achieve much success. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to consult a marriage counselor before engagement and even before signing the marriage contract. Marriage counselors, with their skills and tests, can significantly help identify problematic traits in the other person.

Should You Marry a Dependent Suitor?

No counselor or psychologist will decide for you whether to marry a specific person or not. The final decision-maker is you. But if you consult a counselor and they, based on their findings, tell you as an independent person that your suitor is dependent or you find out through investigation that he is highly dependent on his mother, consider the following points before making your final decision:

1. Be Realistic Men who are dependent on their mothers fall into three categories:

   • Men whose mothers make life decisions for them.

   • Those whose mothers provide emotional support for them.

   • Men whose mothers resolve their disputes with their wives.

   Can you truly live with one of these men under one roof for a lifetime?

2. Evaluate the Consequences of Living with a Dependent Husband One result of marrying a man dependent on his mother is that you will always be in the second position, after your mother-in-law. Can you tolerate this situation? Another significant consequence is that his dependence opens the door to family interference in your life. Can you handle managing this interference? And finally, how long can you tolerate limited social relationships due to your husband's attachment to his mother?

3. Forget About Changing Him Over the two or three decades of your life, how much have you been able to change yourself? You've likely succeeded in some areas but certainly haven't changed 100%. So, why think you can change your husband after marriage? You might say you've seen women around you who have lived with dependent husbands for years and managed to change them with the help of counselors and psychologists. If they could, why can't I? Consider two points: first, each marriage is unique, and second, your current situation is different from those women who were already married and perhaps mothers, unaware of their husband's dependence before marriage. Breaking up a marriage is much more complex than ending an engagement or courtship.