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Responsibility for Child
Our family planned a weekend get-away to meet friends from out of town, but our 15yo son found out he would not be able to attend at the last minute. He is a responsible kid, honor student and has never been in any trouble. My wife and I agreed he would be fine staying home alone to take care of himself for two days; however, she is insisting on boarding our dog. I think that it is reasonable to expect that a 15yo is responsible enough to watch a dog, but my wife says that unless we board the dog she is going to stay home. She is firm in this. The upshot is that we are going to board the dog as not going is not an option. That said, I am angry that she does not trust our kid to watch our dog as this is not a big responsibility. Am I being unreasonable here?
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Could she be thinking back to herself at that age and her dropping the ball on being the only one responsible to look after something, whether pet car or not, and memories like that can cause her to automatically not trust the son based on her own past and viewing this all through the past, not the individual in question. This is most likely what is causing this.
There is another possible issue, and that would be her generally not being a trusting person, slow to trust you or anyone and after this much marriage, would be obvious to you if she is holding back often, not eager to try new things, etc. and may be a mental health issue that a therapist should be helping her work out. There are many strange mental things people do that don't fall under mental disabilities or diseases. Most people do it once in a while but some people do it all the time, allowing distorted thinking to run their lives.
I have adult kids and remember their teen years. I remember giving them adult responsibilites a little at a time and to me, watching the house and or pet while parents are away is such a learning event. How else do teens learn how to be an adult. I sat with my daughter as she had to make a call regarding a problem with her savings account or some such thing. She wanted me to make the call but like me, learns better from doing a task than hearing and being told or reading a how to manual. So I sat by her, helped her find the number and if they asked something she didn't understand, she could ask them to hold while she asked me for hel[p, but I helped her do this sort of thing for the first time in her life and she never needed my help again on such a thing.
What I do not know is the reason your son can not attend. Does he have to work? Does he have tickets to a concert for one of those nights? Depending on the reason, your wife may be thinking that the son will possibly not have enough time to feed the dog, let it out for potty, pay it attention and play. How long is the dog spend on its own during the week when your'e at work and the kid at school? If the time your son may not be able to be with the dog is the same amount of time or less, there is no reason why he can't do the job. Then again, there are plenty of opportunities to give your son a chance to learn adult responsiblity and a one time watching the dog so it isn't boarded, is just one chance, there will be many more if both parents are looking for it. Sounds more like instead of just taking life day to day with the son, it may be best for all concerned if you and wife sit down and have a good talk and come to some agreements as to what things you can give your son to do to learn adult responsibility. If she still doesn't want to, you could talk about the things given to do are not so crucial that it would be a disaster if he messes up. The way most learn is from messing up at first and slowing getting better as in school grades starting as a D or C and ending up at an A or B. I don't know if I'd make a big deal over it right as you go for this weekend. But board the dog and afterwards, have a good talk and find out what her issues are. She may not even be aware that there are issues on her side. Maybe if she reads, a book on parenting teens with chapters on trust and responsibilities. If the two of you can't come to an agreement together because she doesn't see what the issue is, it may be time to suggest you both going to a couples counselor...not because of a bad marriage but for both of you to hear and learn from therapist the entire how to's of giving responsibilty to a teen for the purpose of getting them ready for when they become an adult legally at 18. Too many 18 and 19 yr olds write in, terrified because the parents always did everything and they know nothing, not even how to do laundry or cook and now colleges are offering classes to 20 somethings to learn the basics they should have known already before reaching age 18. Since the two of you are not on the same page, I hope she is willing to work towards it, otherwise, if you continue on with the problem still there, you'll be giving the son permission for something when Mom says No that he's not ready and there will be future war between the two of you. This may be the only thing wrong in your marriage and its otherwise great. But you both have to look at this as to how it will affect your son. If not, I am afraid there will be problems tearing up your relationship with wife in these years as the son reaches 18 and the years after until he reaches mid twenties when for all of us, the frontal cortex of the brain is finally done growing and is now mature so the person makes better decisions. Mine are all past 25 and it is great to watch my kids manuever adult hood real well. I wish the same for. Anger will not change the situation, it is a wasted emotion to me. Not unless it is anger felt in the middle of something you see happening where you take action to s top something, is anger good to get one off their butt and caring. I think of it as Jesus angry at the money changers in the temple, protesting and wrecking their sales stalls right as it was happening. He did not get angry thinking about it for days after, because at that point, it would have been after the fact. You are angry after the wife put her foot down about this, boarding the dog, she has already decided to not go along with your plan and anger will not change this one situation. However having a counselor point out what is good but what is also wrong with her thinking on giving responsibility or more to the point, the lack of it. If she wont go, then you go and learn how to work with a stubborn wife or misguided one, whatever the real problem is.
In the end, I see your anger as making sense to feel it, and not unreasonable. But I also know that anger will only make you feel worse, raise the blood pressure, maybe raise walls between you and wife, bring on resentment, etc. and that is not good for you. I'd like best if this anger is what motivates you to start a counseling process, perhaps going alone until she warms up to the idea and joining you.
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