Wife [37F] keeps trying to join our daughter's [14F] teenage sleepovers. Upset that I [40M] am not supporting her.

So some background, we've been married almost 15 years. Our oldest daughter is 14, younger son is 10. My wife is currently a SAHM and has been for the past decade. I feel like she's going through a personal crisis right now where our youngest has become fiercely independent and so is our oldest, so she feels like she's losing her babies. Nonetheless, I think the way she's dealing with it is very harmful to our kids and I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place because she refuses to get any therapy/counseling (believe me I've tried) and our kids are becoming increasingly distant from their overbearing mother. I can only do so much to mediate things but I'm feeling stuck.

Our daughter, basically in the past year, has made a very close group of friends and they like to have girls sleepovers every Friday. It's a great development from elementary where she had very few friends and felt lonely. She's at the age where she likes to do things with her friends alone (like see movies, go to the mall, etc) and what I always do is drop her off and pick her up at a predetermined time. This is what all her friends' parents do as well.

Anyways, recently my wife has gotten more and more upset because she wants to join our daughter on their sleepovers. At first it started off as my wife wanting our daughter to host all sleepovers at our house, which was fine, but daughter quickly changed her mind when she realized mom was there ALL the time. I tried to make her come upstairs with me and just hang out in the kitchen/living room/whatever while the girls played in the basement downstairs but my wife refused. She HAD to be down there with the rest of the girls, she'd even bring down her own blankets/pillows to sleep with them. Obviously our daughter was upset and embarrassed and now refuses to have sleepovers at our own house. Wife is in denial about why though and insists that it's because daughter's friends are too bossy.

So now the biggest issue has to do with my wife wanting to go with our daughter on her sleepovers away. She insists that she just wants to keep an eye on the girls and she's worried about them looking up inappropriate things on the internet or discussing inappropriate things. She says she feels the other parents aren't responsible enough and that's why she needs to go. This has been a huge thing between mom and daughter, with our daughter now actively avoiding her mom even at home.

I'm really frustrated because I tell my wife that we need to get some counseling for her anxiety/unfounded fears and yet she blows up at me. She claims that I'm not supporting her enough on this one matter (barging in on sleepovers) and that we need to be a united front to the other parents. She once showed up at our daughter's friends house (during a sleepover) demanding to be let in. I didn't even know this because she told ME she was going to the grocery store. The friends' parents flat out refused and told her to go home in a rude manner, so she came home crying to me saying that we needed to confront them as a team. I refused as well.

Honestly what is left for me to do if my wife A) refuses therapy/counseling for her fears and B) won't listen to reason when it comes to why she can't join teenagers' sleepovers? She's also perpetually mad at me for not siding with her, even though I tell her I think she's being really unfair and exhibiting bad parenting to our two kids, who have really pulled away from her in the past 2 years as a result of her steamrolling over their growing independence.

What is left to do??

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tldr-- Wife insists on joining our teenage daughter on her sleepovers with friends. Daughter is embarrassed and distant from mom, and wife is angry I'm not supporting her enough on this. I'm stuck because wife also refuses all therapy for her unfounded fears and anxieties. What can I do still?

Submitted December 02, 2018 at 05:43PM by Jolly_Maximum https://ift.tt/2FVo3yq