Dear A.J:

I think that your last post is not off topic but very relevant to the topic. I am glad you shared it.

I do see that your situation is complicated, but there are ways to make it better for you and for your son, as well as for your wife.

You wrote: “I need to tell my wife to stop before it goes out of control. I will talk to her and tell her that she should stop altogether or at least stop yelling at the child if I am around”-

she needs to stop yelling at him when you are around and when you are not around. Yelling is an act of aggression and she is scaring and harming your child with her aggression every day. Her yelling at him (and beating) may be a reason, on top of the surgery experience, why your son is not talking, and so, it is already “out of control” and needs to stop, now.

From your last post I learned that your wife values education, a good career, status and power, being “a strong independent woman”. She doesn’t value being a mother and a housewife. Her life situation currently is that “She gets frustrated doing housework and taking care of the kid at the same time. In one word she wanted to be  a strong independent woman but she is stuck in a house with a mother-in-law and a small child.”

You wrote about your wife: “She wants to start her career again but her mother (my mother-in-law) told her not to. She told my wife to wait at least until my child learns how to speak”- wrong instruction, I say, by her mother, because by staying home, your wife’s frustration is extreme and she reacts to her frustration by acting aggressively to her young, vulnerable child.

As I wrote earlier, her yelling and beating him may very well delay and even prevent him from speaking in the future. He may never speak (a possibility).

It is better that your wife does pursue what she values and be relieved of living the life she does not value; it is way, way better that she pursues her values as soon as possible. She should quit her housewife/ mother role tomorrow, if possible.

Your mother, since she is nice to your child, and living with you, I understand, should take care of the child, and so should you, because you are gentle with him.

My advice: let your wife know that you will do everything in your power to allow and facilitate her pursuing her values but you have one requirement, a “price” that she has to pay for your cooperation, and that is that she doesn’t yell or hit the child ever, not in your presence and not outside your presence.

(I hope that her mother’s advice/instruction, within the context of your culture, can be … overruled by this logic that I am suggesting).

anita