This is a relationship conundrum which I think most of the married folks out there can relate with. When I got engaged with my wife and I looked around and saw my friends' behaviors as well, I realized that regardless of the situation at the home, in the relationship between a husband and wife, the husband's mother and the wife's father is the dominant personality. Whether the person's personality is strong / dominant or not in reality, but the perception in a marriage is always the same. I always used to think, why is it always like this only.
I have been thinking about this for the past 15-16 years and suddenly I had a sort of epiphany and things suddenly got very clear. No matter how much a person loves his or her sweetheart, this conflict or situation if not a conflict will always arise in the relationship. According to me, there's a simple reason for this. For every boy, his mother is his role model for a woman and for every girl, her father is her role model for a man. Subconsciously we are all comparing whoever we interact with, with our role models. For every action a partner in a relationship takes, it is instantaneously and perhaps sub-consciously compared with the person's role model. "How my mother would have done this?" or "How my father used to do this?" While this is unfair for the person being compared, the stark reality of the situation is that it exists and there is no running away from it.
Do I know how to resolve the situation? Absolutely not. I do not claim to have an answer to this conundrum. My aim was to merely share the epiphany that I had and hope that it helps someone. We cannot hope to change the subconscious mind of a person, but the best that we can do is probably understand the person's perspective a little bit and in that process make the relationship more enjoyable and fulfilling.
।।तथास्तु।।