Spouse not willing to compromise

I believe that a married couple should try to take each other's needs into account, then try to come up with a compromise that makes everyone feel like their needs matter. I feel like in my marriage, my spouse takes her own needs into account, and often makes her plans with no consideration of me. For example, she plans family vacations based on what she wants to do with her kids from a previous marriage, then informs me that I'm welcome to join. Often the trip has been scheduled with no consideration of when I can get off of work so I can't go, but that's my problem. For our first holiday together after getting married, I told her she could plan the day, and schedule when we would get together with her family and mine. So, she scheduled the whole day with her family, then got angry when I mentioned spending part of the day with my family. Over the summer, we had planned a weekend event that I had been looking forward to all summer. Then, a few weeks before the event, she contacted her family and scheduled a camp-out. By the time I found out about it, she had already contacted her extended family, organized the trip, and made the reservations. I had to work on monday. She wasn't willing to come home late sunday night, so she told me if I wanted cancel the original plans and come on her trip, I would have to drive separately (3 hours away). Another example, as I write this, I'm on a train coming home from a long holiday weekend with her family. My daughter is home from college for the weekend and I wanted to see her for at least one day. So, rather than come home a day early, my wife presented me with a train ticket that arrives 40 minutes from our house at 1:00 in the morning... .so I could come home by myself. My parents who are in their 70s are picking me up at the station so I can have a way home.

My thought is that I have expended a lot of energy trying to change this situation, but in the end, it's not going to change. I need to come to terms with the fact that this is the quality of the marriage I am in, and to expect more is just going to lead to more hurt and frustration. I'm thinking that I need to try to improve things where I can, but in the end, I need to just accept that she doesn't have anything more than this to give. Do you think I'm on the right track with this approach?



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