I'm an only child who's been married for a few years now, and my parents keep trying to manipulate me. They think I'm selling myself short by "just" wanting to be a Catholic school teacher and not going back to godless grad school to get a Masters or PhD. I quit my first "Catholic" school job, mistakenly thinking I wasn't called to be a teacher, and then worked in fast-food temporarily. Part of the reason I quit the teaching job was that the school was Novus (dis)Ordo with pseudo-Masses in the gym. The fast-food job was nice, and I was on the path to being a manager, but, again mistakenly following my parents' advice, I returned to school thinking I would get my scholarship again, but, even though my parents paid for my tuition, I dropped out, being officially rejected from the program, and I returned to an even lower-paying, albeit trad, Catholic school job.

If I had just listened to my heart, my wife and I would probably already have a nice family with many children, but we haven't because of all the turmoil I've put her through in my vain, deluded prospects of a better job and more financially-stable future, inspired by my parents' planting their poisonous ideas in my mind, ideas which have caused me to be angry at my wife. (This is one reason I try to ignore them.)

My parents are lapsed Catholics in an invalid marriage (because, as baptized Catholics, they "married" outside the Church, in a courthouse), and they detest the Latin Mass, despite feeling betrayed by Vatican II, because they think the Latin Mass convinced me to marry and give up being a child, which it has. They believe divorce is okay, and they think my wife is manipulating me, which she certainly isn't—it was my idea to marry her and have a big family and my idea to be a Catholic school teacher. They have no problem with sodomite "marriages" or contraception. I have no desire to talk to them, not even for special occasions or anything. Only my mother and godmother attended my TLM wedding; Deo gratias my wife's family is pro-life and pro-children, even if they are Novus Ordites.

Should I stand up to my parents, making an even stronger defense of the faith, or should I just cease all contact with them, letting "the dead bury the dead"? Sometimes I feel guilty about the latter option because I think I'm their only light and I can't honor them otherwise, but that's probably my pride; God will convert them if they are open to His grace.

I've already tried two approaches when dealing with them, where:
(1) I explicitly mention God, His plan for my wife and I, and our desire to have lots of children, and where
(2) I do not mention God or religion or much morality.
Yet, my parents are unchanged and resolute in imposing their same will on my wife and me. They still see my wife as an interloper, and they absolute detest her.

I can see why some monks make a clean-cut with their family ties before entering monastery. Could or should I, being in the married state, make a similar, permanent clean-cut right now?

You need to first take a break from your family. A long break. If you can move further away, do so while your family is young and you are more flexible.

While you are taking a break, just pray about it, receive the sacraments, and think of ways you can deal with the situation while leaving the door open for later conversions and changes of heart.

I had to prove my family wrong in a similar situation.

Ideally, it would be best to take a break, allow them time to detach, clear your head and fill your mind and heart with good counsel. Maybe obtain some Catholic books on marriage, many have sections on dealing with family. It is almost like one must tear down and rebuild these types of relationships. You need to set new boundaries and tell or show them what is acceptable to your parents. Make sure NEVER to speak ill of your spouse or show any discord within your marriage to your parents.

I might have missed it, but have you had any children? Grandchildren change everything. It also gives you leverage over them to keep them in line.

If they don't respect your boundaries and you have exhausted all means try to make your exit peacefully, don't return calls, emails, etc. A quiet departure is so much better and easier to mend if hearts change than a full-out bridge burning.

Just speaking from my experience with my own family and from being a superior bridge burner.

Using grandchildren as leverage is absolutely, completely & utterly wrong!!   I can't believe anyone here would advise such a heartless thing - for both the grandparents & the grandchild.

You need to first take a break from your family. A long break. If you can move further away, do so while your family is young and you are more flexible.

Yes, Deo gratias we live a few thousands miles away.

Make sure NEVER to speak ill of your spouse or show any discord within your marriage to your parents.

Well, I don't positively, but my long-term silence with my parents seems to be negatively affirming my parents' suspicions that something is going wrong, even though it isn't. But, then again, perhaps I'm just imagining that.

I might have missed it, but have you had any children?

Oh, we definitely want to! We wanted to get pregnant on our wedding night, but we're struggling with infertility. We had a foster child, but he was taken away. My parents never met the child.

If they don't respect your boundaries and you have exhausted all means try to make your exit peacefully, don't return calls, emails, etc. A quiet departure is so much better and easier to mend if hearts change than a full-out bridge burning.

It's so unnatural for me to seemingly hold grudges, but silence does seem necessary in this situation. No confessor has told me I sin against the 4th commandment by being silent.

St. Thomas actually discusses the issue I face in his questions on the "order of charity," "Whether a man ought to love his wife more than his father and mother?" (II-II q. 26 a. 11):

As stated above (A[9] [Whether a man ought, out of charity, to love his children more than his father?]), the degrees of love may be taken from the good (which is loved), or from the union between those who love. On the part of the good which is the object loved, a man should love his parents more than his wife, because he loves them as his principles and considered as a more exalted good.

But on the part of the union, the wife ought to be loved more, because she is united with her husband, as one flesh, according to Mat. 19:6: "Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh." Consequently a man loves his wife more intensely, but his parents with greater reverence.

Certainly, I reverence my parents for their self-sacrificial love in making me who I am.

I need patience; Our Lady of Knots will un-knot this situation, and God's time is much greater than ours.

Ideally, it would be best to take a break, allow them time to detach, clear your head and fill your mind and heart with good counsel.

Deo gratias I've had good, traditional priests who offer solid council, which is corroborating with all the council given here.

Maybe obtain some Catholic books on marriage, many have sections on dealing with family.

Do you have any suggestions? thanks

Should I stand up to my parents, making an even stronger defense of the faith, or should I just cease all contact with them, letting "the dead bury the dead"? Sometimes I feel guilty about the latter option because I think I'm their only light and I can't honor them otherwise, but that's probably my pride; God will convert them if they are open to His grace.

If you can't get along with them then it is probably best to just say nohing at all. By now they probably know how you feel and sometimes its better to be silent than to be relentlessly arguing with them.

Fr. Hewko advised me to "pick out the threads in the seam, one by one, slowly and gradually" until they convert.  Because their lack of faith is really the problem.

They tolerate people in sodomite "marriage" and are liberals in extreme, yet when it comes to you marrying the woman you love they on a sudden have a problem? Is she a different race or something? ( Not asking btw)

You need to tell them in a most articulate manner how you love your wife and that you cant tolerate their efforts to turn you against her. It is YOUR life.
Ask them what they have against her, and after they tell it all, tell them that you are the one who is married to her and you know different.

If they persist in trying to ruin your life ( having you dump your wife ) and getting you to commit adultery in the future ( since if you dump her you would break your Catholic marriage vows for life) then you have good reason to cut them off.

If they start to harass you get a restraining order so your family has peace.
The only reason you can justify keeping on talking to them is if there is some truth in what they say, but you know there is not but are slow to admit it, so talk with them, give them one last time to accept your wife, and if they don't, cut them off. They're heretics / apostates bound for hell anyway, and your wife helps you to avoid mortal sin.

sg