A WW? (4)

[AndrewP]

lt0402 - that's a lot of consistent spew from W. If I remember your sitch (it's been a while since I read back) she's always been controlling and domineering?

You might have been better off not bothering with the text to W from the Gym although I have no clue what the right tactic could be. It would almost seem as if you need to have a knock-down drag-out argument to set boundaries but that may be a crappy idea. She's certainly not respecting you right now though.

[DonH]

You can only get a partial sense of who someone is from what they write here. As I think I've said on these and other boards in the past, I'm usually a very good judge of people - unless I'm dating them if course. . From all I can tell, one of your main 180s may be to start to stand up to her. She treats you like a child. You don't do a thing correctly, are not capable of taking care of D or her meds, don't know how to talk to people or other kids, don't do the laundry correctly. The list could go on. What do you do well in her eyes? Anything? She has zero respect for you. I may not be accurate in all of this but feel I've got a solid take. Others can confirm or not. If I am right, how are you someone she wants? No respect, do nothing right, can't be trusted. That comes up over and over that she can't trust you. You have to then turn that around not only for her but the future. Get a set of balls and stand strong. It's almost like you have become the beaten down abused person who has lost his self asteam and have started to believe her crap. As if when she says you don't know how to take care of D you believe her!

Does this make any sense to you? What about others reading? Am i correct here or am I off? Because the truth is she's the one who maybe doing many of the things she accuses you of! I even wonder if deep down she knows this, hates it about her own self and projects it to you to make HER feel better.

Food for though. Hope it helps!

[sandi2]

I completely agree with Andrew & Don. And, I think the only thing she'll do at MC is run you down. When a woman has lost all respect and attraction for her H, then every little thing he does, or doesn't do, irritates her through & through. He could just sit in the same room and not say a word......and she would be irritated about how he was breathing.

It may just be me, but I don't see texting her, and asking to please not treat you like a child, as being very effective. For your W, it's an invitation to knock you down some more. When texting, she doesn't see your facial expression, body language, and tone of voice. When a man uses his manly voice & body language in the right manner.......it is much, much more effective than a text.

I suppose it may have been a step for you, in standing up to her. But texting is just not the same as standing nose to nose and having no fear of her. You have to lose the fear.

Ignoring her doesn't work, either. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounded as if you were being passive aggressive. You were focused on what your W was saying, and appeared as if you were trying to get back at her (by showing her you would not heed what she was saying) and continued building the toys and playing with the kids. That may have been the right action to take, except you seem to be ignoring the other mother saying they needed to leave. So the end result may not have left you looking very attractive. IDK, since I wasn't there. But if that was the case, can you see what I am trying to point out?

I don't want you to feel I'm picking you apart, like your W does. I use this to illustrate and hope you can see the difference in a man using passive aggressive behavior and one who actually stands face to face and deals with his disrespectful W.

Okay, so you have asked her not to treat you that way. What will you do if she ignores your request? At this point, I think you should start making statements about how you will not tolerate that kind of treatment. She is not going to respect any of your requests, until she sees there are consequences for it.

It is easy for men with the nice guy syndrome to ignore disrespect. What is hard for them is confronting their W and enforcing effective boundaries. You are tying to by-pass doing this by finding a MC to fix things. I think you would do better by studying about the NGS.

[lt0402]

Not a lot of time to post. Will respond more later. I feel trapped bc D has asked me not to aggravate mommy. So I try not to confront W in front of D. Maybe instead of texting I'll wait until W and I are alone and address it. Or maybe I pull W into another room to discuss.

Ws moods seem to be wearing on D and I'm trying to avoid adding to that stress. Thoughts?

[Rose888]

Not a lot of time to post. Will respond more later. I feel trapped bc D has asked me not to aggravate mommy. So I try not to confront W in front of D. Maybe instead of texting I'll wait until W and I are alone and address it. Or maybe I pull W into another room to discuss.

Ws moods seem to be wearing on D and I'm trying to avoid adding to that stress. Thoughts?

I've said it before and I'll say it again--get that child a counselor.

A good counselor will help your D understand that adults need to be responsible for their own feelings, and he/she will be a neutral listening ear to help her sort things out.

[fade]

Well, my take is that she treats you like dirt, she is having sex with another guy, she lives at home where you pay for everything, and she gets to order you around and bitch at you at will. And the only way you can stand up for yourself is to try to explain, defend, or apologize in a text message. No wonder she has no respect for you.

But my question is why do you even care if someone like that respects you. I want to be respected by people I respect. If terrible people dont like me, maybe I am doing something right! I know you still love her, but right now your WW is being a terrible person.

My suggestion purely from a divorce perspective is to say "sorry you feel that way" and then completely ignore her.

If you really want to win respect I have seen only one sure-fire way for that to happen. Its when you move on and thrive without her, and she is left with all the same problems but cant take it out on you, and all of your financial/family/household/emotional support she took for granted is now gone. When that happens it always seems to me that WW's suddenly have lots of new-found respect for their cast away husbands.

[lt0402]

Ok, sorry all, had a busy day yesterday w/ D. Will journal on it a bit later.

AP, though my Ws words to me are few and far between, what does come out is 90% spew or controlling language. She seems to have some obsessive behavioral traits which lead her to try control things to alleviate the anxiety. It seems as though I've let her go off the deep end w/ it in the past and now I'm paying for it. I 100% agree that she does/is not respecting me right now.

Don, I hear you on being a good judge of those we date! On the 180, I'd been fairly consistent with standing up to her the past 2 months. I found it led to me constantly doing battle with her, even over small things. So, I've been trying to pick my battles to address her spew. My more recent concern is how the spew and my response to it are wearing on my D. She's voiced to me multiple times that it's bothering her, a lot. She's effectively asked me to quit poking the beehive with a stick.

I think you're spot on w/ your observation that my W treats me as though I'm her child. Whatever I do, or don't do, she is highly critical of. I honestly could not tell you what she believes I do well. The only indication I've gotten from her in the past few months is that I'm a good person, a bad husband, and an even worse dad. Even that I had to read in the messages b/t her and the OM before I confronted her. I know that I don't have her trust, as she has mentioned this to me repeatedly. I'm not really sure what at this point would gain back that trust.

What I have been doing is making sure that my R w/ my D is on a more solid footing. I believe there's much more trust there b/t D and I, which was lacking before BD. I don't believe a word coming from my W about how my D feels towards me. I know, based on how D and I interact and talk, that it's not true. D and I did our weekly "check-in" talk w/ each other this weekend and we are both happy w/ each other. D thinks my listening to her and not breaking promises is going great. Only issue D had is that I need to listen better to mommy and stop fighting mommy about me pulling the weeds.

Trying to be balanced in how I address my Ws disrespect. The old approach of fighting her on every disrespectful point seemed to be what W wanted to happen as she was picking fights w/ me non-stop. I do agree though that I'd fallen into believing her thoughts about me and had let her leverage that to control me. I'm realizing it now, w/ yours and everyone's help, and am actively trying to address, I'm just not 100% there on how best to do it w/ the other constraints (i.e. Ds stress level, W wanting to fight).

Using the weeds as an example. I've done them all summer. I believe she hates me doing that bc it's one of the things I slacked on pre-BD and it shows I'm working on changing things. She didn't say anything until recently about having an issue w/ me doing it. The options, as I see them, are to 1) do them anyway and then have a large confrontation w/ her, 2) don't do them and retreat from what I believe is my responsibility (not a chance), 3) make a list of chores, sit down w/ her to allocate them, and then do them (she will fight through this as well and it will lead to a large confrontation). Right now I'm leaning towards #1, but I'm afraid it gets me further from my goals. No idea how to approach stuff like this as she doesn't compromise or work to find a solution together. she just seems to want to stonewall and get me back into my old routines (i.e. the reason she's trying to S and D)

DonH, your thoughts are always helpful and always appreciated! w/o you I'd still be worried about being off by 5 minutes on the allegra! I do worry that there's a bit of Stockholm syndrome living in me right now though.

Sandi, I'm concerned on that in MC as well. I've told myself though that I'm using the first couple sessions as a gauge of what she's thinking. If it's spew and nothing close to trying to actually fix our M then it's a waste of time for me. If she won't put in the effort outside of the sessions, then it's a waste of time for me. She may just be checking off a box that she tried, but truthfully if that's the case, it won't affect me. I'm already setup for the fact that her agreeing to MC is a smokescreen for something else. Sad, but I don't get her motivation for it and my gut says it's not to fix our M. IC sees it slightly differently, but who knows.

The text was my attempt to have the conversation away from my D. In reality, it was probably a combination of that + some amount of avoidance of the conflict a face to face brings. While I've gotten better at standing strong in front of my W, there is still anxiety at times when I'm caught off guard. It's proving difficult to keep my walls up 100% of the time around her. When I have confronted her in a calm, but firm manner face to face, she has a much different attitude/response. Maybe that's the approach to continue taking. Even the few times I've gotten really angry and left the situation, she's been much more docile/amenable after those situations. It's almost like she's monitoring me to see how i'll react bc she knows she's crossed a line.

On the situation w/ the other mom, I honestly never heard her say it was time to go. She may have an I missed it, but who knows. All I heard was my W telling me to stop playing w/ them and I decided I'd continue to show them how to put the transformer together until it was done (maybe 30 seconds or so). In hindsight I probably should have told W that I'd stop as soon as the stupid robot was together. Regardless, I think W would have been mad either way for me "disobeying" her. I do see what you are trying to point out though. I do still have some passive aggressive moments that I need to remove from things. Bleh.

I definitely want you to pick me apart, and I definitely do know it comes from a good place w/ all of you. No offense taken on this end at all! This is the feedback I need to fix my issues and rebuild myself to be a better man. It allows me better introspection and the more honest you all are w/ me the more valuable the feedback is. I'd be lost w/o everyone's help/feedback here.

Sandi, when you say I should start telling her I won't tolerate that kind of treatment, how do I approach it if she continues. Do I just walk away from it and refuse to speak w/ her until she shows she can do it constructively? At times I do feel like a deer in the headlights when she continues to come at me. Just not sure how to lay on the consequences besides removing myself from the situation (the only thing I can control).

Will read up on NGS some more. Definitely having a hard time effectively confronting and enforcing boundaries for the large amount of spew she creates. Finding I always need to be on my guard, very tiring.

Rose, you're right. I need to get D in front of a counselor. I was waiting until we visit the MC to see what W is up to before doing that though. W is very anti IC for my D, but I've told her we need to do it regardless. W said we needed to tell D about S before D went to an IC. If that's still the case post-MC then i'll call her bluff and we can tell D about the S. At this point my W threatening to S from me doesn't have the same weight it once did. I'm more concerned about the custody side of things. What W does is out of my control, so I'm mainly focused on D and myself.

Thanks to all of you for the 2x4s and thoughts. I'd thought I was doing better in standing up for myself but the above, as well as a few small things yesterday, has me realizing I need more work. I desperately need some GAL as I've been lacking there post-MC talk and it shows. Feel like I'm falling back into old routines and that's not where I want to be. I'm just not sure how to address my W when she will not budge on anything. Do I just do it anyway and create massive amounts of tension? Very open to thoughts on all of the above. thanks everyone, you are all so very much appreciated!

[hawker]

Lt...I know its hard not being Mr. Nice guy, it feels so strange but we have to do it for ourselves!! It sounds like she finds every little thing to run you down! That stinks!! Get those boundaries set and stick with them! Again, sorry about ur Redskins ha

[sandi2]

Sandi, when you say I should start telling her I won't tolerate that kind of treatment, how do I approach it if she continues.

That would come under the heading of boundaries. You would make a statement something like, "I will not be treated with disrespect in front of our daughter or other people. If you continue to disrespect me, then I will ___________________".

Fill in the blank with your action. Remember, it has to be something that will be effective enough to make her think twice before she shows disrespect for you in front of others again. You may have to tell her that you will not stay in a MR where you are not respected. But then, you'll have to be tough enough to back it up, if she tests you.

[Rose888]

There is no reason to link counseling for your daughter with telling her anything else. She is already affected by the tension. It's not as if you are talking about a kid who has I idea there is a problem. Your wife claims your daughter wants you to move out!

Be strong on this. It's important.