Dealing with a WW and finding my happiness pt. 5

[SoTorn]

Thanks lost. Yeah the level of conflict my WW tries to bring is nearly relentless. She gives me a hard time about everything and anything. For example. When WW is home I will stay in the MBR. I truly do not want to be around her because all she does is try and argue. Every single day she gives me a hard time saying "why are you always just in your room? Why aren't you out here with everyone?" To which I respond, again, saying that I truly just do not want to be around her because I dont want to argue or have any conflict.

I dont want to argue with her. I want to be amicable and cordial and that's it. Another new day today and my feelings that I do not wish to remain married to this selfish hateful, critical and judgemental shell of a woman that used to be my wife remains unchanged.

I spoke with my parents and let them both know that I'm done and will be moving out in the near future and they agree that that is the best option because they are tired of me being mistreated.

I truly feel that all of what has happened, although very hurtful, is in the end for the better.

[SteveLW]

SoTorn, sorry I have not stayed up on your sitch. It sounds like it has deteriorated and no one would blame you for pulling the plug.

However, I would 180 on the staying the MBR. You should be spending as much time with your kids no matter what your WW is saying or doing. Just do not get drawn in.

Can you give me some examples of things she says to try to argue with you?

[SoTorn]

Hi Steve,

I am staying in the MBR. I am not moving until I am ready to go. WW argues with me about everything. Literally everything she says to me or asks me is brought to my attention with a tone of conflict.

I get stuff like:

"Why do you always stay in the MBR, what are you hiding from me?" and when I respond with the obvious response of "I am not hiding anything" she will retort with "yeah right, we know what you are doing, I know what you are doing, you are doing this because xxx". I honestly have no clue what she thinks I am doing.

Also, when I respond, I respond calmly and I ask her not to argue with me because its a waste of time. Instead she will just start to yell and repeat herself over and over again.

Its not all the time but its about every three times we interact. Every time she comes to my door she has some sort of issue with what I am doing. WW will bang on my door and start to scream at me because I lock the door to keep her from just walking in and she will literally just start yelling about the door being locked and won't have anything else to say.

On several occasions now, WW will start yelling at me for something/anything and will stand in my door after I open it and will not leave. I will ask her several times to please leave me alone and not argue with me and she will literally tell me “no”. I will tell her that she sounds angry and that I cannot speak with her when she is angry and to come back when she is calm and she will say “no”.

So I will repeat “Please leave me alone/leave my room” and she will say “no” over and over or say “this is my house I will walk where I want and come in when I want” and I will literally have to shut the door on her. WW will put her foot against the door to keep me from shutting it and I will have to keep pushing on it until her foot slides on the carpet and then she will stand at the door banging on the door and yelling my name. Then she always ends with “And you want me to think you have changed!?!?!”.

I am very confident that my WW is bi-polar because she will literally be super cheery and happy speaking with the kids and then one second later she will be following me around the house trying to start a screaming match with me and then one second after that she will be back to being cheery and happy with the kids. I have not argued/yelled/screamed back at all in months now. All I have done is calmly state that I will not argue or fight with her and asked her to leave me alone if she plans on trying to fight.

I am taking care of my responsibilities. I am home with the kids when I need to be, I clean my room and the house, I cook dinner, I make sure that my kids do their homework, I make sure that even though WW makes more than double what I make that I pay exactly 50% of the bills less her car, I make sure to reimburse her for half of the groceries etc. I am doing everything by the book. My biggest 180 is that I don’t fight. The dynamic in the past was that I would get drawn in and we would end up yelling at each other, mostly her calling me names, berating me and me defending myself.

I have literally asked her to leave me alone if she has nothing nice to say and she responds with “no”.

[SoTorn]

Quick addition. I don't just stay in the MBR. I only go in there when WW starts the conflict. The last time I was in MBR when she started conflict was because I was folding my laundry and ironing my clothes.

I am usually always with S11 as D16 is an active teen and is always gone. I spend a significant amount of time with S11.

[AnotherStander]

ST, wow that sure sounds like life in crazy town there. Was she ever like that before BD? My GF is half Puerto Rican and can go off like that. There is no calming her down when she does. Fiery.

[lost8]

ST I get the bi polar thoughts....mine was like that too for months. I actually had to go full NC and avoidance, like out of the house. I coordinated GAL activities so that I would not even have the opportunity to see her.

[MoveFrwd]

So I will repeat “Please leave me alone/leave my room” and she will say “no” over and over or say “this is my house I will walk where I want and come in when I want” and I will literally have to shut the door on her. WW will put her foot against the door to keep me from shutting it and I will have to keep pushing on it until her foot slides on the carpet

I feel like there has got to be a better, more collaborative way to discuss this. Your "I wont talk to you when youre angry" routine feels pretty weak if she is just going to stand there and pound on the door. Frankly, what you are describing sounds like my two children having an argument when one doesnt want to play with the other.

I wonder if you could approach her when she is in a calm state and discuss what she needs or what she is looking for when she comes to your room to do these kinds of things. And you an in turn lay out what you need from her. To me, running to your room and locking the door any time theres a conflict feels kinda weak especially if it leads to her berating you. How can you change the dynamic besides just "living with it" until it comes time to move out?

[SoTorn]

Believe me I have tried. I have stood there in front of her and allowed her to vent and when she stops I calmly respond and before I can finish my sentence she starts up again. I have desperately tried to just have a normal, calm, rational conversation with her.

Unfortunately she is just so unreasonably combative I cannot have any sort of rational conversation with her. I can state that she has calmed down a bit, but she is deep in la la land and no matter what I do or say I get the same actions from her.

The only time where we speak and it's not confrontational is when we just randomly spark up a conversation. For example, WW asked me how my grandma is doing. I updated WW that grandma is passing soon and we chit chatted about grandmas state of mind and I told her about something funny my grandma said to me and she laughed.

I would prefer not to be straight up NC, but as of yet NC is the only way I can protect myself emotionally. My WW acts just like her mom. My MIL is a narcissist with a victim mentality. Through and through and now WW acts exactly the same. Everything I do no matter how mundane is chalked up to some sort of "gotcha" in her eyes.

This person my WW turned into is unreal. I'm not trying to act like a child by shutting the door, I just legitimately cannot handle the arguing and the only way I can get her to stop is by removing myself from her presence.

She doesnt argue every day. At first it was non stop multiple times per day. Now it's about every three days or so. She gets angry so fast its unreal. If WW asks the kids to do something and they give her the slightest pushback it will set her off into a bad mood and she will literally just start tossing insults and crap at everyone.

I even step in on her side when the kids give her pushback and I still end up getting some random insult thrown at me.

I have asked WW multiple times to please just be calm and stop with the confrontation. I have told her that I would be happy to speak with her about anything and that I would listen to whatever she has to say as long as she is not being hateful or mistreating me.

I am just so unbelievably tired of constantly having to defend myself against made up accusations. I truly am open to listening to whatever she has to say, even if its negative as long as she isnt being hateful, but she just cant do it.

This isnt something new either. WW has always been very hateful to me when she gets mad. Well before BD she told me things like I'm a horrible husband and father and that I have a low bar when measuring myself. I know it's not true. I know I made some poor decisions in the past but that's the past and I am absolutely not the same person.

The old ST would jump right into mortal combat and fight fight fight. We would chase each other around the house trying to get that last word in when we would argue. It wasnt constant but it wasnt healthy. It's been years since I have acted like that. I used to be the one who would remain in the room with her trying to "win" the argument.

But now it's just her, something sets her off and she spews hate and insults and when I try to speak calmly it's like trying to reason with a wall.

I truly believe that we could get passed this inability to communicate if we went to family counseling but she qont go. I'm actually going to set up a session for my kids and I and invite her anyway. I dont want to hate her. At bare minimum I want to remain on friendly terms with her.

I wish I could speak with her rationally. I would love to have a nice relaxed adult conversation with WW. Unfortunately, that's not something she can do.

[SoTorn]

ST, wow that sure sounds like life in crazy town there. Was she ever like that before BD? My GF is half Puerto Rican and can go off like that. There is no calming her down when she does. Fiery.

Yes she has always been like this, she just cranked it to 100 since BD.

[lost8]

Sounds like a screw is loose somewhere...has she ever experienced anything very traumatic in her life that she has told you about? My W acted the very same way for many years and I would do the same as you.....it has only been the last 6 months that I learned that I will not win an argument unless I do not engage. Now after cool down time she comes to me and apologizes....she says she is venting and it is her defense mechanism to be angry because of pain in her past. A bit Narcissistic as well but as I have continued to not engage her outbursts have become less and less as well as less severe.