Wife just filed for divorce...furious and hates me

[PatientMan]

No expectations is difficult, but good.

Giving her time and space is typically good as well (also difficult).

When you are in communication with her, you can validate without agreeing.

-PM

[25yearsmlc]

Hi labug, we were having an argument where she was screaming and crying about how much she hated her job, and nobody understood how awful it was. I tried to talk to her about it for a long time before she kept insisting she was going to walk in and quit, and in the heat of the moment I said "if you quit your job I will divorce you" [b]since I did not want her to quit her job while she was so emotional. [/b]

Don't kid yourself or think we believe this^^. You told her not to quit b/c of MONEY (see earlier post and note that we have pretty good memories here and your words are in writing so the lies you tell yourself are4 the worst. THEY prevent your own growth.

You cared WAY more about losing her income than in her happiness AND THEN you threatened to END your marriage for that. PERIOD.

Stop pretending otherwise or changing your story when you realize what a lousy h and tyrant you sound like. YOU DONT' HURT US BY LYING TO YOURSELF, YOU ONLY FURTHER HURT YOURSELF BY DOING THAT...


I apologized later and told her I said it out of desperation, but I really don't know what else I could have done. If there is a better way I would like to learn.

IS THIS A SERIOUS QUESTION? I mean, do you want to learn a better way and do you actually Not know "IF THERE IS" a better way? (THERE IS, TRUST US).

Your way was probably the worst way it could have been handled.

Years ago, My h hated his well paying presitigious job where he was the Chief of Anesthesia in a burn unit. I hated how unhappy he was. I helped him find a new job. In a new state, which meant all of us moving from a place I LOVED...b/c having a miserable job made my h sad and so, that's what a good wife does. And really even a mediocre wife would do that.

A husband is seen as a protector and provider for his wife and family. In this case you were neither. You should have been her friend and confidante too...but you threatened to withdraw your role as her friend/confidante AND protector and provider

b/c you were selfishly putting your financial concerns ahead of all else. And with so little imagination. ..As if she could ONLY work in a place she hated? Never even crossed your mind to help her find happier work??



OF COURSE there is a better way for God's sake.

I have NOT seen "your way" on these boards ever. Just about the worst "way" I have seen a h ignore his wife's misery is to threaten her with divorce if she tries to find happiness elsewhere in her work.

Never heard a spouse (let alone a H), demand his wife 1) WORK, or 2) keep a job she hates and NOT HELP HER FIND SOMETHING ELSE BETTER, OR SUGGEST SHE QUIT.

Your focus was not at all HER welfare or happiness. She hated that job for years so quitting it was not "an emotional" or sudden decision.

Also you tossed the divorce word out as an intimidation tactic. FOR A JOB!

So her choices were to stay in a miserable job (AND lousy marriage) or to leave. Apparently that choice got easier after awhile.

Too bad your concern was her job and income and NOT HER happiness.

Do you STILL really Not see YOUR ROLE IN HER AFFAIR?

Sure of course, she should have left you before dating OM....that's where I think she went wrong. She should have fled earlier.

And btw, I have never said that^^ on these boards in all these years.

You sound like a bully and a selfish tyrant with violent tendencies.
I have also never ever said that to a man here.
I have seen some women fail to support their h's career choice b/c they feared loss of the house and financial ruin, but never a h hearing his w;s misery

oR as YOU called it something like "complaining all the time for HOURS" and instead of helping her solve her seriously unhappy work situation you demanded she stay in it. WOW...


as for your temper and her "Convenient claim of fear"....seriously?

You think she's lying? You are the one not being honest.
[b]
Read this next sentence a few times so it really gets thru to you

***I and every woman I know, would be afraid that the next thing to be thrown or broken, would be me***

Most men who have temper tantrums like this, secretly or consciously INTEND to frighten with their actions.

Unless you completely lack self awarness I think you know it was your goal. FORCE her into submission. Stay in a horrible job forever, do as you say, OR ELSE...
you will leave, or break.............s o m e t h i n g (someone) and for a long time it worked. You were "conveniently" oblivious to her fear but really down deep you used it as a weapon to keep her.

So now you are reeling that she has left. But your behavior has been
Bullying tactics, 101. Maybe that is what you saw growing up, but that is o excuse, and it's toxic

BTW I'd never have a child with a man who has tantrums like yours b/c it's just asking for trouble and a life time of living in yet more fear.

IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT TRYING TO SAVE THIS MARRIAGE,

NEARLY ALL THE WORK NEEDS TO BE ON YOU AND YOU ALONE...FOR A LONG TIME
[b]
and that's good news!!!!/u]s.

YES IT IS good news,

b/c you are NOT powerless..... IF you had been a great h whom she left "for no reason"

then we could not help you do anything but try to heal.

BUT INSTEAD your behaviors sound like the root of most of your marital problems that YOU have shard with us.

Whatever HER issues are separate from you, are irrelevant at this time b/c she is not here trying to save the marriage; you are.

Don't forget that^^^. and

HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE.

No walk away spouse will return to a marriage they left
[u]
unless

they believe the marriage can be better/different than before.


So, what are YOU doing to show any of that to her?

What changes in YOU is she seeing so she can feel safe around you?

THAT'S WHERE YOU BEGIN...

[MagicJack]

With the job situation I told her to find another job before she quit that one. I even tried to help her find another job but she wanted to quit her job and then not work anymore. I didn't make much money at the time to support us. Was I supposed to say "ok honey let's be homeless since you don't like working to pay down your debt"? I did try talking to her and trying to encourage her for months but she literally came home one day and was so upset that these girls were being "mean" to her at her job that she was going to walk in the next day and tell them off and quit. She probably would have been blackballed and unhireable at that point. She had lost her previous job due to "not fitting in".

I should not have threatened her with divorce. I did not know what else to do in that moment. I am sorry for this.

[MagicJack]

And yes I know I [censored] up in a lot of ways.

[MagicJack]

I know you're trying to help me. I'm really trying to listen.

[25yearsmlc]

A few keys points Mr. Bond:

1. I didn't have female friends who I hung out with on my own without my wife. That is a boundary I respected. As a man, I had male friends, or I would hang out with my male friends and their wives/girlfriends simultaneously, but not on my own.

2. You undermine your own credibility if you are going to tell me there was nothing wrong with my wife secretly hanging out with her ex-boyfriend for 10 years behind my back. I found emails between her and her ex-boyfriend where she was asking him to go to a burlesque show with her and offering to clean his apartment. meanwhile she was telling me she was going out with her sister or other friends. But that's ok because the WAS is always the misunderstood person who gets a free pass to do what they want? One of his ex-girlfriends actually had to tell my wife to leave him alone, and she told me this after she found out the circumstances. The more recent actual EA was from June 2013 and was literally her going on dates and texting non-stop with some guy she met who told her he had feelings for her and tried to convince her to leave me. He even mailed her a stuffed squirrel that she was carrying around the house for about a week and when I asked her where she got it she would lie to me.

3. I stated the instances in which I was supportive of my wife since a number of people JUMPED TO CONCLUSIONS and told me that I was not supportive of her when I have always tried to be supportive of her.

4. I am not trying to blame shift. I know I have issues that again, I acknowledge and am going to counseling for and working on. How is that downplaying the issue? I am doing everything I can. What I am trying to do by talking about my marriage and my W is give people a better idea of what is going on in my marriage so they can offer more helpful advice and not just "well you're a dick".

She is NOT HERE trying to save the marriage. Talking ABOUT HER being wrong and or you being 'right' does nothing for you but keep you stuck and hindering your own progress.

Do you get that?

If you are/were a dick, work on that

and stop this endless rebuttal and sur-rebuttal.

WE veterans volunteer to help people grow from and heal and LEARN from and CHANGE ---during/and after the most painful ordeal of their lives.

You really sound as if you want to "win" or at least be declared the RIGHT person. We are here to help you become a better man, not be declared right.

And lucky for you we see a lot of areas where you can and should change, so that maybe there is hope in your situation. B/C if you were a great supportive h and you had no signficant flaws, then your cause would be probably impossible.
Because what would there be, to do? Being "wrong" about some things is the best news you can get here. See it as empowering you.

Your flaws are big ones, so I hope you get all the help you can. You need a lot of NEW behavioral tools for handling things and you seem far from realizing it. You seem to think it's a tweak here and there, but these are fundamental traits that need an overhaul.

PLEASE Check into a workshop called "Essential Experience" (also known as "EE")

b/c it's 3-4 days of intensive persoal growth workshop that is life changing and dramatically faster than weekly therapy. *(But don't quit the T)

And you'll be HAPPY you went, too. It's experiential so that you cannot BS or rehearse your responses so you will discover things about yourself you need to know

Once you grasp what they can teach you, and once your w sees the profound change possible, she may well reconsider the divorce. And even if she doesn't, you will be much closer to your best self.

I went long ago. To my surprise and delight, my h saw such changes in me that HE went and he;s not the "personal growth workshop: type of guy.
I credit that with a lot of happy times in my life and marriage and having a third child. Several DBers have gone and all said it was "life changing" and they are better people for it. LATER if your w is willing you can attend a marriage retreat for couples in crisis called "Retrovaille" which is French for "rediscover". That was also a tremendous help to my h and I.


5. And finally, on the "she was afraid of me issue", she never once stated she was afraid of me or attempted to retreat from me during the course of our marriage. Not even once. I haven't punched a wall in probably over 6 years and I never really put a hole in anything, and I didn't do it directed at her. Say my behavior was inappropriate, (SO MUCH WORSE THAN INAPPROPRIATE) ok, but I know she is [b]using that issue now to try to manipulate people into giving her permission to divorce me. And no, that's not mind-reading. Her parents don't believe in divorce


SO WHAT? No one "believes in" divorce....

and 1) SHE DOES NOT NEED THEM TO 'BELIEVE IN IT' nor does she need anyone's permission. The Court decides. AND 2) I'm Catholic, and we "don't believe in divorce" but i also don't believe in living in fear and I DO believe your wife has been.
My father was very very strict on this issue of divorce. But if my parents, even my dad, knew what YOU have said here and it was my m, they would want me to leave the Marriage that YOU DESCRIBE HAVING...

and the way you go on and on here, point by point like you wish you could argue in court and badger the witness is misplaced here.

Your desire TO DEBATE ADVICE we are giving you for free b/c of OUR OWN experiences and failures and successes,

reveals much about you. How we "jumped to conclusions" is based on two things. What our experience here on these boards and life has taught us AND YOUR OWN WORDS...we don't even have your wife's version of things here and still you hate that we don't agree with your take on the facts as you present them. Might it be that the facts reflect poorly on you?

There are a lot of Things you don't seem to want to see.

But hey, then you SAY you "want to learn other ways"...So for today I will choose to believe that.

and I know for a fact she was trying to get them to accept her divorcing me.

SIGH...she talked to them about her fears of you and her unhappiness, (which every woman here agrees with AND some men...so isn't it POSSIBLE your perception is part of the underlying problem here? Yes, I'm saying it's possible you are simply wrong on this and in a big way.

But you claim it is "manipulative" of her to whine about this now, and "she;'s lying" b/c she did NOT really FEEL a certain way and then you claim not to be mind reading? Geez....well, you are telling us what she does NOT feel and what her inner mental or emotional goals are. So, wake up. See above.

FWIW, There's no reason she'd EVER tell you she was afraid of you b/c women who fear their abusive h's --rarely

IF EVER, tell them that. (And I really do "KNOW this for a fact")

I am a L and I have defended abusive men and sex offenders and guys with "anger management issues". I don't know if ANY of their wives told them they were afraid WHILE intending to stay married.

It just "makes him mad" is what they'd tell me....And besides, what difference would it have made to you if she had told you? BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF...you do not need to answer us here, But dig deep.

From what you say here it's pretty clear that if your w told you she was afraid of you, it would either please you as it was your goal in the first place AND OR

you would deny any validity to it at the same time,

OR YOU would blame her for "making" you so mad and "desparate",

AND OR you would argue with her and tell her she was "wrong to FEEL" that way

and or, you would just do what you did about her job misery...tell her to suck it up and deal.

OKAY you SAY you "get it" about the temper thing but I doubt that, b/c you keep making light of it, but let's move along...

Have you actually read the Divorce Busting or Divorce Remedy books at all?

You really cannot skip that step. It's FOUNDATIONAL to our approach here.
It is solution based and not a rehash of her past or your psycho analysis of HER problems or things like that. It's about doing what helps you two get closer, and NOT doing what hinders that. DB 101.


But you seem to want us to either tell you that you are a victim (& powerless to repair this, so no need to work on you)

OR

to tell you the 'Secret', to fixing all this. And in a way, we have.

The "secret" is to CHANGE YOU AND STOP BLAMING HER. That will help you become a much better, happier man.

It MIGHT save your m but for sure it will save you from repeating behaviors that will prevent you from ever being in a truly healthy loving relationship. And it will deepen your other friendships.

But you keep getting MAD at us for saying that. If all of us pretty much have the same read on this and

if you have read the books, something in you is just too resistant to looking within. I Can't say if it's pride or no self awareness or what. But there's a difference between pride and self respect. There's a difference between a boundary and punitive vindictive actions. I don't think you know where that line is.

ANYHOW

YOUR WIFE IS NOT HERE trying to save the marriage. So her flaws are not our focus.

ARE YOU here to save the marriage, OR do you want to be "right"?

Finally, in an effort to get thru to you I will post what a WAW wrote to A LBH, (about her situation).

The LBH told his WAS that he really had changed (and I think he really had). In and he could not understand why the WAW would not return to him, now that he was "all better".

So this letter is from another WAW to this LBH, to help him understand his wife's point of view. I DO NOT believe you want to understand yours but I sure hope I am wrong.

Oh, one last thing before I post the letter. YOUR wife does NOT NEED permission to leave or divorce you. From anyone

Most people she speaks to, if she were simply to show them YOUR DESCRIPTION of the marriage, would agree with her. That point seems to be lost on you.

Yet you resist what we are trying to teach you, and you do so at your peril.

Here's the letter anyhow...



FROM A WAW TO A LBS HUSBAND WHO HAS CHANGED, AND WONDERS WHY HIS WAW HAS NOT COME HOME YET AND
HOW SHE CAN BE AT ALL INTERESTED IN OM….

"When I read your interactions with your wife, I could so easily identify with your wife's feelings/words/sentiments. I have been in her position in my M. I was the ignored, the devalued, the one who was treated as less than.

One of the things that I have tried my hardest not to do, is not to engage with another man.
Not just because of my marriage vows, but because I knew that when I truly engaged in any type of R with another man, it would make it that much harder to ever reconcile with my H. Because being treated differently (better) than the way he treated me would lessen him so much in my eyes.

So, I can see where your W is coming from. When you've been mistreated to the point where you actually let go of your R enough to let another person into your heart or bed or whatever, it takes a boatload of work to get back on a page where you're recommitted to being with your S - and those uncertainties that she's expressed to you, I don't know if you truly, truly fathom how deep they run.

Six months of getting back on a page where you treat her the way that any wife should be treated does not even scratch the surface of the years, the intrinsic devaluing that occurs when you're systematically mistreated for such a stretch of time.

And I promise you that while you have recommitted and worked for 6 months, your W has simply been trying to get to a point where she can even buy into the changes, where she can even think that you might have changed and not scoff at the thought.

Because when you build up hope again and again and again in your H and he crushes it again and again and again, you develop a thick skin, a protective doubt, a conditioned response to even the slightest, grainiest seed of hope.

You are taught that when you hope, you will be disappointed. When you try, you will fail. You are taught that you will never be what he wants and it is hard to shake what you have come to believe is reality.

And for the changes that you've made to have come only when she walked away and OM became competition, I can definitely see how she can doubly doubt that you truly want to be in a M with her, and not just to win.

Even you today say that you are not sure that you don't just want to win.

Step 1 - figure that sh!t out ASAP. Because if you actually do manage to convince her that you really do want her, and really have recommitted to her and yet you actually just want to win, you'll put her through hell."




Take all this in. I know it's a lot. But if you are smart enough to change and brave enough to dig deep to see where those changes are most needed

and if you can grow spiritually b/c I do feel that a self centeredness permeates your thread,

then you can become a man only a fool would leave.

[25yearsmlc]

YOU ARE AGAIN CHANGING or adding FACTS YOU GAVE US EARLIER....

THERE WAS NO "ONE DAY" THAT SHE WANTED TO QUIT...per you, she was "always complaining about work/people at work/how miserable she was"...or words to that effect. I don't want to have to keep going back to your earlier posts...

to KEEP QUIBBLING ABOUT PIECE MEAL INFORMATION YOU PARSE OUT.

I STAND BY MY CLAIM THAT HER HAPPINESS WAS NOT YOUR PRIORITY.

let's move on...

With the job situation I told her to find another job before she quit that one. I even tried to help her find another job but she wanted to quit her job and then not work anymore. I didn't make much money at the time to support us. Was I supposed to say "ok honey let's be homeless since you don't like working to pay down your debt"? I did try talking to her and trying to encourage her for months but she literally came home one day and was so upset that these girls were being "mean" to her at her job that she was going to walk in the next day and tell them off and quit. She probably would have been blackballed and unhireable at that point. She had lost her previous job due to "not fitting in".

I should not have threatened her with divorce. I did not know what else to do in that moment. I am sorry for this.

[MrBond]

magicjack,

Go back and read EVERYONE's post to you. Case closed.