Needing Some Guidance 2

[KCRoo]

Thanks for your comments,

I know they are not necessarily linear, and you can float between the two.

[KCRoo]

didn't mean two

[sandi2]

I have realized that I have walked on egg shells around my wife trying to avoid fights because of her easy to anger personality.

IMHO, this is b/c of the nice-guy syndrome, which is extremely common in our LBH population on the board. If you have not read about nice-guy syndrome, you can google it and read a free download. FWIW, I started a thread on the subject, called Sandi's Reflections.

Unfortunately, there are women who control/manipulate others (H, kids, relatives, friends) with their anger, fits, rages, moods, etc. Her family is conditioned to walk around on eggshells and thinking, "Don't make wife/Mom upset or there will be hell to pay". I can't even imagine how awful it would be to live every day of my life in that environment, trying to convince myself that it's not that bad, and making excuses for my spouse. I have a BIL who controls his family in the same way. His W & kids tiptoe around him, trying to keep him in a tolerable mood. Life's just too short to live that way.

I like your goals and how you are doing things for your own sake, and rewarding yourself. This is the time to be your own friend and treat yourself well. I think a lot of men with nice-guy syndrome have centered their time, energy, and focus on their WW.....until they don't realize they are losing a part of themselves. Marriage and family are vitally important, and I don't want to imply otherwise. I am saying if you sacrifice everything that makes up YOU, in order to appease a demanding & controlling spouse.......is that really healthy for you and your children? Have you become someone you no longer recognize b/c you were so focused on your spouse's temperament? I think you are setting goals to break that "conditioning power" and rediscover who you are as a man.

Do you have any GAL activity that puts you out there among other men? I guess what I mean is...do you have male friends that share the same interest/activities?

Another personal goal is to command respect.

You can do it, too! I suggest you start with how she speaks/treats you in front of your children. It is so important that children respect their father, and if they do not see their mother respecting him.......why should they? And, the same behavior is often replayed in their own M's one day.

Don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't try to "force" her to show respect. She has that choice......and you have the choice of what to do if she doesn't show respect. You can call her out about it, and you set boundaries, but do not get into a showdown in front of the kids. We can discuss more about the respect factor, later.

Don't engage when she throws a tantrum. If she does this in front of the kids, I would immediately get the kids and go for a drive, and leave her alone. Don't reward her bad behavior.

So then as far as my next boundary, she always says when she goes out that if she doesn't text or call me, that I should text her. I haven't done this, because my thoughts are she is the one that needs to prove something to me. But if it happens again, I plan to tell her it is disrespectful, and to protect myself I she should plan to stay away from the house for the rest of the next day.

Here's the thing......she is acting out. She is conducting herself as if she doesn't have a H at home. She wants to play as if she's single, and has no concerns about how it makes you feel. So, she is self-centered and she does not respect you.

Second thing......she has either agreed to be transparent, or didn't agree. If she actually agreed to it, then she is playing you. If she was a remorseful W who wanted to save her M, she would not be "out" so much. You are right, it is her responsibility to prove she can be trustworthy.......and she does it through transparency for as long as you need. Did she agree to it? If so, have you explained what was required from her? If you have told her, and yet she plays this cat & mouse game.......what will you do next? Don't wait till the next time to tell her she's disrespecting you.

A big personal goal is to stop spying. I have 10 days sober on that.

Okay, it is good that you are not addicted to spying on her 24/7. Some people can handle what they find, and others cannot emotionally deal with it. You are responsible for protecting your emotional health. When a cheating spouse is supposedly following a transparency plan......verification is necessary. Why? B/c cheaters lie, and you cannot trust her word alone. That is why transparency is so important to both spouses. She is earning your trust, and you are given assurance. However, trust should not be given to a cheating spouse without proof to back up their words. Verifying means to make sure or demonstrate that something is true, accurate, or justified. You don't have to go to great lengths, and you don't have to monitor her phone/computer daily. In order to know the truth, you will need to look at her messaging activity from time to time. If your W is not being truthful, it will show up sooner or later. She should not have notice of when you decide to take look at her texting activity. You don't have to discuss where, when, or how you obtained your information. If she has nothing to hide, it should not bother her if her H verifies for himself.

As for staying away from her a day.....I'm not sure it's strong enough to let her know you are serious about not tolerating this type of treatment from her. Staying away for a day could be seen as if you are pouting. I think she'll just play the text-chasing game while you are out.

I think you are getting stronger, and understanding this information much better. Don't give up, b/c I think you have a shot at changing the dynamics in your MR.

[KCRoo]

So last night she was calling me and texting me. She called me about 8:30 to say she bought a new coat. She walked into an air conditioning unit downtown, and ripped a hole in her old one.

Me: When you get home can you clean up your mess from dinner the other night (she left plates, and trash on the coffee table).
WW: you don't want to do it for me?
ME: no I'm your husband not your mom or your maid.
WW: It doesn't seem like you been my husband.
me: that's funny, your one acting like we are not married
ww: I am sorry that was rude.
I ended the call.

She called me back five minutes later.
ww: did i lose you, or did you hang up.
me: I hung up
ww: Why, I said i was sorry.
me: you were very disrespectful, and I am not going to talk to disrespectful people.

So then this morning she didn't clean up her mess, so i told her again to clean it up. (It must have been hard coming home drunk at 1am.)

She then proceeds to tell me about her friend that got a legal separation, and how her ex is texting her really mean things. I said the friend just wanted the separation so she could try to date her ea partner.

My wife is like that is not it. I said that is what it seems like. She said if we got separated i had better not treat her like that (foreshadowing I'm sure). I said if that happened I would never talk to you again for the rest of our lives. She was like you wouldn't even during the process, I said no, you would just have to talk with my attorney and i would move on. (probably not the best thing to say, but she needs to know I have no intent on being her friend if we get divorced).

[sandi2]

Good job!

[KCRoo]

So I went out before she got home last night. She was keeping tabs on me every 15 minutes. She would text me and ask how the bar was. Sometimes I responded, sometimes i didn't. She tried to call me a couple times, I told her it was too loud to talk to her.

She told me she was excited to go to MC this week. I asked her why, because last week she was nervous and afraid. She said she was ready to start working on us. I am not holding my breath.

She was staying over at her friends house. I went to sleep, woke up. She texted good morning, and asked how i slept. I ignored that. I told her that she still hadn't cleaned up her mess from the other day. She asked if I would do it.

I said no, that I had asked her to do it, and she told me she would. So she needed to clean it up. She cleaned it up.

Her and the girls from her salon have a work thing tonight, and they are planning on going out afterwards. I thought she had told all her friends what was going on between us, but one of her friends, "M" asked if I was going to join them out tonight after the event. I told her no because i have to work.

As ww left with her friends to catch the Uber, she goes "Well Sir I'll text you later." I just felt like that was weird. Oh well, I am going to go out for a bit today.

[KCRoo]

Yesterday ww had, the best way to describe it was a convention. After the convention, they went out and got drunk. She called me at 7pm, and said that she would text me, much like she had the previous night. I didn't believe her.

Well it turns out I was right. I didn't hear from her until I was on my way to work at 7. She said that her friend was going to bring her to the house, and then they were going to go get the friends car. I didn't ask how that would work because I really didn't care to talk to her.

She texted me "I'm sorry"
I told her that at this point, those words don't mean anything to me like how I use to say it to her after a blow up. We texted a couple of times, always her initiating, and me responding in short friendly terms.

Then tonight we had our second MC appointment. She called me and was yelling at me because there was traffic. She started to lecture me that I needed to be more responsible. I told her that was funny coming from her. She hung up.

I got there on time, the session was mostly productive. I think it was an eye opener for ww, when the MC asked me how I felt when she was gone, and I said good.

Next week, the MC wants to meet with us individually, so ww will go next week, and then I will go in two weeks.

[KCRoo]

Well, I have a big update...I found my recorder, it was in my briefcase. I went ahead and listened to it. I confirmed that she was having a sexual relationship with om2. She told him, after we had a fight last Tuesday, that she was talking with her friend about him.

They talked about her life with him in the future, and she said that they talked about their sex.

I am just glad to be out of the muck. I am speaking with my attorney tomorrow or Wednesday depending on his availability.

It just feels good to know that I am making the right choice.

[KCRoo]

Oh I don't plan to confront her either, I have been slowly moving stuff out of "our" house over to my moms. My plan is to tell her right before she is served papers.

[KevinIn]

...I really believe that she wants to do a couple of sessions, and say, see it is not working, we tried, I want out.

I'm 100% convinced my wife did this. Just went to say she tried, even though there was never a real effort. Now she wants out all together. No remourse.