Awkward situation

[hawker]

Its a hard place to be in...you don't want to be a doormat either and keep the WW having her cake...but then some WW's consider you to be an jerk if you are being a hard-@ss....personally I need to be somewhere in the middle I have figured out...

[sandi2]

I guess the big question is aside from telling or not telling my sister, is there anything else I should be doing in dealing with my wife?

I have talked to you aside from telling your sister.

Here's the problem, Tate. You don't want to do anything that requires some action from you that might grate against your WW. You don't want to even do boundaries. You want to be all kisses & hugs and charm her back into having desire for you. Now, I don't know if being a former WW is close enough to the scenario you were referring.....but I didn't get divorced and I'm still with my H nine years later. So, take it for whatever you deem my advice is worth.

The wayward wife is not your typical W who is having a spat or giving you the silent treatment. You are facing a different breed of woman. This is not the girl you M 17 years ago. You will find nobody whose heart has been turned off any more than a WW's heart for her H. The more he tries to be sweet, charming, loving, perfect H material dripping with every word he says, and his hands worked down to a nub from catering to her.........will only make her feel more turned off. It will not change her heart from how she feels about you now.

The cold hard facts is that a woman can truly desire only one man at a time. Now think about what I've said. She can sleep with several, but there is only one she truly will desire in her heart. In many cases, when the wife refuses to have sex with her H, it's b/c she has no desire for him as her H. If another man is occupying your W's heart, she won't feel loving feelings for you. I am saying that as long as she has contact with your BIL, nothing is going to work to draw her back to you.

You and your WW have a brother/sister relationship, not a H/W relationship. From what I have gathered, men who are attracted to a woman, don't want her thinking of him as her brother. Although friendships have been known to develop into a more intimate relationship.......men know if she feels like you are her brother, it ain't going anywhere! No matter what he does, she's going to love him like a brother.

IMHO, the only reason your WW is enduring this interaction (you seem to think is great) with you is b/c you are too scared to cross her. She is the one in charge and that seems to be okay with you.

As for my advice as to what you can do to deal with her, you can read my WW links in Cadet's homework assignment, and I won't have to do a lot of repeating here. It probably won't be your preferred approach, but it's honest. I have stuck around this DB board for a long time, and I have seen countless WW cases. I don't remember a one that succeeded where the H was the nice guy that you want to portray.

[EDF]

Absolutely not. It's like a car wreck...you may be in the right, but you still want to avoid wrecks at all costs.

I don't mean to offend anyone,but to put this a bit bluntly, I'm looking for experience advice from someone who has some insight into a scenario like this and is NOT separated or filing for divorce. This is a divorce busting site, yet it seems the majority of people on this board are not succeeding at stopping their divorces.

I get the "desire to avoid wrecks at all costs", but to continue the car analogy I think sometimes a collision is unavoidable... like you're going downhill with no brakes... sometimes the decision is not to crash or not crash, but to crash in as controlled a way as possible before things build up too much speed. People and relationships can heal.

Some situations are just messed up, and you're not going to find a perfect way out of it without taking/causing some damage no matter what you do. Your best bet is to control what you can control (your own actions, and how you respond to other people's actions) and use that to help mitigate the harm.

---

Regarding the advice thing, I'm no expert, and I'm still working the process like everyone else, but for what it's worth I am in a pretty positive place at the moment so wanted to weigh in to express support for the DB principles and the advice you've been getting.

My wife was in an EA she was trying to explore further - she had asked for an open relationship and kept passively aggressively threatening separation/divorce. She was very deceptive and disrespectful. It was a rollercoaster applying the DB principles, but a few weeks ago she sent a NC email we wrote together, and we've been spending a ton of time together since then and I often feel like now she's the one pursuing me.

I can't guarantee that she won't cheat again. I can't guarantee that I will be able to completely overcome what she did. But I feel optimistic about my future, regardless of whether it ends up being (hopefully) with her or without her.

As my situation has improved I've definitely been spending less time on the boards, and less time updating my own thread and I think that's definitely a recurring theme and a big part of the reason the forums can seem overweighted with people "not succeeding at stopping their divorces".

I guess the big question is aside from telling or not telling my sister, is there anything else I should be doing in dealing with my wife? .... My wife and I get along great in daily interactions, but she swears she will never want to work on our relationship, get close to me, or love me again. When asked what her plans are if things continue the way they are, she simply responds with an I don't know.

I don't have any silver bullet advice for you, but standard DB principles and Sandi's rules continue to apply here.

E.G. Don't believe anything she says; don't have R talks; don't pursue; get your balls back. (This is an ongoing process for us "nice" guys.)

I've seen several people ask you about what your 180s are, and what your GAL activities are but I haven't seen much of a response. What are you doing to be the best Tate you can be? If you can't find time for you why should your wife?

Also you mentioned a "disorder" helping cause your marital problems - what's the status there? Is this still ongoing? What are you doing to manage that?

I will point out that I strongly agree that the WW has no chance of having feelings re-emerge for the LBS while they are still disrespecting them. Right now it seems to me like you're so afraid of making your wife mad, so afraid of things getting worse, that it's getting in the way of you applying the DB principles properly, and preventing you from effectively setting/enforcing boundaries and standing up for yourself. My WW reacted poorly when I stood up for myself and got in the way of her cake eating, but they were necessary steps along the way to where I am now. My WW would have been much happier at the time if I had stayed a doormat, but I had different goals.

[ForGump]

sandi2 -- what you wrote, I need to hear every morning for the rest of my life.

You and your WW have a brother/sister relationship, not a H/W relationship.

Does every WW situation have this problem (of W seeing H as brother-sister)? Or only some?

Do WAS situations also have this problem (W seeing H as brother-sister)? Or is this less common in WAS situations?

Curious.

Will review your to-do items in Cadet's homework post.

[Tate]

So, today is an example of a situation I was trying to avoid. My wife wanted to take my suburban to haul kids bikes to the park. She didn't tell me this or ask for the keys which I have with me. She called me at work looking for the keys and was mad that I did not leave them with her.

Now, I really don't want her driving the suburban if she doesn't have to...see she's had 3 car accidents and 2 speeding tickets since dropping the D bomb in February. She drove the suburban for 2 months and managed to leave the the doors open on it an entire day while she was at work, and she managed to crash it into a parked truck. A week later, she backed her Suv into a van. The short is that she has been careless and I don't want the suburban wrecked again. I made the mistake of mentioning this to her.

As she began chewing me out on the phone, starting with the words, "this is why I hate you...", my boss walked up to review a presentation. I asked if there was anything else,but she continued ranting...I was forced to hang up on her.

The text I received after basically stated that my attitude is what has destroyed our marriage, that this is why things will never be the way I want them between us, and that "I made my own bed."

My response via text was. That I did not mean to insult her, that I had to meet with my boss, and that I'm a good person and I'm sorry she cannot see that.

Thoughts?

[doodler]

My response via text was. That I did not mean to insult her, that I had to meet with my boss, and that I'm a good person and I'm sorry she cannot see that.

Thoughts?

Tate,

Do you have a freaking spine?

I think I've got to head over to Lowe's for some more power tools.

I know I need to STFU, but d@mn...

[AndrewP]

So, today is an example of a situation I was trying to avoid. <snip>
Thoughts?

Tate - I'm going to be nicer than doodler - especially since doodler "claims" that the cookies he made me were mailed but I never saw them and I'm not sure that I trust him 100% that they were ever made.

Let's look at this practically for a moment if we can. I'll use bullet points because they're cool and look like a presentation.
- Your W doesn't want to be married to you
- Your W is treating you like a personal servant
- You are trying to be the "best person you can be" and W doesn't care
- You are using 180s directly aimed at her to rebuild your relationship.

First point here - I've been while not in your exact shoes in a very similar pair with a W who said she didn't want to be married to me while I tried like mad to "fix" everything she didn't like. And yes - I'm not a success story (yet - I hope).

If I could be so bold, take her at her word that she doesn't want to be married to you. If you start with that assumption then she has to start putting on her big girl panties and deal with things herself. The whole "there for the kids" is in large part a load of hooey. She's there because it's easier than not being there and because she has the staff well trained. You yourself need to think about what your kids need and what you need and start shaping a life without your W because you need to accept the fact that she could just walk out that door at any moment.

Buried in some of sandi2's excellent posts is a long discussion about the need for a man to retrieve his balls from his wife's purse. It's a tough thing to do and you'll feel like you are pushing your W even farther away. But first you need to find where you will take a stand and stand your ground. It will be difficult and it sounds like your W will use anger and abuse to get her own way and try to grind you down. I was fortunate that I never had to deal with that.

One key point of the 180s that MWD talks about repeatedly is that if they don't work do something different. The books also talk about the importance of building yourself up, making yourself stronger. Here on the forums it is taken that you need to become a "man that only a fool would leave" - but I personally think of it as becoming the "man in the mirror" that Michael Jackson sang about. You are no good to anyone else until you are first good for yourself.

So - time to set some boundaries and ground rules. Suggestions (and more bullet points):
- No phone calls at work unless there is imminent danger to one of the kids
- You will have activities with the kids on your own without W and not requiring her approval
- W is not to abduct (feel free to use that word) the kids and take them out of town without 24 hours notice and your approval.
- W is not to use your vehicles for any purpose without your approval
- You will grant her privacy and space to conduct her texting and not ask any questions
- You will each treat the other with respect and (just thought of this) abide by a list of phrases that you will not use on each other such as "I hate you". Penalty being a contribution to a fun day for the other parent to have with the kids.
- There will be no texting or messaging by either of you during "family time" which includes times that you are the sole parent.

and so on. Since a number of these necessarily are about the kids and she could reasonably argue that that why she's "there" you can honestly say that you are there and you trust yourself but you can't trust that she will be if the winds change.

Keep the list short, keep it achievable and make sure that both of you have boundaries.

You don't have a W any more, you have by her own admission a room-mate and room-mates respect each other's space, privacy and feelings.

Just my 2X4 for now.

Good luck - we're pulling for you and please remember that in some fashion or other we've pretty much all been where you are trying to make things work and raging against the failure of what "should" work.

[Tate]

180s are a tough call for me. I think I'm a reasonable person, but by all accounts my wife thinks I'm a jersey that criticizes her and doesn't respect her.

So, I've been doing 180s based on how she perceives me. For example, she complains about me spending too much time outside on weekends working on "unnecessary" projects. So, I've purposely stopped all projects. This gets me inside for more time with the kids, but it obviously doesn't get things done. When she wanted to borrow the suburban, I pointed out that she has a bike rack in the garage for her car that needs assemblying.

I'm doing both 180s in how I act as well as showing her how much she takes me for granted...and complains about me taking time to do things for the household.

The GAL is also difficult...a big complaint if my wife is that I did not do enough with the family. So I've been trying to spend as much time together as possible. Early in this process, her response was that she felt smothered...yep, she complained about getting what she asked for. So, is GAL doing things on my own in the evenings...wouldn't this reinforce her complaints?

[Tate]

On the boundaries aspect, I told her that her continuing to have the PA guy as a Facebook friend and continuing to text my BIL were hurting me. Per advice from the book Love Must be Tough, I told her that if she continued, then I would be forced to let my sister know what she was doing. This was my way of not involving my sister but stopping the EA.

Instead of complying, this is when my wife accused me of blackmailing her, said she would not stop, and that if I told my sister, she would divorce me instantly.

[MoveFrwd]

What does being friends with the PA guy on FB have to do with telling your sister?

That said, you set a boundary. Then she crossed it. Now what?