Quote: No parent should tell a child that they will kill them.
It was the DAUGHTER that said this to the mom, not the other way around.
Cobra, as for what you should say to her, do you think that calling her a fcuking c-nt and yelling and telling her all the ways she is a bad mother and how much you hate living with her would do any good?
Let me ask you this: if YOU (perish the thought) did something you knew was over the top (like pouring water on the kid in bed), how would YOU want to be spoken to about it? What approach would get YOUR attention?
I believe kids of that age should have an alarm clock and be totally responsible for getting themselves up. if they miss the bus or are late for school, there are consequences. Better your D should learn this lesson now than when she's an employed adult.
If a man had gone into the child's bedroom, swept monitor and books into the floor, threw water in the child's face and *for whatever reason, for whatever context* threatened to kill the child -
He would be hauled off immediately.
ADD and OCD do not make you abusive.
I don't have to tell you, because you are living it - but your wife evidently has little self-restraint. She can't draw lines on her own behavior. That means you have to draw them for her on behalf of your children. Because if it was just you, you could choose to tolerate it or leave.
Your children don't have that choice.
She has a track record of choosing to not restrain her abusive mouth and abusive behavior. It was abusive to your son for her to hang up on you when you were calling to see if there were any antibiotics in the house.
Your son's pain and health were *secondary* to her, well below her need to angrily express her unhappiness with you and "win" a power struggle with you by hanging up and then not answering the phone.
She sexually abused your son by flicking his penis repeatedly.
She has proven herself abusive repeatedly.
Fathers who walk into a home and start stomping around and angrily fuming at the family would quickly get labled abusive. I do not think women should be given some sort of gender-card that allows them to behave the same way with little consequence.
I don't think it is important *at all* what may be contributing to her reason for being the way she is. It is her behavior and actions displayed in the present that need to be addressed.
You know you can live in a perverted situation for so long that you lose any concept of what normal is.
I think you're caught in that kind of fog.
Because when I hear specifics of what you and your children are dealing with, I am frankly in shock. I don't think you truly realize the depth of what your wife is doing to your children.
What's it going to take? An actual painful physical injury to a child?
As to concern about losing her job, I can assure you that parents of the children she is teaching would move their kids out in a New York second if they knew how she treated her own kids.
If it's not important enough to her to control her behavior because she fears losing her job, then why would it be more important to you than your children?
I agree with you that her plan is to get situated so that she can divorce you and take your children.
I see nothing wrong with you taking a pre-emptive move and divorcing her yourself while pushing for full custody. I would hate to see you put yourself through this ringer, while she changes little and continues her abusive behaviors with the children all the while setting you up for divorce.
Your wife needs a wakeup call.
Why don't you call your counselor and ask him/her if what occurred is abusive.
Quote: It was the DAUGHTER that said this to the mom, not the other way around.
" As I got out of the shower this moring, D13 came in the bathroom and said W had whispered to her that if D13 was going to kill her, she would kill her back. D13 said she replied something like she get W and W said “how are you going to do that, how, how?” "
I agree with what you say, but we live in Texas and as bad as W’s behavior may be, there is just not enough hard evidence against her to go in my favor. It will be my word against hers and the end result will be that we divorce, she gets custody of the kids and I pay her child support. Now what is fair about that? I know full well that going through with a protective order and filing for D at this point will just be stabbing myself in the back. I filed for D once. Paternal custody of the kids in Texas requires a lot more abuse than what is going on here. Texas courts just will not take kids away from mothers unless they absolutely have to.
Lil,
D13 does get up on her own, and is usually VERY responsible (much more so than D15). This morning W woke her up about an hour early to do her math.
Cobra, I want to clarify, I don't think you are the root cause of your W's problems. I do wonder how much your behavior and attitude toward her has escalated her issues.
I think your W is horribly abusive but I'm not trying to help her, I'm trying to help you. And you, Cobra, are being abusive.
I don't think for one second that things will magically get fixed if you treat your W better, but it may make them a little less volatile.
I spent 5 years with an abuser...and I became one in the process, much like you. I did things that I am not proud of all in the name of trying to save the relationship. He treated me horribly and I in turn treated him pretty horribly back because I was trying to, in some small way, stand up for myself and shoe him consequences of his actions. What I discovered though, is that the more I stood up, the more he escalated the situation. I didn't like or agree with the things I had to do to be heard and/or taken seriously in that M. I reached a point where I didn't like myself very much because of the things I was doing and I decided to stop. Guess what happened. It pi$$ed him off even more. He went ballistic because it was an insult to him that I was not engaging in the battle so he had to escalate it. I stayed in control of myself and eventually he burned out and calmed down. I told him I was choosing to live by my standards, and I did. Some things did improve. So Cobra, I do know what I'm talking about. I feel for you but I want you to UNDERSTAND that regardless of your W's actions, YOU are crossing the line and you can only stop yourself from taking that path. Choosing to live by your standards is NOT quitting.
As for your W, no freaking way should she be sleeping with the kids. And abuse is abuse so start documenting it and talk to a lawyer.
Bear
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
--Marcel Proust
Mrs. NOP-- I guess I read that post too fast... also when I commented on the "killing" remark, cobra replied that that was normal venting by a 13-year old, this supporting my misreading.
Clearly this is one troubled, violence-ridden family and cobra and his W can't see the forest for the trees.
Please understand that what I had told you on the other thread was NOT to 'give up.' I'm just telling you bluntly that you CANNOT get blood from a turnip. Trust me. Please. BTDT.
I think, personally, that DE-escalation would be in EVERYONE'S best interest, and that was, in essence, what I was suggesting to you. A separation, without separating.
It is my opinion only, that if you try to continue to GET intimacy from your W in the current atmosphere... all you are going to do is worsen things. You may see improvement here and there... but I think it is false improvement. It's just tactical change on both your parts.... not true intimacy.
Sweety, I lived this myself. Not like your sitch per se... but my own version of it. I now have benefit of hindsight. I'm not trying to hurt you, or tell you that you are wrong in your approach... 'cuz, hey, if she leaves you... then you can't help that, right?
Cobra, If I were you, I concentrate on setting boundaries for your entire family instead of concentrating on working up your courage to be mean to your W.
In other words, practice things like: "I will not tolerate you telling D13 that you will kill her, regardless of what she says to you first. If it happens again, I will do xyz. If it happens after that, I will do abc. These are my personal boundaries. I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm simply telling you how things will be from now on."
Then do the same (with different consequences of course) with your daughter. Even though your poor daughter is growing up with a violent, hateful mother she should still be taught that this sort of behavior is unacceptable.
It is absolutely critical, in your situation, to enforce boundaries every single time. Mainly for the protection--mental and physical--of your children, but also walk the walk of what you are presumably doing here at this forum: trying to save your M. As long as your wife knows that she can say or do whatever she feels like, she will continue to do so. Your getting angry has helped turn the tide but its effectiveness appears to have worn off. It's time for the next phase: putting her in her place and taking charge of your family. There is absolutely no excuse for the way she is acting towards your kids but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, eh.
Here are 2 things I'd do right away: 1. Talk to W and D separately and lay down the law about killing talk. Unacceptable. End of story. Then talk to the the whole family, as a unit with you leading the meeting and letting them know that violence and disrespect will not be tolerated from anyone.
2. Meet with your lawyer again and go over your chances of getting custody. Although I don't know squat about Texas divorce law, I find it incomprehensible that a woman who has one child endangerment arrest on her record and the potential for several others would *automatically* get the kids. It has a ring of defeatist talk to me...or is it really that bleak?
Cobra, I don't know how you do what you do. I wish you luck and am pulling for you.
Update Friday night was uneventful as W did not get from work until about 12:15 (I think). The kids and I were in bed by the time she got home. She has a new problem child in her class this semester and W found out Friday that they will have a meeting today to decide what to do with him. W says she needed to prepare various reports in preparation for this meeting.
Saturday started OK. The kids had lots of homework this weekend, so they both started off focusing on their work. As I usually do, I asked W what was on her agenda for the weekend, which was the usual need to catch up on her school work. I asked her if she would be able to finish cleaning up her stuff around the house this weekend, since she didn’t do so last weekend, and that I would be willing to help her out again. She asked me why I was being nice and I told her it was to help her but also help myself, to get a clean house since I did not believe she would be able to get things cleaned up this weekend either.
That led us into the discussion I had been waiting for. She was not angry so we were able to talk.
We started with the house cleaning issue, she saying that she has ADD and has a problem organizing in general, and the mess is allowable for this. She said she accomplished a lot from a few weeks ago, but I always look at the glass half empty. I told her I did not accept that, she should not impose her mess on the family using ADD as an excuse. I told her I have been more than patient with her, living with a messy house for over 1 year. I asked how long should I wait? 2 years? 5 years? I said other people would not tolerate even a few months in a house like this, that we live like white trash and only every now and then clean it up before it goes back to the way it was.
I conceded the she could need till the end to the semester to get a full cycle of materials prepared. She says she is working long hours to get established in her job. I said the problem with that is in spite of her words, I see all her action directed a working toward D. This gave me no confidence that she was trying to clean the house, but rather spend all her energy on her job to work toward D.
She mentioned her previous requests that I turn over joint ownership of the van and the down payment money for the house, but that I have not done so meant I was the one not cooperating. I told her that I would be more than willing to do those things and that I am willing to commit to them for the sake of the marriage, but she had to first state her intentions in wanting those assets. She did not make any commitment.
I said this is the typical example of her putting blame on me for my response, yet she does not want to acknowledge how she contributes to limiting the options for my response. I said this creates a self fulfilling prophecy since her approach, her lack of commitment, creates insecurity in me. She said this was because of the last 15 years, blah, blah, blah, and that again I see things as the glass half empty. Her focus was on me and how I was not a supportive H, that I was abusive, angry, etc.
I told her to let go of the past, that that was only a means for her to keep a wedge between us and that her doing so created the distance she complains about. I said I see the level of the glass in perspective of the environment she helps to create. I told her to own up to her part in creating those emotions in me, that she did nothing to give me security by ever acting like a loving supportive W.
She said she did in the beginning. I said that I remember her doing some of this the first year or so, but after that I never recall her doing so, that she was always focused on D. She said she does not want to be like her mother and become dependent and vulnerable on a man and wants to get to a state of independence in case of D. She said that her working is something I had always wanted. I agreed but said I wanted her working to help contribute to the stability and financial security of the family, not working to achieve D.
I said that her intentions to get a job have always been for the purpose of D and that was her full intention now. She said she did not directly planning D but was preparing for it just in case. She gave an example that the US is justified in arming itself against global terrorism and her protecting her self interests is also justified. I responded that may be true, but the rest of the world is getting very nervous and agitated with the US over current policy and before we embarked on this campaign, the rest of the world was at much greater ease with the US. This same analogy applies to how I feel toward her defense buildup.
I told her that men are very simple. All they want is to be admired and looked up to by their wives, to feel like the knight in shining armor. I asked her when in the recent past had she ever been a loving, caring, supportive wife, of had stopped to even think of me in this way. She stopped arguing and seemed to come to terms with her unsupportive attitude. She asked what I wanted her to do.
I told her I have been trying to explain to her my POV for a long time but she just hasn’t wanted to hear me. I told her to read Schlessinger to understand what she does to create an environment that makes me angry and insecure, that I felt the book did a good job in explaining the male POV. She agreed to do so and we ended on good terms.
The rest of the day I helped with her school stuff. Later in the day I asked for sex and she agreed. Late that night things finally settled down enough for us but she said she was tired, being late. I asked her to come in and help me MB, but when she came in and we had sex. It was only a quickie, but then she started watching TV and working on her laptop in the bedroom. I assumed she was just trying to do her part in spending a little more time together.
Sunday was busy too, both working around the house. I spent much of the day working in the yard so the kids could do their homework, going grocery shopping. When I got back she had started dinner. I finished and cleaned so she could work more on her lesson plans. She never got around to cleaning up her stuff in the bedroom, but did straighten a little in the living areas.
As for D13, she was calm and in a good mood all weekend. She seems to feel much better after having one of her blowups because I think she feels heard.
So in our usual dysfunctional pattern, we took another reluctant baby step forward. I believe this step was only possible because events came together to “force” a realization on the part of W. Had I left well enough alone over the past few months, I truly believe she would still not understand my POV of what her responsibility is in our current relationship and how she contributes to the fighting.
I know I should not engage in the name calling, but I do believe it is essential that I stand up to her to the point that she feels enough pressure to confront our issues. Also, she is the one who does the bulk of the cursing. Telling her not to curse goes no where. Actually cursing more that she does makes her understand how much I dislike hearing her curse.
If I do not push in this way, months pass by without any progress. It may seem logical that if no issues come up and we can get along peacefully then we should be able to get closer. But I have never experienced this to happen. In fact, it seems she usually starts to slack off on her responsibilities, slowing backing out of sex, focusing more on herself and the kids, going back to her old comfortable ways. She will also slowly start to push her boundaries to the point that she slowly encroaches in her imposition on myself and the kids.
My problem is that I am not the assertive one by nature, but she is and usually acts first, then thinks later. So the responsibility falls on my shoulders to keep nudging her back each times she encroaches. This is in direct opposition to how I was raised, which is a Japanese approach. I was taught people should focus on the feelings and impressions of others first and then yourself. My W seems to practice the idea that each person should protect his/her own boundaries and if no one says anything to you, any encroachment you may do, whether intentional or not, is their fault not yours. This has been a hard change in perspective for me to make, and it still is.
As for the lawyer, I have met twice with some very good family lawyers and have been told the same thing. Regardless of what I say here on this board, in court it would still be my word against hers. My chances of custody are still slim to none. At this point I am only concerned about S9 if it should come to D. The girls can decide where they want to live and the court will likely honor that. But all this is not where I am trying to go.
I told her that men are very simple. All they want is to be admired and looked up to by their wives, to feel like the knight in shining armor. I asked her when in the recent past had she ever been a loving, caring, supportive wife, of had stopped to even think of me in this way. She stopped arguing and seemed to come to terms with her unsupportive attitude. She asked what I wanted her to do.
None of the Knights in Shining Armour I've ever read about call their lady loves a FB.
Quote: She asked me why I was being nice and I told her it was to help her but also help myself, to get a clean house since I did not believe she would be able to get things cleaned up this weekend either.
Hmmmm.... wonder if there could possibly be a correlation between you being nice and her being able to HEAR you... you even got yourself laid and she hung out in your bedroom afterwards for a bit.
Did you thank her? Did you tell her how much you appreciated her efforts? Did you praise her in any way... or did you just accept her efforts as your due?
I dunno... could be dumb luck and the planets lining up correctly... wonder how things would go if you just continued to drop 'nice' seeds her way all week long... without being wimpy or placating, of course...
