Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis Ground Hog Day WAW #18

Phil,

My W's mother was Manic. She divorced her dad when W was 17. Her dad told me that she went from these amazing 'high highs' to lows that were 'vicious'. It was tough to live with.

At the time she got on Lithium which was the drug of choice then. So when I met her she seemed pretty calm. This was 1985.

These days they can do hormone / blood tests to figure it out. And they have a lot better drugs now also.

She certainly can go from 'zero to B1tch' in 60 seconds. And you're at the end of your rope.

If you could calmly talk to her about her mood swings, ask her if she'd see a doctor about them because they may be due to physical causes that might be a start.

I think of it this way: Our brain is a big chemical machine. Sometimes it goes off balance and we need to correct it. it's just chemistry, nothing else.

Phil, did you ever get the idea that maybe this is more trouble than she's worth? She is clearly unhealthy for you. Maybe just let it go. If there is someone else, you can biblicly put her away, and maybe you'd be better off. There is a fine line between crazy and just plain evil. Stop playing her games. Is she really good enough for you?

Play devil's advocate much, Phoenyx?

Phil is not going to throw his wife to the wolves.

When Phil is in control, his wife spews.
THAT'S WHAT WALK-AWAY SPOUSES DO.

I suspect in her case she spews when Phil is calm because she begins to feel comfortable enough to do so.
But when he flips, she flips out further.
And that's the nature of the beast.
Walk-aways don't make sense.
They don't perceive things quite right.
Everything is exaggerated inside them and therefore, it is exaggerated when they let it out.

The burden is on Phil to maintain a certain level of calm if he wants to turn this thing around because his wife is going to have to feel two things: 1) respected even though he disagrees with her and 2) that she misses him.

Each time he forces a kiss or a hug and each time he snaps on her, he reinforces her decision to leave him.
He convinces her she did the right thing.

If Phil can stop doing that and can maintain a calm demeanor in the face of her spewing, and instead of spewing back dare to consider that there could be at least some basis in fact to the things she says - if no other basis than it was how she PERCEIVED things - he will finally have this bull by the horns.

Simply telling her she's wrong and reinforcing her guilt isn't going to bring her home.

Phil needs to understand that validating her "feelings" - even if they're exaggerated and even if he disagrees - is not the same as conveying to her that it was okay for her to have walked out on her family.

Maybe you guys can talk to him about that.



Good luck.



AmyC

No Frank, I said it from the get go that people didn't now how to talk to me. Go back to my thread #1.

I just think its funny that the passive aggresive behavior I get on this board brings out the best in them. They can call me every name in the book, denouce truth in religous terms I suggest, and when I zing back. I get punished. I get my thread locked. I get threatened. I get harrassed. Then its a gang bang approach.

Why the gang bang approach? The high fives... etc...

Why is there so much passive aggresive behavior.

PHOENYX... Really I think your dense. DUDE she is my wife. I love her. I don't care how she acts, just come home and ML to me. Whatever dude, we are one. We are one.... We are one! I belive that whole heartedly. Yeah she is a tough cookie, but she is my cookie. Besides the three realtionships before her, they were the same. Tough cookie woman. They are all tough.

They get warned not to look back at a destructive city, and the first thing they do is turn their head. Instantly turning into salt. Defiance. Eating the apple... Defiance. It a continuation of defiance. I think I just had an epithany. That is most likely why God allows it. I just a continuation of defiance.

I thought He would be sick of that game by now.

I'm not saying we men are any better, but for the most part we are pretty simple.

Ah, you know I like Mafia movies. I think I just play the hard a$$ boss too much. I think I did the same thing in the marriage. Me Boss, you woman, you listen. I give you good life. So STFU! I'm not a whoremonger. I never cheated. I liked my suds. She despised it. Well I took that problem away, so now what is the deal.

Quit chewing... Ok, when is it going to come down to quit breathing. Then and only then maybe she will be happy.

I can't make the woman happy. Even in the beginning the shoe story. Every single shoe store at the mall two hours later, we go back to the first store and by the first pair of shoes. Utter madness. And yes, I would kill to go back to that day. Watching her model all those shoes. I have a weakness for high heels. And that if anything makes me a sicko...

You can judge a person by their shoes... Mostly on this board, I feel like I'm wearing a big steel toe boot. Worn to hell but still shinning on the tip and heel leather like patten leather.

so next time you are going to go off about her or on her you should remember this.....
if you don't i will remind you.
you LOVE your wife, act like it
you show her you love her, and things will get easier for you

Amy,

The problem is she ignores me, so there isn't anything to validate.

I did text her about her being right out of the blue last night. I said your right we can put people on the moon, you should be able to plug everyting in. I do not know what I'm doing. I'm an idiot and a jacka$$. Then she started talking a little to me. I wonder how many times she tripped the breakers at her place.

Gosh, someone even took the foot print mark out of context. Because they do not understand the sitch. My wife was a clean freak. If you left a crumb on the counter she would go balastic. Because she stated she had OCD. Take your shoes off rule. Why should that change? Point is, I'm busting my a$$ keeping this house in tip top. The way she would want it. The way I want it. I mop these floors almost a thousand square foot of hard wood. I don't need a foot print on them. Then I used her rug in her foyer to walk my sleeping son in her house. I got a little bit of dirt on the rug, the rug that is suppose to be there for that reason and she flipped.

I should have shoved a damn grapefruit in her face...

She constantly disrespects me. I don't think she ever really treated me as her husband. She just wanted to control me and make me her slave, and I wasn't going to have it.

Animosity. I didn't help when I would dump a six pack down my throat.

I self medicated. Suppressed my feelings. Held everything together, so I thought.

Well the addition is done. There is still stuff that needs done. The deck is done. The kitchen is down, I finished that during WAW@home. But I still need to poly the cabinents, and build another.

I just do not feel like working on this house anymore. 8 years I worked on this house, and now I might loose it because of her selfish behavior. Bad enought I might loose my job, been feeling that pressure for 7 years.

Sometimes I think gee if she would have gotten that job earlier, she might have never of left. We would have a better lifestyle.

Now even she comes back... We are looking at debt. Debt she created. All we had was a mortgage payment and a car on a cc. Utilities. That was it...! Now we are screwed... and if she goes through with a divorce it will just get worse. She doesn't want lawyers. But by the way she acts I'll have to have them. So instead of the kids getting the money, the lawyers will get it.

Ok Phoenyx...

I had to remind her again tonight to stop giving me a hard time. She gives me a hard time about everything. She told me to watch my son like a hawk when she left the house. Then she told me on the phone. Then she started yelling that I wasn't watching him good enough. He was sitting in a chair next to me.

I have complete awarness when I'm out. I can sense danger. I have great periperal vision. I act like a crazy loon sometimes. Some people get it. Some people don't. I'm kind of like the Fisher King.

Tonight at the mall the girl gave me one of those dead sea salt hand washes. I lost my snap, and couldn't sing no more. My hands were too clean. Couldn't snap my fingers. You can't sing Killer Queen without snap. I sing it in the large sections of the mall. Great echo... but the girl she killed my snap.

So instead of killer queen sing don't stop me now.

All I'm saying is that, when you think/speak all that negative BS, you eventually start believing it. Trust me, living proof. Again, everything you say about your W, I thought. From the Jezabell, to the crazy, to the can't do anything right. You act as if it is true. They pick up on that. Suck it up, and be loving. The other way hasn't worked, and trust me when I tell you this, nothing changes until you change how you view the situation.

She is giving you a hard time because your reactions to it validate the things she says about you. When you snap... Phils a d!c#, good thing I'm getting out. At the same time, you are getting texts to step up(if it comes from her friend, it originated with her), and kissing her cheek, and all this other stuff.

So would it be reasonable to say that you generally felt undervalued and unappreciated in the marriage? I can see how that can happen. Hell, I lived it. I unknowingly (at the time) did a very similar thing to my own husband back in the day.

But do you remember when she said you never used to help her bring in the groceries from the car and that you were never home with her and the kids (paraphrasing)? She does give you clues to how SHE felt, too, Phil.

Instead of letting the spirit of offense attach itself to you imagine for a minute that for whatever reason, things like that, over time, made her feel uncared for and unappreciated. And imagine that the times you'd drink and maybe even say nasty things to her...made her feel unloved, unappreciated and eventually...resentful.

Resentful enough to leave.

How many years do you suppose one can live that way and not begin to believe it's true, that they are unloved, uncared for and unappreciated?

I'm not saying I'm painting the picture of your marraige.
But you're dropping clues here to us and she has dropped countless clues to you.

So I am suggesting that instead of focusing on how badly you felt (even though your feelings were legitimate), be the bigger person and look deeper and see how you both harmed each other.

If you get to a place where you can do that, and you can be completely honest with yourself about it, this battle of yours will take it's first turn towards victory.