Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums For Newcomers Wife wants out ASAP. Urgent help needed

Hey there NB! Adinva has provided you with some excellent information and things for you to consider and contemplate. She is wise beyond her years so think about what she has posted to you and see if you can't formulate a response that will help guide your thinking.

There is not much more for me to add at this time other than to say that you have come to the right place. We will help you help yourself. Tell us what you need and we will do our best to steer you in the right direction.

Wishing you all the best!

Wow Adinva, a little hard to not feel attacked especially as you are basing comments on my choice of grammar in posts I made when frustrated and angry at my W there but I will endeavour to respond to your queries and as say this may give moe insight into myself. It is hard however to see ones failings.

Since she dropped the bomb all I have been is a father to herkids and provider of money. Since the kids came along it is easy to see that we have not invested evough time in our relationship, something I mentioned when all this started so I tried all the usual romantic things plus just set aside time to be together but she was already checked out by then. I know that I like to be in control of situations and it is something I have been trying to work on. She tells people she has to ask for permission to do things but that is untrue all I ask is an adult conversation before she goes and does things that affect the whole family, such as 3 nights away at her sisters (she has done this 3 times now). I used to question her when she would spend money without need and she hated that but as our finances are quite tight I felt nervous about frivolent spending. To counter this we decided tha she would have a crtain amount of money each week that she could spend on anything she desired, my idea. I am a jealous person, I never used to like her having nights out at the start of our life togther but I have worked hard at that and amhappy for her to go have fun. This combination is what has got me into the strife Iam in, I believe.

When our first child came along I feel I did not offer as much support as I should have, my father worked long hours and so I never saw him and so I had littel idea what to do as a Dad. It took several months for me to see she was struggling but since then I have pitched in as much as I can as a full time shift worker and I try to let her sleep late at least once a week. To be fair right now I feel I am a better parent than her because she just rants and raves at them and seems angry all thre time.

As for the "let her have more freedom" what I meant was I have put aside my own indivual plans often so she could pursue what she wanted. A choice of grammar does not make some sexist pig who wants my wife chained to the house! How many people would be comfortable with their partner walking out the door as I walk in to go the gym for 2+ HOURS EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, then agian on Saturday morning! This is the only ooportunity we have to spend as a family each day but she chooses the gym. Before you start I want her to go, she enjoys it and it is good for her to get out but I have asked her to go through the day a couple times a week so we can have time together, she refuses. She is home all day everyday and could go whenever. So when I say let I mean I bite my tongue about this and just enjoy being with my kids.

As for love languages I have read up about them and she is none of them, I even asked her which she would prefer and she said none of them and that fits with the rest of our life. I have always in small ways tried all 5 languages without knowing it and I suppose a small sample of each has worked before but obviously not now. She has always had a low libido and it is something we have fought about before, I felt that if I did not beg for it then it would not happen. As you say since the kids the sex has all but dried up and I have tried to talk to her about this in the past but she would get defensive and we would get nowhere. During one of our blow ups recently she said that she faked alot of orgasms in recent times, something I find hard to believe because I always tried my hardest to make sure we both shared in the pleasure. Whilst I am almost certain she was trying to just hurt me it did work a bit and has shaken my confidence in my ability in that area.

It is hard to look back 10 years and see who I was, I believe I am much more mature than I was then.I have always felt like was a reasonably good looking man, a little shy at first but with a well ingrained confidence that came from achieveing at most things I set my mind to. I think I am witty and funny and I make friends easily. My wife does not see this in me when I know that other people do. My coworkers are mostly female and many of them have been very supportive of me through this period (nothing going on, completely innocent) and their comments have kept my confidence from collapsing completely.

Nb1712 thank you for responding. Peopleon this board, me included, really want to help you. You probably have plenty of people alreadywho will tell you, man that suxx, you do not deserve this, she is wrong. We can tell you that too but as you can see that gets you nowhere.

If it sounded like attacking you im sorry, but i dont know you and am trying to ask the questions that your specific words may prompt.

The goal will be for you to have self confidence and peace independent of the plate of cr@p she handed you.

Learn to detach your emotions from her actions. Find ways toget a life-can you get away for a night or two? What do you do to manage your stress and anger to take care of you?

Its easier to not look at your possible failings, to stay exactly as you are and walk away. If you wanted to do that, you would not be here. Dont let "hard" stop you.

Yes this is exactly what appeared to be happening.
When the posts get approved they are still pages behind and so not show up as unread.

Keep posting and you will start to get more responses.
Post on other peoples threads and thank those that post on yours even if you don't like their advice.

This stuff does not make sense at first.
But it wil, don't shut out the stuff that hurts, it might be what you need to look at.

Knowledge is power.

NB, sorry about your situation, but you are not alone. Read the posts on this board. They are very helpful and often similar. You might feel like you are alone in this, but you are not.

Detach. GAL. It will get easier.

Continue to be a great father because no matter what happens, children need a strong parent.

Hang in there.

Thanks everyone for the responses. It definitely helps to just come here and vent frustration sometimes. And thanks especially to adinva because you have got me thinking more about myself which is the goal here.

At the moment I am struggling the most with mt wifes......now I am gonna say selfish behaviour here as that is how I see it, happy to hear other view points though. My weekend. I offered to get up to kids so she could sleep in, so I have to get her up at 11am so I could get changed to get some bread for the kids lunch. She then decides to go shopping and is gone until 3pm. She comes home and I said I am gonna have some time for me now and jump on the computer for a bit. I have half an hour and a friend of her "just drops by" so she ignores the screams as the kids tear the house apart and talks gym stuff with this woman for an hour. I sort the kids out put them to bed, do a work out on my own (home gym set), have my dinner and finally get my down time. All this would be fine if it was one day so she could have a day off but Sunday she had organised to go and look at a body building competition she is planning on competing in. Leaves at 7am, the flyer for the thing says finishes approx 2pm, gets home at 8pm and says oh sorry we went out for dinner after. No call or message and I am restricing contact so I act like I dont care and dont call or text either. Walks in says wow I am tired and goes to bed! (We are in separate bedrooms of course).

Tonight I get home and she is dressed ready for the gym and says as she is leaving why are you acting so cold to me? I mean I have not seen the woman at all for the past few days and I am cold? Oh but the real kicker is she is going away to see her sister Friday afternoon this week and is not back til Sunday arvo! What a life! Its great when you have no responsibilities.

My big problem is her GAL is makin mine hard and hers is working big time on me, sucking me in. Help?

(((nb1712))) sorry you have to deal with this. I would say a couple of things. First recognize that the bomb and the selfish behavior etc probably come from a state of mind that has developed for a long time of resentment that she may not have been communicating to you. A lot of people here have spouses doing weird things because they are in extreme pain and the harm they cause their families seems necessary because it's the only way they know how to stop the pain. So I'm looking for insight into what her pain stems from and thus the hard look at controlling behavior and the one-down attitude toward being a stay at home mom. Sometimes this is how the person perceived your intentions even if they weren't your intentions. So, understand you're in crisis and if you want to give this the best chance possible, you've got to stop judging her behavior as selfish or whatever. Try to communicate what the impact is: W, I can't make plans if you don't tell me when you're coming home. Will you agree to let me know when you're staying out later like this weekend? or W I'm glad you're getting time off with your sis but I feel like I'd like a break sometimes too. Let's plan a weekend that you're on so I can go see some friends. (Just grasping at straws to get this started...)

What I'd try doing is letting her know how her actions impact you, trying to get agreement in a way that you hear her side and work out a solution rather than you trying to control her.

My counselor at the beginning showed me that my H had some legitimate complaints about me, when I thought I was a perfect victim. I read Dance of Anger and learned how very complicated all the steps were that got us where we were, and why it seemed so impossible to wipe the slate clean and get better. There was so much resentment built up on both sides. I read books on communication that helped me figure out that H was communicating resentment nonverbally even when his words suggested he was fine. I listened to tapes on boundaries to learn not to react emotionally to what H said, and to hear him better and not be mad that his thoughts and feelings were different from what I thought they should be.

My H has little to no interest in working on the relationship or saving it, but if he did I think we'd have really good chances to be happier together.

What the DR book and the 37 rules etc will do for you in the beginning is to help you shake things up and catch her attention in a way that makes you look good, not bad. The hoped for result would be that the combination of showing you in a new light while giving her the space and time to figure out her own head will result in her deciding she wants to commit to the marriage and your family together. Then, you're in piecing and the real work begins. You're far from that so have little expectation of her behavior being what you want. Start with a beginner's mind and see how you came across to her, and what you can do differently for the rest of your life to be a better partner.

Maybe there's a GAL that you can do at home with the kids - play an instrument? Build something? Or take them with you and get out to local parks or go biking with them in a trailer. Or plan a short term gal that involves her staying with the kids and you going out - check out meetup.com or look for a concert or something. Meet new people. Get back your non-dad, non-provider side.

really great advice again adinva. I am really glad you are posting here because i was struggling with the specifics of how to put the DB principles into play. The GAL is hard as all my friends are now married with kids, I do play golf at least once a week and previously I have not gone sometimes because I felt guilty leaving her with the kids on one of my days off but that guilt has flown. I am trying to meet some new people through a few different avenues and I think that will help. I have always done those things with my kids but now I just do them more often and they love it which makes me really happy.

I wish I knew where the resentment came from but dont know how to pinpoint it but have two main ideas. The most likely is: W recently decided to lose all her baby weight and I thought that was great but she joined an online program that was reasonably expensive at the time given tight finances and tried to hide it from me. I reacted badly I admit but had she been upfront I would have been fine. From that point on she has been going to the gym every night for a minimum 2 hours. At the start I was not happy with this as I wanted to have some family dinners with the kids, I am still not happy with it. In her mind she sees this all as a lack of support and has posted many things online saying how unsupportive I was even though I helped her with meal ideas and preparation, did some workouts out home with her and constantly told her what a great job she was doing and how great she looked. Mos nights I would come home after long days and have children thrust at me as she walked out the door, of course I am gonna complain a little bit. I am not complelty innocent and I did not like the fact that every night she took off to the gym but i did support her. Given her state of mind it is easy to see why she only sees the bad I did and not the good. But how do I shake this?

I also feel she may have some resentment about my lack of parenting input when we first became parents. I am big enough to see that I did not shoulder my part of the burden but in my defence I was a new dad and had no idea what I was supposed to do. I know that I would leave her with the baby and still go do my own thing when I wanted too. It took me quite a few months to wake up to myself but I did and I started letting her sleep late as often as possible when on a full shift work roster. I have learnt what being a dad really is and am now really inolved in my kids, far more so than many of my friends. Maybe I deseved resentment then but I changed and corrected the problem so not sure abut this one.

Think the weight loss one is what has done me in, just not sure how to fix it. I offered to come see the comp she is gonna compete in to show I am interested, when I am really not as I think a bunch of tanned, oiled uo idiots posing on stage is ridiculous. But I did not tell her that obviously, I have tried to be interested and ask questions but nothing.
Just spit ballin here

That's good stuff. What I see as a general theme, and may be wrong, is that there is little meeting of the minds between you two. Either you're tolerating her or she's martyring to you, until one of you speaks resentment and the other accommodates.

What if you had had conversations about what it's like being a new parent, how much both of you needed time off and time on, and how you could come to an agreement on what was reasonable to meet your needs? Then golf wouldn't have come with guilt, it would have been a reasonable, justified, and agreed up way to fill you up so you had steam to go on the rest of the week with your kids.

What if the workout thing was not about you tolerating their silly sport but you realizing that this is important to her and she's entitled to her opinion about it. I didn't see anything that suggested you let on what you think, so I'm not slamming you, just again grasping at straws to help you see that you're two independent beings and each of your realities are completely legitimate, and different. I think it's possible to not be into bodybuilding but be so proud of her accomplishments and dedication to the sport. It really sounds like you've tried that.

The fact that she hid something from you shows extreme dysfunction. She applied a response from you that you may not have given, and she tried to avoid it. Again it's like two completely different realities trying to function around and in spite of the other, not in conjunction and cooperation with the other.

Another layer of this that complicates things is she may be having an affair, physical or emotional - PA/EA - with someone in the sport, or she may be addicted to the good feelings of being in the sport and having people appreciate your workout routine and your body. That's why GAL and working on yourself are so important. She may already be gone. You can't control or fix her - you can only control or fix you.

Have you talked with her? Have you apologized for having seemed unsupportive and told her you want to be? Have you told her you are concerned because the kids need her and how you two can work the sport into the parenting responsibilities better? Have you been to or considered counseling or a marriage workshop? Have you told her how much you want to save your marriage and make it better? DB says not to initiate relationship talks but in my opinion at least at some point she needs to know you're willing to work on making it better.