Yep, I’m with you on your whole explanation, and I guess the final answer is the usual answer, you decide what you want and whether the other person can meet your wants or not. If not, then you can take some action, including D. Fine. That’s well understood in our M. But we still have the nagging problem of what to do with the kids and how all this would affect them. So it is not a case of finding an optimal outcome, but choosing the lesser of two evils.
This is a shame, because as I mentioned somewhere else, all this can be avoid through knowledge. Just as you are now more aware of how you were in the C.U. chair before, my marriage could change so much if my wife could only gain your insights.
Hairdog,
I did read the book and taking a day off from caretaking has been pretty standard for me for some time now. This is counteracted by my wife’s decision to do the same for myself and the family, and instead turn her focus to her job. Her complaint now is that I don’t help enough to clean up around the house (duh!). Well, I do my share of cleaning, plus yard work, but I stopped trying to keep things clean while she trashes the house with her school papers. So the mess of the house has become obvious to her but it is my fault. Too bad.
The problem with this way of thinking is that it can end up putting the relationship back into stand off mode and create a new form of power struggle. If the other person does not want to cooperate, then all you can do is just focus on yourself. You end up leading parallel lives, which is not a relationship.
Depending on your W's sense of guilt or empathy to change her thinking about the C.U. chair seems like a trap you're setting for her; a very deliberate trap.
All lessons that we learn come about as a “trap” in one way or another. If we cannot learn the “easy” way by listening to others and making our own changes voluntarily, then we need to experience the consequences of not changing and feel the discomfort that results. Then, if the discomfort is high enough, we might make the conscious choice to change behavior. For an non-empathic person, this seems like the more common path.
