Sounds like you and your W are in a power struggle - she says she wants you to go, acts as if she wants you to go, yet you won't go. I get it. My H and I were in the same power struggle for months. MY C mentioned a similiar circle idea to me and that allowed me to let my H go. I finally saw him as someone that was truly struggling with his identity - sounds like your W is doing the same. I released my H from all of his "husbandly" duties. I just said, "H, I release you. I will no longer work on our R, suggest we do things together, go places together, try to fix this, etc. You are free to date whoever you would like, whenever, where ever. This is your life and you are free to do what you would like with it." I meant it and still do. It allowed him to make the decisions he needed to make for HIM, not for me, or the M. And he's made the right decisions. Things aren't great between us, but it's a heck of lot less stressful. Just my 2 cents.
Me: 34 H: 39 M: 7 yrs H A 12/05-8/07
If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. - M. Wheatley
... Just like the comment you made to Jar that if it was you you wouldn't have even called your wife to let her know daughter was in emergency room. That is terrible and a total power struggle going on in your mind. It was like you said,she chose this so deal with the losses that may come your way. If your daughter is lying in an emergency room and it's during my time oh well you chose this life. That's not fair and believe me she would have ammo in court.
I feel like I need to defend myself regarding this comment.
Imagine if you will, if you are in this situation: You are divorced. The other spouse is re-married. Living their own happy existence. And you have the kids, and one of them gets sick or hurt. And you need to take them to urgent care. Do you call the ex-spouse?
You know, if I'm in that situation, I would not call my ex-wife. No. As a parent, I would handle it. And we would leave the urgent care and we would all be OK. I would tell my ex-wife about it later. The upshot is that the presence of the other parent would not have been necessary in the situation that jar outlined. It was not a life-threatening situation. No serious trauma. Just a visit to the ED (or urgent care, I forgot).
Let me ask you this: If the kid needed a filling, would you invite (or expect to be invited) to the event? I didn't think so.
No a filling I wouldn't expect to call my husband if we divorced. But say like our daughter has asthma that she has outgrown. But if it was to ever act up again and I had to take her to the doctor I would respect him and call him. But in that case it wouldn't be about him or me or whatever is going on between us. It would be about our children in that moment and giving him the courtesy of knowing and getting to chose if he wants to be there for her also. Same with an ER visit. My BIL when he was young went in for a simple cut. They gave him the meds to numb it before stitching and he had a severe reaction to it. Ended up in there for 5 days. Also my chilren tend to be very close to husband and I. So they do love having us both there for support.
Also I think I have mentioned this I was divorced before. I had two children with my ex but my husband now raises them. Has always loved them as his own. Back when my ex was having visitation my daughter was 4 years old at the time. She took a bottle of baby asprin that was at his house earlier that day and ate them. He took her to urgent care and apparently they were slammed busy. A nurse practioner checked her out and said she thought she was okay. To watch her closely. Well, he brought her home that evening by like 4:00. Never told me he took her there or anything happened. Later that evening she started throwing up and was very lethargic. I called him up and asked him if he knew if anyone there had a flu or was sick or anything because daughter was sick. He them mentions what happens. Of course my initial reaction was just on my daughter and I got her care and she turned out to be okay after a night or two in the hospital. Later then I was pissed. Yes, I did use this against him and his visitation was taken away. He was only allowed supervised visitation for awhile until he proved himself. He also had to take a parenting/counseling class. In our divorce papers it states he has to inform me if he even takes them to the doctor. Which of course he nevers does. He is a low life and always has been. That is a long story and of course there was more to that story.
I guess I just wanted to bring it up in case this comes to divorce for you. It was instances like this that when the divorce were finalized that granted me things like sole custody. It was his behavior and attitude during seperation. In my heart honestly it was for the safety of the children. Your wife sounds like a fighter and a spit fire. So something like a trip to the ER that she didn't know about might send her over the edge if she is just as protective with the kiddo's.
I never realized how important respect is either, until now.
A couple of books I found early on in my sitch have been of great help in sorting out the fundamental difference between men and women in relationships. One for women and one for men. Ladies: "For Women Only" by Shaunti Feldhahn; Guys: "For Men Only" by Jeff Feldhahn and Shaunti Feldhahn.
In the first book, it explains that a man feels love through the respect that their woman shows them. Not really an eye-opener for men, but it is a little difficult for some women to realize, I guess.
(In the second book, I had a few major eye-openers as well. Like the fact that, for women the marriage act does not "seal the deal" in their heart, not like it does for their husbands. Wives need constant and continual reassurances that their H still love them. That one floored me. Guilty as charged.)
Originally Posted By: tryingtoholdon
Mark no I don't know what it's like to be a man. That also could have been the reason my own husband was unhappy. As he has made that same comment before. Something I also did a 180 on. Our marriage was bad so I got used to depending on myself and doing for my kid's. I kind of threw him out of the equation.
Trying, this sounds like something my W might have written were she being fully candid. She knew I was unhappy, but her response was to assume it was entirely because of her. And her response was not to properly address the problems but to complain about them ineffectively ("Why aren't you happy?!!!") -- and then to disregard me altogether when that didn't work.
