Wandering Poster is Counting Down

[WCW]

Oh, and the cat loves me!

Wait a minute! cats don't show love, do they? They snuggle and cuddle when it suits them and then stick their tail in your face and leave.

Laughter is good medicine! My acupuncturist 'prescribed' it, he said read a joke or whatever to laugh everyday! In addition to emotional well being it also has good physical effects from the motions of a good hearty laugh.

Jeff, those times that W cuts you up and down in front of the kids...well, that's just not right. It shows her disrespect for you and in turn the kids disrespect her. Next time it happens would it be an option to tell her to come to another room with you and discuss it in private? and plan b for when she won't do that is for you to leave the room and let her know you will discuss it with her when the kids are not present. No eye rolling, no crossing your arms over your chest, no stomping your feet when you walk away. Just 'thank you W for respecting my wishes'.

[Virtually_Handsome]

You are probably right about the cat. But she knows when I go to bed, and shows up to purr on my legs every night!

Your ideas for dealing with W when she shows her disrespect in front of the kids are good. I should have done that long ago. I will try to get it right when the situation arises!

[Virtually_Handsome]

Well, I have been thinking about everything all of you have thrown into the pot, and I think the plan has changed a little. I am moving away from the "confrontation" type of approach to a teamwork type.

What I am thinking of is something like this: "W, we know our M isn't working very well right now, what do you think we can do to make things better?"
Then, I shut up and listen. Then, I take what she says, and a close look at myself, and give an all out effort. I think this will let me discover whether she really has any desire or hope, without really putting her on the spot. And, I will know what she thinks is important, and she'll know that I want things to improve.

From that point I think that Dom's 3 month timeline to see if there is any movement is reasonable. But anticipating what that means at this point is an exercise in speculation, and probably not worth much time!

So, loyal readers, what do you think about this change to the plan?

[Dom R]

Sounds like a great idea to me, at least

A word of caution:

But anticipating what that means at this point is an exercise in speculation, and probably not worth much time!

Yup. I'd like to reinforce this view even further.
Trying to "anticipate" what results look like, may be a negative influrence. If you're looking for "change A", and that's what your focus is on... you may completely overlook "change B" that happens.
(I personally have suffered from making this mistake so I want to share my hard-earned experience with you, so you benefit from my negative experience, rather than your own!)

In other words:
Do the 3 months. Give it all you've got; no looking back, no looking forwards. just a "one day at a time", do your best kinda thing.
Then at the END of the 3 months, try to take an objective look at how things are, and decide then what you want to do.

PS: your wife may not want to "work on it together".
Odds are actually fairly strongly that she wont, actually (But no harm in asking, i think)
Your 3 months will probably be "what YOU can do", not "what WE can do".
But if you are lucky, she may at least cooperate in telling you what she has been missing, and what has been hurting her over the past few years.
Telling her, "I'd really like to just LISTEN to what you say", as you planned above, may help her open up.


If you can really make some changes in yourself in response to what she says, to cover all of those areas... you may see some small changes in her after 3 months, to show you that your efforts mean something to her.

Give it a shot.. see what happens, eh?

[Virtually_Handsome]

Thanks, Dom! I won't be surprised if she doesn't want to "work on it together", but I will give her the opportunity. And the opportunity to say what she would like to see. There may be good stuff come out of that, or there maybe "I don't know" and grunts. But it all has meaning. The biggest problem I can see in this plan is the possibility of a continuation of the status quo, with no input from her. But, in a way, that is a vote from her. Then, I do the best I can, based on what I do know, and see what happens. And she will know that I want things to change. She can do as she chooses with that info, we'll see where it takes us.

[Dom R]

Sounds like you have found a great attitude very nice.

The biggest potential problem I can think of, is that she might not know what you need to work on in some areas, yet you still need to work on them.. but you dont realize it either!

So if you havent already, now would be a good time to scour a few books for things along the lines of general "common negative behaviours of husbands towards their wives", and see if any fit you.

The "dont validate their views", is one of the "common" ones, hence why that one just jumped out at me when you described it.
(I also need some work in that area myself )

[Virtually_Handsome]

I agree, Dom, the biggest problem will be if she "doesn't know". But I won't have lost any ground. I think I can do this without backing her into a corner, so hopefully she won't get defensive. Though I can't control that. We shall see.

[FriendlyOneDuh]

Jeff, I've been thinking....Uh-oh, this means trouble!

As a guess, I'm going to say that your wife may be a relatively rare (in my experience) Words of Affirmation love language woman. So....I put on my best girlfriend hat and will try to help you.

You were probably much more complimentary to her before all this stuff happened, and may have stopped because of jobs or kids or pressure or forgetting or whatever. Doesn't matter.

I think one tool to add to your workshop may be a grab bag of completely true, very easily heard, understandable compliments. Ones that show you pay attention and notice things.

So, pretend you and your wife are best girlfriends for a moment. Get out of your left logical brain, and try this with me.

For example:

1.) Wife comes home tired from work, you have dinner, she sounds snarky. "Gosh, you work so hard. Here, put your feet up for five minutes, I'll get you a glass of wine." Notice the acknowledgment of her efforts at the front, doesn't change the end of the sentence.

2.) Wife rolls out of bed and looks tired, but her hair looks good. Instead of saying the seemingly typical "you look tired" say "wow, your hair looks great today!"

3.) "that sweater goes perfectly with your eyes" "have you lost weight?" " You just sparkle when you're passionate about something" (use that when she is mad about something the kids did or the state of the world or job), and the old standby "you look beautiful today"

Now the "trick" to this is that each compliment has to be true when it's spoken. You can't say you look beautiful when she just rolled out of bed and looks like the cat barfed on her, because then she will dismiss all compliments as made up BS. If she just rolled out of bed "you're so lovely when you're relaxed like this"

The second "trick" is to not expect any response at all, each has to be just thrown out to where she can hear it, but very very very casually. You can't even expect an acknowledgment or a smile or anything. Not even a grunt!

So, say "You are an amazing cake baker" when you stroll through the kitchen, and then amble back out, not stopping, not hoping for any notice of what you said.

You'll be amazed at what you find to compliment every day. She needs one compliment every day. Try it, they are easy to find. Please start with just one. It's an investment. Treat it as such, not an instant gratification.

Gosh. Hope I'm not giving away any secrets here.

J

[Virtually_Handsome]

((((((F1))))))
I used to give her lots of compliments, maybe too many, actually. I think she thought they were fake, even though they were not. But I like the idea of one very real compliment per day. I think I will try this. By the way, you know how hard it is for me to get out of my logical brain, don't you? I may need days to recover from that!

[FriendlyOneDuh]

One very real one, don't expect or wait for acknowledgment. Act like it's certainly common knowledge and she obviously already knows it and you're just pointing it out because you are a retard who just saw it.

Does that make sense?

Just one though. Please?

Hang out in your right brain for a moment, it's probably pretty dusty over there. Take Swiffers. :-))))

J

PS. If you do this in front of your sons, you will be teaching them good things.