My family of origin and particularly my Mom. My mom treated my wife poorly and I didn't jump to her aid and defense immediatly. Other members of my family were around/involved in some of it. To us what happened was not good but wasn't a huge horrible thing either. My wife felt it was and was outraged everyone else didn't think so also. She became increasingly angry that everyone wasn't on her side and see things the way she did. I didn't have enough compassion. I could make a mile long list of things I didn't do to my wifes satifaction about the situation/relationships of my mom and me, my kids, etc.. etc... We have all been branded disfunctional at best and many psycological terms which my wife spent months researching and applying to me, my mom, my brothers, and their spouses. After about 6 months I saw the errors of my ways and made significant changes. She achnowledged I did but her anger was so deep now that it made no difference. I have been called just about everything in the book and crucified repeatedly on some of the web sites she frequents. One has eveyone on it hating my guts and pleading with her to leave me.
I have found out my wife is one of those people who carries a grudge for a very long time - maybe for life. Forgiveness on much of anything from her is hard if not impossible to get. I have continiued down the changed relationship path with my family hoping eventually I would be given a chance. 6 months after I made this change my wife gave me an ultimatum to choose her or my family. I was thrown by this as I thought I had already made that decision but evidently I had not in her eyes. I reaffirmed that I choose and chose her asking what else she wanted me to do.
Where we are now - almost 3 years later. My mom is never allowed in our home again. She is not allowed to call the house. She is not allowed to send any presents except for Christmas and birthdays to anyone including me and my kids/grandchildren. Communications between my family and my kids is restricted to a phone call every couple months. My mom is not allowed to be alone with my kids without me AND my wife (This is one of the trust ones - she does not trust me to protect (?) / care for my kids from my mother) My wife will never set foot in my mom's home. She says I can but bet others can guess what that would mean - hell to pay. My kids can't go to her house. (Another of our issues - when did she suddenly get assigned to make this decision about my kids ? ) I have lost my best friend - my youngest brother. We used to be tight/close. He feels both mom and my wife need to grow up and act like adults instead of teenage girls. He feels I have chosen a woman over my family like my father did - which he is more or less correct on. He no longer respects me like before and feels I have treated our mother excessively poorly. The rest of my family feels the same but not as strongly as my youngest brother. I used to talk to my family about once a week. Now it is about once every couple months. We have almost no interaction with my family.
I feel I've sacrificed. My wife feels I've done little and holds it against me that I haven't done more and that I haven't happily enjoyed becoming extranged from my FOO.
Other big issue. I have a troubled son. He accused my wife of hurting him to authorities. He did this to me twice. We have been investigated by child protective services three times and cleared. My wife and son pretty much hate each other and avoid each other. My wife constantly tells me how messed up my kid is and how I am failing and/or a failure as a parent. My son (11) is now enrolled in a military school. I have recently drawn the line about my son. He may be messed up emotionally/mentally but he's my son and I won't abandon him. I think I've made it clear if she gives me another ultimatum between my son or her, I will not choose her.
Because of my sons issues, any issues involving her kids are of no importance as far as discipline or behavior modification. It's come to the point that I can't and do my best to not say anything about her kids. Any time I say something she says I am deflecting my problems onto her and her kids. One is about to loose his drivers licence he's skipped school so many times already this year. Funny aside - same kid didn't come home 2 nights ago. When she noticed she called his cell. He said he did come home late and got up early (7 - and this kid never gets up before noon unless he has to) and left. LOL. Of course leaving without telling anyone evidently is fine.... Her older kids have learned they can lie to her and get away with it a good percentage of the time. They know even when caught it won't mean but maybe a day or two of not going out and they then have their friends come to our house. I will say her kids are pretty good kids generally. We/she don't have the problems many parents do with teens. All the kids get good grades. I'm not mad about her kids and it isn't really an issue anymore between us as I've backed of a lot and don't get involved. I don't want it to be an issue.
So that's some of it.
Ava - thank you for your input. To answer your question on Cinco's thread --- I am not really sure why. Could be a couple different reasons. One being we have MC tonight and maybe she thought if she did I wouldn't say anything about it being 6 weeks. I mentioned to the C a couple months ago that she had pretty much cut me off. Maybe I am getting the message to her slowly - that this matters to me. She "says" she likes and wants to have sex with me - but she's done an effective job avoiding and making me feel crappy/rejected. I did tell her about 2 months ago that I won't stay in a sexless marriage. Maybe she was horny - she did seem like she was some.
