Over the Shock and GALing 6

[Thinker]

CAUTION: Long Venting Post Follows:
---

I spent a while thinking about what bothered me about this confrontation with my W, and realized last night what it was. I had confronted her about the wrong thing.

The Book "Crucial Confrontations" ( Crucial Confrontations ) Spells it out pretty clearly: you have to make sure you are confronting about the right thing. They use the acronym "CPR"

- Content - What the person did
- Pattern - The repeated history of them doing it
- Relationship - The impact that this action is having on the relationship with you.

I confronted my W about the Content - (re)friending OM.

I should have confronted W about the pattern. It was the pattern I was really upset about, not the content.

So when I confronted her about the content, and she backed off, I was left unsatisfied. I knew the problem wasn't solved.

---

Last night I checked, and sure enough, although she had promised to delete him, she had not done it yet.

So I confronted her about that...

This time, I was not as well prepared, and she was much more defensive...

Me: "I noticed that although you promised to delete him, you have not done so. Please do so. It is important."

Her: "Oh God, why is this such a big deal! Why are you monitoring my page anyway! I don't even go on facebook anyway, you are...."

...and yes, I was tired, and unprepared for the confrontation, and not good at managing her deflections. She did manage to turn it into a discussion of a number of supposed things I was doing wrong - getting me into a defensive position of constantly saying "No I'm Not!"

I did stick to my guns enough (repeated "By When are you going to delete him?") to extract a promise to delete him from her account by the end of the weekend (she is traveling and won't have much internet access before then, so that is reasonable).

But the discussion turned ugly. Calm, and quiet, but some ugly enough things came out that right now I don't really like Mrs. Thinker very much. It showed me what planet she is really on.

(and now comes the part where I bare myself here on the boards in the name of openness and honesty...)

In defending her ongoing contact with OM, she threw out an accusation that I was having an affair with a good MALE friend of mine.

WHAT!!! WTF!!!

Caught me completely off guard. I didn't know how to respond.

She threw out accusation after accusation that he is "obviously in love with you".

Now he and I have spend a fair amount of time together - we're great friends. He was one of the guys who joined me on my recent backpacking trip. I have known him for a very long time, however, and he and I are both pretty solidly sure of our heterosexual dispositions. Confident enough that the accusations surprised and confused me more than they hurt me. I responded only by telling her that the attacks were completely un-called for, inappropriate and wrong.

I was confused enough to follow up with Mrs. Thinker on the topic today. And here's proof that when the going gets weird, the Weird go pro.

After I asked her directly why she keeps harping on this friend of mine's sexuality and why she seems to be so bothered by my friendship with him, she admitted that it wasn't really him, but me -- saying "You have made all of these changes recently and they are making you much more effeminate and it's creeping me out!!"

Now I have made changes, but none all that drastic. I am pretty much the same person I always was. Many people (other than Mrs. Thinker) have noticed that I am now more relaxed, happier, and more fun to be around, but that's about it.

So I am the same person I have always been, and pretty happy with that. Personality wise, I tend to be polite and conservative, rather than boisterous and brash. I'm 5'9" and 160lb rather than 6'2" and 220lb. I race bicycles rather than playing football. I am an engineer rather than a stockbroker. I can be mistaken for young 30's rather than young 40's in age. I am who I am, and I don't worry about it all that much. I always dated women who like who I am. That's who I thought Mrs. Thinker was.

But recently it seems like Mrs. Thinker is back in high school acting like a Prom Queen who only wants to date a football player.

During the discussion this morning, I was truly curious and asked her for examples of when and how I had acted "more effeminate". She could name only one. It was a dinner party we attended as a couple a month or so ago. As the party wore on, it broke into a couple of groups. One group of husbands pulled out guitars and began to casually play a bit and sing. Another mixed group hung out in the kitchen and talked, and a third group hung out around the picnic table outside and smoked cigars and drank.

I chose to join the group playing guitars. What the hell - I never would have done that before, but it was fun and out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed it.

My joining this group was what "creeped out" my W as being "effeminate". WTF!!! At first I couldn't figure out why this would have bothered my W AT ALL.

But now that I think back to the party, Mrs. Thinker was in the group that was outside around the picnic table. So were Toxic Divorced BFF (Who is too cool for our whole town), and her equally Toxic, also divorced tough-guy plumber boyfriend (The one who was sex-texting mrs Thinker 6 weeks ago). My read on it is that this couple, with whom Mrs. Thinker has been spending lots of time recently, was criticizing and denigrating the musical group indoors (neither plays an instrument), and this embarrassed my W.

This presumption of mine may be out to lunch, but it is the only explanation I can find that fits, and I have overheard this couple in the past snidely and derisively criticizing another husband for not being cool enough. They are also exactly the people who would look at someone playing a guitar and singing and say "Oh my god that so F--cking Queer!!". I've heard them use exactly this language so it fits in with their behavior. Mrs. Thinker has become more and more influenced by Toxic Divorced BFF over the past year, dressing like her, hanging out with her all the time, etc.

And this is what really pisses me off. Not the "concerns about my sexuality" - that is so out to lunch that it really just confuses me more than anything. It is that she seems to be trying so hard now to be one of the "cool kids" that she cares so much about what they think that she is now basing her opinion of me on their criticism.

She is also building a standard for herself that I don't even want to try to meet. She has clearly articulated my "changing and being too effeminate" as the reason she is no longer attracted to me and the reason the marriage can't work. Now, I haven't really changed, so she must have changed be changing her own standards of attractiveness. This would make her now attracted to a person that I have no interest in becoming.

The whole thing just sickens me. If she weren't the mother of my children, she wouldn't be welcome back after her trip this weekend. I just don't like her. I don't like the way she is acting or the people she is hanging out with. And I respect myself too much to deal with someone who is going to treat me like this.

I am ready to walk out myself. Today I contacted another lawyer and opened up my own separate credit card and checking accounts - both empty but ready to go. I need to take a deep breath or I won't make it to Retrouvaille (5 weeks from today) without dropping my own bomb.
--

So that ends my rant for the evening. It leaves me with two questions:

1) Has anyone else experienced something similar? I am particularly interested in hearing from any of the women as to whether they started seeing their H's in a similar light.

2) I am not going to let this one sit there, so how do I respond to it? I can't attack her for feeling that way - it's her reality. Defending myself is just playing to lose. I don't want to just brush it off.

So, as usual, I am open to feedback.

-----