My W wants a D and wants me out of the house. (Or so she has said) However, to get to that point i need to get my car fixed and to save up for my own apartment. We are currently trying to save for that while i work on the marriage and she does the bare min because she isnt sure she wants to. We also have done very odd things like buy a new couch, end tables and fans. (all this money could be used to get me a new car but have been used to buy other things and kind of putting it off the car and saving for the move out. These have all been her choices, i of coarse have accepted them because once i get a car the closer i am to losing my family/wife)
OK I'm going to give you advice and just like every other newbie on this site, you're going to say "I can't do that, I want her to really want me and if I stand up to her and rock the boat, she'll leave me forever...."
And just like every other noob on this site (including myself when I first got here), you would be wrong.
Short & sweet this time because I've typed this umpteen number of times on numerous other threads.
You need to stand up to her. She is making all the choices and decisions not just for her but for you and you instead of standing up for yourself are going along with it, you think by being weak, wussy like and ultra accomodating, your wife will snap out of her funk and see you for the most wonderful man on the planet and love you forever and tell everyone how silly she was for ever considering divorce and leaving you.
Question: What did the five fingers say to the face? Answer: SLAP!!!!
There's your 2x4, wear it proudly.
My W wants a D and wants me out of the house.
Ummm... yeah, good for her, why do you have to listen to what she says? Is she listening to you? Does she care about what you want? No she made this decision and by going along with her decision to kick you out, you are killing the attraction between you, in fact, it's dead, she can't respect you, you don't respect yourself, you're like a broken man, how can she respect that? Women are attracted to men who are masculine and have strong masculine traits: one of those being that you stand up for yourself in the situations that require it. You respond intelligently & confidently to a situation, you don't react blindly like a scared mouse.
Seriously you sound scared and broken and gosh golly gee, women love a scared and broken man, nothing gets that estrogen pumping in a woman like a weak wussy scared little man, heck I'm getting hot just thinking about it and I'm a guy!
You will tell your wife this (and yes it's going to require guts and bravery and courage that you currently don't have but you have to do it anyways, if you don't, you will lose her forever, I'm not saying you have a guaranteed chance of turning this around but you are definitely not getting there doing what you're doing), "Wife, I've been thinking about our current situation and I've decided that I'm not going to move out. I can't make you change your mind about us or keeping our marriage alive but I'm not going to enable you to walk all over me. If you want a divorce and can't live with me, you're going to have to be the one to move out because I've decided I'm staying - it's my decision if I want to stay or to leave, not yours. It's unfortunate if you don't like this but I can't control your feelings, I have to do what's best for me. If you divorce me, I will pursue shared joint custody of our children, I won't be a weekend dad or less than that just so you can have fun with some other guy - that's my decision too."
"As for that stroker/OM on crackbook, you're a married woman, you want to fool around with another man, flirt with another man while being married, that's not cool with me, continue doing that and I will pack your things and place them in the driveway, I won't be made a fool of by you or anyone else. You can have all the fun you want with another man when you're divorced, but you're still legally married so until that happens you will not disrespect me in my own home."
She will have a fit and she will get angry, 99% always do, that's ok, realize that something is going on, you are standing up for yourself, it's not evident right away but doing so actually registers subconsciously with her, she may tell you she hates you and she may tell you she was considering "taking you back" or some other such nonsense but now it's game over for you and you hearing all this will no doubt be scared & frightened and crouch in the fetal position on the floor and wait for the nightmare to end but that would be the wrong move - trust me. You just stand there and weather the storm, I don't care if she yells every obscenity the book at you, calls you this, that and everything else, you just reply to her while looking at her eyes and maintaining eye contact that you've made your decision and moving forward you will make decisions that involve your life. She doesn't have your best interests in mind currently and she will do whatever it takes to get you back under her heel.
Look at the dynamics here, you both originally chose together to start seeing each other, date, get married, have kids, the type of house to buy, the neighborhood to live in, etc. Those were decisions you made together, that's what people do in a relationship that is mutually beneficial. Along the way, you get old, fat, boring, stinky, lazy, don't satisfy alot of the relationship requirements on her part and her needs aren't met. After a while of repeated behavior, you've trained her to not liking those behaviors and then regardless if you improve or not, you don't do it enough and consistently, she associates you with bad experiences, bad memories, an unfulfilling life, etc. The sex life dies, the conversations are limited, there is no energy anymore, no mutual beneficial interactions, you guys just act out what life is for you at the time being and we all know how fulfilling and exciting that is. Then one day she gets a glimmer of something that looks warm, inviting, exciting, liberating, and she longs for it. Why wouldn't it, her life is boring & unfulfilling and you aren't doing "it" for her anymore. Then as fate would have it, she decides that life is too short to waste in this type of existence, so she starts to think about what would be needed to get that life. She isn't attracted you anymore, your harmful behaviors have killed that attraction, and she is looking to be attracted to something again, to feel energy, excitement, a relief from everyday life. So one of the goals to getting this new life is getting rid of the old life and that includes you and on top of getting rid of you, the process involves obtaining a replacement, someone more masculine, more impressive, more exciting, more virile and her juices get flowing again but not for you. On top of that, if she's in her 30s and 40s, she's experiencing an increased production in testosterone in her body which is increasing her libido while at the same time, nature is playing a cruel trick on you if you're in that age range because your testosterone production is dropping. She becomes more aggressive, assertive, and she starts standing up to you, treating you poorly, making decisions that affect your life but without any regard to your quality of life or how it will affect you, she doesn't care anymore. Her system is on autopilot and this is a mechanism that is running in her and telling her how to act, feel, talk, think, etc. You've assisted this internal mechanism that's in place for her to find another man by validating that you aren't the right guy for her, you're week, supplicating, complacent, not aggressive, you don't have any self respect and you don't have any courage.
How can she respect you?
How could you ever stand up for her if the need or situation ever presented itself if you can't even stand up to her? Its counter intuitive, its nothing you've ever been taught. She wants a man and she's looking past you because she determined through her own decision making process aided by the autopilot mechanisms in place that you aren't masculine enough, you aren't man enough.
So how do you get that respect back?
You stand up for yourself and you stand up to her.
Scary and unreal and impossible as it sounds, its the one thing you MUST do.
So now that all of my long winded post is out of the way, the real question is this, are you able to stand up to her?
My guess is no.
My guess is that your first time at bat, you'll swing, she'll call you on it and then you'll back down, you'll fold like a house made from a deck of cards and you will validate her original decision about you.
You'll tell us that your situation is unique and it's not as simple as this and you'll keep asking questions on how to turn things around regardless if we've given you the answers because you're too weak, afraid and ineffectual to employ the advice we're giving you.
I would ask you that you do what I asked, I can't offer you any guarantees other than to tell you that what you are currently doing will not work as you are both planning to move you out, as for her recent furniture purchases, she wants the place to look new & inviting for that eventual day when she has the OM over for dinner & sex - my hope is that you're not peeking through the window of your home when this is happening, that would be a heartbreaker.
I haven't been on the boards for a while because life is busy, but every now & then I catch a glimpse of some poor soul that resembles how weak I felt when this all happened to me and I just have to put my 0.02 cents in.
