....I do have to stand up for myself when she comes up with her endless supply of CB. She hates when I call her out on it. For example, last night we were helping the twins with their homework. W was at the counter looking at the calendar when twin1 asked her a question about his homework because I was working with twin2 on his. She said to him, "Just give me a damn minute. I got a lot of shite on my mind and trying to figure out what in the hell we're going to do this week. Just give me two damn seconds." Twin1 hung his head and came back to the table. I said to her, calmly, "W, twin1 didn't deserve to be talked to that way. He was only asking for help, he did not need to be cussed at." She sneered and snickered and said she didn't cuss at him. I said that she had. She was trying to figure out sitters and who was going where for the week and she didn't see me doing anything to help. I said all she had to do was ask. She handles the sitters and continually says she will take care of it. She stormed of, very pissed and I finished up with homework.
It's like this almost all the time. If she initiates the convo, I listen, really listen. When I initiate anything, I get a grunt if anything. What am I missing? If you could give me some examples on how to interact differently with her, I would appreciate it.
Nice!
You let your wife talk like that to your son?
Volume.
I'm guessing you have none or very little in your voice when you speak.
It's not just about the words, if there is no impact behind them, if it sounds like you're a mouse and you're trying to talk to a lion, guess what, you can validate and talk politely and calmly all day long, you're still just a mouse talking to a lion.
Be the lion but do it the right way.
I don't advocate yelling so don't misunderstand what I'm saying.
If I was you and your wife had spoken like that to the kids, I would have said loudly with some impact to my voice:
"HEY!"
Make your presence known.
"Don't talk to our son like that ever again. You're the parent, he's the kid, he's coming to you for some direction, not crappy words and a crappier response. Are you a kid or an adult? Smarten up! He's going to remember times like this when he grows up, choose your words wisely next time! If you're stressed by the schedule take a break and go back to it later. I don't care what our current situation is, I don't want to hear you talk like that to our kids ever again. Is that understood?"
You have to mean it when you say it.
Look you can validate your a$$ off and guess what, when you sound like a mouse looking for approval from a lion, you'll get the same response every time from her. She doesn't care, all she hears is blah blah blah.
Don't underestimate the impact that strength and volume of your voice has when used in the proper application.
Instead of calmly and quietly responding like "Wife, our son didn't deserve to be talked that way...."
You give her a dose of the medicine.
If she doesn't like it when you finally show you have some guts with the tone of your voice and the strength the volume of your voice conveys, you tell her straight "good I'm glad you didn't enjoy it, you just proved my point with how you spoke to our son, make sure you control yourself next time!"
Getting to your other point, observe reality.
Quote:
...It's like this almost all the time. If she initiates the convo, I listen, really listen. When I initiate anything, I get a grunt if anything. What am I missing? If you could give me some examples on how to interact differently with her, I would appreciate it.
Stop initiating any conversation, literally.
If you're talking to her and she grunts, call her on it, a grunt isn't a response by a human, it's a response by an animal. Tell her this. Get used to calling her on this crap behavior. You've trained her to talk to you like this because you've never spoken up before in the past, you just let her talk like this repeatedly to you until it became a habit, now you have to tell her you're tired of this crap behavior and to smarten up. She will respond to you, trust me, she'll probably tell you to take a hike in more colorful language, but that's ok, just smile and walk away, don't reward her behavior with your attention, just hold up your hand like a stop sign when she talks to you and then walk away. "Look wife, when you're ready to talk like an adult, I'll make some time to listen to you but until then no thanks, you're way to unattractive in this state for me to look at you let alone listen to you."
Always call a person out on crap behavior.
Stop being silent.
Stop being a mouse.
Quote:
...She sneered and snickered and said she didn't cuss at him.
Think about the amount of disrespect a person has for other when they respond this way, that's crap behavior. She probably responds to you like that also, in fact I'll bet some good money that she's done that to you regularly and now she's doing the same with your kids.
Crap behavior, call her out on it, let her know it will stop.
She has no respect for you, she can't love you if she doesn't respect you, she can't respect you if you don't stand up to her when the situation calls for it, if you can't stand up to her, how could you ever be able to stand up for her if the situation ever required it? She knows this too, subconsciously, this message is hardwired into her brain, that's why she is disrespectful towards you, she feels stronger than you, she can't respect you because of this, so you can forget about love and marriage or any other concept until you get this respect situation figured out and turned around.
Start respecting yourself first and foremost, learn what that's about, learn what's required, stop this door mat behavior, you are teaching your children to act as you do, they won't learn by your words, they will learn by your actions and they are learning right now as they are small, all children do.
You can start learning this anytime, pick a day to start, today is as good a day as any other.
