I am a big advocate of men rediscovering their masculinity. Many men start out strong and independent in the eyes of their wife, then after so many years, respect is lost as they learn that the man they married is not the infallible white knight they first thought.
This is why when I see a man post a situation with all the symptoms of lost respect, I advocate focusing on oneself, becoming more decisive, setting boundaries, and so on. Basically working on being more masculine and assertive.
The difficuly lies in getting the man to look at themself and see that they have become beaten down (by life, their R, their situation etc). To pick themself up, forgive themself for past mistakes, and discover the man they can become.
By this I do not mean becoming a jerk. What it means is to learn to truly love and respect yourself. As cliched as it sounds, you cannot expect someone to love and respect you if you do not love and respect yourself. When you TRULY work on you and stop focusing on her and how to fix your connection to each other, THEN there is the possibility she will realize what she is losing.
How?
* Physical: Lift weights, run, join a martial art. This releases stress, and helps you cope. It also shows you respect yourself enough to take care of yourself, and makes you perceivably more attractive, whether your body changes or not.
* Attitude: Positive, confident, decisive, cool calm manner of dealing with everyday things.
* Boundaries: Assertive, NOT aggressive. Not letting anyone push you around. Enforcing in a measured way, almost professional and never angry. Straight to the point and honest.
* Unapologetic/consistent in action: What I mean by this is that you are not continually saying sorry for something then repeating the behavior. Better to change the behavior than apologize and keep doing it.
* Self-assuredness: Truly believing it is her loss. Living life as such. Instead of chasing her, letting go so that she must chase. Realizing that although completely counter-intuitive, pursuit is not the answer. Deciding once and for all to show yourself the ultimate respect of never chasing after someone that does not reciprocate those feelings.
* Inner-strength: Looking deep down and finding the part of you that says (and believes) "I can handle anything that comes my way" and "I am going to do what is right" and "my kids deserve the best I can do".
The challenge is not in mastering the relationship, it is in mastering onesself.
SF
Spellfire aka Mike
"Women do not like controlling men. They respect and are attracted to men who control themselves. They ultimately are repelled by men who allow themselves to be controlled." -S&A
Your words are the boost and push in the right direction for me. I loose track a lot. You're right about me not having enough self-respect. The biggest challenge I think is my son. I may be able to look past what my wife is doing and all, but when I look at my son, I see her in him all the time. Some of his mannerisms, some of his looks - they're mommy's. And I allow myself to drop my DB/DR strategies more frequently than I like to.
Okay, I need anybody's feedback on this... I'm not sure what to make of this:
My wife calls and asks me to let our childcare provider know that our son won't be coming in until before lunch tomorrow. She said she's going to take him to a child psychologist to evaluate how he's doing. I said okay, no problem. Then I asked my wife if I should be there too, since he's being psych-evaluated for what's going on with our family. My wife said no, not yet. We'll have to wait and see.
What do you think might be going on here? Only tomorrow will tell what her true reason for doing this. Is she genuinely concerned of our son's well being? Or worse, is she trying to build a medical case against me? I mean, what if she uses porn as the basis of the visit, i.e. My husband is a porn addict and how is my child affected?
No wonder she called this morning asking if our son had health insurance. He does not, so I wonder who or how my wife is paying for this psych visit. Rich parents to the rescue again? Or maybe she's forking the cost herself. If so, shouldn't I offer to pay half?
Well Alamo, I would be there. It's not like this is just a check up, this is serious stuff. None of your wife's movtive's have been honorable this far, so I would not trust this at all.
Besides doesn't she make you out to be a bad father. Time to show what a good dad you are and how concerned you are with all of this. It is just MHO, but something is fishy here. I would go. Don't take no for an answer.
Good luck tomorrow. I will be thinking of you!
Me:35, 2 kids from PR H: 37, 2 kids with me T: 15 years M: 8 years in Feb. Second walk out: 14-01-2011 H had PA: 2007
Well, I'm pretty old fashion when it comes to raising kids. Even at 2yrs old, kids can read their parents and they know which one they can work and which one means business. Your little boy knows that his mother is going to cave in and let him sleep with her if he cries long enough or loud enough. He knows what it takes to get his way with her.
OTOH, he knows that his daddy is not a person who he can play monkey business. But, it doesn't mean that he loves one parent more than the other one. Your son will probably grow up always working your W to his advantage. OTOH, he will grow up respecting his dad and having a deep love for him.....and will want to have his dad's inner strength. I think it's important for a son to have that as his role model.
The reason he acts like he does whenever you go to give him his bath, when his mom's there, is b/c he's wanting (probably to get out of a bath) but I think it's to see which parent will be the strongest. He has no reason to act that way when she's not there.
At first I thought he could be feeling all the tension between the two of his parents and felt insecure. That is probably what the therapists woulds tell us. However, if he has witnessed no violence or loud verbal fighting, then he's doing what all normal kids do.
It may seem like a small thing, but I'd dare say that whichever parent wins out over this struggle at bath time....or the other times, will make a critical development in how he will be as a father and a husband.
The sad thing is that being S under the same roof is very difficult to do when you are changing out days/nights with the baby. He's smart, but I don't know if he has that part figured out or not. He just knows that when mother is there....he can through a fit and it usually get him what he wants.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
Okay, that took the wind out of me. My wife comes home and I said I thought about it some more and I need to be there with y'all during the psych visit. She vehemently said no. And no. And no. And no... She basically said that here's another example of me being controlling, that I need to butt my business into everything. In her defense, I did do that a lot during our marriage, and so I see how she thinks my motive to be at the psych visit might be. She asked why can't I give her the space and respect for once? I said if it's important for our son to suddenly need to such a visit, I need to be there too. What if this was a real sickness and suddenly he had to go to the doctors? Would she deny me from going too? She then told me she's paying for it, so that's that.
She kept asking why I can't let her decide to do things for herself without me questioning it (which is true, based on our history). She said that I will get to come if our son needs to go for another visit (she told me that earlier during our phone call).
Then she started on a conversation that took me completely by surprise. She got visibly upset and said that she just doesn't see me changing and just keeps seeing the same proof that her decision to leave is the right one. Prior to this conversation, I really thought she was done. Then the convo turned into something about dinner, and I have to admit to y'all - I totally let the ball drop on this one and made her even madder. She even gave me numerous cues that all she wanted from me was an acknowledgment or an apology, but I kept talking and acting like a defensive jerk. I really blew it, and she finally said she's done with this conversation, that she's madder than before and I blew my chance.
I hate that I can't seem to walk the walk when push comes to shove. I'm starting to doubt the changes I supposedly made over these months.
Sorry you and W had such a horrible fight. But alamo there is still something fishy about this appointment. I could be mad as hell at my H, but if there is something going on with the kids I let him know and would never tell him he couldn't come to an appointment.
She did a really good job of making you feel like a piece of crap tonight so she could get her own way. She has made comments about "why can't you let her do things for herself, and you are so controlling you haven't changed" This is all BS. For starters, this appointment is not about HER. It is for your S. And your S has two parents. Who the hell is she to tell you that you can't be there. She is playing some reall nasty head games with you, and sorry to say, you played them the way she wanted you to.
Now you feel guilty and are second guessing yourself. She knew what to say to make sure you don't go.
I feel for you Alamo, Sorry for being a little harsh. But my H does those things to. Picks the fight so he can have his secrets. I really hope you go tomorrow or you won't be sleeping much in the next few days. I will be thinking about you tomorrow. Great big hugs for you!
Me:35, 2 kids from PR H: 37, 2 kids with me T: 15 years M: 8 years in Feb. Second walk out: 14-01-2011 H had PA: 2007
No worries, Wanda. I always welcome your insight! You know, oddly, I'm not really bothered by not being able to go tomorrow. I'm somehow at peace, quite a bit by what transpired this entire evening.
Those words my wife used like "I can't seem to let her make her own decisions" or "I still see that you're trying to be controlling", etc. stem both from all the distrust that's been building (refer to my posts about me stealing her mail, she finding that I still had risqué pictures of her though she thought I had hacked into her computer for, or good olde imagined paranoia), plus my own backsliding such as when I snap at her or am rude or don't acknowledge her feelings, which I've been doing a lot this past week.
I would've felt more worried if those words she used ended right there and then, but remember I mentioned the argument about dinner? It's a long story, so I won't go into it, but those and similar words made a appearance once again. Basically, I didn't communicate to her that I wasn't going to be cooking tonight. Now I know she acting separated and all, but I had told her that there will always be extra food if she wants some. I made it clear that I wasn't cooking for her, but I always have extra, so if she eats or not after coming back from the hospital, it's no biggie. Even on nights when I do takeout, I do ask her if she's interested. Today, my son and I decided to eat out, and I didn't let my wife know that i won't be cooking. I should have told her out of courtesy, if not concern. That was the mistake and she was upset about it, but the fact that I didn't realize I did something wrong and man up, made her madder still, which escalated to another argument where she brought up a little about the relationship and used more of the same words during that exchange.
Yes, some of you are probably going, like, whaaa? I hope me letting her take our son doesn't bite me in the butt; part of me strongly believes that she has the interest of our son in mind, that she is worried about what this whole process is doing to him developmentally. She is being selfish as most WAS behave, so she wants her decision to be solely hers and hers to gloat about, I suppose. As much as I hope he doesn't need to go for a second visit, if he does, my wife said I will be going too. So we'll see how that goes. Whatever the outcome, I just hope my son is given the green bill of mental health. That's the most important thing here.
