Okay, I need advice here. I think I'm at a dead end here. Here's what went down tonight. My wife approached me to discuss something about her move (I'll write about this in a subsequent post, because I need to vent about it too). Anyway I asked my wife if we could talk about a couple more things:
M: "If I were to draft the care/visitation schedule for our son (that we talked about), could you and I date and sign off on it? W: "Sure" M: "I will put in the document the schedule, the reasons for setting the schedule, the reasons you're moving out..."
My wife suddenly is at attention and looks insulted.
M: "I also want to talk about you not giving me the address of where you two are moving to."
Then I gave her my reasoning for wanting to know where my son will be going, I.e. I wouldn't let our son's daycare provider take him on fieldtrips/excursions unless she told us where exactly she'll be taking him. I trust our provider, but it's important for me to still know.
My wife became really irate by this time.
W: "You still want to know where I am?" I tried reassuring her that it's needing to know where my son is living, that's it. But she kept saying that I just can't stop wanting to control her. "After all that understanding talk we had the other night where you were okay with it, and now you turn around and say all these things!" I bet i proved to her that I am indeed fickle per our conversation on Friday night.
It got a bit dicy, and I didn't handle it as well as our previous big discussion. I was calm, but almost always out of breath because my wife was on rapid attack mode tonight. The custody and her residency were brought up. She also brought up why she wants to move out and not tell me where she is. She has no more privacy living with me. I said, "I understand because I feel the same too. I know we're both operating out of real and imagined situations." She repeated that she can't even have any privacy during a separation. I told her that she snoops too. She responded by saying that I steal her panties, how could I still do that I said that's true, and it was wrong of me to do that. (Throughout our marriage, my wife always found it funny that I would want to sniff her stuff. I always told her that her scent drives me crazy, so when she's not in the mood or pn her period, it was a reminder of sorts. Sorry to be so detailed, but I'm trying to be open and honest here). I actuality, I had taken them when I did her laundry, but decided to hold onto them for awhile.
She went on to say the way I was saying things are for our son's interest is really for my own interest. "I am his mom and I'm looking out for the best interest of my son," she said. I told her so was I. It went back and forth awhile. That's when she pulled the stops on the conversation:
W: "You want to make this ugly? If you bring this to court, I will tell the judge you have been physically abusing me. Throughout our marriage you've been physical with me, and I can make things bad for you." So my horrible behavior is coming back to haunt me. FYI, I had a really uncontrolled temper even up until a couple of years ago. In the beginning of our marriage, I threw her against the wall trying to protect my porn secret, and I did it again when she was pregnant. After that incident, I promised myself I wouldn't be so careless with my emotions. There were, however, a few other times when I gripped her hard enough to bruise her wrists or thighs. By then, she had also started to slap or punch me when she got really mad. In essence, I created a monster in my wife. The guilt some of you see that is rampant in my words, and actions partly stems from my guilt of how I treated my wife. From a legal POV, a couple of her friends have seen the bruises, so that could be a problem.
W: "Remember when you first threw me against the wall? You used what I told you about how my father threw my mom against the wall, and did the same to me to scare me. You intentionally did it." I acknowledged what I did and told her I regret every single time I hurt her.
W: "Also, I can make sure that the court doesn't give our son to you because you are unpredictable, have an addiction and can't keep a job." I tried my best to let her know that the inability to keep a job and being not focused on the marriage in the first place, and the lying were all linked to my addiction. I explained succinctly that with porn I wasn't focused on her, excelling at work, or on myself. I said that whether she believes me or not, I have kept it under controlled, and it's for my own betterment whether she's around to see it or not. She scoffed and told me she doesn't care. She said again that an addict will be an addict, and that uncertainty is something she doesn't want her son to be exposed to.
There was quite a lot of other things said in-between, but they're mostly rehash of previous conversations. I feel like a pulp after my wife threatened to bring up all those skeletons in court. It's my word against hers, and when the words abuse and addiction are voiced in court, you can bet that it'll be a redflag and biased towards the "victim".
