I need advice for dealing with a WAW

[SamuelH]

Thank you so much for your advice sandi2 and Accuracy.

Since both of you are Christians, then I'm sure she's been taught by her Pastor how God designed the roles of the man & woman in the MR. Have you ever noticed that the scripture tells the man to "love" his W, but it tells the W to "respect" her H.

Indeed. Before we got married we had to take a marriage preparation course and this was one of the topics we discussed. I recall my W telling me that she would find it very hard to 'submit'. She may have even said flat out that she wouldn't... I can't recall clearly. We also learned this from reading a book called 'Love & Respect'. I think she was more into the message when it is stated as 'respect' instead of 'submit'. We had actually read about half the book before we were married but stopped reading it because everything seemed to be going fine at the time. When we hit our hit rough patch I asked proposed reading it again together, but she refused so I started re-reading it. She took it with her when she left which I was kind of surprised at given that only weeks before she said she had absolutely no interest in reading it.

I believe in the power of prayer. Don't give up.

Yeah, I find myself praying almost constantly, about everything now. So if nothing else comes out of this, at least my R with God has been strengthened.

One thing to be careful of is not using your inlaws against your W. Your W views them as a "safe place", and if she feels you are trying to influence them to advocate for you, she may resent that. General DB advice is not to involve the W's family at all.

That said, as Sandi pointed out your situation is different than many, and maybe your W likes keeping that line of communication open and knowing you are "there" via the inlaws.

That's something you'll need to assess for yourself. Just be aware that it generally isn't good for the inlaws to advocate on your behalf, or for W to feel that you are campaigning for your way with them.

Hmm. This is a good point. I've decided to stop calling my in-laws and they've agreed to call me once a week to just to keep me filled in on what is going on. Also, both my mother-in-law and I agree that going to church would be a very healthy thing for my W to do right now. The pastor at my mother-in-law's church is also a pretty good counselor apparently and my mother-in-law told me she would try and get my W to talk to him. I don't think my W has gone yet and the few times I asked my mother-in-law about it the response was something along the lines of "I don't want to push her"

WRT your point on the DB coach, believe me, those sessions are often more for you and how you feel about yourself than for your relationship. They can really help you if you get to feeling down, feel this is "all your fault", etc. It sounds like you have a good support network going, but don't think you have to have active communication with the W to make the DB coach worthwhile.

That makes sense.

My final observation is that your W seems to have a real issue with feeling controlled -- there may be a hair trigger there. In your post, you were pressuring her to get a job, then evaluating the kinds of jobs she was taking, and effectively trying to enforce your will. Why do you feel it was important to you that W get the kind of job you thought was appropriate?

If W's under the table jobs weren't going to pay, why didn't you think that W could figure that out or handle that situation on her own?

I don't think I directly pressured my W to find another job. She knew that I could not support our current lifestyle on just my income alone and I think she felt pressure from that. I don't recall ever once telling my W "You need to get another job". She just started looking for jobs when the store she was working for was about to close for good.

And to be honest, only one of three jobs that she found after her store closed was under the table (I was tired before and didn't feel like differentiating them... my bad).

The first job that she had I was completely on board with actually. She was basically getting paid to phone people and ask for donations of clothing and small household items. The pay was direct deposited into our account, so I know she got at least two paychecks from them. I noticed that they stopped depositing her paychecks after the second one and when I asked her about it she said she wasn't sure why and would have to go to the office and ask them why. It was over a month later that she found out that they laid her off.

Her second job was working for her brother as a driver. This was the under the table job. Not only did I not trust her brother to run his business correctly and pay my W, but the hours were also ridiculous... basically 8:00PM until 3:00AM. To make things worse, she would come home at 3:00AM and then head downstairs and hang out with her friend before coming upstairs to bed. Also, I tried telling her that our car insurance did not cover that and that we could lose everything if there was an accident. She refused to listen to me however. (I believe it was this issue that caused our argument which caused me to mention a D which caused her to shut down). Sure enough, her brother did not pay her and wound up losing the business. I never once said "I told you so"

The third job was essentially being an insurance sales-person. I was all for this job too, except for the fact that in order to start selling insurance (and thus start collecting money) she had to pass a financial exam. While she was studying for this exam, she was expected to job shadow another insurance sales-person. At first I was hesitant about this job because I was not sure if she could pass the exam (I never told her I felt this). I realized that if was something she wanted to do then I would do whatever I could to help her succeed. This was the job that she was working when she left. I talked to the people at the office and they said they were very skeptical that she would pass the exam without a good supporting home office behind her. I don't know if she still intends to do this job or not.

In terms of a 180, that may be one to work on. Instead of evaluating and controlling, work on listening and supporting. Be OK with yourself, even if W isn't doing what you think she should. (i.e. I'm OK with myself whether you take a bad job or not. I would like for you to take a job that is going to reward your abilities appropriately, but whatever job you decide to take, I will support you)

This is very good advice. I was wondering what I could to for a 180 if I get the chance.

To some degree, if W has control issues, you will need to learn to surrender to her bad decisions (in your view), rather than try to control or influence them. Then, be there to pick up the pieces if things go wrong without an "I told you so".

After my W left, lots of friends and family have since told me that they found my W to be very controlling. She would make lots of decisions without even asking my opinion. Usually I wouldn't mind, but on some occasions it would cause conflicts.

This will be hard, but it will be worth it!

I truly agree. I see this as being an experience that can greatly strengthen our marriage if it's handled properly and we both learn from it. I know that I have already learned so much and see so many areas that I can improve my R with my W. I'm really hoping that I get a chance to put into practice all the things I've learned.

One more question... Is it a good idea to send an anniversary gift to my W? My C says it's important and I really want to, but at the same time, I don't want to make any mistakes and set things back farther. I was also pondering if I should include a letter with the gift but I think it may be best to just keep things brief and to the point so she doesn't feel overwhelmed/pressured.