Informally separated from WAW, but DBing my best

[AlwaysTrying]

My wife and I had a small argument today. D3 was not going to sleep. I had come over to the house for lunch and to help take the Christmas tree down. D3 has become extremely defiant and challenging lately. She doesn't seem to be influenced by timeouts or getting toys taken away or anything else we can think of at the moment. She won't stay in bed now. D3 came downstairs for probably the third time, and W went up to...? We really were at a loss.

As my wife was coming out of our daughter's bedroom, I remarked to her, "There has to be a line you can cross where simply hitting your kids is the less degrading thing to do." W and I are both strongly anti-hitting. This is not the way we want to raise children. She knows that about me, and this was meant to be a joke.

So, for the next 5 minutes, W and I quietly had an argument outside of D3's bedroom door, while W held the doorknob to prevent D3 from opening it. A guideline of us is that however you parent ought to leave everyones' dignity intact. That certainly wasn't happening.

So she repeated a few times something about how we don't hit, leaving me quite confused because she knows I agree with her. I feel lost when we argue sometimes because I'm pretty sure we're not arguing over whatever is actually coming out of her mouth. She asked, "Is there a line where I'm allowed to hit you?". I would be overjoyed if she would voice her anger directly at me. I stumbled a bit trying to express that, while she jumped around a little bit, pulling various bits from past fights. She punctuated with "that's how I *know* I don't want to be with you" and after another exchange or two, W disappeared into D3's bedroom to coax her into bed.

When W came out after a few minutes, I came back upstairs to try let her know that I was hearing her. I realized that the general theme was that she didn't feel respected as a parent, and that she was angry, and afraid of how things were going to go with our younger two children. I told her that I don't expect her to come back to me if she thinks I won't support her as a parent and as a partner and if she feels that I make her crazy. I felt that was important to say because she thinks it's unfair of me to have said (over 6 weeks ago) that she is immoral and wrong for bringing this divorce on our children. I think when she hears that, she thinks I mean that she had a duty to stay with me even if I drive her crazy.

In fact, what I mean is that we can find ways to address her concerns without putting our kids through hell and that we have not yet "done all we can" to save this marriage. When I try to defend my position, I think what she hears is that the things I did that pushed her away were OK and she has to just accept them. What I really mean is that I don't want to continue any behaviors that weaken our marriage and I will work "tirelessly" to make that a reality. I may say "tirelessly", but I'll admit I get pretty tired. I wish I had a lot more energy to DB. It's really easy to get down or fatigued.

Anyway, I didn't talk about any of that in that moment. I just kept it about her feelings - I can see you're hurting and I wouldn't want you to be with someone who made you feel that way. I could see that while she was in the bedroom with our daughter, that some of W's tantrum energy had dissipated, and she conceded that she knew that I wasn't going to hit the kids. I think I may have added something about how my commitment to our marriage meant I will make sure she feels supported... I can't remember what I said exactly, but it wasn't pushy and I didn't argue.

We have been spending more time around each other, and that is encouraging. I want her to open up like this more often, even if she is angry and hurt so we can get more of this stuff out in the open and exercised.

Later, I sent her an email:

I hear you saying that you are afraid that I will be unable to respect your wishes as a parent or allow our children to be raised as you would like. I hear you saying that you expect me to turn our children against you, and compete with you for their affection. I hear you saying that you are afraid that I will have inappropriate attachments with the children. I hear you saying that you were hurt by the ways you felt out of control as a step-parent. I hear you saying that you are hurt by the way I might be talking to Bethany about you now.


Is there anything I missed? Is there anything else you want to say?

I'd like to talk to her about what I meant when I said she was behaving immoral and destructively before, but that might not be a conversation we can have successfully outside of a therapist's office.

No more emails for today, probably.

I have been sending W emails with text from "Divorce Remedy". I know you're not supposed to try to get your WAW to read the book, especially when you're in Last Resort mode. Am I still in Last Resort mode? I don't know. We seem to have some dialog now. Should I go back to it?

Anyway, I've been sending her the story of Carol and Dean in the "Pulling it all together" section, a few paragraphs at a time. I'm trying to illustrate to her that repairing a marriage is a process and that change is possible and there is a point to what I'm trying to do.

She hasn't responded to these emails, so I don't know if she's reading them or not, but I think she is. She reads every heart-bearing email I write to her. I've gotten a lot better at not sending them.