What should I do? Which technique to use?

[MrBond]

Do you two go to church? You could discuss it with a couples counselor there. There are actually several places where you can get free marriage counseling.

"(it was working until I confronted her about this FB account"

Not really. She just sounded like she didn't want to deal with it and made it sound like YOU were the paranoid.

[jzoom]

No, we don't go to church and I doubt at this point I can convince her to do so.

What I was meaning is that strictly in DBing, it was working. I had backed off and things at home were warming up. When I reverted to "more of the same" I got "more of the same".

[MrBond]

Do you two go to church? You could discuss it with a couples counselor there. There are actually several places where you can get free marriage counseling.

"(it was working until I confronted her about this FB account"

Not really. She just sounded like she didn't want to deal with it and made it sound like YOU were the paranoid one. Somehow she has to get your point of view and not act like it isn't a big deal.

[jzoom]

Guess I need to work on "do something different". I've tried talking about it calmly and not calmly, so obviously talking isn't doing the job. I'll have to do some thinking on how to get her to see that it was a bigger deal to me than she thinks it was.

[MrBond]

I don't think you told her the "right" way. You have to learn to control your tone, but learn to tell it to her in a straightforward, matter-of-fact way to show her that it's serious. Look at her dead in the eye and tell her that it is something that's important to you and that you are dead serious about this issue. And she has a choice of either listening and trying to understand your point of view, or leaving.

[jzoom]

I see what you mean about how I've told her. As I've thought about some things I believe that I either tell her again and it pretty much becomes an ultimatum, which means I'll be having her move out, or I get back on track with DBing the way I was during the week.

Focus on the friendship but have no expectations of intamacy. Take the leap of faith and give her trust, which means getting rid of my sucpicions and "Act As If" because when I don't, I can feel the difference in myself. What I mean is that when I'm in the mood where I'm thinking something is going on my body is more tense and I know that way I approach her is different. When I let go of those feelings and I'm relaxed I act differently around and towards her and that's how I was during the past week when things started, ever so slightly, to get better.

I'm plowing through MMSLP and in some ways it's just like DBing, just focused on sex. I guess a lot of times I'm very beta and when I go alpha it's very agressive, I'm going to work on the balance and be alpha in calm self-confidence rather than agression.

[jzoom]

Fri the bike wouldn't start so she had to drop me off at work. She had a friend come take a look at the bike and it was just a dead battery, I just didn't have time in the morning to fool around with it. Her oldest was staying with exes grandma and middle child wanted to sleep at her dads but is scared to do so alone; also, her dads wife expects her to sleep over to take care of her own kids unless she really has something desperate to do.

So Fri night she picks me up from work after midnight and then heads back to her dads for the night. I charge up the battery and in the morning we text and I tell her I'm good to go. I head to work and afterwards go to a lobster dinner I was invited to. Now, I had told her about the dinner Thur night and said she was invited to go if she could get a babysitter for all the kids, when she said no I told her I was still going.

I go enjoy the dinner with friends (GALing) and 8:50pm I get a text from her (first since 8:30am) saying the kids want to stay at her dads again and she'll be back 9-9:30 tomorrow and says she hopes I'm having a great night. I wait until 9:30pm to respond with, "I am" and a min later, "Good night". She responds with "That's good glad to hear" and I just ignore it.

I'm home later on and at 11:50pm I get a text, "I really don't want to fight with you. Thought we were good and starting to get better but I guess not." I ask her what she is talking about and she says she got woken up by a loud motorcycle so she thought I was checking up on her again. I tell her no and she says she's really sorry. I just say, "Yup. Have a good night." She says, "I hope you had a good night see you in the morning :-)" and me, "Thanks, I did. See you."

This morning she doesn't come over until about 10am and only with the middle child. She says she's surprised I'm up b/c she thought I'd sleep in on my day off. Now, what I did was make sure I got up, got showered and dressed, and ate breakfast b/c I want her to see me at my best right now. She says they're running late and she takes middle child up to shower and I stay downstairs. I had to run up for something and she asks if I'll give the hermit crabs water and I say yes since she thinks they're ugly and disgusting.

Kid is in the shower and is yelling for her so I step in and play dad b/c kid is done in the shower and I say to get out and hand over a towel. Kid keeps yelling for her and she is getting agitated and tells me "it's been like this all weekend." Kid goes in to get dressed and she says they need to start putting their dirty clothes in the bathroom. I say, "yeah, I have a dirty clothes hamper" and my decision now is that I'm going to continue doing laundry but only the laundry in the dirty hamper. I'm not running all over the house picking up dirty clothes to wash. I'm balancing the alpha/beta, I'll do the wash but there are natural consequences of not putting dirty clothes in the hamper - they don't get washed.

Kid points to a bowl of rotting fruit in his room and I say, "That's why you get bugs" and she snaps, "No, that's not his, that's *oldest childs*" and I just walk away. I then get called back in and she says, "*oldest child* is grounded, there's a knife over there on the floor." I go over and near the closet is a big steak knife. Middle child says that oldest was cutting up something to make a house for the hermit crabs and told him not to tell anybody. She says that he shouldn't have left the evidence laying around.

We are all heading back into the bathroom for different things and she's saying she needs to change. I just need to grab something and so she's standing in the middle of the bathroom, as I walk past her I lightly put my hand on her side to let her know I'm passing her. Then I'm waiting and she moves out of the way for me to go back out. She tells kid to close the door so she can change and I go about my business downstairs. They come down and I tell kid to have fun at the popcorn sale. As they are going out the door she says, "we'll be back tonight." I just nod and when they open the door I lightly touch her upper back and tell her to have fun. Off they go.

I knew somewhat what the plan for today was. Thur night when we were talking she told me that on Sun, today, the kids had a popcorn sale at Wal-Mart for scouts and then her grandma wanted to visit with them. Right now, her dad and grandma, and basically her whole family wants nothing to do with me, they don't want me around at all, they won't talk to me b/c, as she says, "they know what's going on." Very vague statement b/c I don't know how she has been portraying me to all of them, this is becoming very much a case of the biased shoulder. Her family and friends are ALL against me.

Basically, going into today I knew they weren't going to be around much and Thur, when I told her about the lobster dinner, she almost seemed disappointed that I wouldn't be home earlier Sat night. It seemed like it was hitting home that she wasn't going to see much of me this weekend (and she said she didn't really want to go to her grandmas but was b/c it's family and more for the kids) and my GALing was having an effect. Then, couple that with the smiley face about seeing me in the morning and so far no protests to the light friendly touching...and it was HER telling me that she thought things were starting to get better.

[MrBond]

"I really don't want to fight with you. Thought we were good and starting to get better but I guess not."

How old is she again? I hate to say it but IMHO she's hiding something. Just to let you know that most people in A's will make EVERYTHING the LBS's fault and make it sound like they're being paranoid for nothing. Then when their A comes to light, they say it's because the LBS's jealousy "drove them to it". Just FYI.

In terms of her family not liking you, this is another red flag. How frickin' selfish can these people be? You house her family. Help raise her newborn and they don't like YOU?

Just to be sure, did her family tell you that they didn't like you or did she tell you they didn't like you? That's another thing that people in A's do. They get everyone on their side.

[jzoom]

I'm doing the "trust but verify" kind of thing. I'm paying close attention to stuff in case there is an A but what I'm being careful NOT to do right now is jump on everything and confront her on everything I see or suspect.

She told me that I'm not welcome b/c "they know what's going on". I did FB message her dad and stepmom and got no response, so I'm reasonably sure they truly don't want to talk to me.

[AnotherStander]

I'm reading MMSLP and geez, some of the stuff I just want to implement but it seems to go so agains DR.

Some of it does, so when in doubt go with DR. MMSLP is more geared towards strengthening personal alpha/ beta than it is about trying to save a R barely clinging to life support.

MrBond, since you are a proponent of me kicking her out, or at least making it very clear she'll get kicked out, do you think that when I told her today I am done with the jokes, games, and fake Rs that I made it clear enough?

I don't think you were clear enough either. If you're serious about giving her an ultimatum, then you need to tell her you want to talk and set aside a date and time specifically for it. This will help her understand the gravity of the situation. Then when you talk, you need to do so in a loving manner, not in an angry "my way or the highway" tone. Tell her that while you want to make the R work you just are not seeing any progress under the current arrangement and either something about the dynamic needs to change within X weeks or you think it would be best for both of you to separate.

I didn't out and out say, "do it again and you're out"

And you shouldn't, that would be "more of the same" behavior based on what you've described in this thread.

Now, easy enough to think that now and not follow through if it happens.....yikes, I know.....

If you give her an ultimatum and nothing changes, then it's extremely important to follow through or she'll lose whatever respect for you she may still have. You've got to stick to your word. If things don't change in the X week window you give her, then tell her you want to meet again, and at that point tell her things didn't change and it's time for the S. Then give her a time frame for getting out.

My first thought is that I keep working on detachment (it was working until I confronted her about this FB account)

Yeah, that was a backslide. Forget FB. In detaching you've got to just let stuff like that go. Work on yourself, don't worry about who is posting what and why on FB.

and do the After LRT and kick her out...even like DR says, I'll have to be prepared to end it for real but maybe if I truly end it and cut off all contact it'll be enough kick in the pants to turn things around.

It might, but remember that an ultimatum is major, don't go down that road unless you're serious about ending the R.