When you tell W she needs to stop being mean to you.......it puts you into a whimsy, victim's role, which she will not be attracted to. The more a WAW disrespects her H, the worse she will treat him.
Quote:
So, I went upstairs and told W that I wasn't planning on dating, but now if she's going out with these dudes, I'm going to #%* everything I get my hands on and I'm going to be thinking about you while I do it... (Ouch). I also wondered to her what her company would think about a unit manager having an EA with one of her subordinates (she's stated her concerns about this to me before and made me swear not to talk to anybody about it -- and since I still have no idea/desire to know the real story, I don't have anything to say about it one way or the other.
You are trying to force her to stop an A. You give out these threats thinking it surely will stop her. Let me tell you that it doesn't make her love you. You may threaten something that puts the fear of God in her to the point you've blackmailed her to stop the A or else. But you can't win her heat by force/control. Love comes from free will.
You say you know it was wrong, but will it stop you the next time? When a person continues displaying bad behavior, apologies afterwards holds little value. If your W apologized for an A but continued having one, you would look at what she was doing instead of what she said.
You asked how you know if she hears what you say b/c she doesn't respond. I can sympathize, but again, you can't force it.......and that's exactly what you are trying to do. If you can't shock a response from her by threatening some action, then you say something worse. You are digging your own M grave!
You can't control yourself, so why do you think you can control her?
Quote:
I'm just kicking myself for saying such mean things out of hurt and frustration and I know it's a huge setback. My W remarkably actually came and sat down next to me and admitted that she wasn't planning on going out with a guy. I also talked to her about how much work it is to be home with the kids all day and then all evening when she goes out, but that I understood how hard she works. It's so strange (and unhealthy) and yet also a pattern in our relationship: we have a disagreement, she wants to talk about it and yells over me and gets angry, I walk away, W badgers, I say something outrageous and W walks away, and finally we reconcile. I KNOW this is something we would need to work on, and I hope we do have a chance to work on this issue. There were amazing, incredible times in our M and I would love to get that back and even make that the norm. I know now that winning back my hard-earned DBing progress and moving forward with detaching and GALing is the best hope I have to fix things.
It sounds like a role reversal from when the everyday housewife would complain to her H. When a man is home all day and the W is out working, I think it might be easy to slip out of that image (for a lack of a better word) that she once saw him. I see it a lot here on the board, where the W's main interest becomes her job and the H becomes the housewife. That movie "Mr . Mom" has a lot of reality points. But of course, it ended well, b/c it was just a movie.
So, you need to have a plan of action to work out your frustrations instead of how you've done in the past. Some people write the words they are feeling, and then destroy it. Some people have to do a vigorous activity. Please take this as fair warning, your words are doing incredible damage to your MR.
No more whines to your W about how hard you have it. No more threats and trying to control her. Step back and focus on being your very best. When you work toward being your best without expecting certain "rewards", then you will be a winner.
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!
