Sandi's tips vs bounderies

[adinva]

I see he has hurt you badly. Is it accurate that only only one spouse caused pain and walked away? He walked away from a happy and fulfilling marriage? Can you find a way to see how he might have been in pain, enough pain to look for a way out? I'm not excusing an OW, that is despicable to me, but you need to realize that there was a give and take in your marriage. If you really never hurt him then you are a blameless victim, but I haven't seen one of those here yet.

Learning what caused him pain helps you, gives you understanding, self-esteem, and power, control over your destiny. It will enable you to use this situation to become a better person, wife, mother, friend, someone only a fool would leave. There's no downside to that.

Your question was, how to get rid of the instinct to be snarky. My answer is, do you want to be a snarky person? Do you like your reactivity and lack of control? Aside from clever word choice do you admire snark? Do not blame him for how you are, be how you want to be. Practice taking a deep breath when you feel that impulse and count to 10 and then respectfully answer the question he asked about the kids.

I feel exactly the same, that my H would like to appear interested and a good guy, and he isn't home with our kids and is losing more and more of a handle on what's going on in their lives, and I feel mad about that.

But what's your goal? If your goal is to push him away, cause a shame attack (which will NOT bring him closer to you by the way), make him resent you, and stop asking about the kids, fire away. If that is not your goal then check your communication and use it only toward your goals. You have the ability to control that, it just takes practice. Use your words to further your goals.

It sounds like your goal in using snarky words was to communicate to him in a passive aggressive way just how hurt you feel by his actions. There might be a time and place where it is productive to tell him that, but that was probably not it. Look for other places where you use your tone and behavior to communicate words you're not saying, because passive aggressiveness is poison to a marriage as well as any other relationship.