Pre-piecing Thoughts

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We even did a 6 month experiment where I took over all discipline for four kids, and our family was GREAT, but W just couldn't stop herself from griping and started getting back into discipline. If she felt I didn't punish harshly enough, she'd not speak to me for a week. It's interesting fast-forwarding three years, and D10 (D7 at the time) is starting to act JUST like D13 (D10 at the time). Payback's a B!

She started going into depression year two - would spend a lot of time in bed, on her phone, on her laptop. She'd be in bed when I got home from work, get up for an hour and make dinner, and take her dinner back to her bed, and stay there all night. I would tuck in all four kids, but if they didn't come to our room to see her, they wouldn't see her. I even made deals with here where if she would get out of bed by 10:00am and stay out of bed until 8:00pm, we'd go somewhere nice. She finally got on medication, and that helped a little bit.

Year three, it was money, although she still spent most of her time in bed. Her XH stopped paying child support, and when he was going to pay the back money, she was mad at me, so told him to put it in an education fund for them just to spite me. She specifically told me she did it to spite me. I also caught her buying stuff online, and she would sit and scroll through shopping sites for hours - I would come home every day to delivered packages. Also, January 2013, the XW stopped paying child support again (I had asked W to set it up through bank withdrawals, and she refused). She wouldn't do anything about it, and of course, I'm not going to let my stepkids go without, so I paid for everything. I told her she didn't get any spending money until she corrected it. She was livid, and went around telling everyone that I was giving her no money - even though I was paying all the bills and she had a credit card.

None of these sound like complaints your wife had about YOU except for the discipline. What else did she need YOU to do differently during this time? These are summaries of her behavior, with your complaints about her behavior thrown into each one.

I have read all of your links and there is a continued pattern of you pointing out what your W did wrong, how you fixed it, how wonderful you are, etc. I am not trying to be rude, I am being honest. I don't see one instance where you have actually looked inside yourself to see what you could have done differently and where YOU NEED TO GROW. From the perspective you type, it is easy to understand why your W is continuing to pull away/come back/pull away/come back. If you want that cycle to stop, you really need to be willing to address your own issues and not just your W's. I know you will say you have because that is your reply to each piece of advice I have tried to give you as someone who WAS YOUR W in my own R.