Retreat

[Underdog]

Marylov,

LITB has given you some great feedback. Awesome, actually. I found your use of the word "but" extremely telling. In my experience, that usually means 2 things: 1) you have to be right; and 2) you have to have the last word. Could this be true for you?

What is something from DR that resonated with you?

I'm afraid I'll let LITB be the good cop - because I'm going to be the bad one. Please know it's not because I want to be unkind, but since I lived through this stuff myself, it's so much easier to see obvious things for what they are. BUT... please know that what I say does not mean that he doesn't have his own issues that should be addressed. It also doesn't mean that he's right and you're wrong. However, since he's the one who wants out and you're here, lucky you. You get our advice. And that means you're going to have to be the one who changes first and who changes the most. Right now, the weakest link wields the power.

We have always had a volatile relationship, as we are both strong willed/aggressive people.

Why are you aggressive?

I tend to instigate more upfront and cause our arguments

There should be no BUT following this statement. I'm not someone with a bad temper. But this type of instigation would definitely make me someone with a bad temper. Why do you do this? What do you get out of these types of interactions?

Throw your family of origin (FOO) expectations out of the window. You are not in your parents' marriages or your in-laws'. Your problems are real, and they are yours to deal with.

Our issue has always been that he doesn’t believe I respect him

Why might he feel this way? Again, "coupled with his temper" is a copout. He sounds pissed and is reacting to feeling disrespected.

I am not outright rude to him, or malicious, but he just thinks I constantly disrespect him with the choices I make, how I spend my time on my phone and not listening to him.

Can you provide examples? How would you feel if you were in his shoes? Be specific.

One of the things we have struggled with most recently is that I have been wanting to do what I think of as family oriented activities, like going to a friend’s child’s birthday party, and he wants to go hang out at a bar to watch football with a divorced male friend.

Well, my girls are now almost 21 and 18. It's been awhile since I had an infant or toddler around. But I can't think of one single dad who would rather go to a kiddie birthday party instead of be with friends. That being said, do either of you schedule time to be alone, time to be a couple and time to be a family? There has to be balance. They all need to be equal. If you want to scrapbook one night, there is no law that says he can't be the dad. Perspective, Mary. Expectations are a slippery slope, especially when they are hidden contracts.

He doesn’t think I make him a priority, and I haven’t, especially since our daughter was born since I also work full time.

Yes. Sigh. I remember this well. But again, this is something that balance takes care of. What are ways you can build balance in to YOUR life right now? That's part of what Cadet meant by GAL. I wish someone had encouraged me to be more balanced when my girls were babies. It would have been very helpful to have that as a goal.

One last thing. Be careful about the retreat. It may make him resentful. It may be the banner he waves to tell you and the world "I tried but nothing worked". So stop trying to control him and use this time wisely to address some of these behaviors you mentioned. They are all resentment builders.

Resentment occurs when we expect someone else to meet our needs when we are not doing the work ourselves.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Until the issues that cause this resentment are fixed, there will continue to be difficult communications. As LITB said, regardless of what you say, these are his perceptions. Which make it his truth. The opposite of love is not hate, Mary. It's indifference.

So if you could please share some of these dynamics, it would be helpful. I've asked a few ladies here to come on over as well to weigh in. They're introspective moms as well.

Good luck-
Betsey