Now she is running off to change her last name. Buy a car!! All because I got my own cell phone plan and stated I don't want to be around her type of work anymore!! WTH???? Last night I felt good because she was going off on me being a bad person and everything else. I did not respond to any of it. I am tired of going back and forth. I decided I was just going to go to bed. The only time I talked to her was when she was taking off to the ER. I felt confident in what I was doing!! Now I am back to feeling guilty for causing this whole mess!!
Joe,
This ^^^, is exactly what I was saying about setting a boundary that you aren’t ready to enforce.
Sometimes, unfortunately, we are so distraught over our S behavior, and it really goes against the grain of what we like or want, that we try to make some sort of change thinking it will…
1. Make us feel better because we finally said our peace. 2. Make them wake up and see the error of their ways.
One of those things happens. At least initially. However when we aren’t prepared to enforce the boundary, meaning that number 2 hasn’t happened, we begin to backtrack in our thoughts and feelings.
The whole problem with it is if you don’t enforce the boundary, she will not take you seriously in the future. So now you are in this Catch 22 situation. You don’t want her to go. You WANT her to quit her job and work on the marriage. She is NOT ready to do that. Someday she may be ready but obviously not right now.
Please know that I am not condoning her work. I also don’t condemn her for it. She is earning a living doing something that is legal. Something that, sadly, there is a market for. The moral judgement, I leave to a higher power.
As far as the kids, I will correct V and say that I am referring to all of the kids.
Adults or not, I don’t believe that they need all of the gory details of anything. It taints their views of their parents, the people who are supposed to guide them in life.
Your D knowing the details of what your W is doing, now has a free pass and can disregard any sort of moral message your W may try to pass on to her.
It’s sort of like taking advice from the priest about drinking when he, himself is an alcoholic. A hard pill to swallow.
Kids, no matter what age, know more than we think. Unless they ask specific questions, the details are not always necessary.
A better response would have been, “I have problems with the type of work she is doing. If you want more information than that, you will need to ask her.”
If your W made the decision to lie, that would be on her.
I don’t doubt that you didn’t intend to be abusive towards your W. I don’t believe that my X intended to be abusive either. The years of criticizing everything that I did, from cleaning to cooking to wearing contacts or glasses, not paying attention to things that were major in my, life like how I was doing in school, because they just weren’t important to him, complaining that I was at work too much and then complaining that I was home too much when I changed my schedule, took it’s toll. Until I believed that nothing I did, no matter what, would ever be right or good enough. However, it was simply him doing the best that he could with the communication tools that he had.
Truth be told, once or twice, and those things wouldn’t have been abusive. Repeated messages of inadequacy started spinning in my head until I questioned everything I did or said or thought. I spent a ton of energy trying to make sure everything was perfect so that he would be happy.
For someone else, that may have had no effect what-so-ever and would not be considered abuse. Like I said it is all in perception. The only way for you to change that is to be more aware of yourself. Working on changing the things about you that you feel are controlling behaviors is a good place to start.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
