Trying to Follow DB & DR (3)

[Miman2]

Have you ever taken on any of the household chores during the M? What were some that you took on? What were those of W's?

My single chore was to fill and empty the dishwasher and I didn't even do that religiously. The W had a tendency to use every single dish we owned when cooking.

When we first got together I moved in with her and her parents. Back then she would do all the chores because she didn't want me to have to do things in someone else's house. I helped cook when I could.

After we got our own place, I was working/going to school and she was taking 1 class. So she took over all the chores. The kitchen we had was small for two people to be busy in there so when I would try to help cook she would say I was in her way and so I got pushed out.

She wound up finishing school first and getting a job right out of school, but she kept doing everything around the house. I would help her carry laundry down to the laundry room when she'd ask and my back wasn't hurting too much to do so. But other than that she would clean the apt, cook, laundry, vacuum, mop, scrub bathrooms, tend to the cats, etc.

I realize that I should've been doing more around the house. I was really unhealthy almost pushing 400lbs at one point and the depression to boot so the amount of things I could do consistently wasn't much. I'm in a better place now thought, down to 285 and taking care of business around the house.

What type of work do you do here?

Are you asking what I can do to work on that? Well I'm looking for a new job. I have a bit of freedom now about where I can look for jobs, and GALing a whole lot more. Going out and meeting and interacting with new people.

In what way do you feel that you're "financially restrictive"? What do you mean by that?

She's been out of school and working for 3 years, I'm sitting at 2 years out. We have a lot of debt we've accrued in getting our degrees. We made more than 100K together last year but we have next to nothing to show for it because I was trying to be responsible and said we should pay off our debts instead of spending our money on stuff. So while she wanted to go on 2 cruises/vacations a year and buy $400 purses like her single co-worker who still lived with her parents, I insisted that we paid our debts and try to save up money for a down payment for a house. Meanwhile if I saw some game or trinket that I wanted for $5-$10 if I asked her if I could have it she would say yes.

Communication isn't always about LL necessarily. Can you please describe some examples of how you think that you two didn't communicate well?


Two recent examples

She stated recently that she thought the argument we had right before she left was over me not wanting to take the vacation we booked. What I was arguing for was spending less time with the OC because I felt my W becoming emotionally distant. I was trying to say we should spend time with them that weekend that she left because my back hurt and if we did spend time with them my back wouldn't have time to heal for the vacation and then we wouldn't be able to take the vacation. She insisted that she wanted to spend time with the OC that weekend, I asked her if that meant she didn't want to go on the vacation and she said yes because "[seeing the oc] is this weekend and this is what I want to do, [the vacation] is [2 weeks away] and i'm not concerned about that yet" or something like that. During BD, I told her I wanted us to go on this vacation together and that she deserved the vacation, she broke down crying saying that's all she had been wanting to hear.

Her company offered her a management position of a new facility in Florida. She competed for the position against one of her best friends from school. When they told the W that she got it I told her I was happy and excited for her but that I had hoped she didn't get it because I didn't want us to leave our life and friends here behind. BD day she stated that she interpreted that as me saying I didn't and wasn't going to go to Florida with her.

Combining a couple:
We learn our own patterns from FOO.
Growing up, what did you learn about emotions?
How was that modeled in your family?
Can you please let us know a bit more about your heritage and how it influences one's ability to hold grudges?
Where's your father in this picture? Are you the eldest? What is your mother like?

How did your ILs model theirs?
What were/are the dynamics you've observed of W's family? Parents? Siblings?

Not a whole lot of healthy models in my family. I think I mentioned my mom's codependency. I am the eldest son. Mom has said she was suicidal before I came along and that I saved her life by giving her a purpose to live. She has said that the brother and I are her whole reason for living and that we give her life meaning.

She's been the stereotypical overprotective, meddling, supportive, braggart mom. Her dad served in the military. I'm told he fought in 3 wars and came back a different man, tried to kill mom thinking she was his W at one point. Maternal grandparents divorced after that, mom had to testify against her dad during the court case. One of her brother's blamed her for tearing the family apart. They stopped talking after that. Wouldn't even be in the same room together until their father died. After that there was a period where they started talking again for maybe a year or two. The uncle then did something else to make my mom not want to talk to him. They still don't, he tried to sue my mom after their mother passed. The will settled that but just further separated them.

My parents are still married, Dad's still in the picture. Dad's the strong, silent, disciplinarian. He keeps his head down and worked a job he hated to keep the family fed. His dad all but disowned him for marrying a hispanic woman. I never really got to know that half of my family.

Mom's hispanic, Dad's mixed European. Each one has boasted of their heritage's infamous temper and ability to hold grudges (for generations if need be). Both had wicked tempers when I was growing up. When one wasn't listened to they yelled, if you still didn't listen the yelling got louder, after that the belt or paddle came out.

Mom regularly told us that they loved us, and they got us involved in lots of activities that we were interested in and they got involved as well.

Other emotions were hardly dealt with. One thing my mom has said repeatedly is that she never heard her father say he was sorry and that she was at least willing to admit she was wrong to her kids. 30 years and I would be hard pressed to use two hands to count the number of times she's done so.

As for the W, her family is very detached. Her parents seem to barely tolerate each other. Her dad wasn't very supportive, didn't go to her graduations, or encourage her to achieve anything. But allowed her to do what she wanted. Mom and dad never really seem to show her affection. She has mentioned that she never really got a lot of hugs or anything as a kid.

She has 2 half sisters, 1 step sister and had 1 half brother. He was killed when she was young. She the youngest of all of them. The next youngest is something like 12-13 years older than her. Her siblings have described the W has the unhappy miserable child, that the first time they had ever really seen her smile is when we started dating. She feels really only close to her youngest sister.

What does being supportive look like to you? How would you do this differently?

I think we each need to understand our individual needs to see what we each think makes each of ourselves happy. We then see how we can each help contribute to the other's happiness. Not out of expectation but because we care and want to be able to contribute to other persons happiness. Even if that means they want a D.

I sense that W is hinting at her own need for emotional intimacy that is lacking in the M. Thoughts?

I'm not sure. Here I think she's echoing herself mentioning that she felt more like a mother than a wife to me. That she felt more like a caretaker than an equal partner in a marriage. I feel like it's emotional intimacy plus something else but I don't know how to put that in words.

Again, we'd like to know your line of work to understand your mindset a bit better. Are you an engineer by any chance?

Have you seen Big Bang Theory?
Familiar with Dr. Sheldon Cooper, theoretical physicist?
I'm Dr. Miman2 theoretical chemist, also in academia where it's literally a publish or perish mentality.
The theory being developed has to be correct to be used by others and you need evidence to proved that it is correct.
Without that evidence then you have no proof the theory you're working on is correct.
A lack of or weak evidence makes your theory questionable at best and a joke/career killer at worst.


What do you want to do? Save the M? Throw in the towel?

I still want to save the M. At this point it's not looking good. She's not willing to talk, reach out, work on things or go to MC. She was complaining about how much it would cost to file and yet she did and paid a sheriff to serve the papers. Makes it seem like despite her lack of money she's determined to get through the D.