Newbie In Need Of Guidance

[rminer]

sandi,


As I have said, I want honest feedback.

I posted this interaction because I knew it went terribly wrong and I want to learn from my mistakes.

That being said, I do have to disagree with some of what you said about the interaction in front of my son.

First, you should not tolerate her yelling at you in front of your son. That should be a boundary. Never tolerate your W showing disrespect toward you in front of others......especially your children. They learn from watching you.

I agree 100%.

OMG! I don't know which was worse, him seeing this behavior played out before him......or his dad relenting to it.

This I diagree with and here is why.

When I said she went "b@tsh!t crazy," I mean off the charts psycho. There was no calming her down and the situation needed to be deescalated immediately. I had an eight year old in the back seat who was terrified. After this incident he clung to me the rest of the night and would not talk to my W. He did not need to witness what was happening.

A little background on myself to help explain my position on this.

I grew up with a manic depressive, bipolar alcoholic father and I witnessed many such interactions between him and my mother growing up. The main difference being that he was always the aggressor.

I still remember the anxiety and fear I felt then so strongly it is as of it happend only yesterday. The thing is, its been 40 years. I don't know if you have ever been in a situation like that, but it is something that always stays with you. I have recurring dreams about it still to this day. I yell in my sleep when I have them. Sometimes I wake up, sometimes my W has to wake me to get me to stop.

I have never told anyone about these dreams - not even my W. Until now that is.

I'm not telling you this for sympathy. I am telling you so you understand why I shut it down the way I did.

If my man status had to go down a few notches to protect my son from having memories like this, so be it. I would rather that than the alternative.

Look at how she stated it. She was in charge, and giving you no real information or details about her business.

This is how we both have been lately. I started doing this as well when I started trying to do what you recommend. Admittedly, it does come easier to her.

She then started in with "you love me so much, you sure are proving it.  You haven't text me in a week. You couldn't even make it three weeks texting me."  I said all you would give me were one word answers, so I took that as you not wanting me to."  "Yeah" was her reply.

What would have been a better response?

or else both his parents are wacko.

He definitely thinks his mother is. More explanation on that in another post. I have some questions on the kids I need to ask tomorrow.

Exactly! You should not have been apologizing and explaining how hurt you were and how you are trying, etc., etc. Why were you defending yourself? That's what nice-guys do. They explain and explain, b/c they want to make up with the W. But the problem is that she is the one who is wrong. She is the wayward! Can you see how this was you staying in the submission role, b/c it feels more comfortable to you. And, she still comes out being in the dominating position.

I see that now.

I hope you will see that I was not trying to shred you apart, but use your post to demonstrate what I have recently tried to explain.

As I said, thick skin.

I think you need to do a lot of studying about the nice guy syndrome, and the Alpha vs Beta males.

At first I thought you were calling me a psychopath since that is essentially what the first ten articles on "nice guy syndrome" were saying. I finally found a couple that explain it in context of marriage and yes, I can see that I do have some of those tendencies with my W.

you believed you were making the right moves, and that you truely couldn't see your mistakes. Or......could you?

After the fact, yes, I could.

Were you assuming you messed up....b/c the night ended with your WW still pi$$ed at you? Was that the determining factor?

I knew I messed up because I didn't feel like I gained any ground by the time it was over.