Not sure what to do. . .can anyone help?

[sandi2]

I said later that "While we are at home I need to feel that you won't criticise me or belittle me in front of the children, and if you do that I will have to leave the room"

Okay, don't take what I say as critisisim, but more as an illustration. I am not here to attack you, but to help, if I can.

Always think ahead of how you will state a boundary. For example, you told her what you needed while "at home". But I would think you really want her to show respect for you in front of your children, wherever the family might be......in the home or away.

The next point is very important. If the consequences for her not honoring your boundary means nothing to her........then you have not accomplished much. First of all, you are telling not to do this "in front of the children", so mentally picture all of you in the same room together while she makes a belittling remark to/about you. If you walk out of the room......where are the children? Exactly, they are left in the room with their mother, and watching the entire scene where daddy is a whipped pup and runs into the next room. Do you think she really cares that you left out of the room? Do you think this a consequence so great that she will be careful how she speaks to you in front of the children?

Verbal disrespect in front of your children is very serious, b/c it perpetuates future disrespect in the M's of your children. They see mom doing this "to" dad, so that is their defining roles in male-female relationships. It teaches the daughters to treat their H in the same manner they saw mom treating dad. On the other hand, the sons learn to imitate the same behavior of their dad. So, do you see how it works in negatively influences their future relationships?

Some time back, I was talking to a H who had NGS about this very subject. He replied that he thought it made the kids angry at their mother and how they felt sorry for him. I almost fell out of my chair! He was so eat up with the NGS that he actually thought he was somehow progressing b/c his kids felt sorry for him. He totally missed the purpose and importance of how we teach children about respect and relationships through the role models they observe. Even if small children felt pity for him, it would soon change to disgust, b/c he did not have the backbone to change the dynamics in his relationship with their mother.

So, we will put on our thinking caps. You've already told her you would leave the room if she criticized or belittled you in front of the kids. Okay, so what if you not only left the room, but left the house......and stayed out until all the children were gone to bed?

I have noticed that you've mentioned a couple of times that your W is breast feeding, and the child is in your bed. Is she nursing the two-year old son, or is this a newborn? At first I wondered what breast feeding had to do with the situation, but if she is allowing the two-year old child to stay in the marital bed........it isn't b/c of the nursing. She is allowing a habit that will be difficult to break, not to mention what it is doing to the intimacy of the MR. Did the other children sleep in the marital bed until the next baby came along?

Please don't misunderstand, I am not into the pros & cons of mothers nursing their children past a certain age. That's up to them. However, I am not pro-nursing in the marital bed. Get up and go sit in the rocking chair and nurse. I am not in favor of having any child sleep in the same bed with the parents. I have known of too many cases where the mother would intentionally use it as a wall between her and the H. Were you the one who said she was not interested in sex, except when she wanted to have another baby? Can you see a pattern here? This is not healthy for the child, and it certainly isn't healthy for the MR.

Don't let her use the nursing as an excuse for allowing the child to sleep in your bed. Don't accept "nursing" as an excuse for anything else she might throw at you. I suggest you reclaim the bedroom for what it was designed. Not a baby nursery, but a marital bedroom.

Well, you have a real challenge on your hands. Mainly, b/c you have allowed these dynamics to exist in the MR and in your home. She rules the roost, and you bring home the money. It doesn't have to be that way.......and you will never have a happy MR as long as it stays that way.

I can't remember if I have mentioned the subject of male dominance to you. There are two subjects you desperately need to read about. 1) The nice guy syndrome and 2) male dominance in the MR.

I very seldom make a promise to anyone. But I think I can promise you that these two areas are the foundation of the unhappy issues in the MR. A wife does not respect a passive nice-guy, and she doesn't want a submissive man in her bedroom. If that is what she has....then she has to take on the male role, and it kills all of the attraction in a male-female MR. She is not attracted to the man you have become, and she does not feel feminine toward you in the ways that really count. She has to admire you, in order to desire sex with you. Secretly, she wants a man who is sexually dominant in the bedroom, and she wants him to step up and be the man not only in the MR, but in the home/family as well. She is not going to tell you all of this, but I will.

Like a lot of other women, I used expressions like, "Be a real man". Then one day a guy asked me what does it mean to be a real man. He wanted to know what that picture looked like. I broke down a cried. I have learned in the recent years, too many young men truly do not know what a woman means when she says, "Be a real man". FWIW, I have written and deleted.......and written again and deleted my opinion as to why this has happened. However, it sounded very politically incorrect, and Lord knows I wouldn't want to be guilty of that. . Besides, it is not a new problem on the face of the earth, unfortunately.

Anyway, I hope you will google these two subjects and study it. Let me know what you think about it.

((hugs))