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

[sandi2]

As I am GALing I told her I was going out, and she asked me "are you out every night?" and I replied "I don't know yet" last night she asked me if I was going out and I said I wasn't, she then disappeared upstairs and came down 20 minutes later dressed up and ready to go out, she then went out with him and I didn't ask her where she was going, I asked her what time she would be back and she said she wouldn't be too late, bear in mind I am out the door at 6.30am, she rolled in at 12:45am, and I told her "I am really angry with you, you said you wouldn't be too late and coming in at this time is too late, especially on a weeknight, I will not accpet this behaviour and if you do it again I will lock the door and yiu can find somewhere else to spend the night" I didn't give her time to respond and walked away. She is playing me like a fiddle....

Did the OM pick her up at your house, or you just knew she was meeting him?

if you are going to GAL without giving her details and telling her when you will be home.......then why would you ask questions about her, and then tell her what you'll do if she comes home late again? Did you not say you got the kids bathed and into bed at night? Were you in bed asleep and had to let her in the door? She doesn't have her own key? Although what she's doing is not acceptable, your approach to her appeared like a double standard. My suggestion would be to turn out all the lights and be fast asleep when she came home. If you are sleeping on the couch, this might be a good time to snooze in your comfy bed in the MBR. Don't wake up when she comes home. Don't drill her. Who ever comes home late gets the couch, otherwise share the bed.

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I just wonder, does she have most of the say about disciplining the kids? If you don't have much influence with her, she is not going to allow you to have a hand in how the children are disciplined, either

Yes she does- in fact 90% of the time- for example this last Sunday, after being repeatedly told by my W to stop misbehaving, I raised my voice and told him to stop immediately, and there was another person there and there was no anger- just a strong but stern word- and after I said it I looked at the other person and flashed a quick smile to demonstrate I was not angry but in control- the W then berated me for shouting as we were driving off- while the Children were in the car.[/quote]

This is simple a suggestion, that rather than raising your voice loud enough to get the children's attention, you excuse yourself (if necessary) and walk the kids a little farther away so as to be out of ear shot of their mother. Calmly but sternly tell them this is to the place or time to run & play with loud voices, but you all will be leaving shortly and then they will have a chance to use all that bottled up energy.

If your W makes snide remarks about it........then you need to put on your thinking cap, and maybe recruit ideas from other men here in what to do to figuratively put duct tape across her mouth. Now, my H could shut me up by just giving me a hard look. But something tells me it might take more than just a hard look from you, to shut her trap in front of the kids. (Maybe put head phones on each of them as you are putting seat belts on them........so they don't hear what you'll say to their mother)?

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So that leads me to wonder if you ever really show hou are really mad at your W's treatment? How does she know if you are mad? Do you sulk? Do you get quiet and stay off to yourself? Do you initiate or approach her with a talk, where you tell her your feelings? If these are any of your reactions to her disrespectful behavior.........it's not effective in changing what she does. It does not make her back up and shut her nasty mouth. It does not show her that you will not be verbally disrespected. So, she continues.

In the past I did express myself by getting angry, and whilst I don't want to get angry anymore, I do need to think of how I can express how angry I am, this is a WW who blames me for EVERYTHING wrong in the MR and she has cited my anger as one of those reasons. I think therefore I just need to tell her very clearly- without anger, say my piece and then walk away from her. I need to adopt a more stoic response when expressing my anger.[/quote]

First of all, I am still getting to know you, how you react to your WW's disrespect, etc. I agree that any attempts to get her to back down b/c of her seeing you angry......and actually expecting a positive result from her, is unrealistic. In the immediate future, you may have to remind me........cause I dislike female bullies and they make me mad, whether or not it gets you angry. I cannot give advice for you to do, if I feel anger from reading about her latest bad demonstration.

If she displays bad treatment toward you in front of the kids and/or other adults just to push your buttons and get an angry reaction from you........then the goal would be to let Mr. Cool show up. However, calmly telling her what you have to say and walking away.........doesn't seem to be working. Give me an example of what you calmly said to her Sunday and then walked away.

I can picture two scenarios. One guy sounds subdued, and she is not attracted to him. In fact, she acts out worst the next time, b/c she hates how he responds to it. He will explain how the kids were too loud and what he was trying to do, etc. He relates his disappointment for her lack of support, and how her obvious disrespect makes him feel. He may remembers something in DBing about validating......so he makes an attempt to validate her. Then he retreats to a place of safety. Does this scenario familiar? If it resembles your response, I don't think it is effective.

The other scenario I picture is guy who is so cool and sharp (lTo be clear, like James Bond cool and sharp) with his voice volume lowered, he can lean in closer......say one sentence, turn around and leave her upstanding there speechless. Now, if you are the second guy........then you have to be pretty clever with your words. This guy doesn't explain what (or why) he was trying to do with the kids earlier. He doesn't bring his feelings into it. This is about her show of bad behavior and disrespect to him. It is no longer about what he was doing with the kids or his previous intentions. Understand this, b/c the man knows "explaining" the whys and what's of his intentions earlier makes absolutely no difference---after she chose to berate him. But how many H's ate as cool as James Bond? Hummmm ;)k

So......remember your goal. Don't explain yourself to your W. One sentence that would work if my H said it to me is, "You know, Sandi, the behavior you displayed makes you incredibly unattractive. Such a shame others have to see that side". And then he would distance himself from me the rest of the day/night.

So now my question to you.......how do you see your WW reacting as you turn and nonchalantly walk away? Would she go after you, ready to verbally rip you apart? Would she bang and throw things around, may yell things back at you......but not follow you around? B/c the goal is not to antagonize her into worse behavior. It's to make her think of how it looks in front of others.

BTW, this is not stating a boundary. It does not have any consequences. I'm just saying if you are talented at getting your point across while looking cool instead of a beaten pup being sent to his cage........it could be a consideration. But don't depend upon me to supply you with the words. (James Bond, I'm not). Your response would have to come immediately following her bad behavior.

If you cannot refrain from "explaining".........then please just don't even try to say anything and turn around a walk away.

I cannot control a WW.

But, you can control a great deal of what she does to you........once you learn how to use effective boundaries.

I will not allow her to shout or disrespect me again and in terms of a response-

Before you make that type of statement out loud to her, you have to know how you will stop her from doing it again. B/c you just said you could not control her. So, how do you enforce this boundary? You can run away from every thing she does to humiliate, belittle, and disrespect you. This is your W. You should know her well enough to know what would work best.

In the meantime, if you knew this would be as good as it ever gets, and she continued seeing OM.........would you still want to fight for the MR?

I am still not 100% because when I have left the house the Children get really emotional as the W says something to them like "Daddy's leaving us again" which I think is really cruel on them,

Yes, it is very cruel, and causes the children to feel insecure, abandoned, etc. But this is her choice of control methods. She is definitely the controller in this M. She stoops to low methods, even causing pain to her small children.

if I tried to remove them from the situation and take them with me, she would threaten to call the Police on me like she did last time. If it happens when the Children are not there- it is simple- I will tell her and then leave the house- but as described above what to do when the Children are there is a real catch 22

I am not qualified to give you the answers to these type of questions. IMHO, it required knowing where you stand legally. Since she has called to cops when you tried to take your own children.......you might go to the police office and ask who to speak to about it. It might, also, alert them that you are concerned at what lengths your W could take, and you want to protect your kids. Explain what she does with the kids, and prevents you leaving with them. Knowing the law where you live is very important, especially when you are living with a woman like you've described. You might research child services and what happens if they are ever called. I doubt it would be the most preferred route, but you can just read about it. As I've said previously, you don't want to turn this into a worse situation, but the more you tell us about her........the more it sounds like she has some emotional/mental issues. You have to protect your children, first.

So, continue the week working on those 3 short goals. Keep updating throughout the week.