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

[mbe76]

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

I knew she was meeting him, as when I said I would need to move my car, she said "don't bother he's picking me up" this was later confirmed by a mutual friend who said there FB green dot was last active at the same time.

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.

Yes, I get that now.

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

That is a good idea- I think what I said above is an idea- simply take her fuel away by saying with few words and let my actions talk.

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 said "I will not be shouted at in Public by you, change your tone" I then gave her a look and walked away- it seemed to have a modicum of success- bc when she then followed me to the car- she just sulked and never said a word all the way home.

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 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.

As below- if I take away her "captive audience" she will have no one to spew at, so I will let her know I am not happy, and then walk away.

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

This is something I am struggling with.

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.

I am now seeing it like the fire triangle- you know- to have a fire you need Ignition + Fuel + Oxygen, in her case to belittle me or berate me, she uses Behaviour + Action + Emotion = Response- I can choose to take 2 of those out of the equation- I will in future take action by stating quietly why she is out of order, and I will then walk away- even if I want to say something else- I think stern silence and a look then walk away will work- certianly worth trying. Her Oxygen in that sitution is my reaction.

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 want to fight for it, but not at any cost. I am beginning to realise that if she continues to carry on in this behaviour (and it seems like she is trying to drive me out of the house) then I will have to move on. I have a plan in mind and on paper, and I am giving it a specified timeframe.

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.

She hasn't actually called the cops, but threatened it.

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

I will.

Little update: I GAL last night with an old male friend, and sought him as he is decent man with a family himself and is able to give perspective, but as part of the No More Mr Nice Guynominatedow my nomitated person to soundboard the activities from that resource.

Another little update:

I went to counseling today- My W went last week on her own- and has accused me of Domestic Violence- which at the top of the post you will see I have admitted in our arguments we would often end up shouting and then she would hit me and I would defend myself- but the MC said that shouting is now classed as DV. Inside I couldn't believe what I was hearing, yes, I have used really hurtful words and allowed resentment to build into passive-aggressive behavior- The MC said it wasn't about blame, but I was a little surprised it was called that- we were both guilty of unacceptable behaviour in our M. And I know words can really hurt- I do know that- but I never raised a hand to her- yet she felt it was OK to punch me bc it was the only way she knew "how to shut me up"