Moving forward

[Gerda]

The only problem I see here is that you are focusing on how your choice affected your W.

When you posted your idea about the groceries, we all chimed in about providing for your kids. No one here would have said to buy her stuff to affect her behavior or to change her. That is not possible.

And I still think you should buy your kids groceries no matter what she does, if you think they don't have what they need. And if your wife needed food for herself and you saw that, I think you should feed her then too. Likewise any enemy.

But if it's a matter of your kids having nine kinds of granola bars or just one kind -- e.g., if she can afford fruit and vegetables and to keep them fed even if it'll be rice and beans and eggs, then let her handle the groceries at her house and you can get them all the special stuff at yours.

If I didn't buy groceries, my kids would not eat. I buy it all, even if it's not fair.

As far as the gifts -- sentimental notes may put a lot of pressure. Little useful gifts, who knows? Trying to strategize seems to me to be a losing battle, it will make you crazy to try to figure out what will "work," since these MLCers change constantly. I try not to think about that and only about my need to protect myself somewhat and my main goal, to please God, not try to change or affect my H. (In secular terms, that would be, "To stay true to my beliefs, no matter what H does.")

I try to respect my (so far, still in-house) H's need for space, but I do continue to give him small things at 3 times a year -- X-Mas, Valentine's and his birthday. I leave a simple note and a tiny gift at our anniversary. I do this as a wife but also because my kids like to see us as a family, they are happy that his stocking is filled or that his place at the Valentine'sDay breakfast table has a couple little small gifts.

Maybe your sending a gift p!sses her off. But maybe in the long run, it's better to keep doing it anyway. I have read just as many testimonies from returned spouses saying that the continued kindness was something they secretly loved, even when they lashed out about it, as I have read admonitions from these boards saying to stop giving gifts.

What I do is -- when I want to give a gift, I do. When I don't, I don't. Likewise anything else. If I want to invite him to eat with us, I do; and if I don't have it in me, I don't. Sometimes when I don't have it in me to be kind, I pray for that grace, and then I am able to offer. Sometimes I don't get that grace and I stay silent. Tonight I am doing laundry and for some reason I feel like adding my H's in and folding it nicely afterwards. Usually, lately at least, I don't want to do his laundry or even come near any of his things, so I don't. And sometimes when I do his laundry, he will not only NOT thank me, but tell me not to do something "next time" -- e.g., don't dry this or that shirt. I just laugh about that. I know I can't please him. I go dark when I need to for myself, or grey. But when I am feeling stronger, l keep being a wife in small ways because my goal is to please God by loving unconditionally (and sometimes that means going dark!) and to surrender my H to him, knowing that I can't do anything to change H, only things to change myself.