A Real Mess Pt.2

[sandi2]

But I see now why that makes sense to stop. When I don't engage her "silliness" as she likes to call it because of course its ALL in jest, she'll ask if I'm mad or why I'm being short. I'm simply not engaging. Lots of temperature checking as you can imagine when I don't play along.

It's one thing to have fun, act silly, or joke. But it's another thing when this behavior comes at someone else's expense. Now stay balanced in what I'm trying to say here. People need to have a "good nature" and not get bent out shape if something funny is said. However, if that something is a statement belittling, demeaning, the butt of a joke, or a passive-aggressive remark by the spouse.......then it is verbal disrespect, and I don't care how many laughs it gets from others.

Have you ever approached her with a serious face and say, "Look, I don't like it. I feel disrespected and I want it to stop". If she says she is just playing with you or being silly, tell her again that you see it as being disrespectful and you want her to stop.

I am assuming that you don't give the same treatment. If you've tried to show her how it feels, then I suggest you stop, b/c you won't win. Frankly, some couples get into a very bad habit of putting each other down (especially in front of others) in the form of "joking"........but it's more like making them the butt of the joke. The recipient feels he has to laugh along with those who are laughing at him, or be accused of being a bad sport. However, his W is poking fun at him in front of his kids, his friends, family, etc. It is not a funny situation. It is a form of showing him disrespect. I doubt he wants to ravish her with lovemaking when she is making her jabs and belittling him. He knows in his gut it is not attractive, and she knows it, too. She may try to play dumb if he confronts her, but once he tells her to stop.......she should never do it again.

Let me be perfectly plain with you about how important it is for a W to show respect for her H. If he cannot command respect, then he might as well get a D and be done with it. His MR will never be what he truly desires. She'll never feel desire for him as a man, b/c she can't when she feels disrespect for him. Women are different from men in this regard. Therefore, the H can do everything he hears suggested to try in winning back his W's affection and favor, but nothing will succeed until she sees him as a man she truly respects. When she starts to really respect him, her adoration and desire grows for him. That's the secret ingredient that many couples seem to miss. I've studied MR's for years, and read all the little tricks in how to have a more passionate relationship, but I can tell you that none of it works when the woman has no respect in the man. Before you can become a wonderful husband and have a great MR, you have to become a man she respects.

This is why I have a problem with men catering to b'thcy and spoiled WW's, in the name of "saving their M". If she should decide to stay with him (b/c he is simply plan B), it's going to be hell for him, if he doesn't require change in her. He will always be answering to her, b/c she will always be the one calling the shots, b/c he's too scared of losing her. Men say they don't want to lose their children, yada, yada, yada. I'm not completely cold hearted and I can understand not wanting to lose your family. These days, most fathers have at least 50/50 custody. So, I think men have to decide if they want a happier future with their kids 50%, or live in a disrespected atmosphere where misery abounds.......plus take a chance of losing their children's respect in them as a man, as well.

This may sound as if I'm here promoting divorce. I'm here promoting respect in family relationships. I am trying to tell men that their W cannot have loving feelings for him without first respecting him. Why should any man live out his life with someone who not only doesn't love him and wants to be with only him......but finds contempt for him as a man? That's no way to live life, IMHO. So, that's why I encourage you to focus on her showing respectful behavior. She may not feel it right now, but that is b/c you have not required it. Once she has to conduct herself in a respectful manner, then she is more likely to start actually feeling it. But it's up to you to require it, and it's up to her to cooperate. If she chooses to not cooperate and continues to openly disrespects you, then I think you need to seriously reconsider where you want to go with this relationship. When you have a WW, it takes a lot of tough love to gain her respect. What you've been doing, doesn't cut it.

I never want to tell my kids that Daddy did this when Mommy gave up. I see that as integrity. I will stand by my wife until it is final spiritually and lawfully.

Not sure what you mean by "this", unless you are referring to a divorce. I suppose people have their views about integrity, and if they live by their religious beliefs, then I have to respect for them for it.........if they are truly doing it out of religious conviction, and not using the religion as their excuse to put up with waywardness.

While speaking about how the WW disrespects her H in front of others, I think it is especially damaging to how children. It affects their view of their father, when mom is making him the butt of her silliness, and making passive-aggressive jabs. Kids pick up on the clues of disrespect from mom, and they begin to see daddy through the same lens as their mom has taught them to do. I've read so many posts from soft guys who silently hope & pray that their kids will see how their father wasn't the one who threw in the marriage towel and put up with the disrespect for the children's sake. However, when the kids grow up under their mother's disrespect for their father, that influence can affect the kids and how they respect him, too. Fathers are a role model for their sons. So, when the son grows up and gets M, he will follow the pattern he saw in the father........which was to cow-down to the mother. The son will find himself in the same unhappy MR that dad lived out his life. Is it really worth telling the son that you weren't the one who gave up? How does that help the father or his son? I don't think it will be much comfort for the son to find out that dad stayed under the thumb of a wayward W and chose to do nothing about it. IMHO, it's better to teach a child to have self respect and how to command it from those in a relationship, rather than show how you succumb to the bully wife on a daily basis. Children need to have a least one positive role model to know how to deal with their future relationships. I'm just saying that you can't have a loving intimate relationship with a wife without her respect.

Daughters are affected by her role model, as well. She will expect to rule the roost while her H quietly accepts whatever behavior she chooses to display.......if that's what she saw her own father doing while she was a child. So, yeah, there is a lot of responsibility put on parents to be the healthy role models. I've been on the board for a long time, and I have seen lots of LBH's comfort one another (or guilt one another?) by saying they want to be able to look their kids in the eyes and tell them they did everything in their power to save the M. My question is, what good does that do if all the kids saw was a rebellious & resentful WW who constantly showed them that their father was not a man to be respected under his own roof by his own family? What good comes from the father telling them that it wasn't his fault that the M failed? Will that make a man feel satisfied or justified to live in decades of disrespectful misery, while watching how negatively it affects his children?

Look, I'm not saying kids don't suffer the fallout of their parent's divorce. I'm just saying that I see no purpose in staying in a untrustworthy and disrespectful MR just so you can one day tell your kids that it was the WW's fault for giving up. Is he trying to look like the better person to his kid....... just b/c he stuck around and tolerated the actions of a WW and did nothing to gain respect? To me, it shows a lack of his own self respect. But.....everyone to their own opinion, and this is just my own. To be clear, my family has suffered divorce from more than one wayward spouse. I've seen the results of abuse, infidelity, etc. In each case, it started with a lack of disrespect on the part of a spouse......including my own waywardness. I know the road back from that state of waywardness.....and it starts with willingness & cooperation from the wayward partner. FWIW, I hate divorce, but there have been some cases where I've seen that it was necessary to separate/divorce from an unhealthy relationship when the other spouse refused to cooperate in healing the MR.

Sorry for rambling on & on.