The major difficulty in this whole process is my W playing the victim role.
This is a common thing in many sitches. You can only control what you can do and not what they feel.
It is not surprising that she thinks that you are being difficult when you don't agree with her or give her what you want. WW/WAS often tend to be selfish and feel a sense of entitlement.
What I found is that you need to look out for yourself. You cannot try to nice them or be afraid to say what is right because you are afraid of their reaction. Not saying you need to pick fights, but you cannot shy away from doing or saying the right things because of fear of a confrontation.
You saw what happened when you spoke up and insisted on changing the schedule with the kids. You had many reasons to be afraid your wife would say no and would get confrontational, but speaking up and being firm was the right thing to do. I hope you can learn a lesson from this experience.
If I can offer you one advice based on what I have seen for the past several weeks in your sitch, it would be this: You cannot allow W to set the rules and then complain that the rules are unfair. Stop complaining privately, speak to her and work with her (or the MC) to set rules that are fair for both of you.
MLC,
Your posts are really helping me sort things out, thank you.
I am not trying to nice my W back. I am trying to nice my W so she does not steer things towards a contentious and litigious D. I need to stop the "nice" strategy and be firm and calm and cordial and fair, as you are advising.
MC is a mess and I think I know why. We are mixing "marriage counseling" with "separation/co-parenting coaching." My W's fears become leverage for negotiating all of our terms for the separation (whether or not she is doing this intentionally doesn't matter). I have played into the fears, and like you keep advising me it's time to stand up for myself. I'm working on it. The counselor himself played into the fears for the first month or two, and he has stopped doing this.
The concept of "fairness" is hugely problematic for us. As I see it, fair would be something like:
- Work towards 50/50 custody in a couple years - Financial separation where I help my W get on her feet so she can be self-supporting.
My W would see the above as me being controlling and abusive and cold. As she sees it, ANY agreement that does not involve me continuing to support her lifestyle is an example of me being abusive and controlling. Frankly I think she could continue in separation indefinitely -- any move towards D is going to make her life worse. On the other hand, I feel like I am giving and giving and giving, and not seeing much reason to stay invested at this point.
All the above being said, I really appreciate you pointing out that I don't need to take the nuclear option to deal with this. I can continue to make small stands for myself.
