Wayward Wife help

[bttrfly]

boundaries need to be stated. consequences need to be laid out. people need to communicate. if most of the married people on this board could actually communicate in a healthy way they wouldn't be here.

yes, individuals need to know what they will and will not tolerate. However, not communicating that to their spouse and going directly to the consequence only fuels the problem - classic and literal case in point - FM's wife actually tossed things into a fire after he shut down the CCs. His boundary was clearly that she didn't listen when he said they would discuss it later, his consequence to her not listening was shutting off the $$. He never said hey - i'm not feeling like you're hearing me, and I feel strongly enough about this that I will shut off the credit cards until you are willing to talk to me about this. He just went straight to cutting off her access to $$.

How'd that work for him?

* Parental alienation with his six year old
* Verbal abuse, in front of his six year old
* Things being tossed into a fire, presumably the 6 year old saw that happening.
* Texts to both his parents and MIL involving them and now DOCUMENTING her belief that he's controlling her access to money, which, btw, legally in my state is considered spousal abuse.

Should FM's marriage end in divorce court, this is not going to help him.

Further action without discussion is not going to help him.

We're supposed to become better men and women through the DB process, someone whom our spouses would be a fool to leave. A key piece of that is learning how to communicate in a new and different way. Behaving like a domineering @$$ isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

If he or they keep the MC appointment and the worst case scenario happens (they end up in divorce court) at least FM will have ON RECORD that he saw a neutral third party and made the effort to communicate boundaries in a healthy way. I see no downside there for him.