Motivated by Happy Giant's Post

[Fighting4Wife]

Do I throw my control enduced tantrum now or later?

A little humor.

Cobra,

Let me start by stating publicy that I have followed threads for a year, and in some cases I vbelieve you to be spot on in your suggestion, in some ones I see clear misses. I see both here.

Let me follow with the fact that truth hurts mosst when it has been overlooked or ignored, so as much as your summarization stings, it for the most part is correct.

As to the controlling behavior, Yes I am. Yes I was not free to admit. She is as controlling, if not greater. No blame game here or finger pointing, stating the facts. A disconnect in our marriage to date, in the past no compromise, just exert more control. I for one am ready to drop the control. Butas you well know learned habits are hard to break and I must make sure I have a firm grasp when I start to trigger.

I suspect, and you confirm, she wants the affection and security of the marriage. She wants to stay but she has drawn a line and lost hope. She is content to just survive. You are not happy with that prospect. So you present her with the choice of working to improve the marriage or split.

Spot on and am sure it was not a revelation.

So staying distant is only a temporary thing to set a boundary and let her choose. If she chooses the marriage, then you two can work together with the benefit of her enthusiastic support (this should be a condition of acceptance). If not, then you split anyway. Before doing this, you need to be comfortable with either outcome. Since you already told her your wanted to divorce, I assume that is the case. This only puts some teeth into it.

Again very astute observation. Am I comfortable with D? Hell no. I am not. I see the issues ahead for my sons as they were for me. Though I will not be in a different state as my father was. But still, we all no the perils for children. Along that lines it is no better to see a couple stay in conflict. That may have even worse consequences.
This is a hard place to go back to. It was, as I have mentioned, whitered in my marriage and the love dimmed for my W.

So staying distant is only a temporary thing to set a boundary and let her choose. If she chooses the marriage, then you two can work together with the benefit of her enthusiastic support (this should be a condition of acceptance). If not, then you split anyway. Before doing this, you need to be comfortable with either outcome. Since you already told her your wanted to divorce, I assume that is the case. This only puts some teeth into it.

Quite right.

But what I am feeling from you is a slow realization that maybe you had more to do with driving her away than your realized. Because of this, she may actually accept divorce. She may just call your bluff (and I think you are bluffing, trying to re-establish control) and that scares you.

I also think it may not be necessary for you to ever present this choice. Improving yourself may be enough for her to stay in the marriage without you needing to force her into staying. This would be the ideal path, don’t you think?

Yes I have done my share of this. But I take no more blame than that. There was two here that contibuted. My fatal mistake was exerting more control after her affair when she was vulnerable, unsure, and attempting, if not full heartedly, trying.

Since I know I pursue out of a fear of abandonment, I have a pretty good guess you do too. Fear is a sign of weakness, and with a healthy ego, this is hard to accept. You seem intelligent, so your intellect makes it all too easy to turn things around and exert a little control over the spouse to keep her from running away. Over time she gets tired of this and the tactics need to be stronger. Your wife does not sound nearly as assertive nor does she seem to have a need to control too, as mine does, so you may have avoided a lot of the control battles that I have encountered.

But you can still hold major sway over the relationship if you will just confront yourself, reign in your fears, stop the controlling and address the sense of panic that comes from not controlling.

Without question. I recognize my fear, I confront it, it is getting better to beat down. My W is actually a control master. She does not ease on isssues easily and is a very good master of manipulation. Withholding sex and affection primarily because she knows the "need" it serves with me. Over the past year she has gone away from that but recently with her getting "tired" she has fallen back into this pattern. Her other favorite game is do and watch for the reaction. Casein point being out until 5:00 am with a group of er classmates at a reunion in town with OM among them. Not telling until I confronted, than blaming me for not understanding. I know this is about me, so I am not deflecting the light, just shedding part of it into the realm where she is a controller.

Cobra, These are things I knew, but refused to acknowledge. They have rushed forward in the past three days and I have had to take a hard look at them. I pray it is not too late. But if it is, the fear that will come will be of my own doing and I will have to deal with it on that level.

I hear the message, stop everything! Be here in my supportive role as father and H, but relinquish control and power until she can recommit. If she cannot, then it is as we are Divorced already and logic would then state, moving on is inevitable.

F4W (now completely a skin full of gelatin!)