It seems you think I might be making false, one-sided accusations of my W, without having acknowledged her complains or address my short comings. She would like to think that too, but the fact of the matter is that I have acknowledged and addressed her complaints repeatedly, in person and in counseling. Those complaints are:
When we first got married (15 years ago), or in the first year of our marriage:
• I criticized her dress, feeling that it was unreasonable of me to expect her to wear more than gym shorts and a t-shirt when going to the mall with my mother • I criticized her inability to cook • I criticized her weight gain • I did not acknowledge that our first child had colic and it was for this reason she could not sleep and had to be held continually • When our first daughter was in pre-K or K, I did not acknowledge that she had “suicidal ideations” (expressed only to my W at bedtime, and which I never heard)
I have acknowledged and apologized for the first three items (and any other incident similar to this and the same approximate time that I cannot remember now). For the latter two, I acknowledged that I believe she believes those things occurred, but I could not verify them one way or the other. This is a sticking point with W because I think she feels that if I do not acknowledge our daughter being colicky and later having ADD, I might think she is the source of the problem (which I have stated to her). I think she is sensitive to this because one counselor she took our first daughter to for ADD evaluation stated in writing that she did not see any symptoms of ADD but thought much of the child’s anxiety was due to her mother.
Now just what effect does that have on the confidence of a mother who believes she is doing everything possible for her kids? Yep, she doesn’t want to hear it. So she spent about $4k per kid to have them evaluated by a neuron-psychologist. He found that D15 did “not have an ADD bone in her body” (his words). He did think she had non-verbal learning disability, which looks similar to ADD, but he also acknowledged that W brought a lot of stress into the home and was the bigger issue for the kids. (This is one reason I wanted W to stop home schooling, obsessing on the kids, and get a job. Focusing on her job has helped a lot in some areas. It has hurt in others.)
Now that D15 is a successful, happy, functioning student, W seems to not bring up the learning disability issues anymore. She does still bring up issues 1-3 above. She also says this was abusive to her by way of point 1-3 and that whenever we argued, I was abusive because I yelled. Oddly, whatever yelling I did, I recall her yelling the same amount plus throwing a pot and an iron at me, one going through the window.
In more recent years, she is angry over the time I got angry with the kids, when I would rant at them after our fights or get onto them for not cleaning up. The biggest thorn in her side is her being thrown in jail early this year. So that’s it. Nothing new, nothing under the table. I have addressed everything, apologized for most of it (not her half of the incidents leading up to her going to jail). I did this in counseling, to what appeared to be her satisfaction and that of the counselor. Yet these excuses keep coming up. Why?
As for some of your other questions: You cannot preserve what you do not have.
The statement above therefore seems to be give yourself permission to act uncivil as long as there is no intimacy, closeness and tenderness in your marriage.
Yet, I think you would agree that you can't scream your way into intimacy, closeness and tenderness.
I don’t think my screaming is to promote intimacy, but to push her off her center of the universe mentality, to acknowledge some of my complaints and not throw daggers first.
Are you unaware of or minimizing the negative impact that you as your children's family of origin are having on your children?
Of course I am aware of this. I am concerned about the kids, but I am trying to fix that part as well as the whole relationship, which ultimately will help the kids heal. I do not know at what point it is best to drop the marriage to stop the fighting, versus keep fighting and improving the marriage but avoid D.
Whether all this is healthy for the kids or not is an open question. Sure, in the short run it is harmful and better to not have any fighting at all. But for the marriage to ever recover and the kids to ever know a stable, happy home life, I believe we must endure some hard times. I hope those times do not go on much longer. Things had been going fairly well, but I truly think the start of school has put W under a whole new cycle of stress, worry and guilt that caused this latest incident to come up. I also think her not having resolved her past issues and just stuffing her resentment has a lot to do with this. I know our counselor sees this as our number one problem right now.
Martelo,
Have you always been "high maintanance" in her eyes or is this a response to you asserting your needs and desires for the relationship and yourself?
I would say this statement does not reflect me at all. Her impression comes from two things: 1) my insistence that we increase the frequency of sex to a minimum of once a week and 2) my pursuit of her versus her avoidance of me when things come under stress. She understands that I have abandonment issues and that I need reassurance. But to her, my needs seems excessive in comparison to her needs. She has a tendency to run from a feeling of engulfment and being smothered. She “needs air.” So to her I am high maintenance.
It is also a response to my asserting my needs. I did not do this before in our marriage, though we did have sex more often then. I have also come to learn from this board how much I miss the EC with a woman. This is also smothering to her. So her statement is total BS.
