Thanks for the book recommendation. I know you always have something in that library of yours. I will look into the book (for some reason I think I may have this book, though I haven’t read it).
Mrs. NOP,
Thank you for stating a new thread and thank you VERY much for understanding what I have been going through. It is hard, in spite of trying to do what I believe to be the right thing, to my own unhappiness. It would have been much easier to just walk away years ago. I had the choice to do that but I didn’t.
I am trying to work on a better method. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I think it better to be diplomatic and sometimes it gets me nowhere and I have to go back to pushing. I am wondering how much of my thoughts about W (which follow below) have an impact on the success of these approaches.
Update Went to counseling by myself last night. I have forwarded my recent comments on this board to the C, so she was familiar with recent events. We discussed how things were with the kids and I during the vacation and how they changed when we got back, how things just fell back into the old routines and fighting. She asked about the time W was putting into her work. I told her that she still put in long hours, to the neglect of the kids and that S9 gets the most upset over this. I even defended her, saying that as a new teacher I am giving her the benefit of the doubt that she needs a lot of tie to build her resources until a full year’s cycle of material is created. That could take her into the end of this year.
C said that she could see this but it seemed to her W was putting all her energy into work and not the marriage and that it was consistent with plans she stated long ago to become independent and then split. I agreed that W was doing this, that I believe she still had her $10k with the lawyers and she had built up another $8k in her bank account as a divorce war chest.
C also agreed with me that she did not think W wanted to D but while she wanted to stay married, she did not think W knew how to do so or could do so at this time. She said that she has seen W walk up to the line in addressing her issues, then back away rather than confront them. She understands that I am extremely frustrated but thinks I have done my work and at this point, W is holding things up.
I ran an idea past C that came to me last week. One thing that has always seemed peculiar to me is W’s aversion to any type of criticism. She absolutely hates to be blamed for anything and this seems to trigger a lot of her reactivity. Anything that is not a compliment is taken as criticism and she seems to feel blamed, even if I go to the extent of explaining that I am not placing blame. To me this is a clear sign of poor self confidence, or at least vulnerability over some key issue. Yet she claims to have high self esteem and usually does seem to exhibit this. People with low esteem but who put on a façade seem to worry a lot about what others think, and even though they try to cover it up, it still comes through. I told C that W does not seem to be like this. She does not seem to concern herself with what others think. In fact, she is so caught up in her own world that I feel she is quite clueless at times as to what others feel (especially me). So why the aversion to blame?
I told C that as the child parent to her mother, I think W felt a lot of responsibility s a kid, staying up to wait for her mother to come home from the bars, trying to get jobs to help buy food. Then her mother died. I think W may have felt she failed and was somehow responsible for her mother’s death. C confirmed that this sounded plausible, that studies show children internalize blame in this exact way. She said she would try to discuss it with W sometime. She also mentioned that regarding W’s ADD, using this as an excuse to continue to impose a messy house, missed schedules, losing things, etc., was not an acceptable excuse. People with ADD can cope but they must be willing to make necessary changes and that I should not accept W’s excuses for continuing her behavior. I told her that I agreed and had said the same to W, but she does not hear me, rather she thinks I am just placing blame.
C also said she would discuss the fact that she is extremely OCD (she said she was one of the worst cases her doctors had seen) and discuss how she reacted to others before she got on medication and learned to handle her condition. She believes W is OCD too but never discussed this with W before. I asked that she do so, that I thought it could be very valuable for W to see how others perceive her behavior. She said she would call W to see if she would come to IC.
Last night was fairly calm at home. W has been getting on to D13 about feeding the cats right at bedtime. D15 was supposed to feed them earlier in the evening but apparently did not do so. About 10:30 I heard D13 in the kitchen upset and feeding the cats. She said she did not care what W would do.
This morning I heard the TV going and found D13 up already. She said W had poured water on her in the bed to get her up. She said W had told her to get up to finish her math homework, but D13 said she finished it last night. I asked W about this and she said that D13 did not finish her homework (even though D13 showed it to me) and said that she had told her several times to wake up but D13 wouldn’t get up. So she poured water on her.
D13 also said that when she went to bed last night, she had her PC on, listening to music and W came in and knocked over her monitor and speakers, knocked her school books off her desk and told her to go to sleep. Things were still scattered this morning. Remember, W sleeps upstairs with the kids so she apparently heard the music and couldn’t go to sleep. D13 should have been in bed, but I know she was upset, fighting over the cats (W threatens to get rid of them if D13 feeds them at night).
D13 also said that she had told W that she hates her and is going to kill her. I don’t get too alarmed over this statement since it is typical venting for D13, but is does represent the anger she has in her. As I got out of the shower this moring, D13 came in the bathroom and said W had whispered to her that if D13 was going to kill her, she would kill her back. D13 said she replied something like she get W and W said “how are you going to do that, how, how?”
When I asked W about this, she said it was not in that context. I am not sure what happened, and I suspect W may have been trying to make light of the issue, but D13 was not in the mood to take it that way. An obvious stupid move on W’s part. I told D13 that W was just trying to exert control and power over her and not to get into it and that even though D13 felt those things, she needed to watch what she says. She says I do not know what a hell of a life she is living. I told her that I knew perfectly well, that I grew up the same under my mother. I hugged her and told her I loved her. She cried a while but then settled down and seemed to be ok as I left the house.
We had an argument two night before. I got mad at her for having this same angry, attacking mood when asking me about a math problem. I tried to explain it to her, but she got angry and said she would ask her teacher. Her attitude is what made me mad and what we argued over. She thinks I am angry with her over quitting TKD. I told her I was upset about that but her current attitude was what I was arguing with her about. Up until this morning, D13 was still upset with me over this. Hugging her seemed to put us over this conflict. She just called me at work to tell me she has a birthday party to go to this evening. It is not until 7:00 so I do not understand why she needed to call, except to reach out to me. So I asked if she was OK and to give a little comfort.
Now as for everyone out there who thinks I am an abusive husband, that I am the root of my W’s problems and that if I could just quell my anger everything would be ok, I have to tell you that you do not know what you speak of. You do not know what I live with. I appreciate all of you taking the time to read my thread and post your thoughts, whether I agree with them or not. But there is a world of good W could do if she would just level with herself about her anger and her issues. I cannot keep assuming responsibility for her problems. I did that for too long.
