Let me lay this out straight so everyone can understand. My W has some very good qualities – she is energetic, full of life, extroverted, likes to dance, enjoys sports, is very concerned for the kids and their education. All of these are some of the good qualities that make staying in the marriage valuable. But on her negative side are the severe dysfunction she suffered as a child, the overwhelming fears and need to control as much as she possibly can, the mood swings that have been controlled with medication, the lashing out like a cornered animal when she feels threatened.
This is NOT a normal situation like what all of you are dealing with. As I said before, there are only a few people here with a spouse that seems familiar to my W – Hairdog and V/Z-Bube.
I have fought a long battle to get to the point that W recognizes that her actions can result in consequences. She NEVER had this sort of discipline. NO ONE ever told her what to do or held her to a set of rules. So the idea that she cannot tread on others is foreign to her, and whenever she did in the past, the other person backed down. Why? Because they had no commitment to standing up to her. I do. And I realized several years ago that she had no understanding of this concept or the fact that consequences and boundaries are ultimately backed up by power. That is one clear lesson she learned this year when she went to jail. The law will enforce raw power.
Now once we got that point clearly established, we have been able to move forward. It has been in fits and starts as she backtracks and bucks the control she feels from me and others. Not only has she had to give ground with me, but she has had to give some ground with the kids as they have matured and pressed to do more things on their own. This has been scary for her. She has learned to give ground at her work too. She does not run the school and has had to negotiate with her peers and supervisor. Al in all, this has helped to balance her, but she still bucks from time to time.
Whether anyone here agrees or not, I MUST stand up to this and hold a hard line on these concepts. She MUST know that if she crosses the line there will be swift and severe consequence, and that those actions can and will be backed by the use of force if necessary, either mine or that or the police. As she has come to accept this and cooperate in the marriage, I have tried to show a complete opposite side of myself. That is why she and the counselor asked a while back what had changed in me. I told them it was a change in her.
I see very little difference in my approach to how you would handle a wild, abused and dangerous dog. The initial phase of the recovery requires pure power, to set the ground rules for respect and appropriate action. From there, the more subtle, emotional teachings can begin, which is what the dog really wants. Dogs want to be accepted and loved, just as people do.
Think of it this way, if I had NOT stood up and established these very hard lines, if I had stayed non-reactive, what would she see when she was on a rage? If she does not understand other people’s boundaries or the limits of her control, how does she know when to stop? How does she even know she has crossed a line? Simply telling her does not work for those are only words and she does not understand the meaning. She needed to FEEL the boundary, to FEEL when she pushed over the line and went too far.
No she has a good understanding of this and when she acts respectfully, I act respectfully too. When she crosses the line, I react strongly to let her know not to even think about going there. What she wants is love and acceptance. I have ALWAYS known this and have stated it here long ago. What she has a problem with is acknowledging this need within her and then accepting it when she gets it. So I show her a strong contrast between warm, caring, cooperative behavior versus battle mode. She can now see the line clearly. Before she never knew a line existed, much less where it was.
Since early this year we have been transitioning from the establishment of power boundaries to the higher levels of respect. Everything moves in waves and I know we both backslide. When we do, I am upset and angry with her and myself. I don’t like being in that pit, but I am there whether I like it or not. The reconciliations, the sex, act like a bonding ritual of sort and reaffirm to BOTH of us that we are hearing each other and trying to give the acceptance we both want. It is a very basic foundation on which all the higher the levels of love are built.
Think back to the wild dog analogy. The dog acts out. It is disciplined. Then it is given love and affection. Slowly it learns to act in the way to get what it wants. Same thing with W. Think about Hairdog or V/Z-Bube’s wife. The same lesson needs to be applied there, IMO. Those women also lack the most basic levels of respect for power and boundaries. From what I have read, they do not think they need to respect the power of their H because up to now, they have not had to. And as long as they cannot see the need to stop crossing the line, or someone makes them stop crossing the line, they will keep crossing the line. Asking them to not do so will not work. Asking the wild to dog to be nice will not work. Discipline cannot be imposed through love, only through power.
Now, as for my daughter. She displays a LOT of the tendencies of W in that she gets angry easily, wears her emotions on her sleeve, vents fully and says what is on her mind. The good this is that she does this, so that afterward she has released everything. What she wants is exactly what W wants, to feel accepted and loved and safe from the chaos of the fighting. I am trying to discipline D13 with the disadvantage of her seeing how her parents fight on the power level rather than the negotiation level. She does understand the difference, but her anger and resentment take over at times. This is natural. It is not healthy and is a cause for concern, but it is natural.
The reason I brought up the issue with D13 in the first place is to show what I am dealing with. I note that many people found W’s actions to be abusive to the point that I should put on a restraining order and file for D. I am sure my description of events raised a lot of emotion in readers. So think what kind of emotion this incident raised in me. Couple that with the FACT that my chances of getting custody as still slim to none. That is the hard, very frustrating reality facing many dads. I understand the reaction of everyone toward the kids, but that reaction was still out of proportion.
Blackfoot,
As I type this I see your latest comments on OCD. I have spoken with a few people about OCD this past week and they tell me there is little that can be done to resolve the underlying fears in an effective manner without medication. She is on meds now and I think they do help, though I think at many times her dosage is too low. She has this set to minimize the effects on her mental clarity for “normal” times. It is the higher stress times that seem to completely overwhelm this medication level.
I am hoping our C can help with this, though I do not know yet if W will go back to see her. My suspicion is that W’s refusal to go back is just another ploy to pull control back her way. We will see.
