Muddle's Waters V

[MuddleThrough]

You know, this is one area where I'm a bit annoyed at W. She chooses not to do something and then complains that she can't do it or doesn't have the ability to - or rather that I'm preventing her from doing so. She doesn't stand up and do what she wants to and it's always someone else's fault. It's like this enabling thing she keeps saying. She blames her dependancy on me, tells me that I'm enjoying it, that I like it. Never once does she stop and say "If he's only enabling me, that must mean that I'm the one responsible for the choice to do it." And the funny thing is that I'm not responsible for the immediate benefits of the initial choice, just the consequences of it that come later down the road. Case in point, she chose to stay home with S4 - I agreed with her choice as we both thought is best for him, and it worked out for her too. Now, she has isolated herself from the world and this is my fault because I enabled her choice to do so. I would also enable her NOT doing so if SHE chose to do good things for herself. I don't call this enabling, rather I call it support. I respect her decision as my equal and support it. This whole "enabling" thing takes equality out of the equation, because it implies that I know better than she does. Maybe now I do - but then the question of whether I want to be with someone that chooses to remain in a lower position than me in terms of her self-realization goes comes up.

For almost 10 months now she has been talking about leaving me. Where's the action? She hasn't even applied for a job. Yet she'll turn around and blame me for this. In fact, we were talking about this with her mother and my W said that she doesn't want to stop caring for S4 at home. Yet she wants out of this terribly miserable marriage that is making her feel so bad? I don't see any desire to do so, at least there's no action on her part. She'll likely stay in this state forever if I don't do something about it. I was thinking of giving her an ultimatum because our separation is contingent on her acheiving her goals of getting a job, learning to drive the car, etc., telling her that if she's not ready to leave by the beginning of the year, I'm going to move and she's going to be stuck living with her mother, whether they like this arrangement or not.

[toughlover]

Muddle

Now she's starting to sound exactly like my W was a few years back.

Part of the bomb she dropped on me in July was that she'd been wanting to divorce me SINCE 2000-2001!

Why didn't she? Well, according to her (and I think this is the alien talking to some degree):

1. We had too much debt.
2. She only made $10,000/year (worked at our children's private school).
3. I wouldn't let her get a better job cause it would mean too much driving, too much time away from home, etc. (we lived in a very rural area and I was already driving two hours a day to work and back...an hour each way).

So when she started up with OM, at first she said she wanted to wait until she divorced me, did it all on the dotted line, etc. But I reckon she figured that would take too long so she just started the relationship with him anyway, as an escape.

But, again, she blamed ME and the "circumstances"...yet stuck around for 5 or so years, 3 of which she was cheating. My only guess is that she saw me working my a-- off getting better jobs, paying down our debt, and figured I'd get us into a better financial position which she could then exploit and take off. I used to think she stuck around all that time because, deep down, she didn't want to fully make it all "real" and be the one responsible for ripping our family apart, but she swears, even now, that she was willing to do all that do "get what she wanted." Scary.

And it's odd because my wife is a go-getter (clearly); she doesn't typically wait around for things to go right for her. She has typically gone and got what she wanted when she wanted it, right or wrong. Yet in this case, nothing but excuses.

I believe my W figured that the repercussions of the A would make her decisions for her. An abdication of responsibility, so to speak.

Now, I realize our sitch's and S's are different in many ways, but I see a lot of your W's indecision in my W manifesting itself in much the same way, though perhaps to a lesser degree. It's always puzzled me, cause I'm not an enabler at all. I always gave her hell for her indecision or poor decisions. One of the reasons she ended up hating me for a long time.

I'm guessing my W's OM helped simplify things in her mind. Wierd stuff.

[MuddleThrough]

Well, TL, I see your parallels here, but there are some significant differences. My W seemingly has completely made up her mind to leave but doesn't seem to have the strength of self to do what it takes to actually do so (I say she's entirely made up her mind, yet she still is so focused on proving she's made the right choice by looking for justification in every interaction - this doesn't seem to demonstrate her supposed certainty, does it?). I think this is a really significant event in her life regarding her self esteem, as her lack of action is due more to lack of trust in her abilities and lack of willingness to risk trying (funny though that she had no issue with taking action on making the EA into a PA - I guess the good feelings clearly outweighed the potential for good feelings in this case).

The really troubling thing is that my MIL has now seemingly taken my W's side and is "helping" her get stuff she needs to do done. My W complains about how dependant she is, yet does nothing to become independant. It's pretty clear to me that she doesn't want to be independant, she just doesn't want to be dependant on me - her system works, it's just that I'm just an improperly shaped cog . So her mother, who often spoke about her daughter's unwillingness to take on responsibility and grow into an adult herself, has jumped on the pity train and picked up the cause herself. Now she's going to do all that needs doing for her or with her and take away this great opportunity for her to finally do for herself. Well, my wife learned it somewhere. . .

I feel like I'm really falling into a trap here of looking down at my wife. I know I'm not just making it up that she's in a low place in her life. It's clear that she's looking for any opportunity to play the victim of my hurtful intentions in a way that's transparent and also a bit nutty. We had a discussion with my MIL and step-FIL as mediators about finances over the weekend and I said something about it being a priveledge to live where we are for her and for me. She immediately took that as me saying that she didn't deserve to live there and that she shouldn't live there. My step-FIL cleared up what was said and said something to her about how this is an example of the sensitivity that they were talking about earlier. I couldn't have said it any more clearly that what I was saying applied to both of us. She chose to see it as me saying something that was intended to hurt her, or rather she wanted to be hurt by it so that she'd have one more reason to justify leaving me. And at this point, I have a hard time finding much desire for her not to left in me. I keep thinking that this is who she is now, a person she was earlier in life, and while healing and growth may be possible, I can't force it and I don't know whether it will happen on its own and I have no idea if I'll mesh with that person in any way in the future. I keep thinking that I have so little in common with her regarding the ways we interact with the world - I want someone to love it with me, to try new things with, not to hide away from everything with. I don't want to be with someone that victimizes herself with her own fear, restricting her own potential and then looking for someone else to blame when the consequences of this decision come to fruition. I wonder if a therapist pointing all of this out and offering a solution will yield a goal that she'll actually work towards, or if she'll avoid all the real, hard work, and then blame the therapist when no REAL change occurs.

I vowed to not turn my back on her. This is where I'm having my trouble. I feel like I am inside, like I'm abandoning her in her time of real need. I know I can't save her, and by not trying, I *might* actually be doing something to help her, she'll have to rely on herself (if her mother will let her, which I doubt). I do still have the door cracked open a bit, but for the most part I've turned to look towards a new world full of potential, thrilled to have the opportunities that I do now and the potential for new experiences ahead of me. I'm excited, not scared (well of course there's unknowns about how this process will play out). There's so much to appreciate about this life and world. I will not fail myself or my son - even if I may have failed my wife. I have to accept that even though the playing field wasn't level and she made decisions in how she dealt with her life that precluded my ability to remedy my mistakes, I failed in the opportunity I had to make a great marriage out of my relationship with this woman. I take a lot away from this experience, so I don't regret this failure for my sake, but for my son's and for my W's. I know a bit reason for the failure of our M lies in the fact that my W expected and needed something more out of our relationship than is possible, but I failed to recognize this until it was too late, and I also failed to appreciate (sometimes) the priveledge I enjoyed in spending the part of my life I did with this woman.

I just hope that on some level I'm not justifying turning away by making things out to be what they're not. I hope I have kept my mind open and have learned from what I could and will continue to do so. I hope I'm wrong that she's not the one for me right now - I really hope I am - but I have no control over that, and I need to keep living my life as the together man that I am becoming. I will be someone who will mean the world to another (besides my son of course). I wish my W well - it's truly her life now to make or break. I will not interfere. I hope she takes on the responsibility for what is hers and decides to build a great life for herself, something she's proud of and can truly love. I think there's nothing more I can give her - everything she wants is within her own personal boundaries. I hope she can grasp it and hang on.

[MuddleThrough]

Well, I figure I should update this sitch, but there's not a whole lot to say. I am somewhat up and down and back and forth about my desires for the future. My W has been somewhat up and down, but we had parent teacher day yesterday and we both went, and this sparked a little bit more closeness. At least I felt it. She seems to be trying harder with regard to mothering, and though I'm happy to see this, it makes things difficult for me. I know she's nowhere near ready to end the affair (even though she's often crying after conversing via IM with OM), and even if she were, she's trying her best to give me the impression that she wouldn't want anything to do with me. Not that I've brought up the topic at all. She said something to me on Wednesday about how I'm only nice to her or care about her feelings when she's crying - she had black lines down her face after a conversation with OM (she was going to be cooking dinner with her friend, but it ended up her friend cooking dinner to facilitate her talking to OM while our S was watching a movie on TV). I know this isn't true - maybe she notices it more because she feels vulnerable and regards my attention differently, but I have tried in the past couple of days to obviously have a good time with her and our family when she's in a good mood, and I have given her massages and been otherwise affectionate towards her while she's been relatively happy. One time I even gave her a hug, to which she responded by leaving her arms hangning limply by her side. I felt anger in my internal reaction - the rejection I felt at that was hurtful, but I reminded myself that she needs to reject someone in order to feel powerfull, or feel like she has any self worth. I guess.

It's a sad, sad situation. While we were at Ss school the teacher said what we hear SO often from people that S4 is such a sweet, happy, loving boy and miles ahead intellectually. They ALWAYS attribute it to his home environment and say that we are doing such a good job. It's good to hear, but it's also very painful given the current situation. I wonder if this has any impact on my W. I doubt it at the moment.

I just keep living my life, being a good dad, and a good man to my W. I'm trying not to hope and not to give up hope at the same time. Something's got to give.

[whatisis]

Muddle, that's such wonderful news about your son. Our children are often the bright light that leads us through all this sh!t. Be proud. You and your W, despite the sitch, are doing something right. Do your best to keep that boy happy and healthy through all this. Sometimes our kids give us the most amazing love. My youngest always kisses me goodnight and says "You are the best daddy in the whole world and I love you more than anything" That is a blessing. I'm sure your son is a blessing too. Hang tough, Muddle.

[MuddleThrough]

It's all about my boy to me. It's the only reason the door is still cracked open. It's tragic though that by the very nature of this affair she's having she has to paint me as the bad guy. There has to be a bad guy. I guess when a marriage breaks apart there's always got to be a good deal of blame - after all, it's a lot more than just a high-school relationship. But the real tragedy is that there are such bad feelings in both directions, and though I do my best not to let them get between us, they do enter into our interactions sometimes subtly, othertimes quite overtly. The tragedy is that the feelings make it extremely difficult to interact in order to deal with routine things like finances and our child. I'm trying to break ground here, but it's difficult when I'm always made out to be saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

She feels left out of my plans, yet when I try to include her she tells me she doesn't want to do anything with me. And then she complains that she can't make plans without me making mine first so I should tell her my plans so she can make hers, and then she complains that she always has to work her life around my plans. It seems so contrived, like she's doing anything and everything to make me out to be her oppressor. I know that emotionally she believes that I'm doing this to her - she's depressed and I'm the one she associates with this, so I'm doing it to her. Somewhere though, she has to know that this isn't so. All she has to do is assert herself and she gets what she wants without me standing in her way, but it's far more convenient to deny herself for whatever reason (fear, laziness, etc) and blame me for not getting what she wants. I selfishly start seeing this as someone that I don't want to be with, someone that will only bring me down.

My W is a great person, she's got these negative traits that weigh more heavily right now. It's my choice to focus on them, just as it's her choice to focus on mine. I often try and consciously offset the negative thoughts with several positive observations or thoughts about her, but it's painful and somewhat stupid to admire the freezer door. And I have started to be more and more aware of the disrespect factor again. I am hurt and angered that this woman would disrespect me by carrying on this relationship with my family member under the same roof. I often think that out of respect for our family she should tell OM that she'll call when she's divorced, but I don't think she has the strength. I don't think she's capable. So now I'm choosing to see her as incapable of respecting me - I'm accomodating her active disrespect of me for what?

She seems to be getting angrier and angrier at me (which to me means she's fearful and she's projecting her anger at herself). She started talking about me doing things behind her back, and claimed to know more than I think she knows and that she doesn't know what motivates me - that she thinks I'm on some kind of ego trip. I have no idea what she's getting at (maybe she knows I post on here!), but as far as I'm concerned I'm doing good for my son and my intentions are in the right place. There may be a bit lost in translation, but on the whole I'm doing far better than could be expected for someone in my sitch.

[12102006]

Muddle;

Is there any chance of sitting down with your Il's and
explain what good intentions you have towards your M and
W? Would they be receptive to hearing you or do you think
the damage has been done?

Just curious..

[MuddleThrough]

My in-laws are well aware of my intentions. Up until recently I had their support (both sets - her parents are divorced and both remarried), but it seems that now her mother is buying into W's justifications. I guess it's more important to be close to her daughter than to stand up for her convictions. The trouble is that by the nature of their relationship they affirm all the bad things that they project onto other people. Oh well, you can't change the way other people see the world. I think I still have the support of her step father and her real father and step mother, but in the end it doesn't really matter. Either it will just contribute to her overwhelming sense of guilt on conscience and pressure her to run or it will create an us and them situation.

You know I have done so much reading on the subject and all the statistics point to a really strong likelyhood of divorce in sitch because of factors in my W's life: her parents are divorced, several people she told about the affair initially responded by telling her of their own affairs (including someone very close to her), validating what she is doing. She's know hanging on to the mantra: what's right for me might conflict with what's generally held to be right for society. Well yeah, but is that right for your child? Your parents? Your brother? Your true friends? Your child's friends' parents? Your child's father that your say you want to have a close relationship with? Well, it's her mess to figure out. I just continue to be torn between thinking that my decision has already been made regarding my mate and thinking that I should just get beyond this, meet someone who better aligns with my ideals and start anew in my life. I don't want to suffer through years of this only to find that we have an empty marriage that doesn't satisfy either of us.

[MuddleThrough]

We had our second therapy session this morning. I think the therapist is really perceptive, and I thought the session was great. We covered a lot of ground discussing some ways we both sort of confuse the roles of our spouse with our mother/father because of the traits that we are attracted to through the model our parents were to us. We did discuss a number of other issues that the therapist namely taking responsibility for communicating needs and wants in the relationship rather than assuming they should be taken care of and building resentment when it isn't. When we left I could tell my W was angry. I asked her about it and she said "it doesn't matter", but then told me that she felt blamed. She said that she made sure to use "I" terms, which I thought I had been consistently as well. I validated her feelings, but in the end, it didn't make much difference to her. She placed the blame for her feelings squarely on my shoulders and didn't for one second think that I had been talking about my feelings in factual situations that made her feel like the bad guy. So her defense is to blame me. So she blames me for blaming her for blaming me ad infinitum. I don't know why I keep seeing hope when we talk through our relationship, but it's there.

[whatisis]

Muddle, isn't this just more of trying to understand the problem versus fixing it? Michelle argues in her book that we can analyze why we are the way we are to death but it doesn't change anything. I think it just stirs up that old emotional sh!t pile and thus your W reacts in a predictable way. Is there a way to get the therapist to help you guys with CHANGE versus analyzing why you do what you do? IMHO therapy might just be a hinderance if this is where it's headed. Just my 2 cents for whatever its worth. What do others think?