Muddle's Waters V

[MuddleThrough]

Uh, what a crap couple of days. W is angry again. She brought up going away to see my cousin again. I told her that she could do what she wants, but that I don't want any part in a relationship where I'm treated like that. We'll have to find new places to live if she goes. So again, I'm the controlling bad guy. In some ways I just don't care anymore. I will not allow my actions to be dictated by her lust or other negative emotions.

I am in a tough place here because basically what my W says to me is that unless I cave in to her wants she's going to make things miserable for me. She's going to be angry, she's going to be resentful, and she's going to take it out on me. Good thing we have therapy tonight because I'm going to bring this all up. I know it's likely to give her that much more reason to be enraged and focus her negativity onto me, but it's also a good opportunity to get her issues with these negative emotions out in the open where someone who can help her can see them.

I am a little dissapointed in myself because I feel a little off center because of my W's current emotional state. I'm letting her emotive state have power over me. I'm actually feeling some fear in the pit of my stomach. Of course, now that she's exceedingly angry (it's focused on me) because I'm not going along with her plans, she takes a view of everything in my life and damns me for everything she can see. Not nice, but I'm also to blame for not managing to be more detached from it.

There's just no way out of all of this. I'm really at the point where I've given up hope that my W and I will ever get along, much less have a good marriage together. I'm still trying to focus myself on communicating and working together to get things done, but every effort I make is stymied. It sounds like an excuse, and maybe it is, but I'm frustrated that I get no cooperation regarding finding simple solutions to issues that impact our family. Rather, I get blamed for them. Now, defensively, because I'm up against a wall, feeling threatened and defensive, I'm using these facts to nurture negativity in myself that's leading me to want to run and escape this whole thing rather than creatively and productively finding solutions and resolutions to these problems.

So, tonight I'm going to bring up our problems with this therapist, and yes I may just find myself pointing to this affair and present my opinion that because she's preoccupied with looking for justification for ending our relationship so she can more easily pursue this affair, she's jumping at the opportunity to create miscommunication rather than trying to solve problems. It's functional for her to do so in a pathological way.

To me it's pretty simple - regardless of saving or ending the marriage - we have obligations to run our family. There are problems that arise in doing so on financial and social levels, etc, and we need to resolve these issues and move on. To her, having these issues PROVE that I'm a bad spouse, so it's functional for her to point this out and dwell on it, rather than find sensible solutions. So, I'm stuck in a situation where either I take on the full responsibility for EVERYTHING in the family (impossible, to say the least) or be sabotaged in my efforts to create an environment of cooperation towards these common interests.

Sorry, I'm just venting my frustration and thinking out loud here. I feel less and less productive in my attempts to find resolution here. I'm clearer than I have been in months, but I feel so limited in my ability.