(You will not get a satisfactory answer from why the kids get dragged in. They just do.)
Then you are not protecting your children....and you are not putting your children's welfare above your own and in doing that you are being selfish. If YOU are not able to stop yourself long enough to turn to your children and calmly say "please leave the room", "please go outside and play for awhile", "please go to your rooms for a bit while we discuss what we need to"...whatever, just get them out of the fray....YOU aren't protecting your children. I find that truly sad. You CAN conciously stop yourself in the heat of an argument and say "STOP"...but you don't. I won't even get into the why's of it.
Regardless of what your W does/doesn't do in these arguments...how she drags the kids in, baits them with questions...whatever (which is equally as wrong because she doesn't shield them either). YOU still have the power to protect your children, yet you CHOOSE not to. I feel for the kids. Kids absolutely should not have to endure this.
In lots of ways this boils down to what is the greater good. Is it better to insulate the kids and keep this destructive situation going, or is it better to bring it all out into the open and resolve it. Divorce will bring it all out anyway, it is just a matter of time. When to cut bait and bail is something I have long wrestled with and I think W has done the same. But I can only evaluate each at a time and make a decision based on where things stand at that moment. Maybe it would have been better to have divorced years ago. But at that time it did not seem so. A few years from now it might seem better to have divorced today. But right now it still does not seem so.
The kids say they do not want a divorce, and I believe them. So I do everything to push this marriage forward as best I know how. I have made mistakes and I am sure I will make more. But I will move in one direction or the other. That is not to say things cannot get worse before they get better. If you know with certainty that path A will keep things relatively quiet, but eventually in end divorce, will you prefer that over path B which will save the marriage, but only after things first get much worse? This is a subjective value judgment that we each must make. So far I have believed there is a path B. Tomorrow I might not think that anymore. I continually watch that fork in the road.
Is it better to insulate the kids and keep this destructive situation going, or is it better to bring it all out into the open and resolve it.
This is a false dichotomy. You can insulate the kids while still stopping the destructive situation. You can bring it all out in the open and resolve it without involving your children. Telling them you intended to file accomplished nothing except tearing them up emotionally.
You're always trying to get people to face the hard facts, Cobra.
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
It may be a false dichotomy with healthy people. But we have our problems that we wrestle with. If we were so healthy, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with and everyone would be happy. I’m not asking for anyone’s approval about this, just saying what is going on.
What is curious to me is that everyone focuses on this issue. In the scheme of things, I think it is a minor part, or at least not the biggest part. What is also curious to me is how much my sitch rubs everyone the wrong way. Advice as been fairly consistent that you do not need to take actions that please others, only do what you think is right.
I believe I am doing the right thing. That is why I don’t always feed into the beating some like to give me. I will listen to opinions and I have made changes where I thought necessary. But taking tough action do not seem to get as much support here as talking about it. Maybe that is why everyone stays stuck? What good is talking the talk if you won’t walk the walk?
Cobra, I envy your research. Where did you get your degree? Many C's have been accused of misshandling ppl. They have had all the education in the world. They may not have the good intent but they do have the education not to error. In light of that, how can you justify
Quote: So I enabled her. But as W must be strong and dole out severe punishment if necessary to this student (at least as strong as they will allow in school, which does include physical restraint), I must do the same. Yes, that means that I, like her, must push, push, push. Once those rules can be respected, relationship building can begin. But not before.
H has tried to show strength to prove his masculine/manly roll. I have rebelled. I now have to heal too, where before all that was necessary is for him to look to himself (job loss and all). I heard an expression that seems to fit here. "Getting the toothpaste back into the tube" Trying to rebuild spirit and goodwill is so difficult after the fact. I don't doubt that she needs help. Likely you need some modification too. Maybe the kindest way would be to let a professional distant from the relationship take control of it. Whatcha think? It's kinda like medicating a dog over a long period of time. Sometimes the "bad guy" should be shared within all the ppl in that dogs life so the dog doesn't learn to hate the medical giver. Sometimes that falls only to the vet.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
No it really doesn't boil down to "what's for the greater good" as you put it. It boils down to two adults (or at the very least one of the adults...perhaps the healthier of the two) making a choice to deal with destructive behavior WITHOUT involving their children.
Putting your kids through this is doing them NO favors. Instead you are giving them their own BAG full of FOO issues that they will have to deal with later down the road. Sure, we will all have some FOO issues we will have to deal with, undoubtedly....but you two are giving them some DOOZIES. You are potentially setting your own children up to never do well in a committed relationship.
Do you really want one of your kids looking you straight in the eye one day while saying to you...."I'm never getting married, look what happened with you and mom!" Or yelling and screaming in front of their own kids.....because Mom and Dad did it? THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS. It's flat-out reality man!
It honestly sounds to my ears that you have this attitude that "well they can deal with all of this later." because you say "it just happens" that they get drug in....or you all have bigger issues to deal with. This issue CAN be dealt with at the same time. What's to stop you from telling your W right then and there "No! We aren't involving the kids!" and then asking them to leave the room?! That makes you the kids champion and removes them from the scene so that you can deal with the issues? Therefore you are preventing the damage to begin with as best you can and minimalizing the damage they will have to deal with later on in their own lives.
One thing I never had to live with was my parents screaming at each other, thank GOD for that! My parents NEVER discussed divorce in front of me (and they went through tough times too) so I simply cannot fathom what it must feel like to watch your parents go at it, much less....be drug into it.
I am beginnng to think that you need to seriously look at putting your kids first and nevermind the marriage and specifically nevermind Mrs. C's issues. Your marriage is in shambles, whether you preserve it or not. You each bait each other, have little respect for each other and the reason that you had sex recently is actually beyond me. I wonder what would happen if you defocused on Mrs. Cobra and her issues and concentrated on building you R with your kids and protecting your kids from your issues and those of Mrs. C. The reason that everyone is so focused on the kids is because this is a serious issue, every bit as serious as you and Mrs. C. You and Mrs. C are adults - you are actually both capable of choosing to remain civil and married even if in name only. The kids have no choice but to continue living in the war zone.
I know you want more out of you marriage but think of it this way - when your kids marry do you want them to think this is normal? At the very least, confine your marital spats to a private area in your home. Your kids will still know what is going on but it won't be in their faces.
Please Cobra - picture your kids as the innocent babies that they once were and what your hopes and dreams were in parenting them. Be that parent. Mrs. C can follow along or not. Do you really even care what she does, who she is or what she thinks at this point?
I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh but it seems to me that you need to choose somewhere, anywhere, that you can make some positive, uplifting efforts. Aren't you exhausted by stategizing, analyzing and fighting Mrs. C? Believe me you are hurting yourself too.
We have been seeing a counselor for over three years. We move along a little bit, then get stuck. This is pattern has repeated several times. Sometimes it is because of me, sometimes because of her. The counselor can only do so much. I was very careful to find women counselors too, so W would not have an aversion to advice from a male. But when she must confront her own issues, face her anger and resentment and let herself become vulnerable, she hits a roadblock. An objective third party helps, but looking for ANOTHER counselor only buys her more time to avoid. I have no problem going to a counselor and will be happy to do so again, but only after I feel she is truly willing to move forward. I am hoping we are slowly getting there.
I do not think healing is that big of a problem for us. It requires forgiveness. The only way to forgive is to just do it. Once done, healing can move forward. The problem she has (IMO) is that she is scared to forgive, because it takes away her last excuse to stay in her shell. When she has to throw off that shell, she will feel naked, vulnerable and at the mercy of the world. She must decide whether she is willing to do this.
There is little I can do to make that decision easy for her. If she never knew safety and comfort with a man, how is she to know this is what she really wants? Being in her shell is ideal. So if she cannot be enticed out, I can make it uncomfortable for her to stay in. Divorce will do that.
As far as counselors go, I disagree that most have all the education in the world. I respect PhD therapists, but I am not willing to automatically make the same assumption about masters level counselors. I know there are good and bad counselors at both levels. Some go into the field after recovery themselves. I am learning to be careful of these since they obviously bring their own issues. Maybe they have worked through them, maybe not. The field is very subjective. There is no right or wrong answer and usually no way to know the difference. So you have to do your own research. That is what I am doing, trying to learn from others here who know so much more than I. But they do not really know my sitch, so I must make the final decision, be that right or wrong. BTW, my education is a BA in Economics and a Masters in Agricultural Economics, FWIW.
GEL, Karen,
Neither of you are telling me anything I do not know. I am aware of how this all will affect the kids and their future relationships. I also know much of that can be healed. It is not inevitable that they become and stay damaged. Of course they will need help.
Like I said, we generally have tried not to argue in front of them. This time W stuck them right in the middle of it as a power play. It did not go as she wanted, but Iit did go as I suspected it would and I saw value in getting that out. I think she will seriously think twice before doing it again. But like everything else, it does little good to tell her what I know, she has to personally experience it. Because she now knows the kids do not have automatic loyalty to her, what she thought was a major weapon has been neutralized. If that is the greater good that comes from this incident, then it may actually be worth it.
No, Karen, I am not exhausted by all this fighting because each week I am able to see a little more clearly on where we are and what we need to do to move forward. I have hope. If I did not, then I would be exhausted.
We do spend a lot of time with the kids, trying to help them feel supported not only in their schoolwork, but in their social schedule, their friends, sports, etc. We do some of this out of guilt and trying to counter the damage I am sure, but also because both W and I do value our kids and time with them.
