I'll get right to the issue and then give some background. For the past 6 months my wife has been trying different prescriptions for anxiety/depression.

Currently she is on Emsam transdermal patches. Her day is spent mostly reading books, and I mean her entire day (16+hrs) from waking to going to sleep and even sometimes she doesn't sleep. She doesn't really spend time with anyone else and when you try to talk with her she makes it clear that you are interrupting her reading and will not typically hold a conversation.

To her credit, she will get up, make coffee and my son's lunch for school. She will also sometimes do a load of dishes and sporadic laundry, but usually won't put it away. That's about it for her contributions to our family.

Things she used to do are clean the house, vacuum, laundry, folding, fix dinner, clean the kitchen, work 1 or 2 days a week, manage the finances/pay bills, shop for groceries and other items. She was never really into exercising, but would on some mornings do pilates dvd workouts, etc. She really didn't have many friends or hobbies. Her interests were in home decorating and she enjoyed when we redid one of the kids rooms and she got to pick out the colors, pictures, furniture.

I work full time an hour each way so I am gone 10-11 hours a day and when I come home I have 2 rooms under renovation that I would like to work on for an hour a night but typically there is no dinner, and the kitchen is dirty along with the pots and pans, so getting dinner made requires me to do the shopping, plus I need to clean to have something to cook in and then prepare and cook the meal so it's 8,9PM before it's ready.

A few examples: Last night I fixed a fairly complex and time involved dinner after doing the cleanup and prep and cooking, it was 9PM, My daughter had told my wife it was ready but it had been a few minutes and I was eating alone. I went up and saw my wife and she immediately was defensive, "I know dinner is ready, you don't need to tell me again" to which I replied that I just felt like I could use some company since I was at work all day, came home, cleaned and fixed dinner and im down here eating alone. She was reading.
5-10 minutes go by and she comes down and i hear her fixing a plate, getting a drink and I'm waiting... and I see her walking out of the kitchen towards upstairs. I was upset, I said "honey where are you going?" She replied "upstairs, I really like reading" I said "really? you can't sit and eat with me?" The thing that hurt me the most, was her reaction, her face got this disgusted look on it like she couldn't believe the nerve I had asking for a few minutes of her time. She came and sat down with this scolded pouty look and quietly ate her food. I have been holding back saying anything, but I did say something like "I like different things too, but is reading really more important than our marriage?" She said no it isn't, but wasn't very convincing.

the past month or so I have been trying to just be the best I can be and not complain but cheerfully do the things that need to get done, hoping that she will suddenly be like "wow, i've been treating my husband poorly and he's been doing all this for me and picking up the slack, what a great guy"

It's like all she cares about is reading, sometimes I don't think she even gets out of bed all day except to get a drink. If I don't cook, she will eat, but she just fixes something for herself and tells my son to fix a pizza or leftovers or macaroni and cheese.

I just want her to spend time with me, be affectionate, maybe show some appreciation. I probably wouldnt care at this point if she spent 8 straight hours a day reading as long as she spent some time with me in the evenings. SF happens usually I have to ask, and it's pretty good, but sometimes it seems like hurry up and get it done...

My wife and I have been married for 22 years DD1 - 23(moved out) DD2 - 19 with 2 kids 3 and 1, DS - 12.

Things were good until DD2 went wild at 15, drugs, running away, defiance, then she got pregnant, had a Son that's 3 and then pregnant again with daughter that's 1. They live with us and the dad is involved, but lives on his own.

The past year my wife has become more and more overwhelmed with the grandkids and my DD's slacking of responsibilities taking care of the kids and cleaning up.

My wife years ago had sought treatment for anxiety and panic attacks and eventually was put on Clomipramine, which is an older drug compared to the newer SSRI's and it worked when others tried before it failed. The nice side effect was that it also improved her mood and she was much more pleasant to be around.

She was on this from the late 90's until this summer. She would from time to time stop taking it either because she ran out or caught a cold or had a stomach upset and forget to or not bother to take it.

During these times where she was off the medicine, I didn't know she was not taking it, but usually within a week or so I would start to notice that she would become irritable easily and usually the most telling sign was that she would be unreasonable, unreasonable and have angry outbursts and say mean things. Eventually I realized that these episodes were associated with her not taking the medicine. Once she started again, things were good (or normal)

Clomipramine does have a few side effects, constipation, lots of sleeping, and difficulty reaching orgasm. The last one was the reason that she looked into an alternative medicine this year. She worked out her schedule to be off work for 2 weeks while she adjusted to the new medicine.

Around the same time a few other things happened, she started getting into reading with the shades of grey series and DD2 was slacking on her responsibilities with the grandkids. My wife started "hiding" (as she put it) in her bedroom to force my DD2 to take care of the grandkids. Her parents have a summer home and she even thought about spending the entire summer there as a way to "get away" from everything. I went with her for a few days and the weather was bad so we had to stay in and relax and sure enough she read a lot of the time and commented on how wonderful it was to read and not be interrupted. Some of the books were in the 50 shades category, but most are regular romance novels. A lot of them seem from the story summaries to be along the lines of a guy who likes a girl and she hates him at first and then she can't resist/wins her over. Usually the guys are rich. Some are romantic comedy type stories and she even tells me about some and she seems happy to talk about them to me.

During the summer i was doing a lot of work from home in the evenings and she was reading so I didnt think much of it, but when the work was done, she kept reading. When anyone talks to her while she's reading, she acts annoyed at the interruption, even if she has been reading all day and it's me or one of the kids trying to talk to her.

It's like she has more than 2 full time jobs and we never get to interact with her, except it's just reading. I just don't even know where to start.

We did talk a few months ago about what I could do to make her happier and she did mention finishing unfinished projects (renovations) and I have been working on them or trying to, but with 10 hour days and having to clean, cook, iron, take out the trash, pay the bills, shop and whatever little i do for myself, I don't have much time or energy, plus I have to work around the grandkids sleep schedules (power tools, etc) wife won't help with any of that. the past 2 weeks I suggested we redo the bedroom thinking it's a smaller project I could finish in under a month. I needed help moving stuff and finding places to put clothes/pictures, but she just lays there and reads while I work. She will help hold something up like crown moulding, but she gets irritated if I don't have everything perfectly ready to go so her time is impacted as little as possible.

Hi, I read your thread .. and also went back over your previous thread and posts. Welcome back!

You say your wife reads 16 hours a day. But how can you say that if your not actually there to witness 16 hours of actual reading when your at work all day. That sir is a disrespectful judgement.

I do believe you need to set up some snooping. Something is not ringing right here. Infact in one of your previous posts you mentioned this ...


in this thread here... ---> http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=160451&Number=2387083#Post2387083

I noticed you didn't mention it in your original post when you first came. That is a SERIOUS red flag. One you should not be ignoring.

I feel you should get some spyware on your PC .. check her phone on a regular basis or plant spyware on it .. and put some kind of nanni cam or a few VARs in the house where she frequents. Something is not right.. and if you are still anything like you where in your original posts ... wanting your wife to get into better shape even though she is or was already in a low weight zone she may have found someone who talks nicer to her and is now allowing them to meet her need for admiration and conversation in ways she enjoys. Shes likely tired of not being good enough for you and just decided that she never can be and gave up trying.

Hopefully you can get to the bottom of this and get your marriage back on track. You cant carry all the weight like this forever.

MNG

thanks for the background check you are thorough.�

that's true to a point, but my daughter is here and my son after school and they say shes reading and I 'm here 5 hours before bed 4 nights a week and work from home one day and I'm here weekends. I also see the book orders, $100+ a month of $1-$3 mostly books. In the past 4 days she read the following books/ # of pages:
220
488
398
164
210 and is partway through another (still on the 4th day) reading since 7pm and its 1:30am. �She's also wearing the same clothes from at least yesterday and only a load of dishes were done in 2 days. She does sometimes take naps.�

I'll explain. She was on Clomipramine which if you drink alcohol it makes it much more amplified, but we didn't know that then, in fact she got really bad drunk off maybe 4 glasses of wine years later at my sisters wedding, like spent the reception on the bathroom floor. Anyway. We were at a function and she drank and was drunk. �I drank, my former best friend drank. When we left, the function, I was talking to some people we walked out with and turned to see him kissing my wife. He quickly left and she said some drunk talk like "do you let all your friends kiss me" The next day she can't understand why I am pissed and doesn't recall it happening. She doesn't deny it and later would say she recalled bits and pieces, but like my sisters wedding she didn't remember much.�
It took a while to get over it and I still haven't talked to him since the day after and it was 14 years ago. I do believe it was a one time incident and not a sign of a larger issue. I was very suspicious and untrusting for a long while but I am ok. I didn't and still really don't have any close friends besides my wife. I did have a few female friends but the more I read on here the worse that idea seemed and they are not people I see or talk to any more. I have a few buddies at work, but I haven't done anything with them involving my wife. The stuff we do is more with family.�
The kissing to me was a big deal, because neither of us have been with anyone else. I had a few girlfriends in HS, but I have had a crush on my wife since middle school and we have been together since The last 2 years of HS. I haven't kissed another person since we got serious back in HS.�

She only uses the iPad. The computer doesn't get used and she is not computer savvy and theres nothing evident from a casual search, but I can stick something on there. I'm sure there's an app for the iPad as well, but she rarely types on it even when I can't see what she's doing. I see the occasional page turn (all her books are on the kindle or iBooks app) how close does a VAR need to be? Bedroom is really the only place. I've checked the phone and the online call log, texting log and nothing out of the ordinary all numbers I know mostly family. She's not much of a phone user or a texter.�When she's out, which isn't often she is where she says she is. I have a hard time spying when there is no suspicion of an affair or anything out of the ordinary.

I might get defensive here. I'm not sure how close you read that thread, but this post pretty much got to what happened/ how I felt (http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2212837#Post2212837) I have seen it plenty of times on here where people are O&H on PA and they get bum rushed by over sensitive posters and people saying you shouldn't be honest about PA, etc. the long and short of it was that I made a technical blunder in filling out the worksheet that offended my wife's insecurities and it's all worked out and she doesn't think I'm like "that" anymore. I was like that for a week or so out of 22 years. I even showed her that thread.�
That you even mentioned she was in a low weight zone missed the entire point of what I was saying because hair clothes and shoes were as much or more of the technical reason for scoring the sheet how I did.�
So now she probably weighs more (we have no scale) and I find her 100% perfect physically, in fact I love everything about her body and wouldn't change a thing. She knows that and I tell her often during the day. I told her that if I am thinking it, I'm telling her. Sometimes she will say love is blind or I'm blind, �but I tell her she' wrong.�
Anyway you could be right, I thought it was settled and I cleared up, apologized and clarified my feelings toward her attractiveness 4 years ago. If she's tired of anything it is of me telling her how pretty or attractive she is to me the past 4 years /defensiveness

I agree. There has been a huge amount of stress the past few years starting with DD2, the drugs, running away, pregnancies, baby daddy drama, him getting arrested, DS was having anxiety school related absences and stomach problems, DD1 was depressed and on meds and attempted suicide, was recently inpatient psych for Xanax abuse, DD2 was threatening suicide and depressed and saying she was smoking pot to cope, Wife stopped working, but now spends $100 on books that we never had as an expense before in addition to losing her income.�

There is a family history of mental illness, wife was never clearly diagnosed, but the clomipramine worked so well, nothing went further until this past summer.�

Tonight was interesting and actually kind of positive. I came home and started to talk to her and right away she was irritated and saying she has nothing to talk about telling me "what is it that you actually want to have a conversation about? I didn't do anything today so there's nothing to tell you" to which I replied that I didn't think this reaction was normal and that if she actually thought that way something must be wrong. She said she just wants to be left alone. I asked about the medicine and commented that even when she was off the clomipramine she was never like this. She agreed and said that she doesn't feel anything at all for anyone. She said it didn't matter if I worked on the house or not, if I went and did something or not, came home early or not but there was nothing I was doing wrong or not doing.�

She did say she realized that she should feel bad about these things, but didn't and that bothered her. She said the medicine is not working and she was actually thinking of asking him to put her back on clomipramine but she wanted to try something like mood stabilizers? Because the doc mentioned a form of bipolar without the typical manic phase. She thinks the current medicine is making her worse and agreed with the apathetic assessment.�

This conversation led to us having a pleasant talk for a while. It was a lot about a book she read, but it was conversation.�

Google "mommie porn" and check it out.

Porn is bad for a marriage whomever looks/reads it. This may be part of your problem.

Of course the media spins it a different way...

I have no direct experience of mental illness but oh my goodness what a terrible time you have both been going through. You sound like a fabulous person who single handedly has been trying to keep five people together but I wonder how much of this effort you and your wife negotiated and whether you and your wife ever agreed that you would look after everyone?

The reason I ask this is because working together is such an incredibly powerful way of dealing with problem children. You are doing all this amazing amount of keeping things together but is it possible that in the process you forgot the team? I'm not asking you to take the blame, just wondering if offering to tackle all this collaboratively would entice your wife back out of hiding.

I agree with the above. Your wife gets to deal with your DD's babies during the day ... it can be overwhelming for sure.

Your marriage is #1 and you need to protect it. Your daughter and her kids could be the source of the toxicity and depression your wife is experiencing. If your daughter and her kids were not there how would your wife feel? I bet your wife was hoping at this time in her life she would be done with kids so she could just enjoy life with you. I could be wrong though. Ask her?


Looking forward to your answer from Living wells question.

MNG

thanks for the question, at first' the grandson was kind of a blessing in that it finally got my DD out of the drugs and destructive behavior and she was initially fairly responsible. Where it started to go downhill was when we temporarily had the boyfriend living with us and he and DD were fighting and creating a stressful environment for us, especially for my son. He got arrested and was on house arrest for 2 months before we got him out for good. My wife was the one that suggested we allow him to stay after the arrest (for the children kind of thing) but even she realized that despite the good intentions, it wasn't working.
It was a relief but also a catch 22 in that he did do a good job helping DD with the kids. As a result of him not being around as often, DD became more and more stressed out and irresponsible which in turn led to conflicts with my wife. Both of them can be very mean when they are mad and are not quick to forgive.
Wife and I do agree on most things relative to DD and the Gkids, but DD doesn't seem to have any plans so none of us are sure how to proceed with her and the kids

The most recent thing my wife has said is "I want her out" which could be as simple as you have X days to find a new place to live, but DD's situation is 19, 2 kids, GED, no job, no savings. She's covered for health ins and we pay for cell phone and car insurance on our old minivan. I could ask her about working on it together. I think she wants her to move out, but for someone else (like me) to handle it. it certainly would be simpler if there were not 2 little ones.

no doubt - that is what led to her retreating to her room and hiding and stopping her routines. She used to be very meticulous about cleaning and had a whole thorough regimen that was far more work than I would have done and she seemed to even enjoy it to the extent that she didnt want anyone else attempting to do it since it would not be at her level of standards.

I agree on the Marriage as a priority. I worry about the grandkids, but ultimately I suppose there are systems and programs to assist with that if we kick them out.
There actually was a "calm before the storm" a few years ago before DD started up where mt wife and I were finally able to start spending time together and going on dates and stuff since the kids were old enough to be by themselves or with an older sibling. It was a nice time, but it didn't last long enough. You can only enjoy yourself so much when you are worried about where your DD is or if she's coming home.
I'm sure you are right that my wife and I would be happier with DD moved out.

Initially I had this idea that everybody could get along and put in the effort as a team to support the household, but I don't think DD has the energy or motivation and I have to work, so I can't be there to help or referee either. Perhaps just beginning conversations around her moving out can start the ball rolling toward change - either she moves out, or realizes that her contributions need to be a lot greater in order to stay. I worry about her suicide talk as well. I think it's more attention getting, but if it isn't and she does something as a result of kicking her out, I ...don't even want to think about it. But that said I think my wife wants her house back - we love the grandkids and all but they have 'taken over'

MNG - Were you still recommending spying after my response above? I know people can be sneaky and creative, but I'm just not getting that feeling that there is something being hidden.
To me it would have to be something really disciplined as far as contact and she would have to be using another phone or contact method. She just doesn't strike me as that sneaky.

Thats good your gut is not telling you that something is off .. usually if your gut is screaming at you its a red flag you should take care of. IN your case and after reading your replies above, I am not so sure of spying. Sure you could if you needed a peace of mind but after your last reply i think you need to find a way to get DD out. By allowing her to stay there and not get on her feet .. your are actually enabling her destructive behavior.

If you read my thread.. you would see i had a similar issue. But i moved my brother in with my wife and I WITHOUT asking her first. BIG mistake. With him around it put a HUGE damper and stress on my marriage. Things got ALOT better after i got him out (we kept him for a year without using his money). I had to do alot of [censored] kicking to get my brother motivated to be employed and my wife and I demanded his pay cheques from him when he finally got a job. WE told him we were goingto save them for him but he didnt believe us. But my wife and I took his pay cheques and placed them in a savings account and never used them for any of the bills even though he ate us out of house and home.

WHen we kicked him out we wrote him a cheque for the total amount in the account and sent him on his way. THAT got him the jump he needed ... and the kick gave him the boost to start being responsibile for himself. Now he has a GF ... a new baby .. and has changed ALOT. Much more responsible. (hes 10 years younger than me too).

Possibly something you should consider. You see .. by you NOT getting rid of DD and the Gkids (they will be fine btw its just your guilt holding you back) and your wife asking you to do so .. your wife is losing respect for you. I would sit your DD down and give her a time frame to get out because it is ruining your marriage.. and ultimately .. your marriage comes first. If you and your wife divorce because you cant hold it together anymore from the amounting stress. What would she do then?

Your DD talks suicide? I would take is seriously... force her to get some help. I am .. i threatened suicide just 2 years ago to my wife ... got my guns out and everything to do it but hte sound of the bullets clinking around as a fumbled for one snapped me out of my funk .. and i felt really ashamed of myself. I needed help .. and am getting it now as a result. You cant stop her from comitting suicide ... its MOST liklely a guilt tactic to get you to enable her freeloader behaviour. Call her on it...

Does your DD have a job? If not .. while your wife is taking care of the Gkids .. it should be DD's FULL TIME job to LOOK for a job. Not on the PC ... POUND THE STREETS ... hand out resumes to every shop .. every store ... every restaurant .. every where. leave no commercial building unturned .. and when she finshes doing that .. go back and do it again. Showing up in person has a much better effect than online resume emailing ..

100% agree. I suspect the trauma and stress has caused you both to individually try to solve the problem in your own 'best way' rather than as a team, compartmentalising the problems in ways that DD can then exploit; you by doing too much and your wife by withdrawing into books.

Treat DD and her kids as if you have a blended family. Nothing done without the enthusiastic agreement of both you and your wife. That means the default is that you do nothing at all for DD or for her kids. Read up on the Policy of Joint Agreement and start brain storming. I guarantee you that you will get your wife back AND will get a solution. Two heads are always better than one.

I am sorry for your pain.

I was in a similar boat up until recently. Our adult daughter felt entitled to live in our home and was not contributing. It took significant amount of time to get my husband on board to set a plan together to initiate the move. Our daughter allowed herself to be stuck and my husband felt guilt. This combo undermined our daughters empowerment.

We even talked w/Steve H about this because it was taking such a tole. We talked to our daughter about how she saw herself in X number of years. And we gave her specific responsibilities at home. Still she found it difficult to come up with a plan and stick to her responsibilities. Rather she stayed in her bedroom while at home to give us privacy and acted coldly. These shananigans were hurting our Mother Daughter relationship and our marriage.

I knew we had done everything we can possibly do to prepare her for life. Ball was in her court. Still nothing happened. But at least my husband came around and supported a transition. Finally we came up with a small financial 'gift' we both felt comfortable with and able to offer her to get her started. (Not ideal but cheaper then bad therapy or lawyers) She moved out in early January 2013! I think she is happier and is getting along fine.

I am sorry to say our daughter is holding a bit of a grudge towards us and our charity. This makes me disappointed. But I am happy we have our entire house to ourselves.

Even though our daughter 'gave us privacy' we were hemmed in. She had left some of her stuff behind when she moved out in January. She has been in and out before during her adult life. She simply said "I left a couple boxes." Later I checked her closet and around the house. I know this might sound un-Motherly but I got boxes and packed all this stuff up and asked her to pick it up. She was not happy.

The trouble is I've found from experience: they need to leave with all of their adult stuff. They need to decide if they will keep the stuff and if they do not have their own storage to keep it, they need to get a locker or donate/sell. Otherwise, you leave the door open for a new return! My daughter was insulted by this action and questioned our love for her! She could no way see our perspective and needs. She's spoiled.

Anyway I am happy to have the closet space and we are reorganizing our home to fit our lifestyle and present needs. I am hopeful our daughter will 'get it' eventually. Now she gets to more fully confront the world and gain life experiences through her own successes and failures as we have. Under all the drama she's creating is a woman that wants to go forward and has felt badly her Dad prolonged seeing her as a dependent.

I am also noting my husband seems less confused about his priority to me and our home. His confusion triangulated me with daughter which was not fair to either of us. He seems excited now to put in more effort to fix things up at home to be more comfortable and functional for ourselves. A new vision. And I am more energized and less apathetic. Our privacy is very important to me. We own our own business and have lots of exposure there and need a safe place for ourselves to have UA time.
Apparently the privacy our daughter allowed us was not enough!

I am just telling you this story in hopes it will help. But also you might want to go along with your wife to see her physician. With your wife's permission you could even provide your own synopse as you did to start this thread for her healthcare provider. Maybe she needs adjustments to her meds which may help get her through while you both initiate a plan to help your daughter. You could also talk w/coach Steve H or call the radio program.

I say to encourage her to address the mental health issues. As you know, that type of behavior is not normal. She may be reading to keep away from all the stress.

You and she should also discuss how to handle DD19...what do you want the long term situation to be and how you can start moving her out of the house or get her to step up to her responsiblities.

Here is Dr. Harley's number one prescription for a depressed wife:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3350_attn.html

Try this and see what happens.

More good reading:
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2325269#Post2325269

Good for you, Graceful2b! Yours is an inspiring story

You are VERY motherly, and I applaud your love for your daughter and your confidence in her abilities.

I'll reply shortly. I need to catch up here, not much changed, but I'm trying to put some thoughts into action from the suggestions so far.

Good to hear from you .. i was wondering.

Tonight we informed DD19 that we were giving her 30 days to move out and she would need to provide her own car insurance and cell phone as well as gas and food and rent. We also gave DD23 30 days notice as well to get her own cell phone and car insurance and to retitle the car in her name.

The motivation was a combination of things. You guys helped get me past my excuses and guilt. In the past both my wife and I have made threats to cut off support or make them move out but following through hasn't happened. The other thing is we found DD19 is still using pot.

DD19 left her Facebook logged In on one of my devices and at first I didn't realize and was wondering why these girls were messaging me but one caught my eye about smoking (weed) and then I looked more and saw other references to her smoking weed recently and a guy a few houses away had just today brought her "firecrackers" marijuana on crackers w/ peanut butter I believe.
In addition she mentioned DD23 having left an oz of pot at our house that DD19 used up and made DD23 mad.

When we had found out about the pot use last month, the chance we were giving her was if she got back seeing her psychiatrist regularly and a counselor, we would let her stay in the house. Well it's been over a month of me asking her almost every day what the status of her appointments are and she still doesn't have either. She actually said it was my fault because I wouldn't show her how to search our ins co's website for covered providers which I offered to do many times.
At first I thought my wife was being a bit harsh in saying we should be cutting off everything, but here we are helping to support these kids and they have enough money to spare to go out and buy drugs and bring it in the house where our 12 year old and the grandkids live.

DD19 was super sleepy tonight when we told her, she seems to be impossible to wake up sometimes. Not sure if that's a teenager thing or drug related, but anyway it's hard to gauge her reaction.

That's drug related for sure. You are doing the right thing here, well done and be resolute. She will try to manipulate you one at a time, but be a team with your wife and she will find that she cannot.

Keep posting during this difficult time.

Good update!


Its tough .. and its going to hurt. But tough love is what will make everyone feel better in the end. WHe nthe dust settles .. they will love you for it.

The bible (not sure of your status on that) says in one scripture that talks about this kind of thing is when children grow up they are to CLEAVE from their parents. To be CUT OFF .. its a harsh word for a reason. Its not easy and very painful but MUST be done. (not looking forward to my D14 doing this *smacks head*)

EDIT: (edit to add that i Found the scripture and i said it a bit out of context but it think you get my point lol) Which means that your spouse comes first.

Glad you and your wife had a talk about the elephant in the room. How was her response? Did she take it enthusiasticly? Did she "light up" on the thoughts? That would be pretty clear indication you are waking her up and rebuilding her respect for you. I will bet you that conversation was a talk of sorts that had your wife totally engaged. This is a great start. You give her hope that things can get better.

Have you introduced her to the site and concepts here?


Like all parents should be at any age in regard to their kids and themselves is to have boundries. Crossing those boundries has consequences. If the consequences are not followed through with then they dont get proper discipline and there for think they can get away with almost anything. When boundries are respected then they can be rewarded. To let them trample you and your wife shows no concern for yourselves or your marriage. They are adults now and thus should be treated as such.


Again .. they are adults that have crossed your boundries. You cant stop her from smoking pot. You can however enforce your boundries (which you are now apparently). This will show them that crossing your boundries has consequences and not just empty threats. They may hiss and spit at you for doing so and blame and be mad. But its no different than being sent to "time out" for being disrespectful or inappropriate at home/school when they were still teenagers living under your responsibility as minors. Just a larger scale now.

Besides all that you dont need that kind of behaviour around your 12yo. It also shows your 12YO that you have boundries and intend to enforce them to. You say what you do and do what you say. That builds respect and love when you discipline with love and not anger or resentment.


Again .. use your better judgement here. Your wife was right and she shut down because you didnt respect how she was feeling about the situation. Following POJA would have likely saved alot of hastle and heart ache between you and your wife. But hind sight is 20/20.

I know this because I am a culprit of the same thing! And learned this the hard way.



I think its partly due to the fact that she doesnt believe you. Prove her wrong. But be prepared for the guilt and tension they will heap on you to get worse as the date she/they are supposed to leave. (I say she/they because I am not sure if both your older daughters are being asked to leave or not).

Its going to be tough my friend. Stay strong and vent here. We can help keep you in check.

MNG

I did have some concern that I saw the history on the ipad was deleted. This was on the weekend, but since then it's been on there - I know from the past she will search things in the books that she might be embarrassed about if the kids saw it. It worries me a little, but a few spot checks when she wasnt around and everythings been fine. I think you can't individually delete history so its all or none. installing a monitoring app would require several things, updating the software version, then jailbreaking it. It would be a stretch to just randomly update her ipad and you can't do it without the person knowing, there are too many changes that are different.

This is encouraging to hear. I do think a big stress will be lifted. there will still be stress worrying about her and the kids, but they will be somewhere else.

So basically we did that and the drug issue forced it, but We will talk to her about the other issues as well. I can see the losing respect for me part as well from my wife's perspective. Last night she didnt throw me under the bus in talking about our previous "threats" to kick them out or cut off funding. She did share in some of the lack of follow through. Maybe I should try to underscore (in my wife's presence) to my daughter that I(we) are doing this because our marriage comes first and while we Love her and the Grandkids, We didn't decide for her to have sex and get pregnant, we didnt decide to not go to school, we didnt decide to smoke pot instead of dealing with the stress, she made those choices.

Yeah, I think she took one trip to the ER last year after her BF called 911. We have plenty of guns, but they are all locked in safes. I suppose the small one in the bedroom could be opened with a hammer and prybar or a sledge, but she hasn't ever attempted anything. She has a drs appointment finally set up. some of the delay was her fault and some was the drs office as they lost 2 of 4 Drs in the past few months. I do agree with you as it seems like the times we hear the suicide talk is when she's not getting her way and trying to force the BF to do something with the kids, etc I don't know if PM's work, but I might PM a question on this

She has no job. She has a few applications, but nothing as serious as you described. I think her and DD23 both need to hit the streets looking for work. DD23 has a 5 hr a week job.

DD19 does try to exploit so we already have some experience with that. usually it's a call to me asking if we can go out to dinner lets say. I tell her to ask her mother and later I will get a call from my wife with "DD19 said Daddy wants to go out to dinner tonight" Like it was my idea.... I will say that while I didn't like the subject of kicking my DD19 out, but I did like working with my wife and coming up with the parameters of how we were going to execute the plan.

thanks for sharing and the suggestion of not leaving stuff behind. I actually suggested your idea to my wife last night and we built that into our plan. We didn't get into the specifics with her, but I texted her today a bunch of tasks that she needed to start working on (DD19, not wife)

^^^^This is encouraging to hear and the confused about priority part rings true to me. I havent lost my desire to put efforts into fixing up the house, but with the Kids gone, I certainly have more flexibility with what I can do and when, not worrying about waking up napping babies when the impact driver is putting in screws very loudly. I can only hope that my Wife will regain some of her pride in keeping the home up. There was something that I didn't do - We talked about getting the carpets steam cleaned, but I kept putting it off, not because I didnt want to do it, but DD19 wasn't keeping the kids from having dripping milk bottles and poor sealing sippy cups off the carpet. I am not there to police, so even with a clean carpet, it would soon be ruined again. I suppose there is a hope that DD19 would respect that we paid money to get the cleaning done, but since she didnt respect the $$$ spent on the carpet new several years ago, I don't see how.
On the issue of privacy... HMMM I do recall my wife putting off SF at times because the kids were awake or the fact that every time it seems like someone comes and knocks on the closed and locked door. I think DS can take a hint and come back later if he needs something...

I would like to try to go with her to her Psychiatrist. I went the last time and was able to share my perspective. I think as horrible as this latest SSRI was I might need to take a chill pill before I go to keep from throttling him!

thanks for the links, right now with everything she won't even let me talk to her or give her affection. I think the past few days i am seeing some niceness, but I am cautiously optimistic. My wife on no medications is not a happy person, but at least she will interact even if it's arguing.

A few tidbits of positive, she brought me fixed coffee the past 2 days and we hugged a few times (still me initiating) and in mentioning how much money will be saved with the the changes she said "We" will be saving and then she mentioned maybe we sell the house and move since "We" won't need as much space since it's just her me and DS12.