I am a very typical man/ husband/ father.. I�ve been married 8 years and been together with my wife for quite a bit longer. I provide for my family and always try to do the right thing but I should have sought help to improve my marriage a long time ago.
The main source of fights in the past has been a result of IB and needs not being met. Mostly my wife�s IB got intense after we had children. My needs weren�t being met and she began to exclude me from decisions regarding the children and spending money. She has been a stay at home mom for most of our marriage. My IB or failure to meet the need for family commitment was mostly not participating in activities which were planned but I had no say in. I also had some anger and resentment for my needs not being met which fueled most of our fights and my desire to withdraw.
My wife is now in stage 3 of being a bitter and quarrelsome wife. She is horribly abusive to me now all the time.. making demands, telling me how to do things, telling me she doesn�t want me around, rolling her eyes, etc.. She is completely rude and obnoxious to me all the time but won�t talk about why she is so angry. She sleeps in the guest room.
Several months ago she had an emotional affair. I sought out counseling and engaged in as much snooping as possible for me to confront her with it. She was horribly upset and offended by the snooping and the councilor advised to stop doing it. Although she denied everything.. �this was just a friend� , the emotional affair through text messages and frequent phone calls seemed to stop. Our relationship began to improve. She seemed to appreciate changes that I had made to meet her needs but she didn�t take much interest in meeting my needs much.. maybe only a little.
A month or so ago, this came up in counseling again because the contact with the other individual hadn�t stopped completely. My wife seemed to still think that she did nothing wrong and I had no right to ask her to stop contacting this �friend� nor any friends. She was horribly upset and angry over this discussion and her bitterness and quarrelsome behavior intensified greatly along with her moving back into the guest room. The councilor also recommended to me privately once and in front of her once that I divorce her. I have since found a new councilor but she refuses now to attend.
It doesn�t seem like separating is an option legally and because it would mean leaving my children. My key question is what do I do now? Will her anger ever go away? Is it worth sticking this out in hopes that something will change? I�ve been in the �plan A� for several months now. Can she really be angry like this forever?
At times, and typically when the kids are awake, she can be pleasant and we do things together. Once the kids go to bed she turns really mean and nasty. From time to time, I can engage her in pleasant conversation, but she will not go on a date and her mood can change in an instant. Is my marriage worth fighting for? ( I feel like it is because it�s something I can and will do for the sake our children, but will she ever come around?; I feel like she might be having a �mid-life crisis�, or having a personality disorder, or something else that just isn�t right)

Stage 3?

You may have a quarrelsome wife but why do you describe her as bitter? Bitter for what?


Well which is it? All the time or some time?

Stop wasting your money on MC. After that last counselor I can see why she doesn't want to go anymore...and it is doing more harm anyway so stop wasting your time and money.

Welcome to MB

Welcome to Marriage Builders.

Did you ever expose her emotional affair?

Who is this OM?

He's refering to Dr. Harley's 3 stages of a quarrelsome wife:
How to Deal with a Quarrelsome and Nagging wife

But, typicalman, your real problem is your wife's emotional affair. She is like a drug addict, and you've been messing with her getting her fix. THAT is why she is quarrelsome. If you expose her affair, and all contact actually ends, you may find that after a good Plan A she is no longer quarrelsome.

So, have you exposed her affair?

Ah thank you.

Something for you to read: Exposure 101

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

typicalman,

Seeing a traditional marriage councillor when an affair is going on is about like seeing a flood insurance salesman when your house is burning down.

Nice of the councillor to suggest you stop snooping, it will certainly help him collect more fees in the future since it will help keep the affair going.

Gamma

Her behaviour is because contact hasn't ended. The A is ON and all the frightful behaviour that comes with it.

Men can Plan A up to two years, but counselling is hindering your efforts. Relationship talk does nothing to disrupt the A or make her think kindly of you when it finally does end. Use the time and money to have a nice dinner, or buy her flowers. Far more effective.

Counselling is a complete waste of time anyway, but even MB counselling is pointless while the affair is on going. Like trying to educate a drunk.

You have exposed the A right? Who to?

Some good questions raised:
Is she bitter / abusive all the time..? yes we can have some "normal conversations" and also some time that seems normal with the kids... but, I'm always walking on eggshells.. any little thing can trigger her to unleash her wrath at any time.. that why I am saying "all the time" because I know it's always there under the surface.

The emotional affair does not seem to be the big problem here. it was for a few weeks, but when I exposed it in counseling it seemed to stop. There is only an occasional contact once or twice a month. The problem seems to be that she does not respect our marriage enough to stop completely and she is so bitter and angry she won't give up anything nor negotiate on anything. She does not think that what she did was wrong and is not apologetic. The OM is a lifelong friend of hers but really has nothing to offer other than someone to commiserate with as he can barely support himself and lives 1000's of miles away. I do not feel threatened by the OM at this point. Everything is my fault, so why should she give up anything including another friend?

The real problem is that my wife is bitter and angry and so much so that she will not allow me to actually meet her EN's (other than family commitment and financial support... no intimate EN's) nor will she meet my EN's. She will not work on the marriage or follow a POJA.

What is she so bitter and angry about? I don't know. I know I have engaged in LB's in the past, but I have not been angry, disrespectful, or judgmental in the past 6 months. The only judgmental thing I did was to accuse her of an emotional affair and ask her to stop contact. That caused her to get unimaginably angry and walk out of counseling. She accuses me of having affairs but won�t provide any evidence.. she accuses me of causing her to live somewhere that she does not want to live and be away from her friends and family even though we made the decision together. She basically rewrites all the past as negative and everything is my fault. To me, she seems to be unhappy in life and is putting it on my shoulders because it is my responsibility to make her happy.

I have exposed the A to family & our church... her best friend supports her and told her to accuse me of an affair instead.. so exposing this further will only add more fuel to the fire with her friends and makes plan A all the more difficult. I would think that the A will die out quickly or already has since there is no opportunity for them to see eachother and I am traveling with her now all the time even though it is so hard to be around her. Given that it is long distance, there is a record of everything (phone logs, texts, etc..) so I am somewhat sure that the contact is minimal now.

You do not understand how affairs work.

She is bitter and angry BECAUSE of the affair. It is a drug for her.

You will not be allowed to make lovebank deposits until she is completely cut off from her affair partner. Occasional contact will keep her high on her drug.

Have you exposed her affair to friends and family and clergy?

You need to make sure that contact is non-existent. Minimal contact is still contact.

I have bought her flowers repeatedly. I have taken her on dates as well. On the first date we went on after the A was exposed.. (she would not go except that the councilor advised her to) she seemed to fall in love with me all over again. We agreed on "date" night.. but then she said that meant once a month and not once a week... and then she got so angry over the request to stop contact with her friend that she will not go on a date now. Her friend (the OM) is a also in the same circle as her other friends.. so to stop seeing him messes up her entire group of friends which is all that she has. I think she got painted into a corner which may be part of the reason she is so angry.

Sir, our goal is to save your marriage, not to avoid her anger at all costs. In order for your Plan A to have ant effect, it must involve exposing the affair until you have killed it off. You should not rest until you have run this dirtbag off.

Have you exposed to his family and friends? I would go ready exposure thread and plan a strategic, nuclear exposure. It is your only hope of executing a successful plan a. Otherwise you are spinning your wheels.

Expose the affair to the entire group of friends. Everyone should know about the affair. Affairs thrive in secrecy, so exposing it haters its death.

This is your best chance at recovery. If you sit by idly, in fear of her anger, your marriage will not make it. Again, our goal is to save your marriage; it is not to avoid her anger at all cost.

She is angry and bitter BECAUSE OF HER AFFAIR. All of your plan a efforts are a wage of time until you kill this affair. As long as the OM is around, her love bank is closed to you.

It's an addiction. Every time she has contact with OM her withdrawal from him is undone - in fact she never goes through it because she is always looking forward to the next hit. You have to be disregarded and demonized in this process.



But did you expose OM? What have you done to run him off? He should be aware that any contact with your wife will not be overlooked. That you are all over him.



Her pulling away when she starts to feel something is typical of Plan A. However just persist. The A has an expiration date. You can expect her to be a nightmare throughout until it does - and for some weeks after she has sent him an NC letter and changes her contact details to block him.

I wouldn't even mention PoJA until that day comes. 95pc of affairs end in two years. They are usually with a total loser, but they can survive part time for a while.