I am guessing that she does not enjoy these conversations. Perhaps she feels that you are lecturing her? Ask yourself whether she needs to know about your son's team and coaching, if she does maybe it is time to let DS do the explaining.

Don't address it and stop talking about that subject. IT sounds like your thoughts on the subject annoy her. So stop it.

No, this is just one example that came up yesterday. There are so many others, usually very trivial. It's not the subject, but anything I state. It could be as innocuous as my saying, "It's supposed to rain tomorrow." She would say, "No it's not." I used to try to argue with her, saying XYZ forecast said it would, 70% chance, etc. After a while, I just give up and not say anything.

Or I would say, ABC said XYZX about this person we know. She would immediately contradict me, saying "You don't know that. Everyone has their own story."

I think it's the result of the DJ that I gave to her early in the marriage, and she has learn to dish it out on me, except she would do it just to spite me. I think it's one of the main things corroding our marriage.

It sounds like she developed a defensive mechanism in response to your correcting her, which is a HUGE lovebuster. Hopefully you are refraining from correcting her? Spouses who always have to be right are a huge turn off. Doing so causes resentment.

Yes, I have stopped correcting her long ago. Part of it, you have described before correctly, is pure conflict avoidance. I just didn't want to argue with her any more. When I sense she is about to attack me, I just withdraw and not say anything any more.

However, this conversation last night really made me think about the core of our problems. She does not show me respect. My MIL observed it before and told her to stop.

It is actually the same problem as that restaurant choice problem I discussed with you many weeks ago. She uses that topic to try to hurt me, by rejecting my choices, one after another. It became a chess game, when I stop suggesting restaurants, because I know whatever I say will be shot down. When that happens, she throws the problem to DS, who has also been conditioned by my ordeal not to say anything as it may very well be shot down by her as well.

It is actually a very miserable problem, now that I think about it.

You are assuming what her motivation is, and by doing so, you are committing a disrespectful judgement.

So how should I handle these situations?

Be extremely polite and don't argue with her.

When is she moving out?

She would not tell me, she just says "soon."
From my listening, I understand she is still trying to get the furniture, etc. Maybe next week?

Today I am full of anger rather than sadness. I think listening to these conversations are not healthy for me. It does help me prep my attorney for what is coming down the pike, but it really puts me in a lousy mood, to hear how the person I considered my friend for 20 years berate me and disrespect me.

You need to entice your wife out of withdrawal, being angry about it will not help. This problem has festered for way too long.

I think your wife and mine could be the same person... at one point, when she was in love, she hangs on every word and cares about what you have to say. At some point, she seems to feel nothing but contempt for you and every word you say annoys her regardless of what it is. You could say " you look nice today" and she is nothing but annoyed by that. My WW even told me to stop breathing because it annoys her. I think this is probably a result of the love bank being so far int he red.

So what do you do? I don't know the answer... I actually think her moving away might help at least get her love bank back to a more neutral point. The reason that I have this theory is that she may "hate" you because you are the obstacle to her freedom to getting her drug or whatever it is. When she is out, then you can do a proper plan A.. because now you are not "holding her back..." you are an attractive alternative to what she is going through.

Other's on the forum.. please offer your thoughts... and if you think I'm wrong, that's fine, but this is in line with some of the thoughts that Dr Harley had for my situation and we seem very similar.

How do I do this?

She has definitely withdrawn. She only talks to a small group of Enablers now, she avoids anyone who might judge her on the EA. She is paranoid and asks me if XYZ knows about the A?

Once she moves out though, the cat is out of the bag and all bets are off. Not sure what she plans to do then.

Mel's advice is to let her experience what moving out and supporting herself means. If she has harbored a fantasy that OM will suddenly appear and rescue her on a white charger, this may be the dose of reality she needs.

But avoid letting her goad you into anger. She does that to justify her actions. That does not mean tolerating verbal abuse from her as that will make her respect you less. Change the subject or leave the room when she starts being disrespectful.

This is good advice. I have experimented with everything. When you find it almost impossible to take the abuse and be respectful at the same time... just walk away. You may get accused of being passive agressive... to combat this, come up with some simple "one liners" to get you respectfully out of the situation. I like to say, "I care too much about you to get drawn into a fight. I'll talk to you about this later", or "let me think about what you just said, and I'll respond later". Try to keep a smile, even fake it until you get out of the situation. If you feel really angry, go take a walk or say a prayer. You can usually think of something much smarter to do once you have calmed down.

I really thought about this and I realize this disrespect has saturated our relationship. This morning she expected me to do something unreasonable which I would have just done in the past, to avoid conflict. I responded, no, I think you should do it. She was stunned and a little peeved but she did it anyway. It really felt good to resist the disrespect and her tendency to put me down as a doormat.

I then started thinking to how this came about. I just became too conditioned to avoid her displeasure then I started caving in on things. I tried too hard to be a nice guy and usually let her have her way. That is why she, despite having been caught once before with the email affair with OM, restarted it again.

Well done, that was a love bank deposit, keep up the good work!

She won't be supporting herself. *I* will be forced to pay support (alimony) to her, as soon as she files the motion and is separated. My support will be most of her cash inflow.

But she wont be able maintain her standard of living.

That is one of my worries. The temporary alimony plus 50% child support is a significant amount of money. She might will be more conservative but it's still a lot of money.

On a practical matter, WW is about to move out. Do I physically not help her move? Should I be present while she's moving? It's going to be a rough day either way.
I think if I did, I will have a lot of Angry Outbursts followed by sadness.
Also, I think she will ask me to help her set up her computer. Should I do that...???