Post deleted by anxious4answers

IMHO that behavior is completely unacceptable. She knows that already, but needs to hear it from you and from the authorities. But it's not really about that one incident is it? Sounds like the whole relationship is at a desperate place, and you both recognize that. And badly need help and improvement.

RE your question I can't say what to do without knowing more about your situation. And it's not about length of the post, it's about really understanding where her head is, and where things stand between you. Only you know that. At worst it's a life-threatening situation. At best she made an unbelievable mistake. But if it happens only once, with nothing like that to ever to happen again, then it's not more than a horrible mistake. People are unbelievably fallible, but not necessarily irredeemable.

Try this on for size to see how it fits your situation..

1st time: I would call the police and file a report in order to have it on record and make it clear that's not acceptable. And I would consult a family law attorney re rights and obligations to protect yourself and your family.

Before that, IF I THOUGHT SHE WAS NOT COMPLETELY 100% RATIONAL - I'd move out with the kids for your protection.

Otherwise - if I thought she were rational and this a one-time abberation - I would make it clear that it's far beyond the bounds of what I can accept, and that the next time I won't be able to keep from ending the M. Also I'd be amazed, wonder where that came from, and worry about whether it could happen again. I would also talk with her and really communicate. Usually it's infidelity that's the wakeup call. This is even more of a wakeup call. Obviously your marriage badly needs work, and I'd wager that each of you could contribute by working on your own problems. Difficult marital situations usually aren't one-sided.


I might also wonder if she has a medical or psychological condition, and look into medication or (further) therapy.

Also start building the child-custody case since there is some probability that D and custody hearings will follow. And I would not hide that; I would want W to know where I stand on threatening behavior.

And - like you - I would take the guns out of the house.

Also I might buy a small tape recorder and keep it nearby in order to be ready to tape if she loses stability again.



2nd time anything even remotely threatening or unstable happens: immediately leave the house with kids, call the police and file a report, then find a place to live with kids and immediately start D proceedings. You can still care for and protect her, but not while living in that environment.


So what's your situation? Is the M saveable? I know your W is not beyond God's love and care, and neither are you. Do you want to save your marriage? What does God want you to do?

Why did your W write those long posts? Why did you do same? Not because you and she were looking for a simple answer, I suspect. And I don't think the answer you seek is simple. I suspect you both want to work to improve your relationship, which has come to a desperate place. Do you?

You may consider moving your posts to the Infidelity - General Questions II heading. It has many more followers and you will hear from others besides me. Best wishes.

Post deleted by anxious4answers

Seriously you should try one of the more active message boards at MB. As you may have noticed, some others have 50 times as many viewers. You will definitely get more opinions than mine.

I know your question isn't about infidelity; still I would point you to that board. An alternative is the Emotional Needs board, which also gets more traffic.

Again, it's not really about that one incident is it. Recently I considered divorcing, and started the thread "How do we know when God wants us to D?" You may find it useful.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...&PHPSESSID=

The concept is that I don't want to make the D decision for my own reasons. I recognize that I'm fallible, opinionated, and blinded by my recent history with WW, and that I can't trust my heart or my head right now with such a decision. Hence the question about what God wants. I found the posts on that thread enlightening.

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To anxious4answers and bitter2sweet,

I found your thread of "sick of this" and have not finished your postings all the way through. I wanted you to know that I will respond tonight, after work. Would you please tell your wife?

Weneedhelp has given you a lot of great answers on your other thread. Before I respond fully, would you mind telling me what you both got out of his responses?

This is just to let you know that I feel I've been exactly where you are right now, both of you, both sides, and can give you the best I've got. The answer to your simple question, the answer to your wife's questions...is it worth it? Is it salvageable? Is it too late? I've got living proof for you, if you want.

I suspect, Anxious, you don't. Have you stopped all contact with your affair partner?

LA

Anxious...

I re-read your domestic violence thread, where you said:

" have basically lost all hope. I got to the point where I did meet somebody else. She lives far away so there is no sexual contact at this point. But emotionally we are getting very close. I know an affair is wrong and all, but what am I supposed to do. I needed to talk to someone who would listen. Here is the kicker... upon telling my wife that I saw a lawyer she began to beg me to stay. She says the violence will never happen again."

Hence, my question about no contact. I'm not asking for no contact for your morality or your marriage...I'm asking for no contact so that you can make the biggest decision of your life not under the influence of a drug.

My H and I have lived your life, in your shoes...I was like your wife and you were like my H. The first step my H took was to listen to an authority--a counselor, who said, stop contact until you make a decision.

He is now drug free (OW drug) and can't believe what he was thinking a year ago...in our 16 years of marriage. Similar? Well, you're addicted to a fantasy that meets the important ENs you've been starved for. Please do not make choices based on your subjective perspective until you are drug free for awhile.

Can you do that?

I hear that you've been abused in your marriage--that you've felt unheard, helpless, ineffective, disrespected and betrayed (like your W was having an affair with herself, is how my H felt about my depression). I won't give you any advice on that until you're not under the influence, though. I would just ask you to do what you did for years--operate not from a feeling (hopelessness, emotional exhaustion, etc.) but from your intellect. You know you don't want to tear up your kids and be wrong about it in a year, longing for your wife, do you?

Stop the contact. Examine your belief that you married the wrong woman. That another woman would be a better fit. What you can't see now is that if you go to another relationship, you're still broken--you still take with you all the problems which are recreated over again...same stuff different person. At the very least, promise yourself to go sober and self-study so that if you choose to divorce, you won't be facing that scenario.

You are stopping your wife's love deposits, that's why you don't feel anything for her right now (or it vacillates). I'm not asking you to open the bank to her yet, but I am telling you that as long as you have that emotional closeness with another woman, your bank can't be filled by your wife. Period. That's your responsibility. Your choice. You are doing that--she's not.

LA

Post deleted by anxious4answers

A year ago, I took a steak knife and stabbed our kitchen counter with it two or three times in front of my husband. After he went upstairs, I took that same knife to the inside of my forearms, trying to open visible wounds. All I got was long, cat-like scratches. God has given me dull knives all my life.

My children were not present.

I'm ashamed of such behavior. My H was infatuated with another woman at the time. Not as an excuse but to give you the raw basis of what motivates this threatening and disturbing behavior. Self-loathing is at the bottom, and along all the layers of other stuff, there's the fact that I couldn't tell the difference between pain and anger. I would feel anger at someone crossing my boundaries and I would respond in tears and pain. Pain equalled anger. The layer under that was not being heard. Your wife has identified this as the repetitive component to these incidences you both acknowledge.

Let me ask you, A4, about the way you see this "progressive" violence. This ten-year escalation. She stopped hitting you when you defended your boundary. Did you go through the slip up hittings and apologies, repeatedly, afterward? Does she follow the abusive pattern (like an addiction) of acting out, apologies, better, then worse, acting out, apologies, etc.?

Have you consulted a violence hotline? Your children fear her anger, disapproval as well as her impulsive, out-of-control displays, and your threat of divorce. Think they also fear that you "defending" them against the abuse of their mother is like it being their fault you guys split?

You say they are now living in fear. They didn't before? The verbal abuse seems to have been present...both yours and hers...for years. Would both of you please read two books? The Dance of Anger, and The Verbally Abusive Relationship.

What have you done about being sure your wife feels heard? Have you been practicing what WNH suggested?

To answer your question...If my H pointed a butcher knife at me, and my son walked in, I would feel afraid, angry, like I had the power to enrage him, that I was defective and caused it. Like I did when my mother did the same thing to me when I was 14 with a steak knife, inches from my face. Like I didn't know this person. Here's what I got when my face reflected those emotions, "Oh, stop that. You know I wouldn't hurt you. You're so dramatic. Go to your room. You disgust me."

I'm not saying you have to stick it out; what it sounds like is that you want to know if your fear, your anger at the children feeling fear is justified? How are you teaching them to cope with fear? Eliminate the problem? Are you teaching them that you can't control others--that others can be frightening, even mothers? How do they feel protected, understood with you? Do you validate their feelings and thoughts?

The yelling you walked in on is a trigger for previous abuse. Your daughter confided her fear, her assessment that she knew this situation well "here we go again." What did you say to her?

What I'm reacting to in your posts is a case you're making to leave, with a clear conscience. In what you've written before, I did not read anything that said, "I did this and this. I know better now." Do you have that in you? That is the only thing that will get you to where you need to go. What you said previously was, "Yeah, I know I shouldn't be in an affair, but what else was I to do?" No ownership. You exist, you're half the marriage, half the parenting, critically important. Not a reactive bystander.

If you read those two books you will see the pattern of your life...not just with your wife, but all your relationships. Your wife feels powerless, invisible, a lot of the time, and acts out as if she's powerful. You act powerless, like nothing you can do in the face of this storm, while wielding a lot of power. Balancing this takes a lot of examination, understanding...not just looking at the actions.

Up to you. Your wife took positive action since the incident...doing the hard work of finding her core hurts, holding herself accountable, getting therapy...what have you done? You're half the pattern here. What are you going to do to insure that your daughters see anything can be worked through (that's the only way to security)?

If you divorce over this, and go to another relationship, your daughters face a lot of fear, and most likely, a re-enactment. We can replace people but not the problems. Until you've identified your abusive ways, you carry them with you.

LA

Post deleted by anxious4answers

You're welcome for my attention. I'm not indulging you. You are entertaining my thoughts as well as sharing yours. Appreciation goes two ways. I get something out of this, also. It's a way to examine my own beliefs, let people know they aren't in unique situations (i.e., hopeless), and connect with people.

Before I respond, show me where you owned something in your reply. Something you learned about yourself. Something you saw you didn't before. A realization about your choices and actions.

"Not 30 minutes ago I was walking into my house and my wife was yelling at my oldest. She said right to my W "you're scaring me"! And my youngest gave me a hug and wispered to me "here we go again".

Anxious - I hope your response was to tell them to get in there and do what their mother requested. I would hate to see you helping the children get out of taking care of their responsibilities.

No, your children shouldn't be afraid of your wife, and neither should you. I would insist that she go to some kind of anger management program.

And do your family a favor and unload the girlfriend. Talk about throwing gasoline on a fire!

Post deleted by bitter2sweet

B2S and A4A: Dialogue is good; as it can lead to SELF-awareness. But please be aware that facts, data, recollections of what happened will not solve a single problem.

Can you get down to a deeper level? What really are the problems within each of you? Where really have each of you failed? Not where the other has failed, but you personally. What have each of you changed to address your own past failures. What have each of you done today to meet your spouse's needs?

Not what you are trying to do, not what you attempted to do, not what is your program or intent; but rather what concrete things did each of you actually physically do today for your spouse?

Post deleted by anxious4answers

Post deleted by anxious4answers

A4A the post 2 above was a really good one, well done. I for one can't wait to see LA's response.

Your wife has also owned up to some of her own problems, and maybe you both can own some jointly. There are plenty to go around. Don't feel all the problems have to be owned right now; just pick a place to start.

I don't think you can change each other, unless indirectly. You can only change yourselves. If God smiles on you, each of you will be awake and alert for positive change in the other, and will recognize and encourage the positive changes while witholding criticisms. We all - every one of us on this earth - need positive reinforcement and encouragement. And we all need God's help in overlooking the sins committed against us. The Lord's Prayer, of course.

First, Bitter...

You tried not to respond to this thread, because you have your own, and yet you gave your permission to reply directly to what your H was stating to me. Why? You feel attacked, like he got it wrong? You'd already said on your own thread what you said again here. Do you believe that we're concentrating on you, or on our H here?

Please do not do this here. Your defensiveness is destructive to yourself. Write your responses on your thread as they pertain to you and get your responses. Your H is stating his reality and you're tromping all over it. Just the same way he does yours. One of you has to stop this. I believe B2S you not only can do it, but must.

Please look up "to try is to lie" and read about "I tried to not do it, but I did it" stuff.

Thank you, A4A, for owning that your work commitment comes from your fear of failing your family; for not trying to connect to your wife for as long as you felt capable of; that you feel less than something for not having a high-paying job and a college ed; that you gave permission to yourself to be tempted; and that you believe you have stopped your wife's attempts to fill your love bank.

Great start. Solid intimacy. I hear that you feel driven to work those 12 hour days because you have a great need for security, for the ability to provide and provide security to your family. I hear you have doubts or insecurities, and that you believe high-paying jobs wipe out the need for putting work before family. What I get is that you, like your wife, operate from fear. Fear of failing, not providing, being inadequate. You said you knew you were overly concerned with the ability to provide for my family. Overly? Is that something you've recognized and tried to adjust in yourself? Or does your wife's financial betrayals support and increase that fear?

How long ago did you give up trying?

I see you own some good stuff, too. Like being here. Like putting yourself out here, vulnerable to judgment as well as to healing? That is courageous.

I have some answers for you from your previous post. I think they are courageous of me.

"I'm not perfect" doesn't say a thing to me. No one is. That statement owns nothing. So thank you for not saying you owned that one.

Please understand I know what you're saying is coming from the way you perceive it. What it sounds like is a restating (as if I'm not hearing you) of what you've decided is your history. I read that you assume my reactions, just like you assumed you weren't getting responses because of the length of your post. I also am reading a revisionist history. Coming from a bad place. I did this, too. I know this litany. I've sung this mantra. You're not alone. It's a distorted truth, though, because it says victimhood, powerlessness, choiceless, captivity. Your choice. Own it. Not your choice to stay or leave (that, too), but your choice to exercise your power.

Even as you say you are overly concerned with providing for your family, you ask, what happens to your family if you can't provide enough to keep up? Just as you are stating that financial security is your top priority, you seem choiceless again. If you lost your job, your home, food, etc. tomorrow, you would still have your family. I know that for a fact. Been there. Done that. As long as you're honest with yourself: "I own that I value my job above my family. I do that because I fear failing my family and being seen as a failure."

What's wrong with that truth?

You wondered where you were abusive. I think you would be surprised (I was). Withdrawal is abuse. Read the books. Understand that your reactions can be as abusive as hers. Forgetting, silence--as abusive as yelling, disrespectful judgments. Love addicts and avoidance addicts. They like each other a lot. One is no worse or better than the other. By freeing yourself from your victim perspective, you will comprehend your power over yourself, but first you've got to understand who you are and why you do what you do. With relentless self-honesty.

Begin with dealing with anger. Do you feel anger is bad? Needs to be put out like a fire? Ran from or quenched?

You say you began to get resentful. I believe all marriages carry resentment like sediment. We don't realize that we make our own resentments--no one forces us to feel that. We do it by feeling like we give too much or the other gives too little. Harley's Taker/Giver is awesome at breaking this down. We need both. You don't become resentful…you make your own resentments. That's a truth that changed my life.

I think I'm cramming too much into this for now. Let me know, please, what hits and what misses. I want to know more of your truth.

LA

Anxious -

Yes, I read the whole thread, and also your wife's thread. I am very concerned about her actions. So far, I have not gotten a reply about my advice to get some anger management counseling.

I can tell you have been in a difficult situation for a long time. I'm in your corner, believe it or not.