Marsh,

Thanks for checking in. I guess I've been on a down swing the past couple of days, allowing my emotions to be guided by my perception of the outcome of this situation - which I'm basing on my perception of my WW. Not good all the way around. I've printed out a list of psychiatrists that I'm going to call so I can find out if there are drugs that can help me, as well as talk therapy. I'm a bit frustrated because I think on some level I'm looking for there to be something wrong with me so I can fix myself and therefore the situation, so I'm not sure if I'm making too much of "symptoms" that I have or what. I'm going to see a pro. I do think, however, that it's part of taking responsibility.

My WW basically told me last night that my problems are pushing her away and that they are the reason she doesn't want to be with me. Beyond that, she said that she thinks my problems are not just problems, they are who I am. She says that she sees the same things in my brothers. Can't we have the same issues? We have the same FOO, doesn't it logically follow that we would have similar issues? I want to solve my problems, and yes, I independantly see these things as problems.


I think so - she was saying something about how she should have expected me to act a certain way or something. I don't really remember exactly what she said, but it was full of contempt and sarcasm.


This is a good point, and one that I have a hard time with. It basically nails the choice between sacrificing myself in order to accept her company and respecting myself enough to not accept her company unless she treats me well. I have a hard time with this boundary because I allow that little bit of encroachment into my space, and then I'm on a slippery slope into defensiveness and conflict.


Because of her social anxiety disorder.


Because I made an excuse for her. I guess I DJed her by thinking that she was frustrated with her own unability to make the phone call, and even though she was taking it out on me, she was upset with herself. I should have made it clear that I make my own choices about whether or not to talk to her or do things for her, and treating me like crap makes me less desirous of giving to her.


No - in fact I didn't even think of that. I do see her making these statements about how I'm defective and ignorant an careless when she is in a situation where she gives in to feelings like these about herself.


She told me that they had decided together that it was the right thing to do before I did anything with the connection. The other night she told me that she was going to wait until she started her job so she didn't sit at home and stew in her own juices. I didn't point this out. I did make the statement that I wasn't kept in the loop about what had happened, that I was, in fact, being purposely kept in the dark. WW told me that she didn't want to tell me anything about anything. Even last night she told me that I don't get the privledge of knowing what is going on with her, what her feelings are.


I'm still on the fence about this. I will ask a couple of questions/statements next time that will make the choice clear:

"Under what circumstances do you advocate for filing for divorce?"

and

"It is my desire not to participate in moving towards a divorce at this time. Are you able to continue meeting with us without coming into conflict with this desire?"


I've made a good deal of progress on this, but initially, there was an occasion or two where I said something like "please don't speak to me that way" and this is what she remembers. She sees it as controlling. I have tried to clarify, and have since begun to tell her that I feel a certain way because of the tone she used or what she said. I tell her that I don't want to be treated that way. I'm not walking away, but I have made it clear at least once that I would if she didn't stop talking to me the way she was. To me it has nothing to do with right or wrong, it has to do with how I want to be treated, and what I'm willing to accept as treatment.


I hurt her when I went behind her back and exposed the affair. I hurt her when she trusted me with details of the affair and I used them against her. I hurt her when I acted controlling by disconnecting the computer and violating her rights in the household, making her a second class citizen in her own home.

I told her that this was all about this affair. She responded that she expected me to justify all of my actions with the fact that she's having an affair. She told me that this was the wrong word, it should be that because it's not currently going on. I told her that I have no real way of knowing that, all I know is that she's told me that they are no longer in contact.


Maybe it's a sign to me that I need to change my behavior because it's not appropriate in the company I was in.


Because of the way my WW talks to me: "Who would do that?" "Who says that?" "Sure you'll do that" etc.


If it's incumbant on me to teach others how to treat me, and they treat me with disrespect, this means I've taught them this, so I deserve it, right? No, I don't think anyyone deserves to be mistreated, and the mistreater is doing so for their own personal reasons that have little to nothing to do with the "victim". Two sides to every coin. Which side appeals more to you? I can make a good argument for either. My W hates that I seem to contradict myself. I can say one thing, then the opposite and then tell her that they are not mutually exclusive, that they are in fact the same thing.


I think you're right.


No, I feel trapped. I believe that I have many options if I am willing to accept the consequences. I am trapped by my unwillingness to accept consequences in every direction. I don't want to be responsible for setting a bad example for my S of what a marriage is - so I think we should either change it or end it. I don't want to be responsible for ending the marriage and destroying our family because I didn't have the patience to allow my wife to work out her own personal issues that are causing her to want to leave the marriage. I don't want to fight all the time because this isn't good for anyone, but I also don't want to allow my W to walk all over me, so I need to be willing to enforce my boundaries even if it leads to a fight. I refuse to raise my voice, W does so all the time. I can't stop her from doing so, regardless of my actions. I don't know how much good potential there is in our marriage, and I want to have a great marriage. I want to make the determination of whether or not we should stay married by the height of the marriage, not the low, and we haven't gotten there yet because we never acknowledged our issues or actually tried to make something of our marriage. Yet if my W doesn't want to work at it we may have already seen it at its best. So I'm staying, I'm standing for the marriage for many reasons, yet I don't get the sense that I'm on a clear path. I see some progress, but it sometimes seems to me that a drastic change is necessary, like clubbing my W over the head and dragging her back to my cave, before any REAL progress happens. I sometimes think that I'm not capable of taking such a drastic step.


Yeah, but she's made it very clear that she thinks very little of me. She has reduced me into nothing in her mind (probably as a way to make it easier to deal with her own guilt and justify what she's done and doing), and sharing myself feeds into her continuing to do so. How can I be vulnerable and share myself when I'm being judged? When she's looking for flaws? I know I'm trying to make her predictable by making these assumptions, and it's not fair to her, or to me.


This seems extreme to me. She said "yes" like a teenager would, full of contempt, as if to say "of course I do, what are you, dumb?"

Then again, I have been checking her the past couple of days when she makes assumptions about what I saying with a look or a noise I make. She always assumes that I'm condescending or somehow looking down on her (can you say projection?) and I simply clarify that it was the expression of a feeling, and then I identify the feeling and tell her what it was in response to. It is really helping me do so, and it's interesting to see that she's expecting it to be judgment when it really is feeling. So I'm probably over reacting to her, making my own assumptions.


See, this is the main problem to me: she wants me to feel disrespected. She wants to push me away. She wants to hurt me and get me so fed up with the relationship that I am ready to call it quits too. So why should she treat me the way I want to be treated? So that I'll want to continue the relationship? Counterproductive. Last night as I left to go to work she told me that she hoped one of two things would happen: I'd have a drastic change of heart or I just wouldn't come home, that something would happen to me.


I agree, but I don't have a clear idea how to balance them.

Thanks again for checking in.

Ok, at lunch, I asked WW if she minded making our son a sandwich because I was short on time. She said "whatever" in kind of a nice tone of voice. I told my son that mommy would make him lunch and that I was on my way back to work. WW got upset. She said she hadn't agreed to this, and that I was twisting her words around. I referred back to what she had told me, that I had asked her how she felt about it. She said it didn't matter how she felt about it. I asked her "to who?" She then went on to say that I had demonstrated my lack of caring because I hadn't made the leap that she wasn't feeling well (she mentioned having a bit of an upset stomach, but with her current level of anxiety, it seems like this is her regular state of being, and she seemed pleasant to me) and she was cold and was laying under the blanket, so she WOULDN'T like to make him a sandwich, but she would if I didn't do it. I told her that her feelings mattered to me, and that was why I was asking her how she felt about it. I can't deduce or make assumptions about everything that's going on with her. This sort of thing is really frustrating to me - it's the whole "you should do things because they need doing, not because I ask you to" argument that she has about why I'm not a good husband. I care, it's evident, but I don't care the way she wants me to, and because of this I'm not a good fit for her.

I did want to comment on this, but I don't know if its any help.

I read this and its very much how I used to treat my FWW. I've had a long time to think about how I would have liked my FWW to respond when I was being this way.

My FWW usually would not respond in a situation like this. She would say nothing and just feel disrespected and put down. I wish she had said something. The problem is, if she had said something, I would have just argued with her forever how long it takes to bully her into submission. And she still would feel disrespected and put down. She has many times said, I just got tired of feeling that why and didn't see any point in arguing with you, so I just let you say your piece and went on.

I've learned a lot about myself since then and I don't act this way anymore. I like to think that if my FWW had just kept saying something rather than just giving up, maybe we wouldn't be here. But again, maybe that's just a fantasy.

But knowing what I know now, I would say at a minimum, you can't say nothing. You also can't get in a debate. So something in between. Which is basically just say your piece. Be respectful and brief, but say it and walk away. When she says don't start with me, say "I wasn't starting anything, I just feel like you talk down to me. That was a wondeful dinner don't you think?" And get up and start clearing the table. If she responds, just say "I understand you feel that way".

Something like that. I like to think if my FWW had responded this way, that eventually it would have dawned on me that I was being a jerk. Sort of like drops of water moving mountains.

When I read stuff like this it makes me wonder if it is really worth it. Besides the fact that you have to be a mind reader and be able to predict the future with accuracy, at the core of the argument is "Who is going to make a sandwich for our child". How trivial is this? Sure, I understand their are phycological dynamics behind the whole thing, but maybe instead of WS's being so conmsumed with themselves, they should just look at some situations for what they are. In this case, HER child is hungry and would like some lunch and you need to get back to work. JUST PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR A$$ FOR A MINUTE AND MAKE YOUR CHILD A SANDWICH!!!

I am sorry MT, I just get very upset when children are in the line of fire. All he wanted was a sandwich.

Thanks for your response.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying you treated your W the way my W treated me in this situation? If this is true, I think you make a very valid point - I need to say my piece more often. This is something I'm teaching myself how to do better. I have become much better at recognizing my feelings and acknowledging them in the moment both to myself and my WW, which has allowed me to move from a place where I just stew and resent to a place where I communicate. Her treatment of me is her issue, my response mine. We both contribute to the dynamic, and both sides are dysfunctional.

I have been trying to find ways to express myself that can't start arguments. This is one of the main reasons I have focussed on feeling statements. In the past, if I did respond to my W I tended to debate what she was talking about. This led to the struggle over being right. She is now convinced that I'm solely interested in being right (and my response is "why does she care if SHE isn't fixated on being right herself?"). The fact is that this sort of debate is seldom useful because we end up entrenched and no matter how much fact we have supporting our belief, we both refuse to be convinced.

So the idea in my mind is less about giving up the fight over the issue, and rather turning it into an opportunity to connect and share. I think I have taken the approach that you suggest here, but I can still really improve my skills. In this situation, she ran away and stewed and remained in conflict with me for the rest of the evening until she could win an argument or get her way. I "lost" when I couldn't respond to her attack and my silence essentially agreed with her that she was right, I didn't care about her feelings. Before that, I asserted myself everytime in such a way that there was no argument to win.

I know what you mean. It is frustrating when all the buildup ends up being more important than the core issue. Especially when it is about the care of a child.

I read something the other day that I liked (not sure where). Love is always there between you and your spouse, it's just that the focus has shifted to the hurt and anger piled on top, and the love is ignored. I think this is often a product of the victim mentality. We WANT to be mistreated in some way, so we look for situations where we can blame our partner. This becomes more important than looking for opportunities to love.

Well, the past couple of days have been somewhat rough for me. I've had somewhat of a change of heart about things - I'm sure it's somewhat a reactive thing - basically I've been finding myself wondering if this person I'm married to is really someone I want to spend my life with. I know people can change, but she is so very negative towards everything, and I know I can't fix it, but it also causes problems in our relationship when I just accept her behavior as it is. I can learn to create or find some middle ground, but when getting to the point where we can do this is such an uphill struggle, I keep asking myself whether it's worth it. It is for my son, but is it REALLY for me, and am I willing to sacrifice what's truly in my best interest for my son? And this is the big question to me - will it be possible to salvage the marriage without sacrifice? I know that if we both give it our all and really do it it WILL be a win-win situation, but if we aren't both motivated to do this with all our hearts, then it's bound to be a sacrifice.

The scales are tipped so far off balance right now. I wonder whether this can be remedied.

The other thing I struggle with is that I believe the right thing to do is to work at this marriage. I believe divorce is not the right option. Yet if the person I'm married to will never work with me (and I can't know this until we both really try together - so it's almost a fantasy in itself) am I sacrificing my happiness for the sake of abstract principle? This is so difficult for me because I feel that if I stop caring about the relationship, that if I stop trying to see the positive, the hope, if I stop working at growth and repair, etc., it WILL die because I'm the only one that cares about it now. Yet I need to explore my own feelings about this.

I think I need to detach a bit more and maintain some more distance than I have been. I imagine W will see this as me withdrawing as she has in the past, and it will be interesting to see whether she steps towards me at all, as she has in the past. But I need to take some of the stress out of my perception of the situation. I need to enjoy my life and plan for a much better future. I can't do that while I'm stressing about whether my WW is going to get on my case about dishes in the sink, or how I phrased something, etc. I don't want to hear anymore that "this is why I don't want to be with you" - something that says to me that I'm the problem, or that one of my traits/characteristics is. This says to me that she wants me to change, she wants the relationship to work, but she's frustrated by this or that, and she can't handle her frustration. So I should change. And I should change the way she wants me to. I WANT to change, I want to grow, and I am, but I want to do it my way, I want to be who I am, not who someone else wants me to be. Yet I'm swayed by her opinion (because of course she knows me well and she is perceptive and she does recognize some of my issues) and I lose focus on what I have been working on and deemed important. I end up feeling like there's this huge list of issues I need to address, yet it's all one sided. I accept my wife, and I want to allow her to change as she feels she should, yet I recognize issues that she has that contribute to our problems - I don't even want to THINK that she should have to change just as I don't want to think that I should have to change either in order to be loved. I love my W as she is, but I recognize our life and marriage will be much better if she does, if I do. I just don't know.

Correct. I know my FWW and I are like this based on our families. Mine argued all the time, hers very much conflict avoiders.


This is one were most people seem to disagree with me. No, its not an abstract principle. But I don't see the need to sacrifice at all. To me, the sacrfice is an artificial construct.

Virtually every choice you make is an exchange or a trade. You give something off value and you recieve something of value. Its a sacrifice when you are on the short end of the stick going in to the exchange. Its a bad trade when you are on the short end coming out. KWIM.

Bad trades happen and you learn from them. But you shouldn't sacrifice.

When you decide to stay in a loveless M for the sake of the kids, you are exchanging the good feelings you would like to get from the M for the good feelings you expect to get from watching your children grow up in a two parent household. If you don't think the later is more valuable then former, then it is a bad idea. I say that because if you go into that thinking its a sacrifice, the good feelings you expect to get from watching your children will never materialize.

I don't know if detaching is the answer or not. Maybe its just the word detach that doesn't fit.

Most of us here have come to a place in our lives where we have a pretty good idea of what we want, a pretty good idea of what we have, a pretty good idea of what we can realistically expect for the time being, and a pretty good idea of the gaps between those things. I think a lot of time is spent focusing on what we want and the gap between what we have and what we want. Rather than detach, I think when your frustrated its better to shift your focus to what you have and making a plan to close the gap between what you have and what you can realistically expect for the time being. When that gap is closed, re-evaluate and raise your expectations.

I like this, and I agree with it too. I guess what I'm getting at here regarding sacrifice is that I am so at odds with my W, and just because I believe (and have good reason to believe) that things can be turned around doesn't mean that they actually can. It takes two, and right now there's only one. I don't want to stay in a loveless marriage for the kid. I don't want to stay in an unhappy marriage. I want a happy marriage but I can't make this so, I can only be happy myself. This is what I mean by detachment - I need to detach from my desire to have my W behave a certain way, from my desire for her to want to be happy in our marriage, in her life, in general. I want my son to have two parents that are happy and that are happy together. Is this a pipe dream? I don't want to sacrifice this goal for this. I think my son would be better off with me in a relationship where we are working together to build each other up rather than tearing each other down, looking for reason to be hurt by the other, blaming each other for our own pain, etc. I'm taking ownership of these things even though I tend to see my wife doing them all and not me. I'm still involved in the dynamic though.


I have plenty of good feelings about my son, and even my W. It's just that we're not sharing good feelings right now - it's a one sided exchange.


I know what I want, I just question whether I will ever be able to acheive it with my W. I know we CAN, but will we? Are we strong enough to look at ourselves and make this a priority? Do we value the same things?

I'm not being flippant here, but how does knowing the answers to those questions change what you are going to do today? Tommorrow? The next?

If I told you with 100% certainty that it was going to work out, would you try harder, would you do something different? Would that make sense to you?

If I told you with 100% certainty that it wasn't would you try less? Why? Isn't part of what you want is knowing you did everything you could?

Sometimes I wonder if it would change what I do. I mean I don't think I would feel very proud about doing everything I could to make a square peg fit in a round hole, if you know what I mean. There's really something to be said for recognizing that this doesn't work from the outset. This being said, however, the time for making such a choice is past - I married my W already. All I can do now is to do my best to make things work, to put myself in a better state which will allow me to be a better husband and partner in whatever relationship I get into. Something's got to give though.

I think part of what I'm debating know is the wisdom of continuing to fight. If we are going to eventually divorce, would it be better to just figure out how to get along and part as friends? Continuing to stand for the marriage in the face of what my W wants is adversarial. I don't want bad blood between us (although my W didn't seem to care much about creating bad blood when she had her affair and didn't give much thought to my feelings and how it would impact our future). To me it is the right thing to do to continue to fight, but at some point I need to reevaluate where I am and where I'm going and change my approach. I want my son to have the best family experience he can, and if that eventually means having a good relationship with my XW that may be a goal I need to work towards. Right now I'm working towards having a good relationship with my W. I guess I'm just experiencing a conflict between my committment to work things out and my desire to have something that feels good for me sooner.

I hope it wouldn't. What I mean is, it shouldn't change your actions. But what I think you are alluding to is that it would change your objectives.


Nor would I.


So what your really asking is should you change the objectives of your plan? The way I look at it, when you're in this, you have 3 themes. Marital Endurance, Exit Strategy, Build a Romantic M. (Okay, maybe a 4th is revenge, but hopefully we aren't doing that). You want a romantic M and your W wants at best endurance and more likely a exit strategy. So you think maybe you should just give her what she wants because you're never going to get what you want.

I don't know. For me, I always figured that I would keep working for a romantic M until my FWW ends the M. I don't have kids, so I guess I don't have the same concerns about bad blood between us. I have often felt like I am the only one working towards a resolution. I've chosen the one I'm working towards. If my FWW wants a different resolution, I would leave that work up to her.

Yeah, that's accurate.


Selfish, eh? I guess my taker's coming out. My WW wants out - she is looking for an Exit Strategy. I am looking to ultimately build a RM, but I see edurance as a way of getting to this point. W has told me that she will never be able to give me what I want, the passionate, romantic relationship, yet, as in your case, she has just that in the A. She wants this, yet I'm preventing her from getting it in our M - not really, but you get what I'm saying here I hope. So if she is reacting to my objective by picking the polar opposite, if I ease off a bit because I'm clear that I'm not getting what I want this way, might I eventually get it if I take a different aproach? Or is this simply a case of consistently progressing along the path that I've been on? I've seen the distance between us fluctuate during this time, and I know I can't rely on this to indicate the success or failure, but I wonder if I'm doing myself harm in staying where I am.


I'm with you here - I want to work towards this goal until my WW ends the marriage as well. I also agree that it should be entirely up to her to manage that work. Yet in MC, the issue is coming up. I see an opportunity to make progress towards having a great marriage if we are working together towards a common goal. If we work towards ending things, we are at least working together and making progress. I don't want to end things, or be a part of it, but it might be the only opportunity to work through our issues together.

From the rest of your response it seems like you don't want to change your objectives, just want to change your strategy and tactics. Which that is fine, it just goes back to my other post that you don't need to know if it will work in order to execute it.


Not at all. The taker in all of us serves a vital purpose.


I agree with that. Just have to set a timetable. But this is not a change in objective, this is a strategy change, right? A tactic.


Yes, I know what you mean.


Is she really picking the opposite just because its the opposite? If so, then yes a change in strategy may be appropriate. Plan A vs 180 plan are like this. Ratchet up the drama or ratchet it down. Attached vs detached. Its all empiracal type work KWIM. Try it, oberseve the results, and adjust.


The flaw I see with that is that ending things isn't a common goal. We know its not your goal and since she hasn't gone ahead and divorced you, we can't even be sure its her goal. But I'm sure if you both put your minds to it you can get it done, but.....

Is there anything you do agree on? Can you work on those goals in order to connect?

Finally, have you ever called in to SH. The one big caveat I have to you changing anything, is that technically, based on the the three states of marriage, fighting is a good thing. (Not DJ's or abusive, but conflict) Its a sign that you are not withdrawn from each other and is closer to a state of intimacy.

My FWW and I virtually never argue about things anymore.

No, I don't really want to change my objective, but I still do have some internal conflict about it. Overall, the rational and responsible decision is to maintain focus on this objective.


No, I don't really think she is JUST being oppositional. I think she has her own reasons for wanting out, and I tend to think most of them are locked up in the affair. 180s still will work though.


It would be dishonest on my part, and this is where I object to it myself. Furthermore, my W has looked up the laws here and to her satisfaction has found that she has no grounds to file for divorce. Therefore she has put all the power in my hands. She sees that I need to end the marriage. I need to release her from her prison, from all this misery. However, if she wanted to go to a lawyer and draw up a LSA she could. You don't need grounds to do this. She doesn't have a place to go, nor the ability to support herself. She wants to stay for these reasons, but she doesn't see it as her choice, she sees it as the absence of options. Classic depressed thinking, totally passively engaged with the world, unable to recognize the power of her own choices.


That we have an amazing son. Interesting thing is that we agree that our focus on our son was one of the things that eroded our M.


No.


I comfort myself with this every now and again. If she hates me, she's passionate about me. She's still affected by me. Not withdrawn. There isn't apathy in the place of passionate feelings. However, I question whether it's simply frustation on her part because of her dependency - she doesn't recognize her personal power, that she can choose other than this - so she's taking out this internal struggle on me, making me a factor in her internal world. I'm the enemy (she actually said this to me the other day), so she won't share with me. She's trying to withhold. She's shutting down intimacy on purpose. I think I should, just for the sake of experiment, try shutting her down when she starts to share, basically shutting down intimacy. If she is truly oppositional, this will make her WANT to share that much more, just to spite me.


Is there never conflict? Are you expressing yourself? Do you spend enough time together?

No we don't spend enough time together. Hopefully her moving back in will help with that.

There are seldom conflicts anymore.

I express myself, but she usually doesn't say much or just agrees with what I'm saying. After a few moments of that I just get tired of hearing myself talk.

So you are, in a sense, conditionally sharing? You will only share as long as you feel you have an interested audience? Are there any mutual interests that you can focus on? Maybe it's just subject matter. Maybe you cutting yourself off is preventing connection.

Yesterday things went pretty poorly. I had planned to do some running around, and had a couple things I wanted to accomplish for myself. I have a bit of a nasty cold that I'm nursing, so I went back to sleep after making breakfast for my son. I woke up about 9:45 and ran out to the grocery store to get breakfast stuff. I came home and brought W breakfast in bed. She seemed fairly happy to get a plateful of decadent breakfast stuff in bed. I tried to make a plan for the day with her. She's starting a new job tomorrow and needed to get some clothes and shoes. This was a priority for me, and so I kept my afternoon open for this reason. I told my W this, and also told her that I wanted to do some cleaning in the house, wanted to do some work on the bike and go grocery shopping. She didn't contribute anything, so I told her I was going upstairs to clean. I spent some time doing this and then S4 asked if we could have a picnic lunch inside. I thought this was a great idea, and ran it by W. She said that there was nothing in the house for her to eat. I told her I could run out and do the shopping before lunch so she could participate. She would not tell me what she wanted. So I backed off, basically frustrated that she wouldn't and doesn't take responsibility for her most basic need - eating - rather she blames me that there's nothing in the house for her to eat when it's her preferences that keep her from eating whatever it is that S4 and I are able to eat everyday. All through these conversations, she's saying things like "I don't matter" "What I think doesn't matter" What I want doesn't matter" - to which I answered pretty consistently "to who?" This stuff kills me - I keep seeing her act as if her own needs don't matter enough for her to speak up about them and then she blames me for her not getting them met, and whenever I point this out, she sees it as me blaming her. I want her to eat, I want her to be healthy, I want her to be happy. So I went upstairs and had a nice indoor picnic with S4. Then I talked to her again about plans - where we would go to shop for her, when, etc. She kept leaving the subject to focus on some defect of mine. Underlying all of this is her belief that I am the boss of the family, I hold all of the authority, etc., etc. I told her I was going up to take a shower. I showered, we talked again. Finally, 4:15 rolled around. I told W that we had better get moving, otherwise we would never be able to get everything done. W told S4 that we were going to go and get him clothes. I vetoed the idea because I said she was the priority - we didn't have much money for this and needed to take care of her. His clothes could wait. She got upset at this and used it to support her belief that I am controlling. She sucked me into another of these conversations where we got nowhere and eventually it got to the point where dinner had to be the next thing on the agenda. She wouldn't talk about where to go. I talked to S4 about it, and we decided on a place. W didn't want to eat there, so S4 and I up and left. We got about 10 minutes down the road and W called and asked if I would come home and get her. She wanted to come now. When we got back there she tells me that she was hurt that I let it go that easily, that I didn't try harder to get her to come with us. I told her that I thought I had fought far longer than I should have.

We had a nice evening together afterwards. Watched a movie together and had a nice time overall. This morning she was in a mood. I think she wakes up from her fantasy sleep dreams to the horrible fantasy reality and it puts her in a bad mood. I need to avoid her in the early part of the day. I told her last night that I had plans to go to the gym early, and we had made plans together to go do her shopping at 10. I was not feeling well enough to go to the gym when I woke up, so I skipped it, and went downstairs with my list to get her input on the groceries so I could take care of that before we went out. She got angry with me, started going on and on about how she didn't know whether we were still going. She wasn't even out of bed at 9:15, so leaving the house by 10 was unlikely. I had taken a shower, and before I jumped in I told S4 he could join me if he wanted to, that he should come in at X time. I've been working on getting him to pay attention to the clock - something he loves doing - and also owning the consequences of not doing what he knows he needs to. So he never made it into the shower. W asked me if he had had a shower. I told her that he hadn't made it in. She said "so that's it, he doesn't get a shower?" "No" I told her "he doesn't - that's the consequence of not doing what he agreed to." Well, she got upset with this, telling me that I was being controlling, that I wasn't asking for her opinion, etc, but was acting like I had absolute authority. I told her "nothing I say is absolute, because I don't have sole authority. You have just as much authority as I do. If you want to debate this, than let me know." Basically, she was getting on my case because I didn't make it clear to her that she could give me her input - something she generally doesn't have the slightest problem contributing when she wants to put me down. To me, giving her permission to give me her input would be acknowledging her idea that I have absolute authority - which I don't. I made a decision, as she often does. She's just so busy focusing on proving this point - that I'm the bad guy, I'm the enemy - that she acts a certain way and then blames me for making her act that way.

Well, we went out and actually had a nice morning. Once we got most of the shopping done, we went to Old Navy for S4 (we had spent less on the stuff for W than anticipated, so it made sense). As we were checking out, I asked that cashier if he could point me in the direction of the Payless shoe store. W walked out of the store, mortified. She later told me that she was so embarassed by my asking this. She held it against me for the rest of the time we were out. Blaming me for her bad feelings. The afternoon went downhill from there. After this S4 and I were to go to my mothers, W is staying home. As we pulled up to the house she asked if S4 was going to miss her. He eventually said yes. I told her that I would miss her too. She said "how can that be? We always fight." I told her that our behavior didn't define her, and that we had good interactions too, like earlier in the day. I said something like "it's all about what you focus on" - to which she responded "uh huh, you keep telling yourself that."

WW has been in an orientation program for her new job. It has been stressful for her, but she's been doing great. It seems to have really improved our interactions over the past couple of days. Even when we had a miscommunication about the bills (certain bills that she usually pays didn't get paid because she didn't let me know she wasn't going to pay them and I didn't recognize this), she related to me very well.

The other day we were playing around a bit together. I was praising and complementing her, and it must have made her feel good - she even told me that I wasn't allowed to admire her. She did so in such a way that I thought she almost felt guilty that she felt good about interacting with me.

Glad to hear you two are connecting w/ one another.

~ Marsh