Other than spying on her and not trusting her. Not that I know of.

I am not saying spying is right but I do not lack trust in her. She is honestly doing something that bothers me so I am calling her out on it. She doesn't think it's bad so that's the current battle.

Although she still holds this porn thing against me from 8 years ago. I made a stupid comment, something like, "my fiance's vagina looks like that, too bad she doesn't look like her too" about some porn star. I took the heat for it, apologized for it, still apologize today. I was stupid 18 year old kid back then. But she still has never forgiven me for that. I have always positively commented on her looks, body, sexiness, how beautiful she is, how much I love her, etc. I don't know what else I can do.

I don't have any huge desires. I want our affection/sexual time to be back to pre-wow days, I want her to play less, and I don't want her talking inappropriately to other men.

All of these issues stem from one thing

You have every right to know what your othe half is doing.

I welcome any snooping method my H would care to employ.

I was touching on the disrespectful judgments that you were using in your chat with her.

Have you read about Love busters? Can you recognize where you LBd her in that exchange? All of the deposits in the world are NOT going to matter if you continue to make withdrawals in her LB.

Your non-trust is NOT an LB because........dun dun dun.....YOU HAD REASON NOT TO TRUST HER.

Her WoW playing is considered an IB(independent behaviour). She chose to do it on her own and continued to do it even when it bothered you. Her LYING was also an LB. See?

You want her to play less? Do you think it is possible for her to play at all?

How do you think you can get back to the pre-wow days?

I do not normally do the DJ's or LB's so I didn't list them as common things. This whole freaking issue that is going on is not allowing me to think straight or make good decisions. I am NOT a conversationalist when I am emotionally hurt. So yeah, at this time, those DJ's are an issue for me, but not normally.

WoW IS an IB, I agree. Despite our agreement, despite the pain it caused me, she still did it.

I understand her wanting to have something to do in her freetime. I don't want to limit that. But I do have an issue with her playing during the day when the kids are awake and demanding her attention. More than her playing, the issue that bothers me most is the content of her conversations. They are primary reason I hate WoW so much.

Getting back to pre-wow days? We'd have to start our relationship completely over to get there. Before Everquest, before WoW, back before I made that stupid comment about the porn star, back before I kicked her out for doing drugs, back before we had kids. We'd have to go ALL the way back, figure out what it was that caused us to fall for each other so strongly, and enforce those actions, tendencies, mindsets, etc. Back when we were happiest and not putting on fronts.

I saw the post before it was taken down, but I didn't see the comments at the bottom. It got me to thinking, and this is more an open question to the forum...

Is there enough in the chat logs to warrant notifying child protective services (or whatever it is where Chris lives). Clearly the kids are endangered by her neglect; I mean one of them set a box on fire from the fireplace and then left it in the middle of the living room. It didn't seem malicious; it seemed like normal curious kid kind of stuff, but parents are supposed to supervising curious kids to keep them from hurting themselves or others.

What would be the probable result of notifying child protective services? And would that be enough to get Chris sent home?

Just thinking out loud..

Chris, do you occasionally view porn? Just when the kids are asleep, maybe? Just for something to do, perhaps?

NO, you don't. It was causing problems in your M! Like this is!

Are you really telling me that there is nothing on God's green earth that she can do besides online gaming? Nothing?
Nothing else on the World Wide Web but WoW???

My friend, you are setting this bar waaay too low.

Our agreement with the porn thing was that if she made an honest effort to please me sexually I would forever drop the porn. She hasn't upheld her end of that bargain.

But, no, you are right. I am setting the bar low. I have never imposed strict restrictions on her... as long as she took care of me and the kids like she is supposed to. Well the past few years she has taken care of everyone but me. I know it sounds stupid but we have no sex life. NONE. So that just amplifies my hatred towards her comments to these guys. I mean if she's not too tired, too busy, overwhelmed, frustrated, etc then I might get some attention once a month. It's frustrating to know she is giving this sexually charged/flirtatious attention to other men when I was declined it for one of a million reasons.

Back on topic, sex isn't the purpose behind my complaints. It's just an amplifier due to the nature of the comments. There are millions of things she could do: Get a job, go to school, open up an in-home daycare, get some hobbies, join some local groups/communities, go to church, etc. Trust me I know. I have made these suggestions to her and she had an excuse not to do everyone of them.

My jaw just hit the floor.

Chris, normal kids do not do this. It's not just "curiosity". Children who deliberately set fires, especially *INSIDE THEIR OWN HOME*, are doing some serious, serious acting out and often prove to be severly troubled by some kind of abuse.

You don't have to take my word for it. Get in touch with a child psychologist and learn about this.

This strikes me as a severely neglected child who is so ignored that he/she will set the house on fire to try to get some attention from Mommy.

Sure you don't want to look into going home? Chris, if your kids are setting the house on fire while Mommy is consumed with playing WoW with her boyfriends, you have a major problem. Please get some real pro help for this stateside. I agree that Child Protective Services should be called immediately. Tell them you are USAF overseas and need help with this right away.

Chris you are getting good advice.


I think you need to consider NO gaming... FBing to men... email/ texting to men... as a MINIMUM.

FBing... texting... IMing etc to be limited in any event .... not these long hours she is "gaming" flirting with OM's.

Chris the anger will go... her raging will stop ... mine did after about a week. But what then? please think about the good advice you are getting here.

Do not ask or expect so little... because then its what you will get and you'll be back here in 12 months .... or divorced or perhaps worse ... in a M where you are in absolute misery.

No not everything you may wish will come right away.. you will BOTH have to work hard on your M. Part of that will be to show her there is a path to happiness with you... and yes you will need to sound like a broken record as you were previously advised in the meantime that you will do all in your power for a happy m ...

Chris you also need to consider YOUR behaviour here as well. Think about what you say to your wife,,, how you say it .... do you 'lecture' constantly and not talk or discuss???

I suspect that both of you have for some time been guilty of love busters. I suspect you both do not communicate well between you.
You may need to both go see someone like the good Doc here and learn this skill.

You want a wife not another child... she wants a husband not another parent.

Don't get discouraged Chris you are doing ok ... exposure is one of the hardest things to do... if she was NOT angry and spiting fire and threatening this and that ... then you didn't do it right... sounds strange doesn't it?? but as she is so angry means you hit the right targets.

In the meantime ...Remember ... mind on the mission,,, thoughts on the task... when you are off duty and can contact/ email etc,, thoughts back on the M and your wife & kids as required.

God bless and keep safe!!

I know my kids are acting out. Ever since my wife's addiction started that's when the acting out started. The issue now is that it's been going on so long that my wife thinks it's their normal behavior. This is the reason she doesn't see it negatively or give it any second thought. If I have grounds to fight her on neglect I will, but I need someone confident and knowledgeable in the matter to inform me of this before hand. As for going home, I would love to. My kids need me. Mommy is playing games instead of spending time with them. You know, she may not want to do it, BUT I DO. I would give anything to be there and have the choice of kids or video games. Because my kids would win every time. I gave up video games for my kids a long time ago. When I come home from work I don't touch the video games, the computer, nothing. I'm 100% on my kids and wife until they go to bed, then I'm 100% on my wife. WHEN AND ONLY WHEN she wants to do something other than spend time with me, I get on the computer or do something else.

Regarding trying to let her keep the game but "play less",

First of all, to prevent another affair, she will have to give up online gaming. They are breeding grounds for affairs, nevermind that she has extremely poor boundaries & a history of problems in that area.

Secondly, and more importantly, she has proven that the safety and welfare of her kids fall to the wayside when she is playing. For that reason alone, I would make it clear that you never want WoW in your household again.

I agree. I never wanted her to play in the first place remember? But I gave in because I didn't want to deal with the "I'm playing whether you like it or not" drama while I'm overseas. It's just more stress I didn't want to deal with. So I trusted she wouldn't act stupid, but she did. Hindsight is a bi**h.

For someone who wants nothing to do with me she sure can't seem to leave me alone. Constantly posting on my wall, replying to my posts, etc. Hard for me to believe she "doesn't care anymore" or "wants me to die."

Chris,

My now XH is a recovering alcoholic - he works incredibly hard to maintain is sobriety and he is a completely different person than when he was drinking. The entire time we were married, his alcoholism raged. During that time, is when he had the A that ended our marriage after 3 years of my trying to save it. During the 3 years of my trying to save our marriage despite his leaving twice to live with OW in another country, the thing he constantly threw up in my face - especially if he was drunk, was how I was "trying to control him." This is part of the WS script and, more importantly, part of an addicts script. Your wife is addicted to WoW and her raging about how you are trying to control her is because you are threatening her "fix". Just let her rage on and try to avoid engaging with her.

I found the best thing I could do was to let my XH rage on and on and just sit there. In fact, one time, he came home drunk and woke me up to rage at me. I told him I would gladly listen, but he had to turn the lights out because I had been asleep and the light was hurting my eyes. He agreed, turned the lights out and kept ranting at me. As for me? The lights were out, he couldn't see me, so I closed my eyes and went right back to sleep! LOL! My point? Don't engage with her. Simply tell her you are doing what you are doing to save the marriage and ensure your children are being properly cared for (btw, I agree with Mulan, normal curious kids like mine, do not set things on fire - that's the sign of a child screaming for attention) - become a broken record....but don't engage. That's what they want.

I agree. The only thing she does I try to control is her WoW playing and her relations with other men.

How do I avoid engagement but at the same time not ignore her? Which will undoubtedly piss her off more.

Although if she holds true to her last comment I won't have to try very hard.

Non-engagement is probably the best approach here, but if someone told me that, I would have pointed out that my trust needs to be earned, not demanded.

You simply change the subject. Or don't respond at all.

I'm not quite catching the context or target of this. The only person demanding trust is her, but she's also the only person who is hiding something.