I have been trying at every opportunity lately - been nice and not said anything negative. But she just doesn't respond. She said nothing about the flowers, nothing about the food and stuff I send home with the girls, nothing.

It's hard to pet a porcupine sometimes.

Dang blast it - go back to page 90 for the conversation

I read the text exchange.
Do you want to continue this back and forth?
Or do you want to follow Dr. Harley's programs such as Plan A or Plan B?

This is not Plan A or Plan B

I realize that. I tried to have a conversation with her about things and she does nothing but call me names and accuse me of being at fault for everything. She can't even acknowledge that I'm admitting to being at fault for a lot of things. I was trying to open a dialogue but I guess she's not into listening or having a conversation. And no, I do not want to continue this kind of back-and-forth. It's always been like this with her.

So what should I have done?

Why is she dredging all this up again to throw in my face? Some of her long texts came after I stopped replying because I did not want to continue the negative line of the conversation. But she kept at it.

If you were in plan B, you would not have this direct contact with her;

if you were in plan A, you would not exchange words like this. For example, telling her that she argues like a 13 year old is very disrespectful and only causes love bank withdrawls

Unless I mislabeled it, those were her words, not mine.

I decided to tally the name-calling. This exchange contain the following from her:

oblivious
thick headed
angry 13 year old
opposite of whatever a �real man� is
selfish
not willing to take personal responsibility
manipulating
negative

I accused her of not being able to have an adult conversation, that's it. Yet I am still the bad guy.

There was nothing Plan A about the argument that you had. It was just another episode in a failed relationship.

That entire conversation had her on the defensive and didn't attract her into wanting back into a relationship at all. You spent a lot of time trying to explain how both of you were wrong. I highly doubt she wants to hear what she did wrong.

If she doesn't address her personality shortcomings as I have addressed mine, nothing will change. She will go through life expecting everyone to automatically satisfy her emotional needs while doing nothing to reciprocate.

I'm not perfect, obviously, but I am making an effort to address our issues. She prefers to simply replace me with someone else rather than face problems.

When she talks about how she communicated her unhappiness, keep in mind that she did it by doing things like sleeping in the other room, NOT by talking. She doesn't talk at all. When I do get her to talk, she ignores me when I tell her how she makes me feel. She just tells ME what I need to do to make her happy. She doesn't think she needs to change to meet my needs.

Blindsided, or should I say WilfullyBlind, you are really deceiving yourself to think you were anything but the worst jerk of the day. Of course she is not going to reconcile with you. If this is Plan A, I hate to see how you treated her when you were married.

Many, many lovebusters from your side to convince her that you will NEVER be the right partner for her:

#1: Why would you, the father of your children, not provide his address to the school to be an emergency contact or so he can pick them up? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!!!!!! If I were their mother that paranoia would be a deal breaker right there.

#2: You completely avoided responding to her request for what she needed (the affidavit for the birth certificate). Why would she want to partner with someone who'd rather fight with her than do what she needed him to do so YOUR CHILD could register for school. Proving yourself to be very stubbornly unhelpful.

#3: So detached from helping her provide for the kids - as if putting the kids in private school and paying for it is all on her.

#4: You are putting the entire burden of feeding the kids on her because you're entitled to only give her what your crappy job pays. As the father of the children, you need to DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO to put food on their table. Yet you talk so passively as if poor you, you can only give what you can. Work two jobs and live at Rescue Mission if you have to in order to provide for your kids. You are not entitled to spend $15,000 in rent and utilities for a comfortable living space but your kids are entitled to your financial support. You were being very "poor me" passive, leaving HER with ALL OF THE RESPONSIBILITY of providing for YOUR children.

WillfullyStubbornlyBlindNM, you need to take a better look at yourself.

Marriage Builders is not about addressing personality problems. It is also not about trying to find the right zinger of an debate point to cause a sudden epiphany in your spouse. Marriage Builders is about restoring romantic love in your marriage. You are never going to get there using these kind of tactics.

You are lying to yourself. You were accusing and attacking her for the entire conversation:

You said the following:

"You're going all in with this, aren't you?"
---TRANSLATE: You are a stubborn person who is over-reacting so she can win.

"When will you start thinking about your children instead of just yourself?"
----TRANSLATE: Says the man who didn't pay child support for years.

"You have no idea what you are doing."
----TRANSLATE: You really are stupid.

"Your perceptions are extremely skewed"
----TRANSLATE: You are too dumb or flawed to see reality.

"but as long as they make you feel better about everything you've done."
----TRANSLATE: You are very selfish (says the man who didn't pay child support).

"That's all on you. "
----TRANSLATE: I'm entitled to screw up all I want and you just have to put up with it.

"I wonder what you know about common core and what it will do to (5 yr old)."
----TRANSLATION: You are too stupid to make educational choices for the child you had to provide for all on your own. I know better.

"And regarding our marriage... I know a lot more about things now. I did not "wait until it was too late" because I was going on the information I had at the time."
----TRANSLATION: It is not my fault I was being a jerk because I didn't know better.

"Oh okay. That justifies everything."
----TRANSLATION: I am not listening to or acknowledging your pain or anything you just took the effort to put into that very long text that took a lot of effort. I just want to keep being a jerk.

"Why do you think you felt like we were acquaintances? You never wanted to know why?"
----TRANSLATION: So now it's all your fault. I was acting like a jerk and you should have wanted to know why even though I was not communicating well.

"Here's a hint: men have needs too, and not just sexual. "
----TRANSLATION: Let me educate you, vaguely, on how you were a bad wife.

"But you never cared about my needs "
-----DISRESPECTFUL JUDGEMENT: You don't know what she was thinking. She might have been too hurt by your behavior to want to.

"You were already in an emotional affair"
-----TRANSLATE: I'd rather blame you than listen to you.

"You should have been talking to me"
-----TRANSLATE: Let me educate you some more about how you should have behaved even though I won't acknowledge ANYTHING you are feeling.


"I didn't understand your communication. You also can't make demands of people and expect to get positive results. "
-----TRANSLATE: Since you didn't tell me the way I wanted to hear it I don't have to respond to your communication."

"I don't think you made the right decision, honestly. And not because I was angry or bitter or any of that. What you did was cruel. There is much to the big picture that I have figured out since"
------TRANSLATE: (Again, this follows a long text she must have put in an effort to type - and you completely ignored everything she described about her pain and experience.) It's still all about me. I have really figured out the big picture of how cruel you were. But I'm not angry and bitter; you're just cruel.

"It has to do with my family, particularly my mother. "
----TRANSLATE: It's still not my fault; now it's my mother's fault.


"But what you replied shows me that you still can't converse like an adult "
----TRANSLATE: While I am ignoring all the points of pain you are sharing me so I can blame you, and if that doesn't work, blame my mother, then I'll accuse YOU of not being the adult.

"You chose to end our marriage. Blame is a word you use a lot. I had every reason to be upset.
You. Do. Not. Talk. How many times did I ask you what was wrong? You stared and said nothing.
"You just need to $%&# me more and everything will be fine."
That was your solution to everything. "
-----TRANSLATE: Let me keep educating you on how little responsibility I take and how it's everyone else's fault.

"Actually I agree with you. The single biggest mistake I made was having us staying with my parents. The guy I was then was the result of the dynamic between my mother and I. "
-----TRANSLATE: You still can't respond to her pain. You are only thinking of your own locus. She has shared again, in a VERY long text, her pain. You offer her ZERO empathy to how she felt or struggled.

"How am I supposed to support them AND myself? Live in my truck?"
-----TRANSLATE: Well, how was she supposed to? Move her kids into the car?

"I cannot create money from thin air. "
------So why did you expect her to?

"You have this image of me that has been wrong "
------TRANSLATE: You are too stupid to know how you felt.

"You listen to other people and believe them while never believing a word I say. Like it has always been "
-------Translate: As I have been saying this entire exchange, it's still your fault.



There was literally not a SINGLE response you gave her that was anything other than being the jerk of the day. Do you still think it's her fault (not yours, oh no) for making you the bad guy?

She had every right to feel betrayed at finding those pictures. It doesn't matter why you saved them. You did. That's all that matters. Who cares if it was just 5 or 6 pictures. ONE picture would be one too many. A lot of women would see porn as a form of betrayal -- your wife's reaction was normal and quite tame. You betrayed her.

And you just brush her off with excuses.

Blindsided, as long as you reserve the right to be disrespectful like this, or argue that what you said was okay, you aren't following the plan that works. Because a HUGE, HUGE part of the Marriage Builders plan is learning to recognize and eliminate disrespectful judgments. If you leave that out, this plan won't work, and you might as well just stop talking to her.

If you leave an ingredient out of the recipe, the cake won't ever be any good.

You are making a mistake here that you MUST learn to recognize if you want to have any hope. You are arguing that she should feel different - a disrespectful judgment. You will prevent recovery of your marriage for as long as you do things like this.

If you want to recover your marriage, the way you need to respond is by apologizing for doing something that hurt your wife and promising without reservation to avoid ever doing it in the future.

Do you listen to the radio show at all?! Your not following any plan. This week was a good show for you. It was about BH's who get the gift of recovery but feel the need to punish their WW for hurting them. Eye for an Eye doesn't work in a marriage, sir. You need to follow a plan and stop bickering, Plan A or B. Not Plan Lovebuster.

I'm a teacher. I'm also not a fan of common core. However, your child will be fine in kindergarten and first grade. Really common core doesn't become much of an issue until middle school. Her not being in private school over the next few years will not have an impact on her long term educational wise

Yeesh. I got taken behind the woodshed, eh? That was painful, quite honestly, and it was also what I was looking for. Obviously what I have been doing is not working, so I needed feedback on a real-world scenario. Having re-read our text exchange, I can see everyone's point. I really don't know what happened, but that was very uncharacteristic of me these days. I think she struck an emotional nerve and the filters went off. Not an excuse... just an observation.

I plan to write an apology. It may do no good, but I need to.

In other news, I ran into my xW and daughters at WallyMart after work. That has never happened since we've been divorced. It was kinda awkward. I looked at my 5 yr old and she looked at me, and it took both of us a few seconds to realize who it was. She came over and gave me a hug, and my 2 yr old was in the cart and she screamed "daddy!" when she saw me. Had a nice little hug fest. My 5 yr old then asked if they could come with me, and I said no. She really wanted to come with me. I explained that I was sick and was going to go to bed (true - I missed work yesterday and should have stayed home today). She started sobbing. It upset me quite a bit so I kissed them goodbye and took off.

Did you interact with your wife at walmart?
How did that go?

Very heartbreaking. The break-up of a family is a tragedy.

How you respond to the tragedy will determine your future.

Not really. She got our 2 yr old out of the cart so she could come see me and let me be with them without rushing me.