That is not strategic at all. Don't drag it out. Don't enable her, but don't aggravate her for no reason. You want to stick to your Plan A because you have a better opportunity now to turn this around than you did last week. I suspect the affair is really on the ropes now.

Fight against the affair, fight for your marriage. Don't fight your wife, you want to spend the future with her.

Perfectly said!

Well, f@#k this stupid goddamned night.

10 year is throwing a fit when I come home from work. I get him calmed down, we all have dinner, and we're doing dishes, doing homework and getting ready and my 10 year old is bored. So, once again, the kid decides his boredom is reason enough to start banging things together, hassling his brother, etc. I let it go for a few minutes and after changing, some down to get him. Ask him nicely 6 times to come upstairs with me to take a break and reset...nope, just flat out refuses, starts running around the house, won't listen, etc.

So he goes upstairs with his mom and starts blasting music, I walk up and turn it down, he runs out of the bedroom. I go back downstairs, he goes back up and starts blasting music, again. I go back up to shut the door and he slams the door in my face....meanwhile, his mom is just sitting on his bedroom floor, doing nothing.

I lay into him choosing to be wreck an otherwise good evening where we were going to play games and for what...because he wasn't getting his way about a musical instructive at school (what he was fussing at him mom about when I came home). Turn toward my room and see he's completely stripped my bed. I go back to his room and tell him to come help me remake the bed and he refuses saying that I threw away his paper bubble (craft thing) - which I had. All I see is his mom, still sitting on the floor doing nothing, shaking her head and mumbling to herself. So I just turn and walk away saying what a joke this is....no help from her, no ideas, only judgment.

Im in my room remaking my bed and talking about her and her affair with the OM and saying that maybe the OM will be better for all of them...

This f@#king night. Im tired of my damned wife cheating on me. Im tired of my 10 year old throwing damned tantrums like a 2 year that cannot talk. Im tired of all of ths damned s@#t thats happening right now.

Thank you, but I f@#ked it all up tonight losing my patience with my 10 year old, going off about my wife and her OM. Be kind to her...what a joke. Im a broken, angry person that doesn't have the capacity to be good or to be caring.

I am so sick of this nonsense.

F@#ked it all up tonight as I showed my wife, again, that I haven't changed one bit, that I am completely driven by my emotions and unable to control myself. What the f@#k is wrong with me?

It’s a plan of action. I know it must feel like you’re doing a lot but obviously you have to take your actions consistently over time for them to change your thinking. part of your plan is accountability when you fail. So you came here, adjust your plan, then apologize to your wife and kids. I don’t know what got into your DS but an AO will only make it worse. I used to take my kids for a walk around the block when they acted up until I could trust myself not to AO at home.

Has the way you handle your 10-y-old always bothered her? Read in your introduction that this wasn't the first time. Seems to me if you handle that right, it shows you can change.

Now she had an easy job watching you struggle and all she had to do was wait until you detonated.

Remember, she wants you to fight her so she has a reason to divorce you. It takes 2 to fight, don't be one of them.

How do you discipline your son? It sounds like there is no adult in the house to teach him how to behave.. Are you supposed to allow your son to act like a wild animal?

One of the biggest issues I see with you is that you don't have control of your anger yet. Let's talk about how you can get on top of that.

and your son is mirroring your behaviour, That is why your wife did nothing. She wanted you to know how it feels. Talk to her.

Not always, but I'm inconsistent. Some times I'll be incredibly patient, sympathetic, and calm, well most times I am until I am not like when the bad or irritating behavior doesn't stop even after repeated requests.

It used to be quick to anger or frustration and yelling. Nowadays, there's very little anger or frustration and I typically don't raise my voice. I get trapped in a power struggle, as though I have to successfully regain control of my sons behavior and of I can't then I have failed as a parent and feel powerless.

For example, when he is asked to help with the dishes or garbage or do his laundry and he simply refuses. I'll ask him several times nicely and calmly to do the chore. And then he starts starts the whining and insisting that he will not and doesn't have to. So I explain how we're each responsible for contributing to keeping up the household and he keeps up the whining and starts raising his voice or making irritating sounds over me asking, politely, to help out. So then I'll calmly ask him to go upstairs to take a break for a few minutes and he refuses. I offer to walk him or carry him or for himself to get upstairs and he simply says no. And when I reach to help him he will start screaming and running the house yelling no. So I pick him up and carry him upstairs and now he starts yelling at me that he hates me and that I am mean and now he wants to leave his room and the house so he tried to leave his room. Now I'm trying to keep him in his room so he doesn't leave the house because that scares me. And now we have a full out screaming match as he's screaming at me and I'm trying to speak over him before I finally just tell him to shut up and sit down.

And then I know that I've f@#ked up.

Sitting here now typing this I am getting all worked up that even a mistype on this phones keyboard is angering me.

In the past I was always quick to frustration, irritation, and anger as well as yelling. Now it seems it just takes me longer to get there but I inevitably do.

With consequences. Always. That's all I know to disincentivize the behavior.

My wife commented just the other evening that I am too quick to consequences and that consequences dont have to happen so quickly.

I don't know what to do. The kid just absolutely refuses to do a chore or whines and whines and f#$king whines for something stupid and gets angry when he doesn't get it. My only known way to deal with that is to get louder than him and get him to his room to make it stop and, of course, that never works. And then I have to sit back and watch his smug mother with her disapproving looks and comments get irritated with me. Like I said out loud last night to her and kids, must be so easy to sit there and disapprovingly shake your head and offer zero help yet act so disapproving.

I'm so worked up just typing this out.

Apparently not.

I don't know what I am doing.

On the one hand I just want to call or text my wife screaming at her for she's done and is doing. Just scream and punish. But on the other hand, I know that's not effective or productive.

In the moment of stress,despite all that I have learned from my IC, I still don't choose to slow things down. In my mind, when in that moment that my youngest is throwing a fit I feel compelled to exert power, to show that I am in charge and to make it clear his behavior sucks and isn't appropriate.But I'm too dumb to know this doesn't work. I'm too dumb to just not walk away, take a break, let him have his fit or whatever else I'm supposed to guess at doing while his mom just stands back and watches just so she can say, see, you have not changed at all. F#@k her.

Talk to her how? She doesn't want me talking to her. She could care less about me. I just need to realize this. She doesn't care about me. She doesn't care that I'm struggling with our youngest. She doesn't care to take a drive with me to give me suggestions. She only cares about divorcing me and I need to wise up to this fact.

But you are right, my youngest boys behavior is learned and he learned it from me. And apparently I'm not capable or willing to change.

Just feel compelled right now to tell my wife to go f#@k herself, to get out of my house, to find another person to latch on to. Maybe she is right and she's my problem and that without her I wouldn't be angry and pessimistic and etc.

What is your wife's solution to his horrible behavior? How does she suggest training him to behave and respect authority? I am of the belief that when parents don't control their children, the police eventually WILL.

I understand how frustrated and unsupported you feel. Just hang in there and I promise this will get better. One of your worst enemies is your feelings, and they are coming out raging right now. Don't let them add to the damage, my friend!!

Big breath in.... Long breath out.

Wash

Rinse

Repeat

You got it! That is exactly what you should do when you start feeling angry; FOCUS ON RELAXATION.