Thank you Melody! Many congratulations on how your son turned out. It is such a wonderful thing, as a mom (or dad) to enjoy your kids' successes!!


I quite agree with this. I didn't suggest it for Dr. D because my sense of his wife from what he has written here and the small likelihood (from my guesstimate about her) of getting her to be mutually enthusiastic about them... and also because he is still struggling to manage his anger. Getting in a kid's face with some fierceness is one thing, but losing control of yourself while whupping them is another.

This was an effective route I found for my kids that didn't involve the whuppings. They had their share of those too...lol... but when I made the decision to primarily transition to other methods as they got older what I described in my post is what worked for me.

AMEN!!! I've applied many things I learned at MB to relationships with my kids as well. Very helpful.

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My wife's response to the revised text that Melody had above:

"I think that sounds like a very challenging conversation and I am not confident in our communication skills for it to be successful. Thus would be a good conversation to have with a family therapist.
I do have a phone appt set to get the boys enrolled with a personal counselor to help them with the coming divorce."

Great, my wife got a book from the Library to read tot he boys at bed time. It's Judy Bloom's "It's not the End of the World". Of course, it's a kids book about parents separating and divorcing.

I would not agree with this at all. What do they need to go to "counseling" for? The only one who needs a counselor is your wife. Your boys are fine. Taking kids to a "counselor" gives them the impression there is something wrong with them. Kids will naturally be unhappy and upset when their parents have an affair and talk about divorce. That is normal, not something they need to go to "counseling" for. Don't agree to this. The last thing you need to do is go to a counselor with her because most counselors are not pro-marriage and will just give validation to pro-divorce schemes. They are destructive to marriages.

Isn't it interesting that she would rather take them to "counseling" than stop doing things that upset them....

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Got it. My issue was I didn't realize that listening to past episodes cost money.

In your case, absolutely worth it.

I see your point.

I saw an attorney last night for a consult (yes, my third - the first was disorganized and inspired little confidence; the second was great, but she's retiring next month; so was referred by the second to a third). This attorney had some really good advice and some not-so-good advice. She counseled me to insulate the boys from talk about my wife's affair and to stick with the "mom wants a divorce but we will still be your parents and still love you" routine. She also explained that while courts frown upon one spouse making things so difficult in a divorce proceeding that it ends up costing the divorcing spouse more, that I don't have an obligation now to provide bank records, mortgage info, tax returns, etc., since nothing has been filed, yet. A little late for that advice as I've already provided the mortgage and tax docs.

The good thing is that she's willing to work with me on an ad hoc basis with a substantially smaller retainer or by the hour to resolve this via mediation if my wife and I ultimately end up there.

I'm trying to Plan A my wife, specifically, by engaging her in conversation about her admissions process for a master's in counseling, her transition to different medication for add, about her mom's current trip and she's putting up a wall. Very short responses leaving no room for follow-up. Yet, when I talk about the boys, she's open there. Interestingly, she started making the boys school lunches this week (something I have been regularly doing) and the last two days she's made lunches for me, i.e., prepared a sandwich. Not a sign of anything, just an odd thing, though she's prepared breakfast sandwiches since school started and made those for me, too.

A cousin of mine from back east has temporarily moved out here to Oregon and gotten in touch with my wife and it seems they're planning a hike. While my wife has mentioned the contact and that the day they're planning the hike I have off from work, initially, I was surprised that she was even considering that we'd do a family hike. So, I'll go and hopefully we can have a great day hiking together as a family with my cousin. Other than that...I need to plan a family activity just for the four of us...maybe a quick ride out to the coast this weekend for a few hours.

I need some other Plan A ideas.

I agree. That it costs money was not a complaint.

You could reply with something like:

"Thank you for being willing to consider discussing the boy's behavior in the future.

Until we are able to arrange a more complete discussion, I was thinking about requiring the boys to be responsible for [chore 1, chore 2] each week in order to earn their phone for the following week. If they do not do the chore, they would not have their phone for the following week. I hope this will engage them in doing the chores we need and reduce their arguing over it. Does this action sound OK to you?

Also, I wanted to have a better response ready for disrespect next time it occurs to me. Instead of trying to argue with them, I'd like to try taking privileges away so there is no point in my having an escalating argument. The sequence of privilege loss I was thinking of was [a], and [c]. I will back you up for these same consequences if they disrespect you. Does that sound OK to you? Are these consequences OK or would you prefer other consequences?

I feel that having a preset sequence of consequences will help me set boundaries with them in a more productive way. I want very much to be able to respond to them firmly, but in love and avoid the escalations of the past. Is it OK with you if we give this a try after school today? If so, would you like to be there as we lay this out, or do you prefer I do it alone?"

Dr. D: When you need to enforce one of these boundaries, [b]set down the law and WALK AWAY like you own the place, expecting it to be done. DO NOT stay around to argue about it. If the boys chase after you, calmly let them know that if they have one more sentence they will lose [b]. If they persist, DO take [b] away. Use some reality discipline - let their choices make their consequences. Never reason or argue with a disrespectful kid. You don't need to have anger because YOU own the upper hand and control of [a], [b] and [c].

I would agree with the latter, but the former is not correct. Dr Harley is a clinical psychologist and he strongly advocates honesty with children. To cover it up and give false explanations, teaches children to be dishonest. It also teaches them that marriage is disposable on a mere whim.


Gotcha. I am glad you are getting this legal advice.


Do you mean the attorney would resolve via mediation?

One watch out with attorneys is that their objective is to get you divorced in the easiest possible manner. Your objective is to stay married while you protect yourself legally through conflict. As such, you need to be real careful about some of the advice you received. Mediation is not good for you because it typically causes more conflict. It doesn't take into account the foggy mindset of the wayward spouse. Other bad advice is to lie to your kids about the cause of the divorce. That is not healthy for your kids, which i know you know.

Dr. Detroit, my post accidentally had bold in it. The text editor thought my option (b) in the list was the signal to bold because I was using brackets instead of parenthesis. .

I meant to say: ".......The sequence of privilege loss I was thinking of was (a), (b), and (c). I will ........"

Caught a text from the OM to my wife:

" I'm sorry to hear your energy is low. I know what that is like. Hope you get better to your normal energy level and weight. I was surprised to receive your text but a little confused. I didn't send you a text about my evening. It's been hard but I've been mr. Ironclad on the no communication front. I've experienced No hilarity, no memorable laughs recently. Can you send the text back to me? Curious to see if someone sent something in my behalf. Leaving early Saturday for Taiwan. Hope you have a good November!"

Didn't see what was sent to him to prompt that text to my wife.

My wife responded to him - "i didn't send you a text, i dont have your number any more"

Keep watching and see if he responds.

Like she doesn't know his number by heart.

Is she suspecting you read her texts?

I think they are testing him to see if he is reading their texts.

So if DrD would contact OMW about this texts, he'd be busted.

Not making excuses for her...she did delete his contact info from her phone, though likely not from her sync'd google account (probably doesn't even know it's there). I did let the OMWs wife know that there was a text from the OM to my wife, but didn't share the content. I'm not trusting her very much not to tell the OM that I see his texts and the content.