I don't know what to do with my marriage.

Again, I'm so happy you're already set for counseling.

The only way to find out is to talk about it. It's a shame that you've gone this long without talking about it, and it prolly ain't going to be pretty, but it could work out, really.

The whole "could be someone out there..." thing is dangerous.

Dav--
Odds are--whoever you married would exploit your avoidance of conflict to get their way. If you throw this wife out--the next three would probably do the same thing. Even your parents are doing it to you.

I know its not a weakness. You're probably a very nice guy, who just wants peace in his private life. But, ditching your wife isn't your solution--unless you stay single and largely celibate. Wimmins is crafty. (And you have trained her.)

You just have to adopt a bit of a change. Set your groundrules. Be consistant. My dad used to do this: He'd warn my mother to stop it. (Bitching, arguing...) ONE MORE WORD, and he would turn silently, leave the house and come back hours later. She was always so glad he came back, she discontinued her diatribe.

Too many things to reply too, but I'm tryin. Your not being long winded either, I'm reading everything everyone is saying.

She is not lazy. She probably doesn't take enough breaks to just sit around. Even after the kids go to bed, she is usually doing stuff she couldn't do while they were awake. There are a couple of shows she likes, but she will record them and watch them after they go to bed. She is either involved with what the kids are playing with, working on some type of project, cleaning up after messes (like soz said) or something. But I believe she leaves things for me, like the floors or dishes, etc. just because she feels that I should make some type of contribution. Even though she could probably do some of them with no problem during the day, she wants to make sure I put in my share. Hey, I don't mind, just she shouldn't act like I'm not doing anything.

I'm starting to get ideas of how some of this has come about. When the kids were young, I didn't know much about babies. I guess they kinda scared me, I don't know, I can't explain it. But I didn't want her to think I wasn't "doing my part". I would do what she asked if she needed a break. I would get up at night, we had sort of a rotation thing going. But I was more like, your the mother and you know what's best, so I'll let you handle the baby thing and if you need help, I'm more than willing. But I'll take care of everything else, the house, meals, whatever. I guess I thought of that as my contribution and she thought of it as disinterest in the kids. I hope this is coming out right. I wanted to help out and do my share, but I knew that she was better than me at taking care of the babies. So I would try and take care of everything else. I would help with the kids, but I felt I couldn't do it as well as her. I thought I was doing the right thing, but now she uses it against me. Arggg, I don't think I'm explaining this very well. I don't mean it to sound like I didn't help out with the babies and totally avoided them.

I'm am not overstating the work I do around the house. It is just understood that at some point each weekend I need to vacuum, sweep and mop. I clean the dishes, kitchen and table everyday. There are always dishes in the sink from their lunch when I get home. I clean those along with the dinner dishes. And, of course, I do all the "man" chores, like mow and take out the trash. This is kinda funny, but she goes so far as if she has to empty the trash during the day, she will leave the bag just outside the door to the garage. The trash cans are just 6 more steps away, inside the garage! This happens all the time, I don't get it, but I don't bring it up.

You can call me Dave.

I overexaggerated that she didn't have ANY friends. Although, believe me, I am trying to be honest and not exagerate. She has one friend in the area where we live from when she first started teaching. We don't see her a whole lot, but they have remained friend for a long time. She is unmarried and has no kids. I have desperately tried to get her to find more friends with common interests and kids. She takes the kids to gymnastics and dance and has met serveral nice mothers. She has done a few things with a few mothers, but she hasn't really stuck with it. The incident with my son almost drowning kinda stopped a lot of it. She was invited to a private swiming pool by a group of mothers. They were talking and she took her eye off my son for a second. That was all it took and another mother was pulling my son out of the water. He was unconscience (spelling sucks) but luckily he came to very quickly and everything was fine. Very scarry moment though. I don't think she has forgiven herself for that. I almost get the feeling that she is more mad that I might use that against more than anything.

Very good points from Sofia, I think, Davrukr. Not really much to add to that at the moment. I hope the counselling will quickly make some things a lot clearer - though it's probably good not to expect that it will make life easier in any way very soon - that'll take time.

(Oh, and sorry about the copying/pasting as a way of expressing assent - must have been spending too much time on the Politics board!

Dave ( ), the context of the drowning incident explains a LOT. That is super important. Unconscious and everything... how terrifying!!

I can really see how that would affect a lot of this. It sounds like one of those things that just happens, but is every mother's worst nightmare. She tried to "have fun", and look what happened. She tried to relax her vigilance just a bit, and look what happened.

I can see how that would reinforce her aversion to leaving her kids with anyone else/ rack up the guilt.

And what you said about babycare makes complete sense. That is very, very, very common. As I said earlier, my husband and I started down that path ourselves -- it IS easier for the mom to take care of the newborn, most of the time -- and I had to consciously call a halt to what my instincts were telling me, had to take a deep breath and walk away when that was the LAST thing I wanted to do.

So I can understand how that would just sort of happen and continue to an unacceptable level, especially when you throw your aversion to conflict in the mix.

You guys are gonna have some good talks. I am optimistic that you will figure something out.

Hello again,

My house is clean (uh, somewhat, considering as there is no kitchen ceiling - long story, I digress). Anyway, I see you're getting a lot of good advice.

Counseling is good, it's crucial. And, not to be too negative about things, but in the event that it doesn't work, and you head down the road to divorce, you can honestly say you tried everything. But until then, trying is imperative, even for people who think they "haven't done anything wrong". And I think that's a part of the issue - the feeling that I'm right, she's wrong; I'm right, he's wrong, but why are we at odds? It isn't that cut and dried. If it was, the way would be crystal clear - e. g. just change to whatever's right and move on. But it isn't that crystal clear because it isn't that one-sided. Going to an impartial third party helps to clear these kinds of things up. And (again, not to be so much the voice of doom here, sorry), if you can't have a good marriage, at least you will need to work towards having a good divorced relationship. You have 2 very young children who are counting on both of you. Too much friction and animosity on either side means that the kids are hurt, either by not seeing you, or not seeing your folks, or not having relationships outside of your wife and her family, etc. In a divorce, the spite hits the kids full in the face. So, if you're unable to make your marriage work, you'll still need to let some things go in order to make a divorce work. Otherwise, things aren't going to be significantly better in terms of seeing your children and doing what you wish with them. Think it's going to be an easy or fun thing explaining to a Family Court Judge why your preschool children were at a hunting camp?

Anyway, it's almost the holiday and you said in the past few years you spend T'day with your folks. Is that the case this year? If so, make the most of it. Have fun, be thankful, enjoy your time together. It won't fix everything by any means, but a positive experience there will be of help right now.

Well, we start counselling Monday. I set it up as soon as I could. I feel I am very open minded. I just hope she does the same. We tried counselling when our after our daughter was born, but I feel I wasn't very prepared and we didn't stick it out long enough. I feel I have to let everything out, but unless I write it down or something, it's hard to come up with everything on the spot. I don't think we covered a lot of the underlying problems, just things that were developed from the underlying problems. Luckily, both of us seem committed to go for however long it takes. But we both have to be willing to change. I am willing to change, but not at the cost of my dignity. I more than willing to swallow some pride if she is willing to make an effort too. But this has to be a two way street or at some point I think I have to consider other options.

So, what's the problem? I had to go to a specialist last week. Whenever I go to the doctor, I invariably forget something. So I wrote everything down that I wanted to ask him. Worked beautifully. You might want to ask your wife to do the same thing. That way, there is an even playing field.



If you go into counselling with the expectation that there is a good chance that it will fail, you have set up a self fulfilling prophecy. IMO, you ought to begin this process with the attitude that it is GOING to work, and that you will make it work together.

Another thing. I know it is difficult, but try not to get into blame and "garbage pailing". I think that the most productive way is to admit that you have a difficulty with communicating with one another, and you are going to learn together how to have a more satisfying marriage. Good Luck!

Dave, you've covered a whole lot here. You can go ahead and make a document out of what you said, copy and paste, or even just print the whole thread.

Your desire to be prepared is commendable. You make a good observation about underlying problems vs. things that developed from the underlying problems.

Re: swallowing pride, what I was saying before is that you may have to do it first. It's the pride game of chicken. Two people sitting there with arms crossed saying "I won't swallow my pride unless you swallow yours." That can go on for a while. If you do swallow your pride and she doesn't, well, what has been lost, really? But if you do make the first effort, and she follows suit, so much is to be gained, don't you think?

For T-day, we will have lunch at her parents and then go to my parents for a few hours. But bear in mind that she has been at her parents since last Thursday and won't come back until next Monday.

I know this shouldn't be the issue but let me clarify what our hunting camp consists of. We have two small shacks next to each other with bunk beds and small tables inside. Nothing special. There are no guns laying around, everyone keeps them in their vehicles. Most of the time there are only about 7 or 8 of us there. There are only 12 total that hunt there. There is a picnic table and a place for a fire. No running water or electricity. Beautiful countryside. Hunting is really kind of secondary. We go there more just to get together, like people going to a park to go camping. There is just someting about being in the outdoors. It doesn't have to be about "hunting". Again, guns are all put up, they are not left lying around. There isn't a lot of people there. The most dangerous thing is the fire, which the kids, for an hour or so, can be kept from. During the day, we BS, play dominoes, cook, read, work on things that need to be fixed, etc. Just sort of relax. Yes, there is alcohol involved, but not to an extreme. We don't get falling down drunk and act like fools, but we do enjoy beer. I wanted to bring them before noon. No one even starts drinking that early.

Anyway, I know this was beside the point, but just wanted to take the stigma off the "deer hunting camp".

I have made a list this time, and I will take more down from what we have discussed here. I probably should advise her to do the same, I want to cover everything, but I don't want her to feel I'm just blasting away at her.

That's a good idea. I think you can just say that last part. "FYI, I'm making a list to help me remember stuff; I want to cover everything. I don't want you to feel like I'm just bashing away at you, though. Maybe you can make your own list?"

Even if she doesn't make the list, it's nice of you to warn her ahead of time so she doesn't feel at a disadvantage.

I will keep ya'll posted. I appreciate all the replies and advice. I searched all over the interenet looking for information on marriage issues. I just happened to find this forum. I'm glad I did. Thanks.

Glad to have been of any help. Looking forward to your updates, and once more, good luck.

Whoa! I printed this thing out, it's like a book, lol.

My parents both felt that way. When I was born, they quit the bowling league, ended their squaredancing lessons, and stopped inviting friends over or going out themselves. We kids were their whole world. Also, we lived out in the country, there was nowhere we could walk to, not even a friend's house. By the time I was 10 or so, I was so sick of the same five people I could have cried.

A larger point -- I didn't learn how to get along with strangers very well. I met others at school, of course, but it was regulated and well-bound by rules. It took a long time, and a lot of painful mistakes, to learn to be a social adult. I'm still not sure I'm getting it right most of the time...

I just stumbled upon this post and will not bother to read the responses therefore this may just be a repeat of what has been said before. As for taking the children to a deer hunting club, I agree with you wife. Concerning the rest of your lament I would say and mind you that is just based upon what you written that you have been your own worst enemy. It would appear inorder to keep the peace you set the tone for your wife's actions and how she views your place in the marriage. Now after a number of years you decided to change the ground rules.

That's a pretty dandy summing-up, au. I think that four pages of discussion has said about that, but not nearly so pithily.

<mutters> I think its a rather crude/cruel summary ... puts all the responsibility for the problems they're having on him (kinda like she does). As if in ending up with her current behaviour she's been a powerless victim of whatever bad choices one can say he made. Dont think thats fair.

Especially if you're the kind of guy like Dave seems to be, on this superficial impression, whose instinctual reaction is to seek out first what he did wrong and how to accomodate to her wishes / reproaches, its pretty good if someone tells you that hey, man - its not all your fault - and it's ok to come out and say that, too. If you take it easy and dont expect the other to instantly embrace your new-found voice, that is, and as long as you dont let it get in the way of finding mutually acceptable solutions. (But then, you gotta first find the ability to openly express what is (in)acceptable for you before you can go there).

Anyway, I'm sure you dont need me to plead your case, Dave <grins> - you seem to be doing fine, for this first step, and you seem to already know about those caveats up there, too. ;-)

Hmm, I didn't see the same value judgement, I guess. Dave IS trying to change the ground rules, no? And I think we all agree that the ground rules need to be changed, and that Dave's wife has a role in what doesn't work about them.

Not all Dave's fault, not all his wife's fault. Just happened, and now things need to change.