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

Osso- I was the one who said that. Of course, there is always the possibility that the marriage won't work. I was referring to the motivation of Davrukr. Is he hell bent on saving the marriage, or is he already halfway out the door? I think that he really needs to be clear about this in his own mind before he starts counselling. I think that the probability of success or failure of the counselling hinges on his answer.

I am coming out of my own personal experience. When I was married to my first husband, I wanted out of the marriage. I had enough feeling for him though, that I went to counselling with him. I felt that if a skilled professional got a hold of him, it might help him deal with his many problems. But I never really had any expectation of staying with him.

Shew!...Lots of good advice here, and I agree with most of it.

I really feel that Mom needs to get more of a life than the kids only, as one of the ladies put it, having a day without the kids is important to her sanity. I agree, as much as I gryped about my husband in another forum, I can give him that much..he will tend to the boys. And I can recover my sanity in the meantime.

Dave, I was a stay-at-home mom for years, and in that time I become the "Super Mom and Super Wife", and it did me little good. I did it to make everyone happy, to make me look like the most wonderful person in the world. You know what? I was miserable. All I wanted was praise from my husband, to impress him with all that I could conquer in a days time, to hear him brag about me, to talk about me like I was THE "Domestic Goddess", It was null and void. It was apparent that I needed a life, I started to resent him and therefore become somewhat minded like your wife.

So....lets just say, that I learned the hard way.

What she's seeking is not aproval from her kids, but words of praise from you..about what a wonderful job that she does. Putting her in high regards to make her feel equal to you.

And I know that most of you won't agree with me, BUT......

I don't see nothing wrong with deer camp, or guns. For starters, I believe that it goes into how a person was raised. If you have never been around guns, or have had a terrible experience with one, than I see your point of view. I was raised up with guns in the house, we hunted, my father had one on his hip, he was a Dectective. Gun safety was an issue that was taught to us from the start, and is one that is being taught to my boys now.

I still say that I see nothing wrong with Dave taking the children to camp, he's not putting them on a stand with a gun....he's not going to leave them alone by the fire..he just wants to take them and show them off to his friends. Nothing wrong with that.

Dave, I wish you the best of luck and hope that things work out for the best....

My dad was a Detective, too, and met my boyfriends at the door with a gun on his hip. Guns were galore around the house. My area is a hunting mentality locale, and every Thanksgiving I'm reminded of the father, who accidentally shot his son and orphaned his grandchildren.

These type accidents happen so much, it would be a great alibi for murder. "Oh. They were hunting. Case closed."

I do think the deer club is a periphery issue, but I can understand the Mrs. D's fear.

I can't believe I read the whole thing! It was interesting, though, and I'm really impressed by all the insightful comments made.

I myself have a different take on the sitation, Dave, and I apologize in advance if I'm way off-base, OK?

Could it be that you've started to be interested in another woman, but since you're not the kind of man who'd leave his wife and kids, you're playing it so your wife will be forced to act and then she'll be the one who asks for a separation or divorce you'd really like to have?

How was T-Day, Dave?
Hope things went well.

On the "peripheric" issue ... <apologetic smile>
(just checking in for a sec - just came back from greece tonight & hafta get some sleep next!)

I wouldnae touch - let alone fire - a gun in my life - that i can imagine. (Perhaps when someone I dearly loved was in acute threat, don't know - otherwise, no.)

But man, I wished I had something like this what Dave describes in my life. I'm in a world where people make two-hour appointments for Thursday-evening the week after next - or alternatively, when something is up, "make time free" for you immediately, "to talk". Few occasions for just hanging out and shooting some bull - not since high school (or at least university) days, anyway. Let alone for a whole day, or days on end. (Not to mention "the outdoors" being err, quite different here in Holland - not a natural forest left here!)

So - thats just to say that, Dave - even though you'll find me over in Politics defending the strictest gun control laws possible - I can easily see how that whole thing can be really important to you, and would be a really important way to bond with your kids as well (perhaps when they're older, and if they'd want to, of course). And, of course, that I'm pretty damn jealous! ;-)

Welcome back, nimh!

Gotta agree that the whole hanging out and bonding thing is nice. My husband's family has a cabin in Colorado, really primitive, no running water, outhouse, a stream nearby if you wanna wash which is shriekingly cold. It's great.

(Dave, I have been periodically having these little "something's happening on Monday... what is it?" twinges and after I check off the stuff that I have planned realize I'm thinking of your counseling session. Hope it goes well.)

Do you usually go out together with children and wife? Do you have sometimes a family picnic?
May be then she would see that you can take care about children and let you go with them ???

No, there is no other woman. I sometimes wish that we would get a divorce so I could search for woman that respected me more than she does. One that I have more in common with. I sometimes think that no matter who I found, there would probably be the same problems. But then sometimes I think that it shouldn't be this hard. However, it would probably take something like cheating to get my wife to divorce me. But I would not do that.

And I respect you for that Davrukr ;-)

I actually went nice, for the time it lasted. We didn't get to my parents until 3:00 pm. They stayed until 6:00 pm. She wanted to get back to her parents while there was still a little light left and because the kids needed to get a bath and go to bed. They are normally in bed by 7:30-8:00. My parents were fine. They didn't act like a thing was wrong. There was enough family there, though, that it was not all one on one interaction with my parents. That probably helped. Her parents were fine. I'm sure she tells her mom everything, who tells her dad. But they do as good a job as mine about acting like nothing is up and everything is fine. So under the circumstances, it went well.

Yes, we have had pinics at playgrounds and the like. We do things together quite often.

I hope everyone here had a happy Thanksgiving also.

I have to run. Our appointment is in about 30 min. I'll let you know how it goes later today.

Good luck Dave.

Marital Counselling Session #1:

Well, you can't expect much good to come out of the first 1 hour session and this was no exception. Most of the time was spent explaining our problems and each of trying to set the record straight after the other exaggerated. Basically, the first session boiled down to this: 1) I need to quit being such a nice guy, always trying to avoid conflict, letting things go just to get along, i.e., I need to make it a point to do things by myself with the kids, I need to make a concerted effort to get the kids to my parents more often regardless of how my wife feels about it. 2) My wife needs to quit having these unrealistic expectations of what a father and husband should be. In other words, she needs to accept me for who I am.

The counsellor didn't really go into what should be done to fix it. At the end of the session she basically looked at me and said I needed to stop always avoiding conflict and have more communication about what is bothering me. And she told my wife that she needs to have more realistic expectations of what a father and husband should be.

I have to say, I knew exactly how it was going to go and what would be said. I was kinda disappointed, but I understand it will take many sessions to get it all out.

Here are some of the things that were said by my wife. As I thought, the biggest reason for not wanting me to take the kids alone is because she doesn't think I'm responsible. And as I thought, she brought up that I haven't "shown enough interest when the kids where young" and "watch TV and don't pay attention to the kids". These are, of course, exaggerations. I paid plenty of attention when the kids were young, I just didn't do or act exactly like she thought I should have or how she would have. I don't sit on the couch all day, watch TV and ignore the kids. When my team is playing football on Saturday, I will sit down and watch it. But that's only a few hours on a Saturday for a few weekends out of the year. Other than that, I don't watch TV all that much and I play with the kids a lot. But again, I'm not doing what she thinks I should be doing so everything gets exaggerated. She says I play computer games, but I wait until the kids go to bed. Then she says, "And that really helps for us to work on our relationship". But she records her favorit shows and watches them after the kids go to bed. Later in the conversation, she even brings up that she waits until the kids go to bed for her to have time to do the things she likes like watch TV. Sort of a double standard.

All the while, she never really addresses the counsellors question about why she thinks I'm not responsible enough to take the kids alone somewhere. I told the counsellor the reason why she doesn't answer the question directly is because I haven't done anything to demonstrate that I'm not responsible. My wife just doesn't think I'm deserving. She thinks that because I don't think and act like she does that I don't deserve the right to be an equal parent. Not a responsibility issue at all. She basically confirmed this because she said that I think that just because I bring home a paycheck that that makes me a father. Again, extreme exaggeration. We got off the subject for some reason and never got back. I guess we will address it more later.

The counsellor said the same as what many of you have said about possibly starting out small like taking the kids alone to the playground and working up so that my wife can see that nothing happens and that I'm responsible. I'm still trying to be open minded and I will continue, but I still don't like the thought of having to "prove" myself to my wife. Or the thought of having to get, so called, "permission". In addition, what do I have to prove? Accidents happen. The kids have had many accidents in her care. I understand that kids are going to have accidents. You just try and do your best. But what if something happens when I take them? Does that give her more reason not to let me take them alone? Is that fair?

Hope all this makes sense. I don't feel like proof reading. Forgive me.

It all makes sense to me Dave. Keep on truckin and maybe your wife will see what she's doing if being told by someone else.

Part of my gripe is, regardless of what I did or didn't do when the kids were born, (And I stress that I don't think I was any different than any other normal father) I have improved. I'm still not up to her standards, but I know I have given up a lot and have changed. But she still likes to dwell on things in the past. If she can't get over that, I don't know how this will work.

I think it's still too soon in your counselling to tell, but it sounds to me like you're trying very hard. Maybe your wife will get something out of it and learn that people are just not perfect.

Sounds like things went pretty well Dave. Just keep one thing in mind - the counseling isn't a competition between you and her. The end-goal is to reach concensus.

Not that I think you are competing but that's how a lot of people seem to look at it. Don't fall prey to the trap!

That's how I felt, unfortunately. It seemed the whole first hour was to vent our frustrations and get the problems out. And when that happens, it does start feeling like a competition. Neither of us want to look bad. Hopefully things will change.