Threatened with divorce once again- am I crazy?

You know how when you love someone you can pick up on their moods. You can sense when something is just not right - no matter how much they wear the happy face.

Mit - if you can't be happy .... you are really doing her no favors by staying with her. You both will be miserable.

You can make many sacrifices in life - but if the sacrifices you make kill your spirit - what have you gained?

I don't know about biochemical involvement in emotional eating but there is much to be said for your wife falling into the same emotional nurturing traps that she witnessed while growing up. If she's been surrounded by emotional eaters then it is highly likely that she will turn to food for nurture when she needs a 'fix'. There is, however, a strong genetic link to depression, so if her extended family has a lot of depression then it is possible that she is depressed as well.

I still recommend the book, it might help both of you. Maybe once you are back in the house you could manage to leave it on the coffee table. It will show her that you are trying to get some insight into why you prefer to put so much time into your outside activities. At the same time, she might pick it up and see something about herself in there as well.

I'm sorry you feel like you've been shot at with both barrels. I'm sure there are two sides to this story. Some of us have tried to show you what her side might be. If you are going to stay in this marriage it would be a good idea to pursue counselling on your own even if it's just from the standpoint of staying sane in an insane relationship.

Best of luck to you.

Hmm. Maybe, maybe not. There have been many times when I am pretty miserable, and I know my wife is happy- its usually after a big fight and she has gotten her way and I am attanding to her every need. She has a big house, nice car, and husband who sends her flowers during the day, comes home and takes her to a nice restatruant and spends the entire evening in romanitc conversation. During those weeks and months when I am completly devoted to her, she tells me she is completly happy, and I think I believe her. But for whatever reason, and maybe I'm just an asshole, I have allways needed something else to stimulate me every now and then- usually some sort of raw competition where I can let out some aggression. Without that, yes, my spirit takes a hit and I am restless, don't have anything to look forward to at the end of the day, and I'm not as confident, I don't have anything to talk or think about except work and my wife.

Because there seems to be no compromise possible, I DO think I am facing a choice between my happiness and hers, and I took a vow to make and keep her happy for the rest of her life.

Don't be to hard on Debra. As often as I disagree with her I do think she is doing her best to try and help.

Personally, I still think she's off base here and I'd recommend you use the advice she gave to a woman in another thread with a very similar issue.

Wow,

OK sorry to Debra, I doubt she is insane, just wrong on this one. I was frustrated with the way she jumped to conclusions about how I treat my wife.

That being said, awsome post, fishin

mit
I believe what your saying and the only thing left I can offer is a virtual (((hug))).

I hope things work out for you both.

KitKat's situation is not the same as Mit's situation.

Mit obsessively and addictively involves himself in activities that take time away from his wife. He neglects her most important emotional needs for attention, conversation, and companionship. He can't engage in his other activities in moderation, which is the source of contention between him and his wife. He has involved himself in online gambling for two years and by his own admission, he plays an average of 2 hours every night. Mit has no self control even when he knows his addiction to online gambling is causing his wife severe unhappiness.

In his defense, he says he can't sit still for 10 minutes and she knew that when she married him. But, all of his sitting activities and his ability to focus his attention on other things that interest him for LONG periods of time certainly belie his allegation. He also says he has ADD and therefore spending time with his wife is pure torture. Again, his ability to focus his attention on other things that interest him belies his allegation that he is unable to focus his attention on his wife.

In his recent posts, Mit has attempted to portray himself as a nurturing husband . . but all of his previous posts belie this picture he is trying to paint. The fact remains that his obsession with online gambling for two years has reached a crisis point and his wife refuses to put up with it anymore. His wife didn't marry him so she could be ignored five days out of every week.

Married people have to meet each other's most important emotional needs or the love will fade and the marriage will fail.

Kitkat's situation is different. Her situation is not about each of them meeting each other's most important emotional needs . . . unless you want to classify Kitkat's husband's obsession with cleaning house bright and early every Sunday morning and Mit's obsession with playing online poker for two hours every night as THEIR MOST IMPORTANT EMOTIONAL NEEDS.

Kitkat's husband verbally and emotionally abuses her because he wants her to get up early on Sunday mornings and clean house. (If I remember correctly from yet another post, he has even physically manhandled her by pulling the covers off and pulling her out of bed.)

I don't condone abuse in any relationship. ABUSE CANNOT BE TOLERATED under any circumstances.

If Mit considers his wife's demand that he give up poker and spend more time with her as ABUSIVE, I don't see it.

Mit complains that his wife is trying to control him, but I don't see that either. She gave him a choice: Me or poker, choose.

EVERYONE has a choice. But being presented with a choice is not abuse.

But, if Mit is being ABUSED and does not like the way his wife treats him (God FORBID -- she wants to spend meaningful time with him in order to nurture their marriage . . . how horrible), then he needs to tell her how he feels and establish boundaries that she's not allowed to cross.

Thanks Montana, of course they will one way or another, my wife and I have a lot of things going for us and will be just fine, together or seperatly, in the long run.

So would it be non-abusive if instead of telling her to get up and clean, he gave her a CHOICE of cleaning with him on Sunday morning or getting divorced? He has physically pulled the covers off his wife and you said that was physical abuse, my wife has physically pulled the computer out of my hands, is that physical abuse?

And I simply have no "obsession" with online gambeling. If you understood anything about hold'em poker, you would know that it is not like slots of blackjack, it is more like chess. That is why top players make a profit year in and year out. It is not an addiction, it is something I enjoy doing. Since I started playing 2 years ago, I have gone long periods without playing (one three month stint, one four month stint). I have offered to give it up completely and have done so for the last several days and have no desire or compulsion to play as I sit here today. So stop trying to paint me like an alcoholic, that is not the case. Nor is it acceptable to say that my previous posts have "belied my picture as a nurturing husband." I have told everyone the things I do for my wife, which I think are beyond what most would expect of a husband, and I have told everyone the things that I do that upset my wife. I have never asserted that these things make me a "nurturing husband", I have just asked the question.

Here is the post of the things I do for my wife, if anyone wants to read it again. On the other hand, I do play a few hours of online poker each night, which I have offered to curtail or eliminate altogether....

You simply have no idea what I do to "nurture my wife." I spend every weekend completely focused on us. At least once a week I cook her dinner. I love to cook. Every month we take a weekend trip to somewhere we haven't been together. I email her and call her about once every two hours while at work, just to see how her day is going. I have never missed a birthday or aniversery, and I send flowers to her work on a regular basis. We go to the theater or the ballet about once every two weeks, things that I am not particularly interested in but things she loves to do. Each month I send a check to her mother to help her out financially and her siblings have lived with us for long periods of time. About once a month I will buy her something shiney, just to show I was thinking about her. I take time of work even when I don't have it to meet her for lunch at least twice a week. I have hired people to help around the house becuase I don't want her to have to worry about that and work at the same time. And yes, I rub her feet dailey. Is that neglectful?

That is entirely YOUR opinion. You've managed to develop a fairly significant mental profile of a relationship involving two people that you've never personally seen and only have one persons limited input on. To do that however, you've stretched things extremely thin. You've managed to decide not only what his wife is thinking but presented those views as somewhat authorative even though you've never communicated with her in any form. It takes professional therapist hours of interviews to determine if a person has addictions yet you've maneged to figure out his from reading a few posts in this thread? Not likley.

Simply put, you've made a lot of assumptions about what you know about him, his wife and their relationship and have close to nothing to back them up.



Being handed ultimatums repeatedly can be just as abusive, if not more so, than petty name calling.

As you do in 90% of the relationship threads I've seen you participate in - you've decided the woman is right and the husband is wrong and there isn't anything he could possibly say to make you see things otherwise.

Thanks for phrasing that so graciously, fishin. I've been trying to say the same thing for a bit now, but it kept gettin' more than a bit too nasty.

Mit:

Perhaps the two of you aren't suited for each other and you both would be happier if you went your separate ways.

I think I have presented a fair picture of how your wife will portray you in divorce court when she seeks one-half of all your assets and a big chunk of maintenance (of standard of living) and rehabilitative spousal support every month for the next several years.

If you don't want a divorce, I highly suggest that you follow the good advice that Soz has given you in several of her posts.

I also suggest that you read the book recommended by J_B and that both you and your wife visit the marriage builder's website and study the articles.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/

Call your wife and go home. Best wishes.

Debra,

From one lawyer to another, there is no alimony or spousal suppourt for people married less than 10 (or 5? mute point, we have only been married for 3) years in my state. She is welcome and entitled to one half of all our assets, as community property, so there is nothing to fight about in a divorce.

My wife and I probably aren't suited for each other, but the kicker is, we love each other. But contrary to your deeply held beliefs, I am committed to the notion that compromise is possible and the only way to make a marriage work, even if that means some of our "needs" are not met.

Thanks for the post.

Fishin:

That's what divorce lawyers do . . . they use words to portray pictures for the court to envision . . . and as you can see, Mit gets quite defensive and reels out more rope wherein more reasonable inferences can be made. He even gets huffy when these things are pointed out to him. His wife's divorce attorney will LOVE that when he/she gets Mit on the stand. He can be provoked into shows of indignation. He might have gone to law school, but that doesn't necessarily give him the edge and prepare him to be a defendant in a divorce action.

Mit either has to commit to his marriage or face divorce court. I didn't place him in that position, but that's the position he is in. And if he goes into divorce court . . . he has only had a sampling here of how his wife's divorce attorney is going to present him and it's not a favorable picture. She can subpoena his online gambling records; she can subpoena his records from the online poker service and probably show that he not only gambles on an average of 2 hours a day at home, but probably several hours a day or week from his office. And that's only the beginning.

Mit needs to look forward and determine if the divorce road is the one he wants to travel . . . and if I've helped him to see the disadvantages of traveling that road . . . maybe my comments will help him to choose a better road.

And, you're a very nice person. If Mit ends up traveling the divorce road, I hope he has good people and supportive friends like you in his corner because it's going to be a hard road to travel.

Best wishes.

Keep us posted on how things are going, Mit.

In the meantime, A2K has a wealth of info on many topics - so stick around. :wink:

PS- As fishin said..........don't be too hard on Debra. She truely does give alot of good advice. She's a good person.

I think Mit should dump his wife and marry Debra_Law.

I know there's reason why I enjoy reading slappy and kicky; they usually end up suggesting the best solutions.

Certainly spousal support laws will vary from state to state and length of marriage is always a consideration. I don't know of any state that prohibits the award of spousal support for marriages of five years or less. (Of course, if I lived in such a state, I would argue any such laws would be an arbitrary classification in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . . . but that's an entirely different thread.) The most restrictive state that I am aware of is TEXAS.

It's nice to hear you say that you love your wife. I honestly believe if you read the articles on the marriage builder's website, you will unearth the informational tools that will allow you and your wife to build a very happy marriage. Now please . . . call your wife, go home, and kiss and make up. You know you want to.