Wait until Debra gets a hold of him
I'm thinking he's about 17 and his brain is flooded with adolescent testosterone. I hope he will outgrow the misogny as maturity kicks in and life teaches him otherwise. Too bad you can't go to school and major in "Becoming a Sensible Grown-Up".
Debras, (my future second wife), is easy enough to handle, just get fishin to dig up some of her previous inconsitent posts
mit2727 - here's a practical suggestion:
Print out this thread and take it to an associate of yours you trust for comments.
Theats a good idea.
OR, I could print it out and show it to my wife to speed up the divorce process....
But things are cooling down a bit, no more talk of divorce. But this is going to happen again, I'm just trying to figure out my next move...
LOL Mit2727 - if I were married to you, had gained 60 pounds, and discovered you had posted that detail on an internet site with 30,000 members, you wouldn't have to worry about divorce any more. I would be facing a criminal court for manslaughter, but with Debra_Law's assistance might cut a deal for a lesser charge <G>
temporary insanity?
I would not recommend showing this too your wife either
mit2727. At least you have regained your sense of humor.
mit2727 wrote:Debras, (my future second wife), is easy enough to handle, just get fishin to dig up some of her previous inconsitent posts
I believe that no two situations are exactly the same. Accordingly, the observations that can be gleaned from the differing situations do not necessarily come in one size fits all. Kitkat's situation is not the same as Mit's situation . . . but I am accused of giving different advice because Kitkat is a woman and Mit is a man.
However, if comparisons on advice are demonstrative of gender bias (as fishin alleges), then take a look at this:
mit2727 wrote:Ok from what you say...
1) there is a damn good chance your wife is having an affair.
2) even if she isn't, she is going out to clubs with her sister and not inviting you, and seems to be doing everything she can to avoid being around you.
You say you don't want to split up becuase she lost her job? From what I've heard so far (and we have only heard half of the story), she can cry you a river. You have no obligation to someone who is cheating on you. What if you did "try other things" and manage to work it out? Would you be convinced she stayed with you becuase she wanted to, or because she just had nowhere else to go? You said she goes to the clubs with her sister and her moms house, she can live with them.
The tone of your posts sound devastated and hurt, and rigthfully so, but you should have a good helping of anger in there to, which I don't see. Allowing yourself to get a little angry may help you do the things you need to do to, which IMO is...
Give your wife two options. 1) Split up and move out (or you move out, but it sounds like you are the only one who can suppourt the kids, so its more logical that she finds a new place), or 2) Stop going out with her sister or this mystery man every night and commit to seeing a counseler- She needs space? Thats fine, but "space to work out her issues" doesn't need to be space to go to night clubs or on dates with another man, those things just hurt you, and they are creating issues for you and your wife, not "working on them". You have already given her enough leeway, I think its time to start naming some terms, or looking for your way out.
SOURCE
In the same vein, Mit's wife became angry. Mit might not be having an affair, but he seemed to being doing everything he could to avoid being around his wife.
After two years of playing second fiddle to online poker, Mit's wife had already given him enough leeway. She became ANGRY and gave him an option: Online poker or a divorce. It was time for her to name her terms or look for her way out.
HA HA.
His wife is having an AFFAIR.
I fully expect my wife to kick me to the curb if I ever have an affair. There is simply no comparison here. The point is that people can take EVERY disagreement and turn it into a my way or the highway fight, effectivly refusing to compromise. Some things, like SLEEPING WITH ANOTHER MAN can't be compared to the normal dissagreements that married people get into.
Does it matter that my wife and I have had the SAME argument as kikat and she acted in the SAME way as her husband (ie blasting the radio in my room to get me out of bed to help her clean?)
Not to beat a dead horse, but I agree that there is a limited set of things that one spouse can unconditionally demand that the other does not engage in. Things like infidelity, physical abuse, a heroine addiction, ect. are so far out of bounds that there is no compromise possible. Cleaning the house, watching sports, playing poker, etc. are things that people normally have a right to engage in (or not to engage in), so they should be given up volunarily, or limited through compromise. Equating normal, everyday behaviors with such clear breaches of the maritial pact (a tactic my wife is very good at) ("playing poker when I'm not home and then not telling me about is lying to me, and akin to cheating on me"), is just another tactic to control your spouse IMO.
I've been following this entire thread since its inception and while I usually do agree with Debra on many issues, I don't think this is one of them. Everyone needs their space, their time, their private world to retreat to when the day or the world in general has been rough.. I think what really convinced me about Mit's situation was a very small point he made.....he said that one of things his wife likes to do is watch tv in the evenings, but that they are not always programs he is interested in. Instead of just sitting and watching tv, he picks up his laptop and plays some online poker while she has the opportunity to engage herself in her television watching. Both are doing exactly what they want to do, they are both in each others company and yet while it is ok for her to be engrossed in her television program and not talking to him, it is not ok for him to be engrossed in his online poker and not talking to her. In all honesty, it is easier for him to talk to her because he does not need to keep his constant attention on his online poker because he might "miss something". It is actually much harder to watch and follow a television program when someone is talking to you because you DO miss out on one or the other. I don't think Mit is being unreasonable at all.
I see that he gives her as much time as she gives him and he is also willing to make more concessions to her and her needs than she is to him. He spends every single weekend doing everything with her. He doesn't go out to the bars with his buddies, he doesn't go out for a gaming night every Friday till the wee hours of the morning. He has hired a housekeeper so he and his wife can have more quality time together on the weekends and it appears that he pretty much gives her anything and everything she could possibly want or need. The fact that she demands all of his waking time and attention when he is not at work, tells me she is very controlling and insecure and really doesn't have a life of her own.
In my opinion, married couples should have some outside interests of their own. Marriage does not dictate that two people be joined at the hip. My take is that she has no outside interests and relies totally on him for all of her entertainment, company and happiness. He is not obligated to be the source of her happiness. We all know that that has to come from within ourselves. Maybe she needs to find an outlet for herself that allows her to explore a few things outside of the marriage that make her happy too.
Relationship problems are NEVER one sided and the fault of just one of the spouses. The fact that she refuses to get any counseling at all tells me that she thinks ALL of the problems are HIS and none of them HERS. She is approaching this as a me vs. you situation instead of an US situation. That's just wrong. I see her using her ultimatums as an emasculating manipulation to have everything she wants without ever considering the needs of Mit. If he totally gave up his online poker as he said he is willing to do, my guess would be that in a very short time she would think of another thing that was "wrong" with him and offer up yet another ultimatum as a form of control.
All and all I see this relationship as very unbalanced. Time and time again he has conceded to her every wish and demand and while some of you may feel that that is his job or duty, I disagree. If there really is nothing he can do to please her short of being her slave and puppet, I would, as him, finally have to say enough is enough also. I have seen too many women like her, thinking they are in love and then trying so hard to change that person that they fell in love with. She knew who he was when they married. She knew he worked long hours to be able to provide the very best for her. She needs to back off some and give him some downtime....even if it is a whole whopping two hours a night to do anything at all that he wants to do. Online poker or tinkering in the garage...is there really any difference?
Lady J,
Thank you for the kind post (not just becuase you tend to agree with me, but becuase it seemed very well thought out). You mentioned one point that I think is very important and may help me move forward in my relationship...
"My take is that she has no outside interests and relies totally on him for all of her entertainment, company and happiness. . . We all know that that has to come from within ourselves. Maybe she needs to find an outlet for herself that allows her to explore a few things outside of the marriage that make her happy too."
Over and over again, my wife has expressed to me that she spends her whole life waiting for me. Waiting for me to get home from work, waiting for me to get back from the gym, finish my poker game, etc. My unspoken reaction to this is that when I'm alone (usually less than one or two hours a month), I really do enjoy the time, and could never understand why my wife wouldn't enjoy the 2 or 3 hours each day after she got off work and before I came home. I think her inability to enjoy herself without me may go to the root of our problems, and may be something we can work on in the future.
Check, check, check, and check. Agree with all Lady J outlined, that was my sense of the situation as well.
To step into the breach further, I could infer that if Mrs. Mits did develop interests on her own, oh, say crewel embroidery, photography, beginning drawing, Asian cooking, whatever, some pressure would be let out of the marital tire - she might even get really interested in whatever it is, so as to have a knitting shop, etc., and have new self confidence.
I think from the posts here that mits does care, and isn't just stomping off when some of the rest of us would have, were we he.
But, as I said before, I think it's a long haul, mits, if she is not willing to talk with counselers (and she is not sparked to any outside interests).
My wife also sits in front of the tv at night to watch programs I have absolutely no interest. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer monitor, but it's allows me to interact with people all around the world. What better way to entertain oneself?
Lady J
Very well said and I completely agree with you.
I know that imagining myself in your position, Mit, I'd go out of my mind if I didn't have any me time.
"Me Time" is very important for our mental health. The problem is, I like to do it thousands of miles away in another country. LOL
I've met the lovely Mrs. CI, and she is a smart woman. She may be using tv as we are talking about, a decompression thing after a work day, a kind of synthesizing time, just as some of us do with a2k.
He's just a pup, guys.
