Ex-Wife's Wild Behaviour

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That last sentance was the key to the breakup of our marriage - she simply could not accept that she wasn't completely innocent and that everything wasn't my fault.

Except for brief moments of lucidity, she seems utterly incapable of any sort of critical self-insight. This is the opposite of how I am, so you can see how I am at an extreme disadvantage - my only solution was to leave. It's better for my children to be raised by single parents than to live in an environment of medium-to-high intensity conflict every day of their childhood.

I am definitely committed to creating more distance between us, it would be a huge mistake for me to go back - and that includes sex.

Your ex-wife sounds exactly like my ex-wife and I can tell you that these types of women can't change. They are not wired for change or introspection in the way that we are not wired for NT like social interaction. You just have to be the best father you can possibly be and move on. I wouldn't worry about finding another woman, you have the qualities that a real woman of substance and quality is looking for. It is really not as hard as you might think.

Seriously, angelicgoddess, every relationship is not a power struggle. Yes, there's give and take in every relationship - that's how nature works. However, "give and take" is on one end of a continuum, and "power struggle" is on the opposite end. When you engage in a power struggle, one person is trying to control the other person - and that is, by definition, dysfunctional.

If you've chosen a partner who shares your basic values (assuming your basic values include fair play, decency, responsibility, accountability, stability, honesty, kindness), you don't have to "fight to get in a fulfilling position," because you can trust your partner to meet your needs. Trust is the foundation for a true partnership, one in which you don't have to play games and manipulate. You might benefit from some reading on families and dysfunction - John Bradshaw in a well known and respected author in that area.



I kinda disagree with your premise Metal_Man - I think anyone can change....some people just choose not to. IMO, that's a choice that often has a terrible impact for the people in their lives and it's also a completely self-handicapping strategy for life. I mean, if you can't change (integrate what you learn from new experiences into your thoughts and approach to life) - then you can't mature. That means you're doomed to repeat the same stupid decisions/relationships over and over - yuck. IMO, it's not a question of "can't" or "wiring" - that relieves the individual of all responsibility. To me, it's a question of "won't." When you say "can't" it kind of denigrates the rest of us who choose to do the work (even when it's difficult and painful), you know? No offense intended, just wanted to offer a different perspective.



Good for you, OP - good for you. You know, I don't think you were wrong to try the babysitting thing with your ex....but that type of arrangement would take two well-grounded, mature people with really good boundaries to be successful. Particularly since your ex is so chock-full of ulterior motives (and doesn't possess the other requisite qualities), it's just not gonna work for you. But I wouldn't waste time kicking yourself for giving it a shot - you lived, you learned - that's pretty much the best we can do. Good luck.

In my opinion people are always trying to control eachother. I read this column of a psychologist a couple of days ago who wrote people nowadays just expect too much from a relationship... people will split up after a couple of years because they have had a couple of fights. She remembered the beginning of her own relationship where her husband exclaimed after half a year or so "did you know we haven't had a fight in a whole week?" In this age of fulfillment though... where every need gets fulfilled almost instantly it is hard to exept that a partner has his/her own ideas, wishes and needs that have to be met by negotiation and struggles. people don't want conflict and if they do they usually walk away (and find themselves in the same position with another partner later on in life).

This is how it went in my marriage too... We used to have lots of fights that were absolutely horrible including lots of screaming, broken dishes, a dent kicked in our car and even a broken window. I wasn't used to quarrelling at all so it was a huge lesson for me that fighting doesn't necessarily mean you have to split up. It has gotten a lot better though, we hardly fight at all now and if we do it only lasts a couple of hours in stead of days. We've been married for three years now (for the record).

My opinion is that if you have two partners that are similar in social dominance, fighting is inevitable. Being afraid of conflict is what will lead one person to control the other, not fighting. i had a relationship without any fights before this one... that relationship stood still and died after 7 years. Conflict leads to development which my first relationship missed completely.



I don't see how anyone could know all of my needs... I hardly know them myself! I'm not a mindreader and I don't expect my partner to be. No two people share the exact same values and even if you do, there will always be conflicting wishes or needs. Small things like watching either Oprah or Top Gear together or bigger issues that tend to come inbetween people like having different sexual needs (there aren't many relationships where both partners crave the exact same amount of sex).

I agree that trust is the foundation of a good relationship but trusting someone to know your every thought and need is just plain naive.



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Good for you! Good luck to you!

Okay, I could not disagree with your opinion more - dysfunctional people are always trying to control other people. Functional people realize that the only person they can control is themselves.

I think you missed the point of the psychologist's article. She wasn't advocating conflict, she was making a point that people have unrealistic expectations that relationships will be instantly gratifying, and will require no work. People seem to want to avoid the negotiation and compromise that is the very foundation of a successful relationship - they'd often just like to have it handed to them. Unfortunately, relationships don't work that way.

You seem to believe that you can only experience conflict - and conflict resolution - in an atmosphere of tension and drama. Believe me, you don't need to scream and break things - that only heightens the conflict and makes it harder to resolve. Yes, the successful resolution of conflict in a relationship does lead to a more mature relationship - but your premise that conflict can't be resolved without drama is a faulty one.

And when you have conflict, conflict resolution is not about winning - power struggles are about winning. Mature relationships are based on mutual satisfaction. If your goal is mutual satisfaction, then you have to be willing to compromise.





I'm sorry, where did I say you should trust someone to know your every thought and need? I said that if you've chosen a good partner, you should be able to trust them to meet your needs - not to instinctively know your needs. Each person is still responsible for articulating their own needs to their partner.

1. No. She's doing it to get back at you. Women at that age don't want freedom (unless the marriage was long, stifling, and started early), they want stability

2. Yep. She should be more worried than you, unless you plan on trying to get back together. I would worry for the kids.

3. Yes, thus her "You made me a whore" comment. She's trying to throw her behavior in your face and lay the blame on you that she "has to do this." Did you initiate the divorce, or does she blame you for the breakup? Sounds to me like she is trying to say that she has to go to all of this extra work because of you.

4. Yes. And don't take care of the kids while she is gone anymore -- sounds like a pretty good reason to get custody. Don't enable her behavior -- it's not good for you or her.

Time to move on. Do you want the kids? How attached are you to them? (I know, a terrible question, but worth asking). Do you want custody? No matter what, you do NOT want this woman back. She's gone down the path of no return, and it's only going to get worse from here, at least for a while. Don't reward her behavior with an emotional response -- keep it cold and legal. And if you worry that she might harm your kids, GET THEM AWAY FROM HER!

The whole point of a conflict is that there is a difference in needs between two people. You can't trust your partner to meet your every need if this is in conflict with his/her own needs. Like you said, it's a mixture of giving and taking for both. But sometimes special needs are not met, someone gets hurt, or one partner breaks the boundaries of the other. in that case a fight, quarrel or even struggle, if resolved, is better than conflict avoidance.

I have no idea if you are married. For me though marriage is the ultimate relationship and totally different than my other relationships. My husband is the one man I want to spend the rest of my life with. He gets the whole package. This includes my emotions,even the not-so-pretty ones. I can get quite irrational sometimes especially when I am severely stressed or about to have my period. He ocasionally experiences anger tantrums and panic attacks that originated in his past. Sometimes these things together lead to a serious conflict (though there has never been any physical hurting or beating or something like that) My husband and I are both very passionate, this is one of the reasons we get along so well; we get why the other can get overly enthousiastic, grumpy or sad... are you trying to say this makes our relationship bad or wrong? Cause if you do I strongly disagree.

Maybe a relationship without struggle is possible. However I don't think it is possible to be in an equal relationship with a passionate person (like me) without at least an occasional power struggle. So if you like temperament in a partner (as I do) chances are you won't be able to avoid conflict.

You know, angelicgoddess, we're not on the same page, and I don't think there's much more I can say to get us to a place of common understanding. So the only thing I have left to say is peace - I'm out.

P.S. OP, sorry for kinda hi-jacking your thread.

Yeah, I guess its our tendency to romanticize history. I'm sure the 1920's were pretty bad, most times before that marriage was little more than a business contract. I still on a lot of fronts have a hard time understanding, not why this dynamic happens, but that the pendulum is still so far in that direction that a lot of the people who end up on the wreckage heap are some of the best 'people' out there. I understand the evolutionary psychology aspects of what happens but, I guess I can't fathom people having such a broad based lack of depth or ability for introspect that they can't even look out for their own happiness.

This is only a guess, but I'd have to think that the 'you made me a whore' comment comes from lack of intimacy previously, and she blamed you for that...

Don't you think happiness is something everyone experiences individually though? I know people have different interests and needs. Maybe it's kind of prejudice to assume that everyone with a different relationship than your ideal lacks introspect or ability. I know what makes me and my partner happy, but wouldn't it be unfair of me to say my way was best for you too?

Unfortunately that's way too broad a question to answer - just in that I'd need a sense of the material we're dealing with. When you talk about relationship interaction being a power struggle, its like that in any human interaction at some level just that its really about ironing it out, seeing who has what to offer after that, and seeing if what's left is worth sticking with; whether having long term friends, a long term employer or work peers, as well as romantic relationships. If some people don't have a lot that they need to stand for or have a lot of mobility before sacficing themselves too much - they do have more mobility, some people are built like that, some aren't.

To define what I'm getting at a little better though, you may have hit it on the head that people are expecting to much but I'd have to argue that its expecting too much either without putting enough energy in to make it work or alternately trying to draw it out of people who fundamentally can't be or aren't what the other partner wants. Because of that I'd have to say that people need to know what works best for them and aim for it. As far as emotionally abusive or even physically abusive environments on the other hand - its not good, unless someone finds themselves too egotistical for their own liking and perhaps needs someone to bring them back down to earth I really can't see an upside. The situation we're talking about here though, the OP caving in to urges - he would be f'ing things up royally in respect to his relationship with his kids - via his wife - she'd play even more outrage if he did that and just did it to resolve his own physiology rather than going back; she would actually be in the right at that point to be really sheisty in the future and make his life hell in a lot of ways, if she's already controlling odds are she'd likely overdue it by most people's standards.

I agree that it takes all kinds - people have passions for different things in life, different strengths, different things they have to offer people, but that's still just talking about different types of people wanting to grow together through life. Some people may mutually want to throw their identities out the window and enjoy merging - their call. Abuse and irresponsibility though or raising kids in a house with constant fighting over petty stuff - not just banter I mean really meaning to degrade each other; I can't see the upside, I'm sorry.

I'm not trying to threadjack... I'm not trying to hit on you Grisha... but you seem like a terribly handsome guy in your avatar picture, assuming that's you. I don't get why you think it'll be hard to get another woman.

Thank you so much!

No one has said that to me in years - it really made my day!

That's sad, dude....that your wife hadn't said that to you in years. I'm glad you had the courage to leave - everyone deserves someone who will truly treasure them - through the good times and the bad times, and all the day-to-dayness in between. (And I agree with BlueMage - I don't want to trivialize your previous difficulty with dating, but you are cute, and you seem like a decent guy - I'd put you in the "catch" category - even with the crazy ex-wife. )

It's also a good reminder for everyone reading this who is in a relationship - take a moment today to appreciate your partner! Say something nice, pay a compliment....let them know how grateful you are that they chose you - and that you choose to be with them every day. You never know what each day has in store...don't postpone showing your love and affection. Don't delay doing what you need to do to be happy. Happy Thanksgiving.

Agreed. I don't look even a fraction as good as you do and have done quite well with women since I was divorced.