DW makes life miserable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Document her bad behavior, then file for divorce and full custody.

Audio recordings, if legal in your state, are gold in a custody fight.

You don’t get full custody because your spouse doesn’t appreciate you, and you two don’t agree on politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did she stay home with the child, put her career on hold while you took your time being at work?
No need to rush home because she is there with the kid, right?
I worked around DH's schedule and he still gave me crap about being too late coming from work. He had nowhere to go or be and the kid was asleep.
You left her side out completely.

You came to the wrong place to bash your crazy liberal wife!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Document her bad behavior, then file for divorce and full custody.

Audio recordings, if legal in your state, are gold in a custody fight.

You don’t get full custody because your spouse doesn’t appreciate you, and you two don’t agree on politics.

You don’t get full custody when your violent angry spouse assaults you. As long as he/she/they doesn’t cause serious bodily injury to the kids, they will get 50/50.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DW just makes things miserable sometimes. She is often difficult. Very unappreciative of the fact that I pay 90 percent of the bills while she pursues her passion career. Gets very upset at me if I don’t agree with her about political issues. Often seems to provoke fights with our kid because she can be a little inflexible and gets into power struggles. Etc etc.

I don’t really want a divorce because I dread the idea of how she would parent our kid without me around. Also just generally don’t want a divorce.

Still, it feels very difficult at times. Just not fun at all.

Really just a rant.

"A little inflexible??"

Let's say that everything you wrote here is 100% true, that wouldn't make her a "little" inflexible... she sounds like a total control freak.

I'm assuming she's never been to a therapist before, because she thinks she's always right... right?
It definitely seems like she's got undiagnosed anxiety issues, which uncontrollably causes her to try and control every ONE and every THING around her.
The more anxious she gets, the tighter she grasps to hang on to control, and attempts to exude her (pretend) power.
She probably believes that her overly controlling nature is a positive trait, when in reality it's far from it. It's a nightmare.
When you have a control freak in the house, everyone is miserable, and everyone needs to walk on eggshells around her out of fear.

If your child is getting into power struggles with her now, as a child, the relationship will most likely never improve more than it is today. As your child gets older, they'll want to assume control over their own life and their own decisions, which will only make your wife try to hold on tighter, which will inevitably push your kids away.
If that's the way they are now, unless you're wife seeks therapy, there's no way they'll ever be closer than whatever type of relationship they have right now, because your child will fear allowing your wife to get close, just to have her uncontrollably lash out at your child out of nowhere.

Her relationship with your child is hers to ruin... you'll know quickly if she cares enough to get help.
I would think it would terrify her to consider that she may be estranged from your child as an adult or not be close with your child at all. She should make whatever changes are necessary right now in order to prevent that from happening (fyi, getting into power struggles with your kid is terrible parenting -- she's the adult and should know better).
You'll find out what's more important to her... your kid or her control obsession.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this... unless your wife goes to therapy, she will never, ever get any better than she is right now, she will only become leaps and bounds more INTOLERABLE, and you'll inevitably grow increasingly more bitter & resentful of her as the years go on (as you'll correctly perceive that her obsession with control, has now ruined all three of your lives.
So she'll refuse to do something about it, because if she can't be in control, then nobody can (including you).

If she refuses therapy, you need to leave her, period.
There's a huge difference between "feeling content and at peace alone" and "being with someone, and totally miserable".
I'll take content and at peace, every single day of the week.

Anxiety is too complex to handle without a trained professional.
If she tells you she doesn't need therapy or she'll work on herself, that's the control talking.
She's terrified of handing off her sense of control, because control has become her very best friend.
As she gets older though, she'll become so much worse, because she won't have the same sharp faculties that she used to, which will be incredibly frustrating for her, and she'll blame everyone else.

Oh, and that resentment and bitterness that you're already feeling... well, that's terribly corrosive.
Trust me, you don't want to continue to live this way -- sooner than later you're going to start feeling like you're drowning.

Someone really hurt you. I thunk you are the one who needs therapy. You sound like you have PTSD and are projecting your issues onto other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most women are controlling... men must...

clean kitchen including wipe stove, sweep, wipe all counters, nothing soaking or they are children
put kids to bed exactly how she does
do morning routine exactly how she does.
when she goes out she comes home and immediately does a full analysis of what food was fed to the kids, homework checks, bedtime checks and they yells at husband because spelling words still need to be done (call the presses)

I can't even imagine how men deal with these women and pay all the bills and support their "hobbies". WTF... why did you ever let it get this bad.

You let her become a child and now she is acting like a child. Get a job!

Sure she will get 1/2 but you say get therapy for your anxiety or GTFO.

Come on man!

The things you are complaining about doing seem like normal things. Didn’t your parents do these things while you were growing up (Wipe counters, sweep the floor, do the dishes, go over your spelling words, put kids to bed)?

I would be annoyed too if this stuff wasn’t done. I would have planned on having an evening out with friends and then coming home, maybe have a drink, and have sex with my husband. Now I have to finish cleaning the kitchen, scrub whatever is soaking in the sink, and plan on getting my kid up early in the morning so we can go over spelling words. That kind of sucks.

Anyway, this all seems pretty normal and very different from what the OP is talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Document her bad behavior, then file for divorce and full custody.

Audio recordings, if legal in your state, are gold in a custody fight.

You don’t get full custody because your spouse doesn’t appreciate you, and you two don’t agree on politics.

You don’t get full custody when your violent angry spouse assaults you. As long as he/she/they doesn’t cause serious bodily injury to the kids, they will get 50/50.

You don’t get it when your spouse has been in and out of rehab a couple of times.

[Anonymous]

A lot of you seemed to miss that OP primarily just needed to vent. That’s valid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most women are controlling... men must...

clean kitchen including wipe stove, sweep, wipe all counters, nothing soaking or they are children
put kids to bed exactly how she does
do morning routine exactly how she does.
when she goes out she comes home and immediately does a full analysis of what food was fed to the kids, homework checks, bedtime checks and they yells at husband because spelling words still need to be done (call the presses)

I can't even imagine how men deal with these women and pay all the bills and support their "hobbies". WTF... why did you ever let it get this bad.

You let her become a child and now she is acting like a child. Get a job!

Sure she will get 1/2 but you say get therapy for your anxiety or GTFO.

Come on man!

You have anger issues. Morning and evening routine should be a routine. Any grown ass man can come up with a plan together with his wife if he helps out with this and isn't traveling. Sorry you can't.
I don't know about the cleaning stuff. That is family specific on chores, but what you mentioned isn't over the top for a family to divide as work. There are a hundred other tasks to do in a household. Places should be left clean without crumbs. OP mentioned zero about chores. Your projection. Is the spelling test tomorrow and you already said you'd help out with spelling and your kid is dyslexic? I don't know the agreement you have. I kind of remember a parent doing this with me when I was in 1st-3rd grade. It took about 15 minutes.
Many men demand their woman have the same political beliefs and are much more controlling in this arena. I find political beliefs to be personal and this to me is an annoyance that I'd have with a spouse either direction because they are part of your person and not someone else's to copy. So OP has a wife that is overly political. Maybe that is something she needs to work on why this is being brought into the house at all? I think this is a legitimate concern of being over controlling.
As for the kid, it's probably better if OP sides with the mom and then these things will stop happening more. The kid will realize the parents are on the same side. Maybe this is related to the political beliefs. OP is trying to use it against her because he's annoyed about the political control? Not sure. But usually two parents should be on the same side with parenting which is much more important than a political agreement.

NP. You just proved pp’s point by saying that OP should kowtow to his wife to keep the peace. (You also sound angry too.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most women are controlling... men must...

clean kitchen including wipe stove, sweep, wipe all counters, nothing soaking or they are children
put kids to bed exactly how she does
do morning routine exactly how she does.
when she goes out she comes home and immediately does a full analysis of what food was fed to the kids, homework checks, bedtime checks and they yells at husband because spelling words still need to be done (call the presses)

I can't even imagine how men deal with these women and pay all the bills and support their "hobbies". WTF... why did you ever let it get this bad.

You let her become a child and now she is acting like a child. Get a job!

Sure she will get 1/2 but you say get therapy for your anxiety or GTFO.

Come on man!

You have anger issues. Morning and evening routine should be a routine. Any grown ass man can come up with a plan together with his wife if he helps out with this and isn't traveling. Sorry you can't.
I don't know about the cleaning stuff. That is family specific on chores, but what you mentioned isn't over the top for a family to divide as work. There are a hundred other tasks to do in a household. Places should be left clean without crumbs. OP mentioned zero about chores. Your projection. Is the spelling test tomorrow and you already said you'd help out with spelling and your kid is dyslexic? I don't know the agreement you have. I kind of remember a parent doing this with me when I was in 1st-3rd grade. It took about 15 minutes.
Many men demand their woman have the same political beliefs and are much more controlling in this arena. I find political beliefs to be personal and this to me is an annoyance that I'd have with a spouse either direction because they are part of your person and not someone else's to copy. So OP has a wife that is overly political. Maybe that is something she needs to work on why this is being brought into the house at all? I think this is a legitimate concern of being over controlling.
As for the kid, it's probably better if OP sides with the mom and then these things will stop happening more. The kid will realize the parents are on the same side. Maybe this is related to the political beliefs. OP is trying to use it against her because he's annoyed about the political control? Not sure. But usually two parents should be on the same side with parenting which is much more important than a political agreement.

NP. You just proved pp’s point by saying that OP should kowtow to his wife to keep the peace. (You also sound angry too.)

Not at OP but at this guy yes who obviously is projecting. His comments have nothing to do with the topic.
OP wasn't looking to divorce so why go that route? He wasn't talking about household chores, so his comments weren't relevant there plus us someone else mentioned these are pretty normal in well-functioning households. For all the ones that follow masculine youtubers, Jocko takes his daughter out to and asks her questions about life. You think he isn't spending 15 minutes quizzing spelling words with them when he's home? He was an English major. He would probably enjoy that time with his child once a week.
The pollical one is obviously something that can create discord. As I mentioned before, this is something worth addressing. It's not good to bring politics into the home.
I think either OP has fears about this passion career in some way or wants his own hobby. He should explore that rather than getting upset with his wife over minor issues with the kids at night.

[Anonymous]

Spelling words last about 4 years max. You either enjoy these stages as a mom and dad or you don't. Pick something you can handle with the kids each night - maybe one thing not fun and one thing fun to spread out the work - and do that well. You don't need to be super dad but you do need to be reliable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DW just makes things miserable sometimes. She is often difficult. Very unappreciative of the fact that I pay 90 percent of the bills while she pursues her passion career. Gets very upset at me if I don’t agree with her about political issues. Often seems to provoke fights with our kid because she can be a little inflexible and gets into power struggles. Etc etc.

I don’t really want a divorce because I dread the idea of how she would parent our kid without me around. Also just generally don’t want a divorce.

Still, it feels very difficult at times. Just not fun at all.

Really just a rant.

"A little inflexible??"

Let's say that everything you wrote here is 100% true, that wouldn't make her a "little" inflexible... she sounds like a total control freak.

I'm assuming she's never been to a therapist before, because she thinks she's always right... right?
It definitely seems like she's got undiagnosed anxiety issues, which uncontrollably causes her to try and control every ONE and every THING around her.
The more anxious she gets, the tighter she grasps to hang on to control, and attempts to exude her (pretend) power.
She probably believes that her overly controlling nature is a positive trait, when in reality it's far from it. It's a nightmare.
When you have a control freak in the house, everyone is miserable, and everyone needs to walk on eggshells around her out of fear.

If your child is getting into power struggles with her now, as a child, the relationship will most likely never improve more than it is today. As your child gets older, they'll want to assume control over their own life and their own decisions, which will only make your wife try to hold on tighter, which will inevitably push your kids away.
If that's the way they are now, unless you're wife seeks therapy, there's no way they'll ever be closer than whatever type of relationship they have right now, because your child will fear allowing your wife to get close, just to have her uncontrollably lash out at your child out of nowhere.

Her relationship with your child is hers to ruin... you'll know quickly if she cares enough to get help.
I would think it would terrify her to consider that she may be estranged from your child as an adult or not be close with your child at all. She should make whatever changes are necessary right now in order to prevent that from happening (fyi, getting into power struggles with your kid is terrible parenting -- she's the adult and should know better).
You'll find out what's more important to her... your kid or her control obsession.

I'm not going to sugarcoat this... unless your wife goes to therapy, she will never, ever get any better than she is right now, she will only become leaps and bounds more INTOLERABLE, and you'll inevitably grow increasingly more bitter & resentful of her as the years go on (as you'll correctly perceive that her obsession with control, has now ruined all three of your lives.
So she'll refuse to do something about it, because if she can't be in control, then nobody can (including you).

If she refuses therapy, you need to leave her, period.
There's a huge difference between "feeling content and at peace alone" and "being with someone, and totally miserable".
I'll take content and at peace, every single day of the week.

Anxiety is too complex to handle without a trained professional.
If she tells you she doesn't need therapy or she'll work on herself, that's the control talking.
She's terrified of handing off her sense of control, because control has become her very best friend.
As she gets older though, she'll become so much worse, because she won't have the same sharp faculties that she used to, which will be incredibly frustrating for her, and she'll blame everyone else.

Oh, and that resentment and bitterness that you're already feeling... well, that's terribly corrosive.
Trust me, you don't want to continue to live this way -- sooner than later you're going to start feeling like you're drowning.

NP here, I think what you say is possible but, Wow, it’s a huge take and a big jump. Your post is longer than OP’s. How would you really know all this stuff.

What if op’s perception is off? What if inflexible is her attempt to instill the 1-2 values she cares about?

+1. Holy hell

[Anonymous]

So, my husband is the controlling one in our relationship. I’m sure that it’s more often women than men, but men can be controlling too. He has been the main breadwinner most years, but I have always been the primary caretaker of the kids. What it looked like in our house was him just walking through the door and stopping whatever the kids were playing, telling them to do something more constructive.
Or I would travel for work once a year and he would take vacation to watch the kids. While I was gone he would come up with these routines and tell me that I needed to be doing them every day from now on.

Anyway, what worked best for me was to go along with it most of the time, but to also point out that it’s pretty nice of me to do that.
. Like, I will make the thing you want for dinner, but that’s pretty nice of me, and you should say thank you.

I also told him that I could see his point when he had a point. And usually people have some merit to what they are saying.

Eventually, he started reciprocating. He told me when he could see my point. He is less rigid with the kids now, and more likely to talk to them than demand of them. He is super appreciative of me doing a lot of th things he wants (like getting the kids up for these 7am runs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, my husband is the controlling one in our relationship. I’m sure that it’s more often women than men, but men can be controlling too. He has been the main breadwinner most years, but I have always been the primary caretaker of the kids. What it looked like in our house was him just walking through the door and stopping whatever the kids were playing, telling them to do something more constructive.
Or I would travel for work once a year and he would take vacation to watch the kids. While I was gone he would come up with these routines and tell me that I needed to be doing them every day from now on.

Anyway, what worked best for me was to go along with it most of the time, but to also point out that it’s pretty nice of me to do that.
. Like, I will make the thing you want for dinner, but that’s pretty nice of me, and you should say thank you.

I also told him that I could see his point when he had a point. And usually people have some merit to what they are saying.

Eventually, he started reciprocating. He told me when he could see my point. He is less rigid with the kids now, and more likely to talk to them than demand of them. He is super appreciative of me doing a lot of th things he wants (like getting the kids up for these 7am runs).

Great advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most women are controlling... men must...

clean kitchen including wipe stove, sweep, wipe all counters, nothing soaking or they are children
put kids to bed exactly how she does
do morning routine exactly how she does.
when she goes out she comes home and immediately does a full analysis of what food was fed to the kids, homework checks, bedtime checks and they yells at husband because spelling words still need to be done (call the presses)

I can't even imagine how men deal with these women and pay all the bills and support their "hobbies". WTF... why did you ever let it get this bad.

You let her become a child and now she is acting like a child. Get a job!

Sure she will get 1/2 but you say get therapy for your anxiety or GTFO.

Come on man!

Children don't usually go around double checking what the other responsible adult did.

When DH cleans up after dinner, he often does a cursory wipe down of the counter. I can still see water puddles and crumbs, so I have to wipe it down after him because if I tell him that he left crumbs and water puddles, I'll get the response of "it's never good enough". Yea, the whole purpose of wiping down the counter is to remove all the crumbs and water puddles, so that wasn't good.

it's great when he does laundry, but I've told him many many times that certain items need to be hung up to dry or separated because of shrinkage and bleed. He can't be bothered. He just chucks everything out of the washer into the dryer without checking for those items that need to be hung up. I'm not going to wash 5 items of clothing separately just because he can't be bothered to check. He's lost a few shirts to shrinkage because he couldn't be bothered to check. Normally, I'd say that's his natural consequences, but our finances are combined, so when he ruins clothes, he has to go out and buy new ones, with our money. I'm not going to separate our finances just because of this issue. IMO separate finances are more of a hassle than remembering to check the items in the laundry.

So, while there may be more than one way to do something, that doesn't always equate to doing that something such that there are no negative consequences.

I'll admit that I can be an exacting person. But, I have over the years learned to let some stuff go. OTH, DH has also learned to be a bit more careful and conscientious about stuff. He checks the laundry items more regularly now.

As we say, "I care too much; he cares too little". So, we've had to find a happy medium.

When I was much more exacting of my kids and spouse, it was because I felt like DH wasn't doing enough. So, I had to put more effort in, which stressed me out much more. He had in the past not cared enough to pay attention to certain things. So, that made me more controlling, and miserable. Believe me, I didn't want to be this controlling or this miserable myself. But, let's face it.. most women take on most of the mental and physical load of childcare and house chores.

I don't know if OP's DW had a similar experience to mine. Maybe in the past she felt this way, and so it's hard for her to let go of it. If she lived this way for years, it's not like if the husband starts doing more stuff all those years of bitterness will melt away quickly.

Just my 2 cents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most women are controlling... men must...

clean kitchen including wipe stove, sweep, wipe all counters, nothing soaking or they are children
put kids to bed exactly how she does
do morning routine exactly how she does.
when she goes out she comes home and immediately does a full analysis of what food was fed to the kids, homework checks, bedtime checks and they yells at husband because spelling words still need to be done (call the presses)

I can't even imagine how men deal with these women and pay all the bills and support their "hobbies". WTF... why did you ever let it get this bad.

You let her become a child and now she is acting like a child. Get a job!

Sure she will get 1/2 but you say get therapy for your anxiety or GTFO.

Come on man!

The things you are complaining about doing seem like normal things. Didn’t your parents do these things while you were growing up (Wipe counters, sweep the floor, do the dishes, go over your spelling words, put kids to bed)?

I would be annoyed too if this stuff wasn’t done. I would have planned on having an evening out with friends and then coming home, maybe have a drink, and have sex with my husband. Now I have to finish cleaning the kitchen, scrub whatever is soaking in the sink, and plan on getting my kid up early in the morning so we can go over spelling words. That kind of sucks.

Anyway, this all seems pretty normal and very different from what the OP is talking about.

Those things can wait till the next day. I learned not to be OCD, crazy control freak. Did you mom hit you with wire hangers if you used them?

No actually you don’t have to finish scrubbing leave it … live a little.