seebs

Well, that's two of us. And yeah, I think that would be a cool thing. I would suggest that someone *other* than me be nominated to organize such an effort. I am not one of nature's organizers.

lunachick

I think that is a lovely gesture, seebs and never, but I don't see how it can be any more than a band-aid on an arterial gash.

Jackalope

A friend of mine was married and his wife had temper tantrums similar to what Darren is describing. They got more frequent until they happened every time she didn't get her way about something. My friend would roll over and appease her every time...until the night she attacked him with a kitchen knife. That's when my friend finally woke up and decided it was time for professional help.

However, my friend didn't get a lawyer first. So she filed for divorce before he could get all his documentation. He didn't call the police the night she attacked him. And he didn't get a very good lawyer, since once she filed, he was forced to scramble for what he could get right then. By then, she'd emptied the joint account, so there wasn't any money to argue over. That left custody of their child. The psychobitch won custody, even though she was unstable and should have been under medical supervision. He's paying child support and dealing with mental abuse whenever it's time for him to get a visit from his daughter.

The point of this? One: if she's trashing your possessions, she's clearly got anger management problems. She may even be dangerous to you. Document any further outbursts or violent acts. Your and your childrens' safety may depend on this. Two: Get a lawyer's advice now before you need it. Go ahead and hope that you won't actually need. But get it for your own sake if things go bad. Three: File a police report if she goes off the deep end.

This stuff all goes without saying in the case of a woman with an abusive husband. For some reason, it's often ignored or even shrugged off as not needed when it's a husband with an abusive wife. Women certainly do attack, injure and even kill their husbands. But as a society, we tend to ignore the danger signals when a wife acts abusive towards her husband.

Get professional help. For all you know, you may be able to salvage the marriage, but allowing her to abuse you certainly will not help anything.

--Lee
[Hell, if it were a woman reporting this sort of abuse, we'd have been telling her to get herself and her kids to a shelter days ago]

lunachick

Jackalope,

I could not agree with you more.

HelenM

It's very thoughtful of you, but I doubt it would really help move Darren and his wife towards resolving what needs to be resolved in their marriage. And atheists have no obligation to try to prove they are decent caring people to anyone, and especially not to a woman who is being irrational and destructive. Someone pointed out yesterday that if Darren agrees to things when his wife is destructive and irrational he's rewarding behavior which should not be rewarded. And sending money to try to prove atheists are ok really, to someone who irrationally thinks they aren't and is threatening divorce on that basis, might fall into that "rewarding the wrong thing" category too.

Speaking for myself, I would rather not send money to anyone I know only through the Internet because my husband wouldn't like it. That may sound like an excuse but it's not . I try hard not to do things that to him will raise red flags about my mental health. I know that would.

Still, those are only my opinions and if anyone wants to pursure this further it's their choice, of course.

Helen

Vicar Philip

I greatly appreciate you guys' offer for $, but that's not really the bottom line problem here. Besides, most of our financial difficulties are self-inflicted, and this is actually a good time for me to put my foot down on the budget and stop spending so damn much.

I looked at the guitar again, and I think the only thing wrong with it is the broken strings. So it's not beyond repair. She has apologized several times for it, and I believe her. I pushed her to the edge.

For now, I have agreed to go to church with her, but that's it. I was very firm in that I do not believe, and will not believe. She said I "need church," and I told her not to say that again. It's not true. She agreed not to.

Folks, you've all given me great advice, and I am going to try to get her to talk to the pastor with me anyway. Maybe he'll at least open the door to further counseling. We are at a tentative truce, we've both made up, and told each other "I love you."

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks again for all your help, you don't know how much it means to me.

Darren

southernhybrid

I've avoided saying anything because quite frankly I am dismayed at your wife's actions. I certainly don't want to add more confusion to your already difficult situation, but at least consider a few things.

Your wife may be mentally ill but even mentally ill persons must take some responsibility for seeking help for their symptoms. If she's able to work 60 or more hours per week then she has the ability to exercise better control over herself then she is currently doing at home. I strongly suggest that you stop being an enabler to your wife. If she won't get help for herself, then you might benefit from a few counseling sessions yourself. Many employers have free or inexpensive counseling services available for family crisis counseling. Perhaps you have that available at your place of employment. You at least need to find out what it is about yourself that makes you willing to put up with this type of abusive behavior. If you feel you must stay with her then at least learn to say NO, and learn to set boundries with her. You can't go on living with all this contention in your life. It's too hard on the two of you, and too hard on your children.

seebs

A couple of things:
1. It might reduce stress. Maybe not much, but it's still a good thing to reduce stress on someone who obviously cracks under it.
2. Even if it doesn't help the stress enough to matter, it was still a nice thing to do, and there's enough people here that it oughtn't be much of a burden on any given person.

seebs

It's not the bottom line, but my own experience is that financial difficulties can be a huge source of stress, and there's something particularly awful about the period during which you've stopped spending so much and you *still* have financial problems.

Dunno what denomination you are, but my personal advice would be to avoid any kind of communion/eucharist ceremony, just on principle. No shame should be implied - if it is, the church is screwy.

Having nearly wrecked my marriage a couple of times, I think I can say with some confidence that I have some idea what it is to nearly lose a spouse you love.

In the end, 90% of support and advice is just the morale-boost of knowing that people out there care. If we're strangers, that makes the message all the stronger. People are basically decent. Do take care, and keep us posted. If you have good sex, please write *detailed* accounts! <-- joking

HelenM

Perhaps her own behavior (even if you pushed her to the edge) will be a bit of a wake-up call to her of how near the edge she is. Sometimes that can be helpful.

I'm glad that she apparently is listening to you to some extent.

True...but I know what it meant to me to have people be supportive when I needed it - it meant a lot.

Keep us posted...I think you said your appointments are this week and next week? So you don't have much longer to wonder what the pastor will say and whether it's going to be of any help or not. As you say, if a word from him will convince your wife to go to professional marriage counseling then maybe it will be well worth seeing him.

take care
Helen