Sorry for offending, man, but I’m not going to sift back through your dozens of posts in your thread to look for where you clarified it.
Go to quackwatch.org and also read the sister site mlm.
You’ll find out more than you ever dreamed possible about alternative health and the pain and misery in multilevel marketing.
~VOW
OP, I agree that saying, “We are going to counseling” would be a mistake. You issue an order, she’ll (understandably) refuse, and then what? You couldn’t force her to go, and even if you did, you couldn’t force her to talk. OTOH, you seem like a plain-spoken guy, and what you say should be plain-spoken, too, so tell her you’re so concerned about how things are going in the marriage, you don’t see how it can survive unless you two get counseling. No accusations, no implied fault, just that. Maybe you could add something like, “It could be helpful for both of us.” Or you could say, “I miss the old us.” But beyond that, shut up.
There’s another issue looming behind that one, so be prepared: she may want Bible-based therapy or a therapist affiliated with her church. Be cautious here. Your instinct, understandably, is going to be, “Hell, no.” Don’t say that. She’ll be hurt and defensive, and you’ll get sidetracked into an argument about religion. Instead, tell her for counseling to work, it’ll need to be a type that won’t go against the beliefs of either of you. Keep it neutral. Keep it about you as a couple.
That is a given. The OP said in post #1:
I believe that the three pillars of most relationships are:
- Religion
- Money
- Sex
The luckiest couples agree on all three. Two is often enough to make things work.
Some people say that a fourth one is how you should raise children, others think it’s part of 1-3.
Look for what you agree on among those.
Best wishes.
I appreciate you noticing that. I have been told many times I am a straight shooter. A lot of people like me for it. Some folks don’t. My wife has the ability to speak to me exactly in a tone like I would in a straight shooter fashion (“one of the dogs ate the fuckin’ pool”) type stuff regarding a chewed up child’s pool on our porch. I don’t believe she speaks that way to the gals in her bible studies. Things are usually perfect there. They might talk about dogs chewing up pools and such (as an example) but never would use that language.
This goes back to communication. Which I, as I said will take the lead on getting help to get worked on, because she’s obviously missing out on something in life.
As are you, really. Best wishes!
You know, every time somebody posts a personal story on this board and asks for advice, they get attacked. I’m not talking about delivering hard truths to them, which kwc27 seems to be taking well, but the ridiculous stuff. This is clearly a person whose diction and perhaps outlook are a bit old-fashioned. I’d never say “laying down the law” with kids, but I know what it means, and in my ears it’s a pretty neutral phrase, not a sign of a fascist father. Same deal with the story about walking in on his wife—people read all sorts of horror into that little vignette, but it seemed to have a pretty harmless reading, too.
I like this sort of thread, and it would be nice if people weren’t actively discouraged from them by getting raked across the coals, especially if (as is the case here), they appear to be listening to the advice.
I don’t think ultimatums are a great tool, but sometimes you have to resort to them: “counselling together, or I walk” isn’t unreasonable. There are better and worse ways of delivering that message, of course, but “I want to stay in this marriage, but not as it currently stands” is fair. Otherwise, you’re held hostage.
I want to echo the suggestion above of just taking some time to really listen to her woes. I suspect that your support for the family is tremendous, but at the same time missing something that she needs, which is probably social bonding time. Being away for a period is one thing (no big deal), but are you present when you’re present, in a way that comes across to her? You seem to be giving her a break from the kids. Are you two taking time away from the kids together? Regularly? Something as simple as a regular date night is pretty cliché but not a bad idea. Maybe you’re doing this already, I don’t know.
OP, is your wife actually interested in essential oils, and getting into selling them to obtain the vendor discount for herself? This is the ONLY justification for getting into something like that, and I think I know exactly which MLM you’re talking about.
My ex-wife was into a MLM and I can see how people can get sucked into that. It can be a really close-knit group with strong ties, which can really screw up people’s understanding of what is normal and what’s not.
I’ve observed this message board for quite awhile. I know how it trends and I have thick skin. I am not affected if some thin skin folks are offended by my plain spoken comments.
To clarify: I am not a drill instructor. “Laying down the law” is a figure of speech for setting boundaries.
Yes. She has been going to “oils meetings” at her pyramid scheme boss’s house for several years with her mother. We started with a few of them and it has progressed to a whole wall of them with a cure for every ailment, stuff getting used on our kids daily, diffusers running here and there, etc.
I myself have used them a couple times to shorten colds. I’ve told myself they’ve worked but could be the placebo affect too.
Somebody asked if the the wife and I go on dates or schedule time for just us - not really. Once a year for our anniversary anymore. We are both aware this needs to change (although it’s really ringing in my ears now).
It sounds like you tend to set boundaries in a reactive way, like when the kids are running around with sticks. The conversation about what the boundaries should be needs to happen when there’s no immediate incident.
One thing I’ve noticed that happens in my own marriage is that my husband will be one to “set boundaries”, but not want to deal with the consequences. It’s easy for me to imagine your wife, tired from work, generally unhappy with her life every day, trying to get dinner on the table. The kids are distracted, and so leaving her alone to do it. She’s decided in her own mind that what they are doing is not really dangerous (and reasonable people can disagree about when rough-housing becomes dangerous). You pop in and yell at the kids to “stop”, then disappear. So now she has to enforce your boundary (soas not to undermine you) while getting dinner ready and coming up with some alternate distraction for the kids. Because she’s tired and unhappy, she’s not good at articulating why it makes her so angry that you just decided to set a boundary. In fact, it may look to her like the real issue is that the kids’ noisiness was bugging you, so you want it to stop, and you’re making it her problem to stop it on top of getting dinner ready.
We never had this exact scenarios, but we had similar. All were about my husband “setting a boundary” in the moment (not an earlier discussion) that seemed to me to put the burden on me. He’s say “Absolutely not”, but then he’d see his job as done. Kids don’t work like that. You tell them to stop X, you need to redirect them to Y, or they end up causing more trouble.
Overworked, overwhelmed, unhappy people are not rational. They are not good at articulating things, or even reflecting on why they feel like they feel. One of the worst things is to push them to explain, because they really don’t know, but they make something up that seems rational, and now you both misunderstand what the real causes are. You have to step way, way back to get to the real cause of the frustration and anger. I’d bet a million dollars it’s simple exhaustion and grinding boredom.
Isn’t that one reason women work outside of the home, to be un-dependent on a man for a little pin money, to have to ask him for an allowance? …Although I should think an old-time-conservative would be nodding at the idea, The Man being the Head of the House and all. Bringing home the bacon. Like a 50’s sit-com.
IMHO, the friction with your wife may well be what’s causing your son’s acting out issues. Considering how many issues there are between you two, I don’t see how this can be reconciled. Just for me, not getting the “jab” itself would be grounds for divorce.
Good luck to the OP.
You sound like a very tolerant person and I’m sure a pleasure to speak to in real life. Appreciate your well-wishes.
You’re pretty well spot-on.
Look … not sure what part of the country you live but where I came from the man provides and especially if you have kids. If she plans on being a stay home mom she better also do all the cleaning cooking grocery shopping washing ironing the full gambit of all which a “housewife” does. The whole country’s gone to hell in a hand basket today. Woman think they’re the men today. They challenge everything. Not suppose to be that way. There was a time a woman never challenged or undermined the husband’s role of authority and.minded her place, and tounge. They challenge everything now. If you’re a good church going God fearing man you know that won’t wash in the eyes of the Lord. If she’s being a difficult woman talk to your minister. If she’s putting things at risk financially especially. My parents were married 47 years before my father passed in 1989. They didn’t even have me until they were 40 and 41 in 1958. Dad worked Mom ran the house and saw to me. They never argued had a blessed marriage and showed me a great childhood, one of the greatest actually. I dunno. The country is different today. The whole world is. Scary.
Good luck
Holy Mother of God!
A couple of years ago I got cranky at Google Chrome removing the menu. I found someone complaining about it on a Google forum. They agreed with me… but put in a misogynistic rant at the end.
Social media is terrible.