Dear  John:

I re-read all your posts on your thread as well as your replies to other threads  since Nov 8.

You wrote early on here that you are a fighter. I believe that your fighting aim should be at this point (and always) surviving first. After all this is the aim of every living thing on the face  of this earth, from unicellular organisms to plants to humans. This is  my aim this very day, to survive today and make it to tomorrow.

You are currently angry, have been angry for a long  time, more at some times, less at  other times, and more so lately, and understandably more so  lately. If  it takes you moving out of your home and staying elsewhere so to not get reagitated as you  listen to your wife singing or otherwise, do so.

Mood stabilizing psychiatric drugs may be the thing for  you to do in this quest  of surviving. It is definitely time  to numb yourself. It is not the time to get  further in  touch with all those emotions that have been brewing in you for decades. Numb them now and for the foreseeable future.

Focus  on fighting for your survival and abandon fighting  for this marriage. Fighting for this marriage will continue to bring you unfavorable results. Placating your wife, trying to win her approval as good enough, you’ve been doing this for too long and clearly it didn’t work. Talking  with her- you’ve been doing that as well. From reading your many posts I can see that you are quite aware and well read on issues of mental health and  communication and you have been quite aware for a long  time. Time to abandon this fight. It  is  out of your  hands.

It  is my understanding  that the fault  for this troubled marriage that might be ended soon is yours  and  hers, hers no less than yours. Because  it  is not all your fault, there isn’t  one thing  or two that you can do different  now that will save the marriage. It’s been a  two way street ongoing contributions to the state of trouble this marriage is in, for too long. A quick solution is not possible.

You wrote in a reply Nov 8 regarding your tech degree: “We are told  while  getting our degrees that the sky is the limit and  we can write our own ticket,  and then reality sets  in”. Let the reality 0f your marriage set in. Your marriage is likely to end soon. Maybe not, but it is out  of your hands, there is nothing you can do. If you die, your marriage will surely  end.

Give up the fight for your marriage; fight for your life instead.

anita

Dear John:

You are very angry. I  don’t trust people to think sensibly when intensely angry. Anger and sensible, logical thinking  don’t go together. I don’t  know what she  is thinking and I don’t think you know either. I  don’t trust  your ability at this time to correctly  evaluate people and situations.

What is clear to me is that the well being of your four young children must come first. They  must not witness anger, raised  voices, verbal abuse, and even  that  tension that can be so thick although invisible. Whatever it takes to protect them, do that. I think that separating from your wife immediately is an excellent idea. Because she is the mother of four children, let her stay with them in the house and move out somewhere else as soon as possible, today or tomorrow.

Pack some things and move out. See a psychiatrist and take the  medications you need to numb that anger, to be able  to go to work and function well enough. See your children outside their house, not with their mother, just  you and the kids.

Any conversations with her should  also be outside  the house  while  your children are in school or with a babysitter, sit with her in a public place like a coffee shop and talk.

Please pack a few things, get a hotel room, a short term bachelor apartment maybe. You are simply too angry to stay in the house.

anita