my wife abandoned me with deceit

[stevwd]

I have reached a fork in the road regarding my wife and do not know how to proceed. My wife is a very sensitive person that uses manipulation, blackmail and her infermity to get her way and I let her have it most of the time. I have a very strong and intense personality but have rarely excercised it with her because of her sensitive personality and her reaction (goes to bed for a week). She recently wrote a letter demanding a substantial amount of the remainder of our posessions before she will even consider reconcilliation. The professional I am seeing states that I have two choices based on the following comment in the letter "I would greatly appreciate it if he would simply accept my opinions and feelings as being valid and worthwhile". Because of her illness and the fact she couldn't work I would spend at least an hour/2hours every day with her in dialogue so I don't understand this comment (I am a peacemaker and believe relationships are about working decisions out to benefit both parties - I rarely ended up on the long end of the stick or even the more preferable 50/50 stick). The professional said that this is choice number 1. Tell her "I am deaf,dumb and blind to your communication" ask her to forgive you for the way in which my strong male opinions have affected her so that she feels she has been abused (even though she got her way mostly - he says) and offer to continue getting help that will eventually include her input and direct involvement. 2. Say "good-bye" because I have been walking on political eggshells for a year now and whenever I am direct she coccoons herself for a week and if I can't be direct then there is no relationship and no way of communicating with her like adults do. I truly love her and miss her intensely and want to quickly resolve her absense and bring her home. Unfortunately she has put these financial matters before the relationship itself - which tells me she only cares about her own well being rather than the relationships well being. I can't tell her this directly, because if I do - she will then punish me again as she so often does. How do I lovingly bring her around or should I say good-bye.

[Randy]

Exactly what is it about her that you love? Are you really into this much chaos and abuse?

 

Your relationship is a highly co-dependent situation in which your wife uses her illness and other shortcomings as highly manipulative tools that you fall right into. You are an enabler because you allow yourself to get sucked in and participate in the drama while continuing "love" her as you say.

 

Your entire post was a bit confusing to me but I sort of got the gist of what you were trying to communicate and I think your situation stinks. Sometimes we get all tied up drama that is really bad for us and don't realize it.

 

You have to figure out just what you are getting by remaining in this situation. In my opinion, I don't think any amount of love, kids, money, movie contracts, potential inheritances, shares of Microsoft Corp., etc. would be enough to keep me around the likes of this woman.

 

And, by the way, blackmail is against the law in most states (I am not a lawyer but I studied business law in college.)

[stevwd]

Thanks Randy for your insight - I take it then you feel good-bye is the appropriate response. I talked to another friend that stated that I should respond to her letter avoiding the financial agenda completely and focus on the relationship itself. They felt that telling her that I will no longer tolerate this behavior and that these tactics only destroy her respect for me and that my response should be allowed to be direct yet consider her sensitivity. In otherwords "try not to be aggressive when you are direct" I now have the task of trying to write such a letter prior to saying good-bye. How do you say these things without offending her and striking back. ANY verbage for the letter would be appreciated.