Originally Posted by
fruitcakeman
HAHAHA! Thanks man. Yep, you're right in many ways. I might still be being too easy and hence enabling her behaviour.
Let me share what happened a year ago (in brief hopefully).
I got fed up with her behaviour, confronted her several times and said enough's enough, I started taking the modem to work with me (she went to her parent's all day and used theirs). I approached them and told them what I was trying to do and what my concerns were for the kids (they said I was doing it the wrong way and I should talk to her. I said, oh yeah, I've talked myself silly, she doesn't want to listen. They said, you're still doing the wrong thing, we won't stop her from using our internet. From then on, they saw me as the aggressor.
So we had many more talks, first calm, then with me being annoyed and saying "what makes you think this is OK, put yourself in my shoes, is this what you'd want if I were doing the same thing, etc".
I left one night, she started freaking out and I came back half way through the next day, saying "things NEED to change". Promises from her, which were eventually broken. More talks, then more fights, no change. So I left for 5 days then, which might have back fired on me. At first she was upset and said "Look I'm sorry, I know I haven't been a good wife or mother, I've been coping with a pain of mine in my own way and not considering how it affects you". I thought, GREAT, maybe this is a turnaround.
Unfortunately, the next day (I hadn't gone home yet), she'd changed her mind after talking with her online friends who had suggested that I didn't actually love her, but only loved the idea of what I wanted her to be. Now if that was true, I wouldn't be trying to hard, I do love her (did maybe), I don't like how she's acting but that doesn't change my love. The thing is, she wasn't always like this, it started a year after we married, so who she is now is different to the woman I married too. So it's not an idea of what I want her to be, it's what I know she is deep down that I love(d) about her, the strength she has, the honesty in the face of adversity, her dreams and aspirations in sync with mine, our passion for each other, that's what I love, and that's what we had. That's what I'm fighting to get back, and the fact that I'm fighting and not giving up shows (through action) that I love her, at least in my view. I've told this to her, and she gets it, but her love communication style is more focused around love poems and romantic deeds and unconditional love, which is fine and I did a lot of that especially early on, but it gets hard, even unreasonable to keep doing that when she's degrading more and more, it's even counter-productive I'd say.
So, the 5 days away seemed to backfire, because of course, she confided in her online friends emotionally and it pushed us further apart (pulled us back together initially, but then backfired). I went back and things got better for a few months. She started a vegetable garden, we brought 2 chickens which she looked after, she started taking the kids to organised activities (swimming lessons, karate, etc) and to answer your question, I pay for 95% of everything, she pays for odd things (takeaways, treats, etc) with a bit of an allowance her parents still pay her.
Things seemed to improve a lot, and I gave lots of positive reinforcement and we spent lots of evenings together (at least that's how I felt about it), but relapse for her, she slowly went back to it. My questions of whether she was happy to go back where we'd come from and throw away both of our hard work fell on deaf ears and I was made out to be the bad guy who was never happy.
Fast forward to now where her online time has just kept on increasing, but my options have diminished.
I suppose in summary, I've tried what you've said, doesn't work (her parents were right about that much!).
Thanks though, that needed to come out to say that I've tried that approach.
Cheers heaps!
