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Thank you that was helpful because while I have read your thread having it concisely here is good. I appreciate you did that.

There are some things we have in common here. H and I were also friends with benefits for almost a year before we decided we would date. We had incredible sex and conversations but we dated other people and even discussed those potential people. I actually broke it off with him once because I met someone I really liked. He was hung up on a girl at work that toyed with him for a long time.

Then almost immediately after becoming a couple because we had always been open about our fantasies we started to experiment with swinging. Due to low self esteem I continued to do it. The only benefit about it that I liked was the hysterical bonding we would experience afterwards.

I think maybe where she and I diverge is I was conditioned to believe growing up that a woman needs to stay on top of sex because a husband won’t feel loved and will stray. I believed it so much that in the aftermath of my affair I actually defended sex as a requirement for a long time. I got in a lot of threads about it and prolifically said it was how to heal the marriage. I was wrong, very wrong about that. I actually think it would have been healthier to express this wasn’t working for me, and while she might be doing that more she is going about it in a very bad way. Bottling it up until it comes out like a child having a tantrum.

Another way I relate to what you are saying is up to my affair, I was working as a CEO for a small company, had just about finished raising three kids, was helping my husband start a business, and was putting in 18 hour days. I would have these meltdowns with my husband because after a year of sleep and relaxation deprivation I couldn’t take it anymore. I was told basically to suck it up, that if we just made this work we would be financially feee to do whatever we wanted. (He was right about that, I was able to leave my job and we have been traveling this past year) So I continued to help but due to exhaustion I was starting to drop a lot of balls. This went against my perfectionist nature and destroyed my ego as he would get upset when I said I didn’t have time to take care of something. I didn’t though, I still was running our entire household and was the breadwinner at this point.

Enter the affair. It felt good. Very good. I escaped deeper and deeper into it because I couldn’t manage my life. Some of my entitlement came from the long hours and not feeling seen or heard. I was on autopilot. I was diagnosed with emotional exhaustion weeks before I slept with this other person.

My husband saw it as a sexual awakening too. Because it’s at that time how and why he would have an affair - the sexual frustration. (Even though he went on and had an affar

Or for other reasons that didn’t include that. I was having sex with him daily) But again, motivations of an affair are usually far removed from the whys. It wasn’t a sexual awakening it was escapism. Because I never communicated well enough to build a life I didn’t have to escape from. In fact I don’t think I had an awareness of a lot of my needs at all.

I can’t give you an explanation for why she was so toxic around sex from the early part of your marriage. General wisdom is that there is a polarization that happens that often causes that but it’s difficult to go back and say what happened over a decade prior.

I can tell you that while I would say we had a good sex life prior to my affair, that was defined by I had orgasms. We had sex frequently and I mostly climaxed. So to me, it was successful. But I was very much like your wife I wanted to do what worked. Usually it was giving him oral and me using my own fingers, or a very specific position. We might do other stuff but that was always incorporated because it was "successful"

That didn’t come from anywhere other than I knew he would want to have sex until I climaxed. I wanted to make sure I could do that because otherwise it would go until I was sore, or we would be back at it later. He couldn’t see sex as successful without it and in many ways that’s what made me ultimately pull away there too. For many women orgasms are elusive at times and he didn’t feel sex was successful without them. This led to my own sexual dysfunction.

How I define successful sex now is nothing like that. Our sex life now is intimate, loving, exciting, we mix it up constantly. If I don’t get there, it’s okay with both of us. I can and very much do enjoy what did happen. But we had to approach this much differently and due to his affair this has been a pretty recent development over the past year. I never knew how much joy sexual fulfillment was until we came to this place. The requirement had put another dysfunction on top of our existing ones.

So why am I telling you this? Because I didn’t understand at the time that was the problem and I am trying to illustrate your wife doesn’t understand herself either. I shared with you in a prior post, but from about six months before the affair until about six months or so after I had the female version of impotency. I honestly just felt our marriage was dead. I resented him over it. But it was my issue cause by a combo of lack of awareness and not advocating for my own needs. Sounds like you both do that.

She needs to find her issues, awareness is honestly half the battle. I am sorry this is what you endured. However, until she has perspective over why things were this way it isn’t that she won’t change it, it’s that she can’t change it. She has to resolve the idea that her resentments belong to her because she didn’t do the work along the way to try to effecting address them.

My whole purpose of writing what I did was so it could be investigated. Once I saw the ways I was not enjoying sex or our marriage, recognizing my resentment, I could approach it differently. But by that time I had created a lot of damage in my h and so we did the same things you are doing now- artificially fixing it with a requirement that puts more pressure in a very sensitive area.

I had a lot of sex under duress. It was my own perceptions that made it duress, but fear of losing my husband was never not there. I think your wife is experiencing that. She knows things were always fucked up but she doesn’t understand why it was that way and she likely has unconsciously blamed you a lot for it. But she sees the fights to be about that totally because she hasn’t dealt with being introspection in the right ways here. She may also want to take some time evaluating whether her IC person is a good fit, because it takes a good one to help see you need to dig there.

That’s the key about ws’s we are people who sleep walk through life with little introspection. When you say childlike, that’s accurate. To tie a bow around it, my picture of how we got married is that I was loyal. He couldn’t land the girl at work, and since I wasn’t sufficient for him we had to do swinging. For the rest of our marriage I held that inadequacy without realizing it.

It was easy to think I was there as a convenience to him. I have shown a lot of vulnerability in writing this because it’s hard for me to admit to strangers I was so stupid and blind. My husband married me because he loves me, and if I had been looking at things with appreciation instead of unworthiness I would have been able to see it. I know what a foolish child I was.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:24 PM, Wednesday, August 24th]

Also I want to say there were a lot of posts written while I was writing that one so I am sorry if that is coming off obtuse in light of some of the other things now said. I haven’t had a chance to look at it all closely yet.

So you asked me how to make sure it is authentic. No I agree her always initiating isn’t any more helpful.

For us, we had to have a lot of conversations about how my husband experiences rejection. We had to figure out safe ways for me to put it off so I had confidence it was okay. He had to work to not accidentally hit me with repercussions, and in exchange I worked on my libido and helping him understand what I needed in a healthy way. It’s been eye opening actually because now he really likes when I do those things to him that I told himI needed. It’s been enlightening to him that we have expanded our intimacy so much he now believes me. He sees what was missing.

I have never heard a bh five or six months out saying they were having romantic sex. I am not sure what to make of that. I don’t want to dismiss it in anyway, but it’s why cloud said to me what he did. Vulnerability is usually something that happens after trust is restored. I don’t know how you can be abused and still find a way to be vulnerable and make love to your abuser, but that is likely something you should look at more closely. I don’t know what to say to that other than it seems like if that is happening it would be more fake it until you make it stuff or a strong period of denial?

[This message edited by hikingout at 7:10 PM, Wednesday, August 24th]

But I can't move forward with her having zero respect for me either.

I do understand, maybe more than I can properly convey here. It was a horrible passive aggressive/rejection move by your wife to wait until AFTER the act to say what she said. I get that. Again, more than I can explain. My wife’s A was secret for YEARS and I was constantly pushed away while she slowly figured out her awful ways. Rejection in all forms, especially after an A, are brutal.

That aside, I don’t think she is offering zero respect — I think out and out rejection without offer of a rain check would be zero respect. Again, I think she feels as unsafe as you and the only way she vents that frustration is unhealthy for her and you.

There is a chance you already hit you’re breaking point and it hasn’t caught up to you. I’ll always understand when and why people are done.

I’m just saying IF you’re not done, some space and time or sitting back down and looking at the boundaries you each have (or don’t have) need to be looked at again.

Otherwise, that connection that desperately needs a rebuild has no shot.

Yesterday felt authentic to me.

I think it's interesting that you think it was authentic. I did not get that impression from reading your re-telling of it. I saw her enthusiasm as over-the-top and inauthentic. Your first instinct to pull back was the correct one.

To be clear - I don't fault you for going through with it or changing your mind that she must have been being authentic when she ramped things up. You would think someone in that situation was being honest. I question if maybe it's difficult for you to tell when she is being authentic or not. That would make sense. She has spent many years telling and showing you she feels one way and then secretly feeling something else causing you to be blindsided when she reveals how she really felt. She has created such a chaotic, insincere environment it's nearly impossible to tell when she is being authentic. There seems to be little correlation between her effort to appear one way and the reality of how she really feels.

Are you familiar with Nice Guy mentality? It's this:

What Is the Nice Guy Syndrome? A nice guy can be described as a man who does not think he is ok by being himself. Because of conditioning by family and society, a nice guy believes that the only way to be accepted, loved, likes, or have his needs met is by becoming who everyone else wants them to be.

I wonder if your WW is a Nice Girl that is why she feels angry and resentful when you respond to her fake enthusiasm even positively. Or that she thinks of herself as a martyr for playing some idealized good wife role to you in her mind and sees every little misstep of yours or less-than-ideal reaction is an affront to her after all she's done for you. Mind you, things you never asked for or even realized that she was putting extra effort into because you believed these acts to be sincere and out of a place of love for you. But perhaps they are less sincere than you think and have more to do with her and how she wants you and others to see her.

It might be worth it to read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover not necessarily for yourself but to see if maybe some of these dysfunctional behaviors are things your WW is doing.

Neko- yes that was a much more succint way of putting what I am trying to say. Because I experienced many aspects of this it’s hard for me to stay to the big picture because I devolve into the details too easily.

I think we can all agree she is harboring resentment and it’s coming out badly. But I also think dr. tends to want to take responsibility over some of it. I think if he does that then he feels he has some semblance of control of the outcome. If he can make changes and get her to respect him for example, he can fix it. It just doesn’t work that way.

In fact it instead only feeds some of his insecurities.

Dr. You are not responsible for your wife’s affair, her inability to respect or love you in the ways you want to see.

Again, my explanation of her behavior is not to excuse it, it’s to place a magnifying glass that might help you to understand that how she thinks, her resentments, her behaviors are all a reflection of her own internal world and nothing really to do with who you are.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:49 PM, Wednesday, August 24th]

Hiking Out, thank you for that additional context on your relationship.

That’s the key about ws’s we are people who sleep walk through life with little introspection. When you say childlike, that’s accurate. To tie a bow around it, my picture of how we got married is that I was loyal. He couldn’t land the girl at work, and since I wasn’t sufficient for him we had to do swinging. For the rest of our marriage I held that inadequacy without realizing it.

I relate to that. My WW pursued me hard while we were fuck buddies--she fell for me, but I was just comin into my own sexually and enjoying attention from a few beautiful women. I fell hard for one girl who I couldn't lock down (she was a horrible alcoholic and had to pull the plug on the relationship) and my WW kept throwing herself at me--anything I wanted sexually anytime I wanted it until she won me over.

She certainly carried that inadequacy into the marriage--she always had a chip on her shoulder about it. I've tried to comfort her; she's gorgeous and carefree and I genuinely fell in love with her. I suspect she doesn't hear it--she just see her flaws.

For us, we had to have a lot of conversations about how my husband experiences rejection. We had to figure out safe ways for me to put it off so I had confidence it was okay. He had to work to not accidentally hit me with repercussions, and in exchange I worked on my libido and helping him understand what I needed in a healthy way. It’s been eye opening actually because now he really likes when I do those things to him that I told himI needed. It’s been enlightening to him that we have expanded our intimacy so much he now believes me. He sees what was missing.

That's very wise.

I have never heard a bh five or six months out saying they were having romantic sex. I am not sure what to make of that. I don’t want to dismiss it in anyway, but it’s why cloud said to me what he did. Vulnerability is usually something that happens after trust is restored. I don’t know how you can be abused and still find a way to be vulnerable to your abuser, but that is likely something you should look at more closely. I don’t know what to say to that other than it seems like if that is happening it would be more fake it until you make it stuff or a strong period of denial?

I'm entirely vulnerable. I feel like I've been comfortable in that role because of my kink, so I forced myself back to it. That's why her emotional abuse is so hurtful now. She's not doing anything different now than she did in the past, but it never really hurt me before. Now each time is a dagger reminding me how little she cares and respects me and it breaks me.

I was able to make love to her only a few days after DDay--I'll admit that was too soon and I wrote about it in my first thread. I wasn't ready for it. For her, it was one of the best sexual sessions she's ever had with me. Then we went into hysterical bonding, so no love making for a few weeks. But I'd say within a month I was willing to be vulnerable with her to make love again normally.

It's also worth noting that I had already made significant progress on the mind movies issue--I wasn't entirely caught up in picturing her with AP, so without that in front of my mind, I was able to open up again. Perhaps I also felt it would provide me insight into how she felt about me. Much of the sex we had these last five months has been very positive and she's enjoyed it.

I’m just saying IF you’re not done, some space and time or sitting back down and looking at the boundaries you each have (or don’t have) need to be looked at again.

I'm very open to exploring the boundaries, but I'm running low on ideas. Let's assume for argument's sake that my sole goal is preventing her from being abusive during or after a sexual encounter. What can I do to achieve that?

I think it's interesting that you think it was authentic. I did not get that impression from reading your re-telling of it. I saw her enthusiasm as over-the-top and inauthentic. Your first instinct to pull back was the correct one.

Sorry, miscommunication. I meant it felt authentic to initiate the encounter. Then I pulled back. What happened afterward was not authentic, but my WW doubles down hard and becomes sexually aggressive. She's smiling, stripping off her cloths and playing with my dick. It's a tremendous mixed signal. The answer was perhaps to sprint out of the room for fear that she might be inauthentic, but that's not a practical way to live.

To be clear - I don't fault you for going through with it or changing your mind that she must have been being authentic when she ramped things up. You would think someone in that situation was being honest. I question if maybe it's difficult for you to tell when she is being authentic or not. That would make sense. She has spent many years telling and showing you she feels one way and then secretly feeling something else causing you to be blindsided when she reveals how she really felt. She has created such a chaotic, insincere environment it's nearly impossible to tell when she is being authentic. There seems to be little correlation between her effort to appear one way and the reality of how she really feels.

Yes, regrettably I admit I often have no idea when she's being authentic. I think you're spot on.

Are you familiar with Nice Guy mentality? It's this:

What Is the Nice Guy Syndrome? A nice guy can be described as a man who does not think he is ok by being himself. Because of conditioning by family and society, a nice guy believes that the only way to be accepted, loved, likes, or have his needs met is by becoming who everyone else wants them to be.

I wonder if your WW is a Nice Girl that is why she feels angry and resentful when you respond to her fake enthusiasm even positively. Or that she thinks of herself as a martyr for playing some idealized good wife role to you in her mind and sees every little misstep of yours or less-than-ideal reaction is an affront to her after all she's done for you. Mind you, things you never asked for or even realized that she was putting extra effort into because you believed these acts to be sincere and out of a place of love for you. But perhaps they are less sincere than you think and have more to do with her and how she wants you and others to see her.

That's very possible.

It might be worth it to read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover not necessarily for yourself but to see if maybe some of these dysfunctional behaviors are things your WW is doing.

That was the second book recommendation I got back in March. I read a bit of the book, but found I did not relate to most of it. I clearly had some nice guy tendencies, but about half of them were off the mark, so I found the book to be a bit of a misfire. I can take another look with a different perspective perhaps, or suggest it for my WW.

Let's assume for argument's sake that my sole goal is preventing her from being abusive during or after a sexual encounter. What can I do to achieve that?

Stick to the boundary you set. Let her deal with the harsh consequences of her actions,her words. Let her get that apartment. Let her deal with being a single mom, that shares custody of the kids. Show her you will never tolerate that abuse. (Regardless of where it comes from,her childhood, resentment,etc etc. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't. It matters in the ways she needs to work on herself,but the end result towards you is the same).

If you back off this very clear boundary you set, AND SHE AGREED TO, you can expect more of the same.

She is like a child. So think of what you would do of your child had a tantrum over a cookie. You already told her no. So she cries,and says she wants the cookie. If you give her the cookie what does that teach the child? Not only that she can get her way with the right words,but that you will back down.

Don't give her the cookie. Let her deal with consequences. She will either sink or swim. That's on her.

--anything I wanted sexually anytime I wanted it until she won me over

.

Same, definitely. That was me. And then it was triggered more deeply after my affair that I was still having to convince him of my worth through sex.

Of course, that was my construct not his. But until I learned to love myself and see more of what he saw in me, this need to win him over with sex was just adding to my resentments.

Yet, I did the same to AP. The only reason there was sex is I was trying to win. It’s so fucked up that I thought men were really reduced to that.

Instead I have learned they are as complex as we are. I learned that I was worthy of love for way more reasons than that. And that my husband did see me. Until I could fix my own mirror everyone else was distorted.

As for the love making, I can see what you mean about your kink and how that plays into it. However, I still think the fact there is no protection of self is more problematic for you right now than you realize. Your wife isn’t a safe partner, putting any feelings of safety there is dangerous until she is.

I still believe she wants to be, and through her efforts and reactivity I know she still wants to be married to you. That is as plain to me as how much you love her. However, maybe this separation will help you feel your boundaries better.

It’s so natural you want to be close to her and be reassured by her, I don’t fault you for that. It’s actually quite touching in some ways.

But your lack of protecting your interests serves as validation of her wanting to hold on to the idea the damage isn’t as great as it is. It’s not because she is evil, it’s because it’s natural at this point for her to be in denial about that because of the mental gymnastics she did in order to have an affair.

This will dissipate if she will admit her resentments, really trace the source back to her feelings of unworthiness, and replace it with the narrative of how she created those feelings herself. The reason she can’t admit to you that she resents you is she doesn’t understand enough. I wouldn’t force her hand on that right now because an undeveloped understanding is only going to be detrimental to examine.

If someone told me I resented my husband and turned it into entitlement at months 5 or 6 months out I would have thought the person was bonkers. I would have told you that there were no resentments and that my husband was a wonderful man who didn’t deserve what I did. That latter part is still true, but the resentments were unconscious.

Resentment for me could be boiled down to one source- I didn’t feel loved because I didn’t believe I was worthy of it. It had very little to do with my external world.

I'm very open to exploring the boundaries, but I'm running low on ideas. Let's assume for argument's sake that my sole goal is preventing her from being abusive during or after a sexual encounter. What can I do to achieve that?

Your wife has put herself in this Hell of her own making.

I’ll bet a dollar right now, based strictly on how my wife felt, your wife feels like she cannot ever be free of this very same Hell she made.

The last thing she should expect right now is patience and empathy from you.

My primary boundary is I wanted my wife to stop being defensive about her choices — it took her TWO YEARS to stop automatically trying to mitigate some remnants of the decisions she made to put herself in the spot she was in (full of guilt and shame). She mostly owned it. Sort of owned. Sometimes owned it.

It drove me insane and that moment where I had to help her out of that hole or walk away.

She broke that boundary 50 times.

The last few times, she really caught herself and apologized before I pointed it out.

Empathy and patience.

Your wife knows she messed up, but there is no apology for all this shit. Sorry ain’t gonna cut it.

You have to remind her again, show some empathy that she has ROOM to fuck up, so she has room to explore what she needs to feel safe and reach back out to you after acting out.

Here is the kicker — if you copy and paste your SOLE GOAL to avoid abuse statement above and hand it to her — it SHOULD be a starting point. Only she has that answer.

What worked in my world may not work in yours. Me giving my wife room to mess up and know she had time (limited time for sure) but some time to improve, to figure out she might be able to contribute to saving the relationship — that helped US.

All the speculative advice in the world from everyone here — we can’t KNOW exactly why your wife is stuck in this reactionary loop. She has to tell you.

She looked at apartments and discussed the separation in IC before we even spoke last night. Then afterward, she cancelled our vacation reservations and put a down-payment on an apartment right away. She's clear-eyed and understands she crossed the line and what the consequences for it would be.

She is moving out? She put the downpayment on the apartment today? Did she also cancel MC?

You think she took this action because it would be required (consequences)?

Trying to understand what exactly was discussed regarding the apartment.

Also trying to understand why everyone is discussing sex? There might not be any sex, with her, if she moves out.

Did I miss something?

Yes, go back a few pages.

She gave him a sex act but wasn’t authentic in doing so and ended up uttering "I didn’t enjoy that" and the tried to take it back. So since this was his boundary he said they had to separate. She agreed as to not continue hurting him.

I think they still have the goal of working on their relationship.

Thanks, hikingout. Was trying to read through quickly to get updated. I guess I missed that her moving out was a sure thing.

It makes me sad to read, but I understand.

That was the second book recommendation I got back in March. I read a bit of the book, but found I did not relate to most of it. I clearly had some nice guy tendencies, but about half of them were off the mark, so I found the book to be a bit of a misfire. I can take another look with a different perspective perhaps, or suggest it for my WW.

Just to make clear - I don't think that you have Nice Guy tendencies as outlined in the book. I think that your behaviors are more along the lines of codependent in that you take on the responsibility of controlling her behavior and treat her mess ups as partially your fault for not preventing them. That is what we mean by controlling - all of this energy and thought put into stopping her from doing this, getting her to do that, and attempting to keep things going by policing what she is/isn't doing. It's the dance outlined in the book "Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself" by Melody Beattie. It sounds like you're starting to realize how futile this is though.

I think that her behavior is Nice Guy Syndrome because she builds up resentment when people don't live up to her standards and has an entitled victim mentality because from her perspective, she tries overly hard to live up to an idealized version of herself for their sake. Any mistake on their part is proof that they do not do the same for her which turns into resentment and comes out even during times when they are happy. Did you ever have someone you deeply, truly resented? And did you ever feel annoyed by their happiness especially if it was because you did something for them that wasn't acknowledged? Like the boss who is always nitpicking your work but then gets a promotion because of your work without giving you any credit? That is what is going through her mind. Even your happiness and satisfaction is annoying to her when she believes it's because you're benefitting from her efforts to fulfill the good wife role. It comes out the second she finds you ungrateful for not returning the favor or appreciating it enough. Perhaps it happens more with sex because she sees sex as what you truly want, your ultimate love language, and something she's always satisfied or won you over with so it's the high contention point of her resentment.

Thank you for all the posts. OldWounds' post really hit me hard.

At the start of this, I noted how I wanted to use this horrendous situation to prove that I can be a better person. I also wanted to break the chain of divorce by my parents. If this marriage can work, I want it to work. The question I've struggled with all day is whether a separation is better or worse for us. I've wavered back and forth. Logic tells me to separate and my gut tells me not to.

I understand the logic clearly, so I've examined my gut a bit. And I don't think it's complicated--it's not fear of D or fear of being alone; it's simply fear of what this act will do to my children. I'm kicking the mother of my children out of the family home over a blowjob gone bad. It's unreasonable.

I told my WW I'd like her to stay--she had already put a deposit down, but only $175 (this is the most expensive BJ of my life between the apartment and the cancelled hotel).

I just can't sit here and watch my children look on as she packs up her things. I just can't do it yet. We'll know in time if this is weakness or strength. I honestly don't know.

So now what? Clearly we need new boundaries and ones that make sense. I don't know what those are, but I'm heading off to MC with a desire to figure this out. I expect my WW's effort to meet mine.

And I know many of you feel my WW has shown only her lack of love for me, but I see both sides. Today I saw her love for me. She went out and found an apartment and put money down on her own in complete terror over the pain she was causing me. It meant something to me and I want to empathize with her. I want to lead with love.

P.S. I know some of you are about to come in strong, but I have to go with my gut.

Doc. Perhaps, as an interim step, it might be worthwhile to move to an in house separation (IHS), in lieu of your WW moving out at the current time. Having young kids alone would make her moving out a challenge.

However, to successfully do an IHS you will need to religiously follow the 180 - no interaction with your WW except for dealing with the kids snd household logistics. If you end up electing to do this, I strongly recommend you read up on this site the extensive literature on executing the 180. This is something you vehemently opposed since day one, but perhaps you may see it’s efficacy now. And, I think you need to implement this today. One of you needs to immediately move into the spare bedroom.

Of course, you need to propose this to your WW in a way where you are not back sliding on your hard boundary. Thus, you should make it clear to her that you plan to have limited interaction with her except for the kids snd household stuff. I would tell her that you propose the IHS solely for the children’s sake, and nothing else.

Both of you staying in the same home gives you the opportunity to observe her behavior. Any personal interaction/relationship discussions, however, should be conducted at your weekly MC sessions, and at no other times.

Doc. Our postings crossed paths. However, I still 100 percent think you should pursue the path I recommended.

I thought the boundary was no more cruelty and abusive language towards you in,and out,of the bedroom? Therefore,it wouldn't be because of a BJ gone wrong. You saying that is a HUGE minimization of what she's done(for years).

But I don't think any of us are surprised that you've decided to erase the line,and draw another one.

Keeping the family together, at all costs, eventually costs too much.

ETA: Dude offers the best solution. Consequences. But no separation.

However, you need to decide..and be clear with her..how long you are going to tolerate the abuse. You have said you know it will happen again. Surely you aren't just going to live like that for the rest of your life?

[This message edited by HellFire at 10:49 PM, Wednesday, August 24th]