dcelj

Gunnut78, I am reading the same book by Melody Beatie.. Another one that for me was eerily a spot on description of some of the codependent issues I am working through is No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. Enabling is a difficult thing. For me right now even with the divorce proceedings my wife has not left yet and is still living in a spare bedroom downstairs. She was going to move out but I counseled her it was probably not a good idea since she didn't have a job and would just end up getting evicted. I did this in the interest of making sure that my kids are in a stable environment when they are with her. But at the same time, she is the one that wanted this and I removed a natural consequence to her decision by agreeing to let her stay. So now, I am living with the consequences. I think that is the essence of enabling that we remove consequences that they should experience and take them upon ourselves to rescue them. In the end, hurting ourselves and preventing them from learning any lessons. My prayers go out to you! I am on the same path as you are on, just a little further ahead. My advice is to reach out and grab hold of the iron rod! In my case, in a state of depression I let go of it and grabbing hold of it again has made all the difference for me!

Jayanna, I am not sure if your response was to me or to the Original Poster. I thought I would respond with my answers in the hope that maybe my answers would be helpful to him. In my case, my wife has completely "painted the church black." So my children are not currently participating in any church activities except for when I do get them to go to church with me. Since my wife has not moved out yet, it is difficult to do anything like Scripture Study since she tends to be disruptive to such things. Unless her treatment of the kids reaches the level of abuse, how she treats the children is currently and will always be out of my control. I am focused on making my time with the children as positive and healthy as possible. On a good note, since the divorce proceedings started in September things have settled down and she is treating the kids better. High stress has always been a trigger for my wife to start yelling. Now that stress is at a relatively lower level she is nicer to them than she used to be. I have communicated to both my wife and children that once we begin a formal parenting plan where I have the kids every other weekend it is my expectation that the children go to church. In short, I can only control myself and my actions and I am focused on doing so! In my situation, full custody of the kids is not really an option at this point for me since her mental illness is at a high functioning state. This may change in the future and is something I am prepared to take action on if needed. The counsel I have received from my lawyer is that it would be very difficult to convince a judge that a person I trusted as a Stay at home Mom for 13 years is now all of a sudden unfit for even partial custody. In my case, I have not been to the temple since I am not temple worthy due to tithing. As my marriage fell apart so did our finances! I have started paying tithing and look forward to the day when I can go back to the temple in the next couple of months. With that said, I have done a lot of praying for guidance during the last year and I am at peace with it. As someone at Church told me on Sunday, that a month ago he noticed something different about me. That coincides with the lifting of the fog of depression as I came to terms with this whole thing. For something that I thought would be the lowest point in my life has turned out to be one of the highest points of my life in a spiritual manner. Heavenly Father has truly blessed me with peace and I also know that this is for the best in my situation as well! I do not know what his plan for me is, I wish he would share it with me, but if he did then there would be no purpose for faith. I am at the same place as you currently. I am no longer sad! Thank you for sharing this! A few weeks back I asked my counselor if there was something wrong with me because I thought I should still be feeling down and out not feeling as if everything was ok. Through prayer the Lord has lifted me up and through him I have hope in the future. I have told my wife, that I have no anger toward her and that my hope for her is that at some point she finds peace, happiness, and healing from the mental and emotional wounds that were inflicted upon her during her childhood. Unfortunately, I believe that healing can only come from the Savior and she is currently turning away from him.

gunnut78, I am currently in the process of getting divorced from my Wife of almost 15 years. It has been a 2-3 year process for me to get to the point where I now believe this is the right step for me to take to ensure the healthiest environment for both me and my 4 children. It took that long because I wanted to make sure I tried and did everything I could on my part to save the marriage. Unfortunately, in my case without starting counseling at the beginning of this 2-3 year period probably doomed me to failure due my clumsiness in handling situations. So that is my #1 recommendation, get back into marriage counseling as soon as possible. Any topic that has the possibility of becoming an argument probably needs to be saved and reserved for counseling until you both learn the tools to communicate with one another. From your post, has your wife been diagnosed with a Personality Disorder, specifically Borderline. I am no expert so take what I say with a grain of salt. My counselor feels strongly that based on what I have told him that my wife has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Your description of your life and of your wife's behavior sounds very similar to my own situation. Unfortunately, one of the primary symptoms of BPD is a lack of responsibility on the part of the sufferer. Worse yet, they project this lack of responsibility on to you so you begin to feel like you are going nuts! Anyway, if you want to read more about BPD there is a good community / support group that has been helpful to me at Borderline Personality Disorder - Support group for families and relationship partners. My Responses to some of the comments so far: Agree wholeheartedly! There came a point about six months ago where I realized that what I was trying to change was my wife's choices. The problem here is that we learn through the gospel that one of Heavenly Father's gifts to us is Free Agency. With all the faith in the world you cannot pray away someone's free agency! Believe I have tried! The version of this that I heard from several people that had experienced divorce was that if the time came to end the marriage I would simply know it. I like this version better. I went through a period of severe depression over the course of 6-8 months earlier this year. But when my wife filed for divorce in early September, I strangely felt and still do feel very at peace with it and I am proceeding forward as best as I can! I agree and disagree with this comment. Over the course of 2-3 years I tried to give my wife a "reality check" when she would tell me that she hated me and never wanted to talk to or see me again. I would calmly explain that since we have children that whether we are married or not that we would have to continue to talk and see each other for the rest of our lives (Graduations, Marriages, Births of Grandchildren, etc..). In the end, my counselor finally told me that "it is impossible to have a rational discussion with an irrational person." If your wife has a mental illness such as BPD all the reality in the world will do nothing! But I do agree with the fact that you do need to think through this whole process and both the short and long term consequences of any actions you may have to take. I completely disagree with this comment. If I have misunderstood something please correct me! As part of thinking through the consequences of staying, put yourself in the shoes of your children as best as you can. What are they learning about marriage from the current environment. What are they learning about emotional health and stability. Children learn a lot of things by modeling the behaviors the see and hear from their parents. In short, for me I decided that the current situation with my wife was only teaching my children dysfunction. Children deserve a stable loving environment to make mistakes in to learn and grow! Being yelled at by my wife was not providing this for them! I would add to this that even if you are doing everything you can to help you may still eventually come back to this same question. But, by following through and doing everything you can to help her you will be able to stand up and say that you truly tried everything with a clear conscience. It is this clear conscience that will allow you to progress in the future. By the way, there is a difference between helping her and enabling her bad behavior. I agree with ManChild that I "hear" some "victim" mentality in your post. I did not know this until a few months ago, but that victim mentality is a symptom of being codependent. If a person has a mental illness then I have learned it is common for their significant other / primary caregiver to be codependent. After doing some research I found that I definitely have some codependency issues that I need to work on in order to progress out of this relationship toward healthy future for myself and my kids. As a note, I just read Matthew 11:28-30 on Sunday morning before church and it describes my situation perfectly. I cannot tell you how much prayer and scripture reading has helped me to cast my burdens upon the Lord. You will not know it until later as I have just realized recently that the Lord is carrying you through this difficult period of your life! Pray for knowledge and guidance and the Lord will provide it! Know that you are not alone in this! In addition to the Lord, there are others who are going through the same process as you!