How does a man abandon his wife to help his children?

[Liberanosamalo]

Maybe you don’t mean to sound insulting to people who took you at your word and tried to offer advice.

Since you don’t want positive people offering advice, I’ll give it the way I sometimes do:

Your wife may have trust issues with the world, but if after 20 years she can’t trust YOU and YOUR decisions, YOU DO HAVE A PROBLEM!!!

Get your head out of the sand. If she can’t discuss things with you rationally and calmly and let you make some decisions that may be difficult in the short term but benefit everyone in the long term, then you DO HAVE A PROBLEM!

Quit insulting the Catholics in everything you do. Your kids getting sick isn’t about the Catholic school. Hate to tell you, the public schools are little germ factories too.

And NO! Your wife IS NOT WORKING WITH YOU LIKE A TEAM.

I’m an expert at dealing with inflexible people. I know one thing. After a while you spend all your time and energy trying to keep them from flying off the handle and you completely lose any ability to make a coherent decision for yourself, because it all comes down to appeasing the inflexible person.

At the very least, if she doesn’t trust you after 20 years, you DO need Retrouvaille. And no, they don’t sing Kumbayaa there.

Apparently she’s not willing to make any sacrifices or concessions to assist you in your professional development. She’s not willing to sit at home and take care of her own children. She won’t let anyone else do it either. She won’t discuss it. She apparently doesn’t care about the job stress on you.

She sounds very selfish.

So call her bluff. Get fired. Stay at home with the kids. Live on her income and she can bear all the stress of keeping a roof over your heads. When she has anxiety attacks about it, you can remind her it’s all her fault.

How’s that for being positive! No head in the clouds there!

I lived with the world’s most negative man. I’ll win at this game every time!

Seriously, something has to give. Some of your church activities. See if you can do flex time and go into work earlier. YOU CANNOT HAVE IT ALL. Every family has to balance family time, work time and other activities. She is not a team player. I don’t care what her reasons, her psychosis or her anxieties. She is not helping the team. Good for you for bearing with it. But when people make suggestions, quit insulting them. They don’t have all the facts.

And if you treat the people at work like you treated the posters here, you will always have to worry about them sabotaging you. Just sayin…

 

[whatevergirl]

*eucharisteo…I was offering advice based on what I thought might help. You don’t need to insult me…I think counseling can help in these situations, (but not always) merely from getting an objective point of view…not that you need a Dr Phil overhaul.

I wasn’t trying to harm you with my post…I will offer prayers, that a solution that you both can agree on, comes your way. *

 

[eucharisteo]

I’m sorry for your loss whether it was from divorce, death or even a job. But you don’t have to add to my struggles hoping for me to fail. I’m not whining about not doing as well as the Jones’. Why would you respond, knowing my stress and try to hurt me? I’m sorry I joke about difficult things in my stressed out state. My responses were partly to joke about why some of these suggestions were simply goofy to me (no branier) as if someone like me wouldn’t know these things. Some of you offered good suggestions and some mixed good with not so good advise. Others completely hateful and even harmful from the way I took it.

I’ll unsubscribe to this because it’s proven not to be productive. I’m sorry for wasting your time.

 

[whatevergirl]

*eucharisteo…I didn’t notice the depression/anxieties aspect of your situation, until rereading…my apologies. My mom actually had depression/anxiety issues, back when the meds weren’t so great. (70’s) My dad did everything…worked out of the home, hired a nanny to take care of me and cook (he didn’t cook and clean, just wasn’t something he was going to do) and then came home and took care of my mom. My sister married when I was 6…she’s 13 yrs my senior, so he needed someone to take care of me, etc.

It was hard on him, I remember. It can be hard. But my mom, God bless her, she tried…she had good days and bad. I don’t remember all of the details, but my sister does…and I think that all I can offer to you are again, my prayers. No one here knows you or your situation, like you do…so, none of us mean you harm with our replies. But now that I reread and see the anxietycomponent of your wife, I do know that it can add a different dynamic to things.

I truly hope you find a solution that fits everyone’s needs…*

 

[Liberanosamalo]

eucharisteo, no one hopes you fail. Seriously. Several people gave you advice. Many of us have walked horrible roads in life too. You do what you can and what you have to do.

Your responses may have been joking in your head, but humor does not translate well on these forums. Even when you use this guy.

You sounded angry and snarky and dismissive of people who had taken the time to offer suggestions.

Your wife has serious issues. You have mentioned them. You are truly heroic to be hanging in there and trying as hard as you are. No one wants you to fail especially when there are children involved.

But you have much positive going for you… both of you have jobs. As one poster said, that’s lucky in this environment.

Something has to give. You are stretched too thin. Charity begins at home. I would suggest you all cut back on the church and charity activities and have only one. Then see how things are going with your timing.

By the way, thank you for your service to the country. I take it you were army. Keep pinging on the VA for the benefits owed you.

One of the posters suggested online courses. Check and see if there are any degree programs you can do online. I know many military people who are doing that for post-grad degrees. Some from overseas. You may even look at a degree in something that is not necessarily engineering, but makes use of your engineering experience and expands it in a direction where it is applied differently. Civil engineering is an interesting degree program and there is a huge need for that in many components both locally and in government work.

We’re trying to help you think outside the box here. Please work with us. No one wants you to abandon your wife and kids. You’ve done this for 20 years. You are to be commended. Maybe if you could make your wife see that your attempts to change things are to take stress off her and make things smoother on her.

Don’t unsubscribe to this. Check into different options and keep us posted. We care. We just don’t want to be insulted for trying to help.

 

[eucharisteo]

I have been looking into online programs for a while but it’s difficult to get straight answers and find ABET accredited programs that are required. If I hand on to my sanity I may be able to find a way to take the classes working. But the new administration is a lot more agressive since we are undergoing serious reorganization for the 4th time this year. No layoffs or fires that we know of yet. But the stress is really high. We cut back on church activity mainly by cutting Catholic school that was not working with us well at all. Our public schools have been much more cooperative and frankly are better academically with better resources for our very smart and docile children. Some of the teachers are not good for our children. One was diagnosing out of ignorance and Father agreed she was stepping way out of her expertise. Had any of her claims been true it would have been diagnosed in the exemplary school he attended the year prior and is now back to doing quite well again and not getting sick as much, ironically. I think it’s the same anxieties his mother deals with which worries me too. But I’m giving it to Christ and praying for the best. If my boys decide to become priests, and one is seriously considering it at 14 now, I want to make sure we can afford to send him to a good one when the time comes, even though there are lots of vocational financial aid sources. This is our gift to the Church if he chooses and is chosen. He is very gifted and wold make a wonderful pastor one day. My younger son recently said that being a priest would be cool. Our daughter on the other hand, too early to know. When I went to the seminary I felt like an outcast because my parents dumped me without any help. It was very embarrassing. The others got to do really neat things that helped them discern their vocation. I have friends from that era of my life and want to make if better for my son if if tries to go. We’re not rich, we do well, but I really want to make more to talk my wife into considering staying home and maybe homeschooling the little ones or at least teaching closer by in a Catholic school. This would be another gift we could give. SHe’s an awesome teacher with a very high success rate of bringing children’s test scores to passing standardized tests required for advancing or graduating…we are in Texas. And no she doesn’t teach to the test as many falsely accuse teachers. I’m sure there are some that might, but not my wife and probably the majority are like her. She sees her teaching job like a vocation. She teaches in a very poor school in south dallas where the majority of the students are learning English as a Second Language. A lot of the teachers treat the students like they’re roaches. They are mostly Hispanic, Catholics, that are being proselytized systematically by adjacent folks like what we were guilty of doing. I believe this is her self imposed penance, much in the same way I impose a private penance on myself I’m not willing to discuss. It’s reparation for my past sins from leaving the Catholic Church and not returning when I first realized I made a serious mistake. I waited for God to convert her heart without me proselytizing or talking her into it. She had to do it on her own. But she’s seems 500 percent better now that she’s become Catholic… She didn’t do it just to make me happy. She convinced me to stop looking at the Ortjodox Church. Do you know how embarrassing it is for a non-Catholic to explain, convincingly, Marian theology? We are both devoted to the Blessed Mother now. And I’m not trusting in God like I should. I repent of that and simply ask for forgiveness for over reacting, joking harshly. I’m stressed and not thinking clear.

 

[kage_ar]

I will remember you and your family in my prayers.

 

[dulcissima]

How old are the children that are getting sick so often? What are they sick with? Do they have fevers or other symptoms other than not just feeling well? Are you sure that it doesn’t have something to do with the tension between your wife and yourself. Often such strife can cause a lot of stress for everyone involved, including the children.

I’m a mom of four and the only thing that has ever caused chronic problems with kids staying home sick was anxiety, stress, and depression. Is there anything that you can think of that would increase the peace and order in your home?

 

[Liberanosamalo]

I do know that sometimes losing a job opens an opportunity for something better down the road. Don’t fear the future so much. It will come anyway. St. Pio said if you pray, why worry. And if you worry, why pray?

Maybe the building the Catholic school was in had mold or allergens in the ductwork and your children were sensitive to it. Stress can also make people more prone to colds.

Your wife sounds like a gifted teacher. And you sound like a very strong person. So hang in there. And keep looking into online resources and VA resources. This may be God’s subtle way of guiding you to another area you hadn’t thought of before. Sometimes when doors are closed to you, that IS an answer.

 

[eucharisteo]

I do know that sometimes losing a job opens an opportunity for something better down the road. Don’t fear the future so much. It will come anyway. St. Pio said if you pray, why worry. And if you worry, why pray?

Maybe the building the Catholic school was in had mold or allergens in the ductwork and your children were sensitive to it. Stress can also make people more prone to colds.

Your wife sounds like a gifted teacher. And you sound like a very strong person. So hang in there. And keep looking into online resources and VA resources. This may be God’s subtle way of guiding you to another area you hadn’t thought of before. Sometimes when doors are closed to you, that IS an answer.

I was saying the same thing today to my son. I’ve stopped telling my wife these kinds of things because she’s an all or nothing thinker that decides mostly out of fear. She’s learned very …very slowly how not to be afraid. But its at the pace of a very tired snail. when we first married it took an enormous amount of effort just on my part to get her to say even a few words to my mother during a typical 2 to 3 hour visit. Now, she actually speaks up a bit.j But still holds back. It was very embarrassing in front of others because I felt that it made me look like a wife abuser, and I’m not at all. I’m the one that helped her find her own dignity as a human person being a woman. She’s grow tremendously but still has more to grow, like all of us. Only she has some very fundamentalist ways of doing things rooted in the way she grew up.

I’ve told her and she’s acknowledged the fact that God may be closing a door I’m trying to open. We talked about me finding employment within the Diocese teaching Adult Faith Formation classes. That’s something that if I could make 2/3 rd my current salary I’d do, and she agrees. So maybe that’s where God is leading me and I’m the problem, not her. I am open to reflecting on that. I’ve been a seminarian and know the workings behind the scenes enough to know that its not a picnic and some people express great disappointment, which with my background probably won’t be discouraged. I’d just do what I normally do. So I"m open to options. I just want to make sure I do the right thing but sometimes the only way to know is to try. That’s what my former seminarian buddy used to tell me and told me just a year ago again. He’s a vocation director, a priest from back home. I love him like a brother. He’s our children’s godfather.

Now I feel like this is heading in a better direction. I need to find a more regular spiritual director. Many years ago I had a major problem with a vocation director which ultimately led to me leaving the Church and him leaving the priesthood. I’ve never spoken to him since. It led me away from my vocation to the priesthood. But now looking back I wonder if God didn’t mean for me to become a deacon instead. I have a long way to go and am trying to keep that thought going because the doors to it keep opening everywhere in that direction. Strange. Maybe I’m fighting my own calling again by trying to “succeed” in the world prior to accepting a vocation to the diaconate. I’ve been asked by several people if I’ve thought about writing a book about my journey. I’ve hesitated for many personal reasons, maybe fears. But at this very moment I’m wondering if I am being stupidly selfish trying to take everything into my own control… Lot’s to think about… This last post got me really thinking…gonna have to pray about it. Thanks.