Hi 20yrs,
“Q: Can you live with her working with POS OM forever?
A: No I don't want them working together now, certainly not forever. A boundary will be set on that.”
A boundary/deadline was going to be set a few weeks ago, but you stepped back from that. Now, just as then, your gut feeling is that you don’t want her going into that office with the OM tomorrow, let alone next week, next month, or in six months’ time. Yet even now, a boundary has not been set. Instead, it “will be set” at some unspecified point in the future. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. One day. Or the week after that…20yrs, can you see the prevarication going on here? You hate the fact that she is still there with the OM, but you are prolonging it by not setting a deadline.
“As for the hard line in the sand? Tushnurse that is the big leap I am working up to.”
The longer you leave it, the longer your wife will remain in that office. The longer she is there, the longer you feel uncomfortable and disrespected. So is it in your interest to keep putting this off, or hers? It has already been eight months.
You make some good points in the email, but the tone still gives your WW every opportunity to say ‘no’ to what you are asking. I know it is not easy to change your approach to a more assertive one that gives your needs more importance, but just as examples of what you could try:
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“Can you give some serious consideration to the following.
Is it possible to raise the need to work in the region with your boss? We need help with this.”
You begin by asking if your WW can ‘consider’ doing something, which implies that she doesn’t have to do it. You are disempowering your request from the word go. It would be possible to give the above text more force and urgency without resorting to being a pushy dickhead by changing it to something like:
“You have a meeting with your boss coming up. Please can you raise the subject of you relocating to work in the region, and let me know what he says? Can he offer any help or support with this?”
This removes the ‘get out’ clause of ‘considering’ whether or not to do it, and puts the onus on her to refuse to do it. This is something you are desperate for her to do, so you need to drive it, repeatedly, and regularly, not just every few weeks.
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“I'm sorry but I do feel its abusive and disrespectful to me for you to continue working so physically close to someone who you nearly destroyed our family and marriage with.”
20yrs, please stop apologising. Why do you begin with “I’m sorry”? You have nothing to feel sorry for, and feeling angry and betrayed after what your wife did to you is nothing to apologise for. This is not pedantry or semantics; you are disempowering your feelings and emotions by apologising for them. Please, friend, stop doing that!
Instead, to drive home the distress that her still being there causes you, and give the message more power, it could have been written as:
“It is abusive and disrespectful to me for you to continue working so physically close to someone who you nearly destroyed our family and marriage with.”
Do you see the difference? There is no unnecessary apology, and no “I feel”. The message states the issues as what they are – the harsh facts of a situation your WW has forced on you for the past eight months. Which one of you should be apologising for that, you or her?
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“I know we discussed this a few weeks back but it leaves me feeling like you have chosen your career and workplace over me and our marriage. You made choices that put yourself and me in this situation and now you are unwilling to face this consequence around it.”
The first thing that strikes me is that the subject has been allowed to drop for a few weeks. 20yrs, why? You hate this crazy situation, and yet there has been no movement on it for eight months. Your wife’s subsequent text messages make it abundantly clear that she does not want to leave that place.
In the above message, the opening about having discussed the subject a couple of weeks ago sounds almost apologetic, like, “Sorry to bring this up again, but…” You have nothing to be sorry for; your tolerance and patience have been abused for eight months now, so enough with the apologies. The gist of the message is very good, but it could be empowered by removing the hesitant, apologetic opener, and adding something to make your position on this clear:
“The longer you remain in that office, the more I feel like you are prioritising your career above me and our marriage. You made the choices that put us in this unsustainable situation, and the need for you to be out of that office is a consequence of your choices. I have suffered through eight months of this with no movement at all, and there is still no sign of any movement. I am reaching the end of my tolerance on this subject, so if you want this marriage to continue, I hope you will take my words seriously and discuss the subject of your relocation with your boss as a matter of urgency.”
Maybe that takes no prisoners, but frankly 20yrs, why should it? You have spent eight months being nice and tolerant and making allowances, and where has it got you? For your good, I think you need to toughen up your messages, increase their regularity, and stop apologising. You didn’t cheat, she did; let her be the one who apologises.
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“Her email response:
I am taking this seriously, and I intend on leaving.”
Well, that’s just not true, is it? As her texts make clear, she thought she could control things and stay there, and she wanted to do that. Which, as other posters have mentioned, raises the question of how committed she has really been to the process of leaving in the eight months since D-Day. She has strung this charade out for eight months, and not a single interview or offer of a job? Can she really not do anything else apart from that one job in that office?
“It’s hard because there aren’t a lot of job posting over the summer.”
And not many since last November apparently, so jobs are thin on the ground in Winter and Spring too. What’s the betting Fall will turn out to be a jobs drought too? And that will take you back to the anniversary of D-Day, with absolutely no movement on the jobs front. If you let it happen.
“Asking for something that is not feasible will be very bad for my career. My career is important to all of us and for all of us.”
What “career”??? A “career” implies that your wife has transferable skills and is on a rocket ride to the stars, composed of regular strategic moves, onwards and upwards. That is what a “career” is. If that is the case, how comes your wife says that she lucked into the job she has at the moment, is not qualified for it, and is in such a ridiculously limited niche area of work that she has not been able to find a single equivalent job within the same company – let alone outside it – for eight months? And she still thinks it will take her several more months to be able to find anything even vaguely “feasible”?
Your wife does not have a “career”; she has a “job”. A freakishly unique job that she is not qualified for, and from which she cannot move on. A “career” is not staying in that one job until she is a hundred and five years old, is it? If she thinks that “job” is a “career”, you need to ask her what her next carefully calculated career move is, because so far she has shown precious little planning or desire in her grand plan to wind up as company CEO. She cannot even find a job within that company that is a vague equivalent of what she does now, let alone a promotion, so how is she ever going to advance?
“An opportunity will open up with another zzzz…Please give me time…Please give me a few months to deal with this.”
It has been eight months now with nothing, so where does the certainty of an opportunity opening up come from? How long are you supposed to put up with this? Sadly, it looks like for a fair chunk of that eight months, your wife was doing everything she could to remain in that job, not leave it.
“me:
Will send an email, know you have to run
Your love, which I don't doubt, and what happened make this all very difficult. It's why I do think the right counselling is needed. And the work situation needs to be resolved.
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her:
I will resolve the work situation. I just need a little time.
I find these conversations very hard at work. It makes me feel sick.
Part of me thinks you are afraid to feel happy with me again”
Interesting and significant there is no response about the counselling at all. And resolving the work situation just needs “a little time”. It has been eight months so far!
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me:
Yes I'm sorry to bring at work, wanted to suggest before your meeting. Guess that wasn't helpful - sorry
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Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry…Anyone would think it is you that cheated, going by which one of you keeps apologising.
“I 100% understand why I have to leave.”
Oh please…It has been eight months! Where is the understanding in that?
“Let's not use divisive language. Let's be the great team that we are.”
With all due respect, it was her who chose to switch teams for a year and a half, and she has put you through eight months of pain in the aftermath of that, so the motivational poster language is just grating.
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me:
I just wonder why you have been in same office for last 8 months
What does that say about me? You?
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her:
I thought I could make it work and stay here. I know that doesn't work for you. So now we work together to get me another job. Part of me still wishes we could make this work but it causes you too much stress.”
And there you have it: for all the statements about understanding why she has to leave, and how hard she has been trying to leave for the past eight months, your WW follows them up with a confession that she still does not want to leave, and has been trying to control things so that she could remain there. This is the reason why so many people here have been saying that you need to set a deadline, because your wife is still prevaricating, and she still wants to stay there. How that dovetails with, "I 100% understand why I have to leave" is anybody's guess.
And why is she so comfortable there, just down the corridor from the OM? Why doesn’t it feel awkward to her?
“So now we work together to get me another job”
Er…Isn’t that what the last eight months was supposed to be about? Apparently not, going by your wife's confession that she spent that time trying to remain just a short walk down the corridor from the OM, seeing if she could make that “work”. If that was her aim and focus, are you really surprised about the lack of movement during those eight months?
Have you considered what the phrase, "make it work" actually means? You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see that your wife was hoping that if she bullsh*tted you for long enough about not being able to do any other job, for any other company, in any other place, you would get so worn down and exhausted you would just drop the subject. What commitment to your needs and well-being does that demonstrate? It has put you through eight months where you have hated every day that she goes and works with the OM, and for whose benefit?
You have made some good, strong, unequivocal statements about who is responsible for this situation, and that is good to see, because it cuts down on the potential for any BS to be handed to you. However, even after after everything that has been said, you are still in the same place as you were before these exchanges were had, only your wife has now confessed that she was actively trying to stay in that job for the past eight months, not leave it.
That is why people here keep mentioning deadlines and the price you pay in pain because of your indulgence and tolerance of your wife’s resistance to doing any of the things you have needed her to do for the past eight months.
For your own good, 20yrs, stop giving her rain checks on doing this work. Give her deadlines.
- A deadline to be out of that job
- A deadline to be in MC with you. It needs to be MC rather than IC so you actually witness what is discussed, rather than relying on your wife's unreliable word about what was discussed. In preparation for that, you compile a list of all the questions you want to ask, and all the issues you need discussed, and that way the sessions will serve your best interests. Do some research with potential counsellors by phoning, emailing, or visiting them to ascertain what their stance and attitude is. Explain that you have a number of issues that are troubling you, and which your wife is not addressing. Ask if they would be happy for you to raise them in sessions, and if they would not be, or they have a rug-sweeping approach, do not waste your time with them.
Eight months has already been wasted in which your wife hoped you would accept her staying in that office, and only one counselling session has occurred. Perhaps things need to be expedited and encouraged along the right path with a bit more energy? Ultimately, if it saves the marriage, isn't that in both your best interests?
[This message edited by M1965 at 2:29 PM, July 19th (Wednesday)]
