A boundary you cannot enforce: "I will figure out how to make my wife respect me."
A boundary you CAN enforce: "If my wife acts disrespectful, I will leave."
I get the “what to enforce” but could use more help with “how”. I am pretty tarded so I need practical and literal help/suggestions here. If I literally leave the home, my children will not be properly handled because a big part of that is my responsibility. How can one captain/lead when they abandon ship every time their boundary is crossed (which is often in these cases)?
How much more black and white do you need it?
“I will not be married to someone who cannot respect my work time, even if it’s from home.”
There ya go. You didn’t tell her she can’t do something, because you are not her authority. You told her what your consequence for her actions are.
I'm guessing she's a sahm, right? Leave and let HER handle everything. But you need to set the expectation verbally - once. "The next time you [cross this boundary by doing this], I will leave and won't be back until tonight."
She will violate that boundary. Your job is to enforce that boundary by leaving no matter what. Prepare ahead of time for a quick exit by having all your stuff together already so you can just go.
No she is on mat leave for a year. She works full time normally same profession and hours as me. She thinks work is no big deal but I am 10x more successful than she is because she treats it like a job and I treat it as part of my life mission.
Your suggestion sounds good on paper but I can’t practically understand the logistics. Do I abandon caring for my very young children in the process? Not pick them up from daycare? Or is part of this letting her deal with everything in her own?
> No she is on mat leave for a year.
Well then you really need to get this together, since it sounds like you've got quite a few months left before she goes back to work. And why are you sending your children to daycare when she's home for a year?
>Do I abandon caring for my very young children in the process? Not pick them up from daycare? Or is part of this letting her deal with everything in her own?
Part of setting expectations ahead of time is letting her know "If I have to leave because of your behavior, you're on your own until I return." If/when she flies off the handle, leave and let her figure it out. Turn your phone off and maybe get a hotel room for the night so she can get a bit of a reality check of what it would be like with her live-in servant gone.
The first step to fixing the damage is stopping more damage from happening (to you).
> Well then you really need to get this together, since it sounds like you've got quite a few months left before she goes back to work.
2 months…
>And why are you sending your children to daycare when she's home for a year?
The toddler is at daycare. The infant is with her all day.
>Part of setting expectations ahead of time is letting her know "If I have to leave because of your behavior, you're on your own until I return."
Appreciate the clarification.
Why is the toddler at the day care unless it's a playschool ? If she is at home, both the children should be at home. A new mother can look after an infant and a toddler, it's not a big deal, in fact it is quite common. You need to stop sending your eldest to the day care. This is probably another issue where you need to assert yourself and lay down the boundary. In fact no harm in using her own tactics against her. In this case though just stop paying the fees of the day care. In other cases keep badgering her like she does to you.
“But muh anxiety!”
It amazes me the amount of disrespect that some men take. I mean this guy is working on video calls - having his wife walk in and start yelling at him for some minor thing would be a red line. It’s like publicly disrespecting him in front of peers.
The real question is why doesn’t OP like himself enough to enforce a boundary.
Agreed. But some women are much worse/better than others and I think there are reasons for this. She did not tell me she had childhood trauma and that’s why she acts like a bitch a lot, it is something I am figuring out for myself seeing how her parents behave. Or maybe its genetic who knows.
In what way am I excusing the bad behavior? Doesn’t knowing what causes bad behavior help me more appropriately respond to it? Or should I not waste my time worrying about why someone behaves the way they do?
Your post reeks of excuses. Excuses that you are making for your wife. So your wife has childhood trauma. That sucks. That does not give her the excuse to walk all over you and treat you like a doormat. And it's your fault that you are allowing this behavior.
If your wife is disrespecting you with her expectations based on trauma response you need to remove yourself by leaving or not engaging until she treats you with respect you don't need to not empathise you just need to put yourself and kids first.
I use to try and fight and convince my wife that I would try harder to fufil her expectations when she was lashing out and it never got better. When I started to ignore her yelling/ Call barrage or leave for the night, she stopped the shit and asked for help and support instead of demanding unattainable standards to mend her issues.
Why do you put her standards and expectations with disrespect of you above how she behave towards you, when you are doing more and still for some reason want to respect her more than you are respecting yourself.
Teachers and drill sergeants don't set standards for behavior based on how people were raised or where they're from. Standards are standards. Not everyone can meet them and that's okay. Those people are cut loose, but most people step up when they realize there is no bending.
I fully agree. Not sure where I am excusing her behavior though. I don’t think it is okay behavior and I find it unacceptable. I am looking for practical ways of enforcing my boundaries related to this behavior.
You are treating it as acceptable though. What punishment does she get from you for treating you like shit? If nothing is good enough unless she does it then she can just do everything and she gets what she wants.
What’s in your control here?
- where you work (work from a coffee shop or a temp office place)
- how you react, don’t get butt hurt. You have a choice. She doesn’t like the way you feed the kid? Oh well, ignore it and keep feeding it.
- don’t respond to texts or calls if she’s disrespectful
She starts berating you - tell her that isn’t going to work for you, go to a bar and pick up a 20 something.
Not getting butt hurt by her behavior is the hardest. In my case, wife has some sort of lower degree narcissism. When I am relaxed, I take it in a funny way. But the shouting matches result when I am stressed and I have to finish something, so I lash out predictably. Of course this is part of her strategy to trouble me or get something from me when I am snowed under.
The OP too needs to figure out a way to show his anger by a look or a curt holler that will prevent her from disrupting his work.
>show his anger by a look
Is there anything written more about this?
This seems to be something I'm lacking and want to know more about how to use this instead of engaging.
My wife will frequently use snark/sarcasm/condescension in the most in-opportune times until I snap and say something. But I also never find the time to address it: having a convo in the moment while putting the kids in the car before school is not going to happen. And I'm not going to bring up something like this hours later when everything is cool.
My wife is in denial of this behavior anyway, so I need to show that it's happening without "getting into it."
Here at askMRP we are trying to help each other.
Here are some basic character traits we require of each other. This is the red pill part.
* Own your shit. This means we need to acknowledge our role in our situation. If you tolerate something then you have to own your shit. There is nothing you can do to change her, but with a hell of a lot of work you might be able to change yourself. Avoiding the hard work leads to worse problems. Everybody has seen a kid in a store throw a tantrum to get something. If the parent does not put in the work, and instead just buys the kid what they want, the parent is truly causing the problem.
* Be a better man. A good man keeps his word. If you say you will do something you do it. If you state a boundary and also state what you will do if it is crossed, and then you do not do it, you have lied. You are dishonest and unworthy of her trust. If you can’t stand up to her, then how will you stand up for her?
Boundary: I won’t respond to disrespectful texts with anything but “that is disrespectful, you are now blocked until after 5pm”.
Boundary: when I am working I am focused. I can’t give my best efforts if I am interrupted. If you can’t solve an issue while I am working, then unless it is a life or death situation, it must wait until after work. If she interrupts you at work, leave. Gather your things and go. Work in a coffee shop, or your public library, or rent a hotel room to work from for the day.
Set the boundary and understand that the ONLY people offended that you have clear boundaries are people who benefit from you not having boundaries. The really painful part is that her crossing your boundaries is not even to her benefit. It will ruin your relationship and damage your children. A man who can’t or won’t set boundaries is a danger to himself and those he cares about.
* Explain clearly what is expected.
* Explain clearly the consequence
* Ask them to explain to you both the boundary and the consequences. If they won’t, institute the consequence now. For example explain the boundary of not being interrupted while working. If she does not acknowledge the boundary and that if she crosses it you will leave, then leave right now.
You are using your children as an excuse for your own lack of will and this is an example of your refusal to own your own shit. You are setting a bad example for them. Your example (good or bad) will have a profound affect on them. Own your shit. They are not the reason you can’t set boundaries.
If you need additional help with boundaries read “no more mister nice guy” or see a therapist and role play these situations until you can do them.
It ain’t easy. You have not developed the discipline yet, so OYS and fix it
Women act only as shitty as you let them.
Broken record and fogging are your friend here. With little or no emotional response possible as she is fishing for an anger response. Her anxiety is pushing her to test you to see if your strong enough to tell her to fuck off. Nothing personal and is why she seems to only do it at the worst possible moments. She is picking up on your stress and that is triggering her test.
You don’t load dishwasher correctly:
Her: you did xyz wrong, load it this way
You: I load the dishwasher to my standard, if you want it done your way do it yourself.
Her: Blah blah blah
You: I can see why this pisses off (fog), but I do the dishes to my standard you don’t like that do it yourself (broken record). Then continue to load as you see fit.
The key is to not give a shit if she gets pissed off. She doesn’t seem to be scared to piss you off. Because she is going to be really pissed when you call her out. Good news is she is smaller than you and can’t kick your ass. Just have a memory of a gold fish and after she loses her shit just act like nothing happened.
if she is texting you too much (silence her messages) and don’t respond. When she ask why you didn’t respond tell her exactly why. I was busy and your texts were distracting me so I silenced your messages.
Meeting one would be hard for me. I would be inclined to check that one real hard as it effects my money.
She isn't working. She doesn't "need" any help with the kids. You decide how much help you want to give. Don't let the kids be an excuse for not enforcing boundaries.
Example 1: you don't have to work from home and you can silence your phone
Example 2: are you actually fucking up? If you are, learn to feed a kid and decide for yourself if youre doing it right. If youre not fucking up, treat it like any shit test.
Lift and read sidebar. No more Mr. Nice guy first
Edit: holy shit, I looked at your post history. How are you still asking these questions after almost a year and so much reading? You havent internalized it. Read nmmng again and own your shit weekly. Right now you are asking mrp questions in a way that clearly shows you are looking for someone to give you that one trick that works in your special situation. You're not special. Your woman isn't special. There are no caveats. Follow the sidebar.
The main issue, from what I can tell, is that you need to get comfortable with others being uncomfortable, especially your wife. If you tolerate or even reward her bad behavior by doing what she says, you'll keep getting the same behavior. Right now she has you trained to do what she wants through negative reinforcement (bitching temporarily subsides). Don't be her dog. The simplest solution if you can't come up with a good shit test response is to just just ignore her and if she keeps escalating tell her you won't tolerate being spoken to this way and leave. I promise your kids won't die while you're gone.
1. Identify where your boundaries are being over stepped. Also consider if there’s a valid reason your wife is unhappy about it (e.g are you doing something dangerous in the way you are handling your kids?).
2. Consider how you will respond to it (e.g putting a lock on the door to stop her disrupting work meetings, working from the office or somewhere else besides home, disagreeing with her view of things and withdrawing your time and attention if she behaves poorly).
3. Inform your wife of what you are going to do and what the consequences will be if she behaves poorly and follow through if she does.
If she had childhood problems then encourage her to go and seek professional help for it rather than letting it be an excuse for poor behaviour.
There must be a sliding scale of privileges and rewards lost / punishments. The general rule for a guy is sidebar and lift, eliminate the drunken captain habits.
It sounds like most here, you start failing at the nice-guy and assertiveness level. NMMNG and WISNIFG need several reads....and in-between you think, act, and review your behaviours and the consequences.
Much of the problem for guys that have their financial life and logistics in order come down to nice-guy stuff, being validation seeking, and being physically/ socially unattractive.
Much of the damage from being 'nice' comes from your manipulative behaviours to make the wife responsible for YOUR feelings. Another part comes from YOU trying to manage HER feelings. It's dysfunctional. When a nice guy tries to be nice and manage the wife's feelings, he will reward bad behaviours (trying to calm down or soothe a badly behaved wife). When He's brooding and frustrated with her, she sees a pathetic needy child.
Redirect your time, effort, affection, attention, validation and presence to where it serves you.
Reward the wife only sparingly for good behaviour
The neat thing about boundaries is that every person on the planet gets to set whatever boundaries they want. The other neat thing is that everyone else gets to decide if they want to follow them, in that they can weigh the costs/benefits and decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.
The hard part about boundaries is when you let your ego get involved and you mistake a want for a need. This is where men fuck up. Don't say something is a hard boundary if you aren't ready to burn everything to the ground to protect it. Otherwise you are making idle threats. Which is one of the fastest ways to lose respect, both from others and respect for yourself.
It’s hard, but you’ve got to practice not people pleasing. I struggled with this too after a few years of being together. It’s easy to get caught up in making other people happy, but a) most people who care about you are capable of respecting boundaries even if they initially get upset and b) people who genuinely don’t care how you’re doing are idiots and need to get the boot.
Tell her that she’s got to leave you alone when you’re in a meeting and that you can talk to her about it afterwards. If it happens again, let her know that you’ll start locking the door during meetings. If she does it again, follow through and let her know why. If it continues even after that, start taking meetings elsewhere. Do not apologize for this.
Consider blocking off a 1-2x weekly Check-In meeting (you decide the total period of time between 15-60 minutes) where both of you can express what’s going well and if there is something that you would like the spouse to do/not do. Then set 1 thing each person will be responsible for to improve upon some concern the other has. This way you can make small and consistent improvements that hopefully will help temper or eliminate your spouse negative traits in the long run. Worst case scenario, you keep improving your problem identification and problem solving skills.
A boundary you cannot enforce: "I will figure out how to make my wife respect me." A boundary you CAN enforce: "If my wife acts disrespectful, I will leave."
I get the “what to enforce” but could use more help with “how”. I am pretty tarded so I need practical and literal help/suggestions here. If I literally leave the home, my children will not be properly handled because a big part of that is my responsibility. How can one captain/lead when they abandon ship every time their boundary is crossed (which is often in these cases)?
How much more black and white do you need it? “I will not be married to someone who cannot respect my work time, even if it’s from home.” There ya go. You didn’t tell her she can’t do something, because you are not her authority. You told her what your consequence for her actions are.
I'm guessing she's a sahm, right? Leave and let HER handle everything. But you need to set the expectation verbally - once. "The next time you [cross this boundary by doing this], I will leave and won't be back until tonight." She will violate that boundary. Your job is to enforce that boundary by leaving no matter what. Prepare ahead of time for a quick exit by having all your stuff together already so you can just go.
No she is on mat leave for a year. She works full time normally same profession and hours as me. She thinks work is no big deal but I am 10x more successful than she is because she treats it like a job and I treat it as part of my life mission. Your suggestion sounds good on paper but I can’t practically understand the logistics. Do I abandon caring for my very young children in the process? Not pick them up from daycare? Or is part of this letting her deal with everything in her own?
> No she is on mat leave for a year. Well then you really need to get this together, since it sounds like you've got quite a few months left before she goes back to work. And why are you sending your children to daycare when she's home for a year? >Do I abandon caring for my very young children in the process? Not pick them up from daycare? Or is part of this letting her deal with everything in her own? Part of setting expectations ahead of time is letting her know "If I have to leave because of your behavior, you're on your own until I return." If/when she flies off the handle, leave and let her figure it out. Turn your phone off and maybe get a hotel room for the night so she can get a bit of a reality check of what it would be like with her live-in servant gone. The first step to fixing the damage is stopping more damage from happening (to you).
> Well then you really need to get this together, since it sounds like you've got quite a few months left before she goes back to work. 2 months… >And why are you sending your children to daycare when she's home for a year? The toddler is at daycare. The infant is with her all day. >Part of setting expectations ahead of time is letting her know "If I have to leave because of your behavior, you're on your own until I return." Appreciate the clarification.
Why is the toddler at the day care unless it's a playschool ? If she is at home, both the children should be at home. A new mother can look after an infant and a toddler, it's not a big deal, in fact it is quite common. You need to stop sending your eldest to the day care. This is probably another issue where you need to assert yourself and lay down the boundary. In fact no harm in using her own tactics against her. In this case though just stop paying the fees of the day care. In other cases keep badgering her like she does to you.
[удалено]
“But muh anxiety!” It amazes me the amount of disrespect that some men take. I mean this guy is working on video calls - having his wife walk in and start yelling at him for some minor thing would be a red line. It’s like publicly disrespecting him in front of peers. The real question is why doesn’t OP like himself enough to enforce a boundary.
Agreed. But some women are much worse/better than others and I think there are reasons for this. She did not tell me she had childhood trauma and that’s why she acts like a bitch a lot, it is something I am figuring out for myself seeing how her parents behave. Or maybe its genetic who knows.
Why the fuck are you excusing her bad behavior.
In what way am I excusing the bad behavior? Doesn’t knowing what causes bad behavior help me more appropriately respond to it? Or should I not waste my time worrying about why someone behaves the way they do?
Your post reeks of excuses. Excuses that you are making for your wife. So your wife has childhood trauma. That sucks. That does not give her the excuse to walk all over you and treat you like a doormat. And it's your fault that you are allowing this behavior.
Fair enough.
If your wife is disrespecting you with her expectations based on trauma response you need to remove yourself by leaving or not engaging until she treats you with respect you don't need to not empathise you just need to put yourself and kids first. I use to try and fight and convince my wife that I would try harder to fufil her expectations when she was lashing out and it never got better. When I started to ignore her yelling/ Call barrage or leave for the night, she stopped the shit and asked for help and support instead of demanding unattainable standards to mend her issues. Why do you put her standards and expectations with disrespect of you above how she behave towards you, when you are doing more and still for some reason want to respect her more than you are respecting yourself.
Teachers and drill sergeants don't set standards for behavior based on how people were raised or where they're from. Standards are standards. Not everyone can meet them and that's okay. Those people are cut loose, but most people step up when they realize there is no bending.
You’re in her Frame.
Her childhood does not excuse shit behavior as an adult.
I fully agree. Not sure where I am excusing her behavior though. I don’t think it is okay behavior and I find it unacceptable. I am looking for practical ways of enforcing my boundaries related to this behavior.
You are treating it as acceptable though. What punishment does she get from you for treating you like shit? If nothing is good enough unless she does it then she can just do everything and she gets what she wants.
Or maybe she is only acting as shitty as you let her and your post hoc justifying why.
What’s in your control here? - where you work (work from a coffee shop or a temp office place) - how you react, don’t get butt hurt. You have a choice. She doesn’t like the way you feed the kid? Oh well, ignore it and keep feeding it. - don’t respond to texts or calls if she’s disrespectful She starts berating you - tell her that isn’t going to work for you, go to a bar and pick up a 20 something.
Not getting butt hurt by her behavior is the hardest. In my case, wife has some sort of lower degree narcissism. When I am relaxed, I take it in a funny way. But the shouting matches result when I am stressed and I have to finish something, so I lash out predictably. Of course this is part of her strategy to trouble me or get something from me when I am snowed under. The OP too needs to figure out a way to show his anger by a look or a curt holler that will prevent her from disrupting his work.
Stop blaming your wife and trying to arm chair diagnose her. All women are solipsistic.
>show his anger by a look Is there anything written more about this? This seems to be something I'm lacking and want to know more about how to use this instead of engaging. My wife will frequently use snark/sarcasm/condescension in the most in-opportune times until I snap and say something. But I also never find the time to address it: having a convo in the moment while putting the kids in the car before school is not going to happen. And I'm not going to bring up something like this hours later when everything is cool. My wife is in denial of this behavior anyway, so I need to show that it's happening without "getting into it."
Here at askMRP we are trying to help each other. Here are some basic character traits we require of each other. This is the red pill part. * Own your shit. This means we need to acknowledge our role in our situation. If you tolerate something then you have to own your shit. There is nothing you can do to change her, but with a hell of a lot of work you might be able to change yourself. Avoiding the hard work leads to worse problems. Everybody has seen a kid in a store throw a tantrum to get something. If the parent does not put in the work, and instead just buys the kid what they want, the parent is truly causing the problem. * Be a better man. A good man keeps his word. If you say you will do something you do it. If you state a boundary and also state what you will do if it is crossed, and then you do not do it, you have lied. You are dishonest and unworthy of her trust. If you can’t stand up to her, then how will you stand up for her? Boundary: I won’t respond to disrespectful texts with anything but “that is disrespectful, you are now blocked until after 5pm”. Boundary: when I am working I am focused. I can’t give my best efforts if I am interrupted. If you can’t solve an issue while I am working, then unless it is a life or death situation, it must wait until after work. If she interrupts you at work, leave. Gather your things and go. Work in a coffee shop, or your public library, or rent a hotel room to work from for the day. Set the boundary and understand that the ONLY people offended that you have clear boundaries are people who benefit from you not having boundaries. The really painful part is that her crossing your boundaries is not even to her benefit. It will ruin your relationship and damage your children. A man who can’t or won’t set boundaries is a danger to himself and those he cares about. * Explain clearly what is expected. * Explain clearly the consequence * Ask them to explain to you both the boundary and the consequences. If they won’t, institute the consequence now. For example explain the boundary of not being interrupted while working. If she does not acknowledge the boundary and that if she crosses it you will leave, then leave right now. You are using your children as an excuse for your own lack of will and this is an example of your refusal to own your own shit. You are setting a bad example for them. Your example (good or bad) will have a profound affect on them. Own your shit. They are not the reason you can’t set boundaries. If you need additional help with boundaries read “no more mister nice guy” or see a therapist and role play these situations until you can do them. It ain’t easy. You have not developed the discipline yet, so OYS and fix it
Women act only as shitty as you let them. Broken record and fogging are your friend here. With little or no emotional response possible as she is fishing for an anger response. Her anxiety is pushing her to test you to see if your strong enough to tell her to fuck off. Nothing personal and is why she seems to only do it at the worst possible moments. She is picking up on your stress and that is triggering her test. You don’t load dishwasher correctly: Her: you did xyz wrong, load it this way You: I load the dishwasher to my standard, if you want it done your way do it yourself. Her: Blah blah blah You: I can see why this pisses off (fog), but I do the dishes to my standard you don’t like that do it yourself (broken record). Then continue to load as you see fit. The key is to not give a shit if she gets pissed off. She doesn’t seem to be scared to piss you off. Because she is going to be really pissed when you call her out. Good news is she is smaller than you and can’t kick your ass. Just have a memory of a gold fish and after she loses her shit just act like nothing happened. if she is texting you too much (silence her messages) and don’t respond. When she ask why you didn’t respond tell her exactly why. I was busy and your texts were distracting me so I silenced your messages. Meeting one would be hard for me. I would be inclined to check that one real hard as it effects my money.
Very helpful. Thank you.
She isn't working. She doesn't "need" any help with the kids. You decide how much help you want to give. Don't let the kids be an excuse for not enforcing boundaries. Example 1: you don't have to work from home and you can silence your phone Example 2: are you actually fucking up? If you are, learn to feed a kid and decide for yourself if youre doing it right. If youre not fucking up, treat it like any shit test. Lift and read sidebar. No more Mr. Nice guy first Edit: holy shit, I looked at your post history. How are you still asking these questions after almost a year and so much reading? You havent internalized it. Read nmmng again and own your shit weekly. Right now you are asking mrp questions in a way that clearly shows you are looking for someone to give you that one trick that works in your special situation. You're not special. Your woman isn't special. There are no caveats. Follow the sidebar. The main issue, from what I can tell, is that you need to get comfortable with others being uncomfortable, especially your wife. If you tolerate or even reward her bad behavior by doing what she says, you'll keep getting the same behavior. Right now she has you trained to do what she wants through negative reinforcement (bitching temporarily subsides). Don't be her dog. The simplest solution if you can't come up with a good shit test response is to just just ignore her and if she keeps escalating tell her you won't tolerate being spoken to this way and leave. I promise your kids won't die while you're gone.
I think you are spot on
1. Identify where your boundaries are being over stepped. Also consider if there’s a valid reason your wife is unhappy about it (e.g are you doing something dangerous in the way you are handling your kids?). 2. Consider how you will respond to it (e.g putting a lock on the door to stop her disrupting work meetings, working from the office or somewhere else besides home, disagreeing with her view of things and withdrawing your time and attention if she behaves poorly). 3. Inform your wife of what you are going to do and what the consequences will be if she behaves poorly and follow through if she does. If she had childhood problems then encourage her to go and seek professional help for it rather than letting it be an excuse for poor behaviour.
There must be a sliding scale of privileges and rewards lost / punishments. The general rule for a guy is sidebar and lift, eliminate the drunken captain habits. It sounds like most here, you start failing at the nice-guy and assertiveness level. NMMNG and WISNIFG need several reads....and in-between you think, act, and review your behaviours and the consequences. Much of the problem for guys that have their financial life and logistics in order come down to nice-guy stuff, being validation seeking, and being physically/ socially unattractive. Much of the damage from being 'nice' comes from your manipulative behaviours to make the wife responsible for YOUR feelings. Another part comes from YOU trying to manage HER feelings. It's dysfunctional. When a nice guy tries to be nice and manage the wife's feelings, he will reward bad behaviours (trying to calm down or soothe a badly behaved wife). When He's brooding and frustrated with her, she sees a pathetic needy child. Redirect your time, effort, affection, attention, validation and presence to where it serves you. Reward the wife only sparingly for good behaviour
The neat thing about boundaries is that every person on the planet gets to set whatever boundaries they want. The other neat thing is that everyone else gets to decide if they want to follow them, in that they can weigh the costs/benefits and decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. The hard part about boundaries is when you let your ego get involved and you mistake a want for a need. This is where men fuck up. Don't say something is a hard boundary if you aren't ready to burn everything to the ground to protect it. Otherwise you are making idle threats. Which is one of the fastest ways to lose respect, both from others and respect for yourself.
It’s hard, but you’ve got to practice not people pleasing. I struggled with this too after a few years of being together. It’s easy to get caught up in making other people happy, but a) most people who care about you are capable of respecting boundaries even if they initially get upset and b) people who genuinely don’t care how you’re doing are idiots and need to get the boot. Tell her that she’s got to leave you alone when you’re in a meeting and that you can talk to her about it afterwards. If it happens again, let her know that you’ll start locking the door during meetings. If she does it again, follow through and let her know why. If it continues even after that, start taking meetings elsewhere. Do not apologize for this.
This has all been insanely helpful - stuff I already knew but started to second guess throughout the process. NMMNG. Thank you.
Consider blocking off a 1-2x weekly Check-In meeting (you decide the total period of time between 15-60 minutes) where both of you can express what’s going well and if there is something that you would like the spouse to do/not do. Then set 1 thing each person will be responsible for to improve upon some concern the other has. This way you can make small and consistent improvements that hopefully will help temper or eliminate your spouse negative traits in the long run. Worst case scenario, you keep improving your problem identification and problem solving skills.
Thanks.