I've been hounding this sub for the last 5 days (was it only 5 days? I really thought it was 2 weeks ago) with my life experiences so bad it borders on trolling. This place has been a literal Godsend for me! When I posted about my wife's shit test for the first time, I was so depressed and fed up, I was suicidal. Then you guys slapped me hard in my face, and showed me what I should be doing.

I know that the first step to start RP is to read the side bar and start building myself, but none of that could have helped me for the past 5 days if you guys hadn't provided me actual advice on how I should handle my situation. Here's how it went down.

As strongly advised my many of you, I maintained radio silence for 3 days, and refused to attend any of my wife's calls. She even said if I didn't attend her calls, I would lose her forever. I didn't budge. She messaged me walls of text basically saying that I'm an asshole and kept describing in excellent details all the disgusting stuff I did, but I didn't respond to a single message. She called my mother, told her what was up, and asked her to make me talk to her. I told my mom to keep out of it, and told her I know how to handle my problem. She then messaged my brother with the walls of text she sent me, and tried to get him to talk to me. My brother gave me his facebook password to look at his conversation with my wife. I told him to keep out of it too.

I then messaged her with the following. "I'm not going to discuss anything from the past. As a husband, and the head of a family, I know what is right, wrong, good, bad, and what my limits are. If you don't have this trust on me, then this marriage wouldn't work out."

She responded, "I have complete trust on you. But I saw something in your journal, and I had to clear it up. Just because it's your journal doesn't mean I shouldn't ask you anything even if you confessed a murder there. Also, I don't understand what you mean by head of the household. I've never seen you that way. I always see you as my equal. We are not living in the past, backward times. Husband and wife are equal now."

I replied, "I'm not your equal. I need some respect as a husband. That never changes with time. I want to protect you, provide for you, and take care of you. I expect trust, faith, and respect from the person I'm taking care of. I will take care of only such a person."

She: "I don't consider you above or below me. According to me, both are equal. I also take care of you, protect you, and trust you. Similarly, I want you to care, protect, and trust me. Any decision should be planned and taken by both of us. That's how we were before and now"

Me: "I know how you think, and I've told you what I want in order to lead a happy life. It's up to you to decide."

She: "You don't want me to get involved in any of your stuffs or decisions? What do you mean by being a head of the family? Are you expecting you to be under you, or you want me to be equal with you?"

Me: Read my messages above. All of them.

She: Reply to me directly. I don't get you properly.

Me: I will discuss things with you. But I'm the head of the family. Just like your family and every other family.

She: Can you call now? I'm fed up. I don't get why you have such inferiority complex about you. I want to treat you equal only. So what you say?

Me: That won't work for me.

She: So what do you want to do? It's not working for both of us. So what do you want to do? You're such a misogynist.

Me: We can continue like how we are for the past week, without any contact. Or we can talk about divorce

She: Suddenly what is all this? Are you afraid of something about what I read? Call me now. I'm ready to talk about anything. I'm not afraid of divorce.

Me: This is what I've been telling you all along. That I want you to respect me, which you're not doing. Think back about all the times when I said the exact thing, and each time you have been saying you'll not respect me if you don't feel like it. There is a breaking point for everything. I can't go on like this.

She: Ok.. You know that I have started changing from teh way I am speaking but still you are trying to plan something like how you did in my home. I'm ready for divorce.

Me: The life I've been living with you for the past one and a half years is not the life I wanted, and not a life I want. If there is no change to it, I can't continue in it.

She: Giving you respect is different from making you head and all, or above me. I have always had and have respect on you.

Me: I'm not planning for anything. I'm telling you what I want to lead a happy life, and you're telling me you can't give that.

She: What you're demanding and forcing is funny to me. You can't get anything by forcing people just as you say to me. If your happy life is in controlling me or going above me, then we can talk about divorce. I'm not planning to lead such a life. I want to be happy with you and in love with you, but you never understood and underestimated, which led to all problems.

Me: I don't want to say the same thing again and again. Read what I said. If you can't understand properly, discuss it with your father, mother, brother, and sister, and see if they understand what I'm saying.

She: I can see that you want a private space in doing what you want to do. You could have told me and we could have discussed about it. Now you don't want to talk about that and you're talking about everythng else.

Me: Is that all what I'm saying?

She: I didn't love or marry you by asking my parents or my brother, sister. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Me: I don't care whether you discuss with anybody or not. You can discuss with somebody to better understand what I'm saying. But I've told you what I want. Without that, I'll never be happy in a family. So think about what I've said and tell me your decision. I'm going out now. Bye.

She: You can protect me, provide for me, take care of me, and I will respect you and trust you. If this is what you mean by head, then I agree with it. Call me when you're free.

Me: I'm not a child to not know whether you're saying it because you mean it and want to do it, or whether you're saying it just to end this. I want you to think seriously about what I said for a couple of days. You can discuss this with your mother, father, and/or your brother,sister to get some clarity and outside perspective. Then you decide whether you want to do this or not. Not before that.

She discussed with her sister, who tried to message me. I asked her to talk to my wife, as she's the one who has trouble understanding. After 2 hours, my wife messaged me this:

She: I realize that I spoke using bad words when you said you will look at women and didn't respond. I fee that I should've controlled myself to not talk in bad words as I agreed with you a few weeks ago and I should have treated you differently. In that way, what I did is not correct, and I'm really sorry for it. In that way, I agree that I didn't respect you. I know that I'm not using bad words or treating you harshly as much as I was doing it when we were together. After we mutually accepted 3 weeks ago that we both will understand each other and forego arguments, I know that I have a lot of change in my tone with you in message or calls. But I agree that I'm unable to control certain times when I spoke bad words involuntarily during the conversation because of the issue. I know that I should overcome it and I am working on it and I need some time. I am very clear about one thing. I know you and I trust that you won't go behind girls or flirt, or have bad relashionships. I don't have any problems with that. But since I saw that you have written about how you were wasting time looking at girls, I'm kind of disturbed. If you're in my position and understand how I will feel, then you can tell what you want to say about that. It is my right to ask as a wife about what I saw in diary. It doesn't mean I 've lost trust on you completely. Even if I misunderstood, you can clarify. You are hurt that I doubted you. I'm hurt because of what I read. You tell me what we can do for this situation. If you don't talk to me, I'm unable to do anything to this. Call me. For the past 3 days, I haven't been sleeping. I want to resolve this issue. If you're still adamant, I can't do anything.

Me: We'll talk tomorrow. You go to bed. I'm hungry and going to eat now.

3 hours later she messaged me (2am for her) that she was unable to sleep and that if I'm free can I call her.

I called her, and she was submissive. There were a few compromises, but I stood my ground, and it has been 3 days since then. There were a couple of occasions like today, when she asked me why I don't message her during the day if anything happens. She would like me to message her whenever something happens to me during the day. I told her I don't like doing that, because some things I'd tell her when I feel like it, and not message. She was sour, but she agreed to it.

I'm feeling really manly now. I know it is only the beginning, and that it is very easy to slip back into my BP life. I'm reading MMSL, and listening to NMMNG for the third time (surprising how much I missed the previous times).

A big thanks to you all, and especially to /u/jcrpta for being there by my side. He showed me the right way, and encouraged me to start my journey. Also, to people who are against providing circumstantial advice, who would rather people read the side bar, you should know that circumstantial advice is 100% what saved my life.

Bonus: About my childhood, for an insight to why I am who I am now.

I grew up in a family dominated by my mother. My father was a short tempered guy (Never hit my mother, but mostly self harm, threats of suicide, and threw stuff around. He's better now, or at least I understand him better now), and my mother always made us (me and my little brother) feel that my father is a bad guy. I vowed to never be an angry man like my father, and I hate anger the most. Which is probably why I hate it when my wife gets angry at me.

I was also a to-the-book nice guy during my childhood. My mother hit me (it's common in India) when I scored anything less than first rank in my class (She even locked me out on the streets once when I scored some 11th rank in my class of 30. I have a very poor memory, but I remember this incident from 20 years ago very well), and I scored first in all tests, even the smallest ones, from 5th grade thru 9th grade. I was also the hero of my whole school. Literally everybody knew me, and I was the darling of the teachers. I learned music, learned a 3rd language (and graduated a degree), learned shorthand, learned Tae Kwon Do, wrote poems, learned sketching, got awards for histrionics, everything. Before 10th grade, I had literally more than 100 certificates from various competitions. This led me to believe that I'm a genius, and would go great heights if I used my potential. If I fail in something, it is only my fault for not doing it properly.

In 10th grade, My (perceived) best friend started shoplifting with a couple of other boys, and started hanging out more with them. I didn't want to lose my best friend, so I started shoplifting with them, and became a kleptomaniac. Near the 10th grade final exams (big deal in India), got caught, and it became a huge issue. My parents had to fall to my tuition teacher's legs to forgive me. However, they completely trusted me that I would never steal again, and as usual gave me free access to the money in the house. The sole act of their trust in me prevented me from stealing ever again. If they had acted any differently, or if they had doubted me/reminded me of the incident again, I may have been a different person now. After that incident, my mother stopped forcing me to be the best, and I performed pretty good, but not the best in my high school and college (GPA 8.01/10). I don't even know why I said all this about me. I just feel they all fit together in some way.