My first and previous field report was 20 days ago. I reported about how I was struggling with shit test management. You guys showed me how I failed at setting clear boundaries and enforcing them. I was also told how my wife was totally lost to me. And I was rightfully adviced to focus on me only... and to GTFO ! Here is an update.

TLDR : I am progressing from phase 2 to phase 3 of my MAP but was pressured into making a statement about the status of our relationship : she kept on asking me to move out ASAP from home and she wanted my opinion about her ideal separation and custody scenario. I wanted to buy me some time so that I could prepare a more favorable custody arrangement. So I made a premature and half-assed MAP phase 4 shock statement blended with some Homer McDonald's mental judo. It produced some effect : she now proposes we stay together if I agree she can keep making male dancer friends and communicating with her ex. She also admitted several wrongdoings including that she did fuck the bar guy she made out with 2 years ago. But she now wants to make some strong fidelity vows if and only if I accept her freedom to have friendships with guys and weekly dancing sessions in bars and clubs. Her confession hurts and makes me wonder if I am able to bear with this relationship/fake it long enough to prepare a more favorable custody arrangement and use her as a sparring partner/trainer for my MAP in the meantime. Or if our marriage still has a 1% probability of getting fixed.

Context reminder : I am 40+, good physical shape and diet, lifting 3 times a week for 9 months, solid career, married for about 20 years with her, more than 3 teen agers at home. Currently at MAP phase 3 and dread level 3. My frame is weak and I have no game.

She is 45+, was a HB 8 or 9, and is still quite sexy for her age. I think we are both 5 or 6 now but I am moving up and she is moving down. She is a very anxious, very proud and very low self-esteem, low sex-drive materialista, survivor of childhood sexual abuse, very alpha stay-at-home-mom who just restarted her career part-time last winter after 15 years of full stop for the kids.

She's been asking me for divorce or separation every 2 or 3 years since the beginning of our marriage. I always answered her I would not move out. And she would not act. 2 years ago, she cheated on me but I would still want to save our marriage (at least long enough so that we could move back from countryside to big city) so I told her we should divorce (!) so that she asked for reconciliation (!!). That's because of her reactance, negative suggestibility or phobia of getting forced into doing something. Homer McDonald calls this kind of move mental judo.

So we did move back to big city last summer but I had to keep my job far from home since then. I have been away from home from Monday to Friday since last summer, except on vacation time (currently at home for Easter holidays).

Here is my main progress since last FR 20 days ago.

My main goal for the next couple of months is to get back home with a new job and either to have my wife comply with my strongest priority needs or to spend enough time in peace at home so that kids get back into the habit of some good Dad time (homework and dinner) every evening so that a transition to separation with shared custody gets more realistic during this summer or later.

My exit roadmap is taking shape. I secretely consulted a divorce attorney for first advices, made a discrete but full financial and administrative audit of our family, scanned and backupped our papers, revoked some legal powers I had given to wife for our bank accounts and started making first divorce scenarios and budget simulations on my own.

CAREER : I eventually received 3 oral propositions (not for blowjobs but) for jobs at big city so that I can move back home next month or so. I will choose the best position next week and sign an enjoyable new job contract. I started discussing my resignation with my current boss and have to see him on that topic next week after Easter holidays. I received advice from my father about how to organize the first weeks of moving into a new appartment and leading my wife into accepting shared custody (one week/one week). I did not discuss any of these with wife except the revoking of bank proxy rights (she still can use her own accounts and our joint account). Her fighting against the installation of shared custody is a very high risk and probability so I will have to further plan that. My divorce attorney says I just have to "psychologically force it into being" but that's not easy with such a past of poor family leadership.

SOCIAL LIFE : I emailed and phoned 4 childhood friends I left aside too long ago so that we would spend some time again together. I am to have a beer with my childhood best friend this week and he brotherly expects some victim puke from me so that I don't spread too much of it on your shoes. Meetings are to come with 2 other friends. I subscribed to several meetup groups near home so that I have choice about how to quickly start a strong social life here when I move back home next month.

MAP phase 2 red flags : I read the MAP twice and wrote down my MAP. I spent this week of vacation fixing a lot of broken stuff at home/doing a lot of home maintenance (when not playing with my kids or hiking with wife and kids) which was a major red flag area for me. My list of maintenance tasks is now almost empty. But grumpy wife keeps on trying to refill it with her bitchy wishes.

SHIT TESTS : I had been failing at shit tests for at least 9 months by shutting the fuck up in an autistic manner : every time wife would bitch at me and starting to belittle or insult me, I would just STFU, smile like I DNGAF and even nod a bit for good measure. This led to her telling me she could not see any future but separation ASAP last month because there was no more emotional intimicay between us. I also tried A&A with further shit tests but she perceived it as mockery and being mean to her. She has almost no sense of humor. Because of her low self-esteem, any irony is perceived by her as an unbearable attack on her pride. So I received your advices in my previous FR, re-read excerpts of WISNIFG, took further notes and spent some time with her practicing fogging, negative assertions and negative inquiry with her.

Fogging works well with her, I think, because it validates her feelings but I have a tendency to approve her too much when fogging. For instance, she would say : " You never think of doing by yourself. " But instead of saying : " Oh, I can see you feel like I never think of it by myself. ", I would sometimes say : " Oh, you are right, I never think of it by myself. " McDonald recommends to always approve her 100% even by not being sincere and I can do that. But I prefer sincere fogging but that requires more attention to details and nuances in wording so that you validate her feelings/and (partially) approve her without showing too much reserve and by maintaining sincerity. I still have to work on this.

Just after fogging and just before negative assertion or negative inquiry or other, I try to throw her a sincere compliment (McDonald advice).

Negative assertions correspond more or less to McDonald's "attack yourself so that she defends you" strategy. This used to work well when exagerating self-accusations a lot. She would defend me. But I am afraid this lowers her perception of my SMV, especially because she so frequently brags about her supposedly higher SMV. Does it ? So I now tend to avoid exagerated negative assertions and try to practice moderate and sincere negative assertions which she seems to respond well enough to (by lowering her aggressions and expressing satisfaction with her sense of being listened to).

She responds best to negative inquiry. She says she feels listened to. But this requires putting my ego aside a lot and that's no easy task. When being given negative inquiry, she most often victimizes herself even further and tells me how a monster I am (" You are such an irresponsible and absent father. " " You are never reliable with money. " " You never respect me. " " You always take me as granted. ", ...) and how much I am responsible for her misery. So I now fog her a lot and practice negative assertion : ( " Oh, I can see how my being away from home from Monday to Friday makes you feel I am as absent as your father was when you were young. ") then she lowers her tone and feels safer and listened to.

So my best combo so far would be fogging + compliment + negative inquiry.

What's harder to me is to set some boundaries when she starts to insult me or try to humiliate me in private conversations. I would previously stop the conversation or just STFU and nod with a IDNGAF smile. But I am rather starting now to tell her that I can't accept continuing the conversation if she behaves so badly. I did it 2 or 3 times and she immediately said she was sorry and went back to the conversation in a more respectful way. I am surprised how easy it is to stop her flow of verbal abuse now. But I still can't point double binds which are mentioned in the MAP book.

Last but not least, regarding A&A, she would feel mocked and contempted by me during my previous attempts. I was much more successful with A&A when she was obviously exagerating. For instance, I'd like her to stop going out in dance clubs on her own. So she says : " You want to put a burka/hijab on me ! " (which is an obvious exageration). There was a sewing machine in the room when she threw this accusation to me. So I successfully A&A : " You are so right, BTW you don't deserve being offered a burka so I fully expect you to sew one by yourself ASAP with this machine. " This stopped her in her track and the conversation went smoother after that.

THE NOT-MAIN-EVENT PREMATURE MAP 4 SHOCK EVENT : first day of vacation, she once again told me she sees no future for our marriage and would feel better if I would not come back home ever. She developped her feelings and summarized carefully them as such : " I can't avoid suffering too much when thinking about I much I suffer, hence when thinking about us. " McDonald translates this womenese into : " Can't you see how much immature I am ? " (oldest teenager at home...). McDonald then recommends to have a blast at anything and to show her how happy you are with life (or to fake it). Which I did and she responded as expected (see below).

She also presented her ideal separation scenario wich was : she keeps our kids, our home, her salary, mine also (except a small budget for me, thank her) and the full control of our bank accounts, and the legal status of our marriage but I move away to a small appartment and the kids can spend one night per week there as well as saturdays (so that she can go dancing Friday nights and kids do their homework with me on saturdays). But we don't put anything of that on paper because it would be "too rigid" then and she'd prefer flexibility. And we divorce if she eventually branch swings to a stronger provider.

Following days, she daily pressured me into telling her what I think about her statement and scenario.

My goal is to buy time so that I can take a new job, move back home, better myself at home and revive my daily relationships with kids so that I can install shared custody in case of need despite her hostility. And I have just finished re-reading the MAP and writing down my MAP.

So I could see her expectation would deserve a MAP phase 4 shock event so that I could assert my needs in our relationship in such a way she would start complying. Or I would even tell her to fuck me or go fuck herself. But I am still way long from such the appropriate dread level and not ready for MAP phase 4. I am transitioning from MAP phase 2 to phase 3 and at dread level 3. And her SMV is still equal to mine or even slightly higher and she keeps bragging about how much higher it is.

But McDonald taught me the 3 magic sentences which stopped my divorce 2 years ago : I'd prefer but you are right and I fully approve <separation/divorce> so I will now <carefullly prepare my exit plan/leave you>.

So I mixed a MAP phase 4 statement with a McDonald Stop-Your-Divorce statement and delivered this to my wife during a formal "talk" : " Ideally, I would prefer to stay with you and we would enjoy and together like in our early days (do you remember the time... ?). But you are perfectly right to feel miserable because I was a drunk captain while you were alone in the strom [negative assertion] and you are right to always feel judged by me [fogging] because I do have demands/unsatisfied needs which are , and , and to be the captain on board [MAP phase 3 / phase 4 demands] and you are right to feel unloved [fogging] because I still love you but I am no longer in love with you [negative assertion] and you can feel that. So I have to approve you and I will start organizing our separation soon. "

Next day she received a notification from our bank informing her I had revoked her legal proxy rights on our accounts and mine.

End result : several days and shit test sessions later, she asked for a new formal talk. She said would also prefer for us to stay together if I keep on improving myself. She basically drew a sort of MAP for me with her expectations of improvements :

1. Communicate better = no STFU, no mockery (A&A), more listening/feelz sharing/boy toy sessions => which I am fine with because I want to master shit tests, that's already in my plan
2. Stop whistling at home when she is nearby because she hates it and stop groping her to initiate because she prefers words => why not
3. Keep on complimenting her => I can do that but I am afraid this will raise her perception of her SMV compared to mine and would act contrary to my dread efforts ; OK for compliments but not for submission
4. Put her back on a pedestal => I laughed at it so she developped her idea further : she wants to be flirted by me => that fits my goald of developping my game and is on my MAP/dread roadmap so fine with this too
5. Not to take any important decision without getting her advice first => this sounds like captain/second officer to me so OK ; but she insists on having equal rights regarding the definition of education rules for the children => why not so far, we could revise this in the future
6. More OYS from me at home = preparing every other meal, firmer parenting with our oldest son, etc. => sounds good to me

So her overall expectations of improvement sounded mostly good to me and were more or less already in my MAP. But they were almost worded as a plan given by a leader (her) and that's one further reflection of my poor leadership in the past.

But what about her willingness to fulfill my demands/unsatisfied needs ?

My need #1 was her complimenting and rewarding our oldest son instead of bellitling and humiliating him => she wants to commit to fulfilling that need. Nice !

My need #2 was her cultivating our sexuality instead of defending herself against it. => she's OK with that, theoratically

My need #3, which is the strongest one currently is her helping me trust her fidelity better. And this is still an issue.

When we got married, she did express lots of reserve about her not being able to guarantee her fidelity to me because she had a track of records on cheating on her ex (including with me). But she now says she became able to promise life-long fidelity.

She made out with a bar/club guy two years ago and had said they just made out (no sex). As a matter of guarantee for the sincerity of her new willingness to commit to fidelity vows, she just confessed they did indeed fuck, once, in the back of his car. Gosh this hurts ! Even though I am no more in love with her and I didn't believe her former "just kisses" confession. And her motivation is also visibly to show she has a decent SMV whereas she is the only woman I ever kissed and she knows I have no game...

So she wants to promise fidelity now, and that's new. But that's just words.

And she wants to cultivate friendship with her ex (which she tried to have sex with 5 years ago and met for lunch last month despite my disapproval). And she wants to keep dancing at night clubs every couple of weeks. And she wants to be allowed to have male friends with whom she can share some time alone as long as she is transparent about this. And I am not happy with that. At all.

She now expects me to tell her if we have a deal or not.

If I say no, I am back to step number 1 and have to find a way to buy some time in order to maximize the probability og shared custody. That's not good to me.

If I say yes, I can see how this successfully buys me some time so I think I should accept at least for the sake of my MRP training with her and for strenghtening my exit roadmap. But my guts are still wounded by her confession and her lack of willingness to provide reassurances such as stopping going out to bars and clubs and spending alone time with her ex or new male friends. And even though I would be ready to accept her new fidelity vows, I don't think I can emotionally commit to that deal yet. My mind says I should. But my guts say I shouldn't. I have to think about it and have that beer with my childhood best friend.