Some interesting dynamics have been revealing.

Wife is pregnant with our third. The first 8 weeks or so have ben really rough putting up with her emotions. Just having to be on guard at all times. Really stressful for me, perhaps for consistency the worst of our relationship.

But the last couple of weeks, her tone and demeanor have changed to the most conciliatory and self-aware that I can recall her being in our 3 years of marriage. Like, there is still disrespect on impulse - - for example, if she gets frustrated by the content of a phone call she will hang up and text me she hates me normally. To which I ignore her, goto the gym, go home and read a book in another room after the kids are down. generally enjoy myself unperturbed. Normally she will either then attempt to escalate the situation by saying something stupid like "we are not working out I guess. You should leave, having you sleep in the next room is not good for the baby". To which I would reply something like "blow me". Naturally, these are just escalations to get a rise, I recognize that. She does not actually want me to go and frankly I do not want to forego the comfort of home.

But the last couple of weeks, right around a shift in my thiking where she said "you need to leave its too stressful for the baby for you to be here." I thought to myself. Yeah you know what. Im pretty sick of this shit. Maybe I will leave. And I started looking at Air bnb's and actually coming up with a fairly nice situation for myself. Could figure the finances out later and decide if I want to do a full split.

Now she will do her impulsive disrespect, but then she will try to clean it up fairly quickly after, with apologies and talking about God and our relationship like its a natural progression of thought for her. Anyway, I feel much more respected than I have at any point in our marriage, and I owe it to studying the psychology of relationships, no small part on here, and then removing a sense of obligation from myself and deciding that Im going to care for my kids yes, but beyond that life is about me growing to my potential, not putting up with this chick.

Now that she is kind of turning around, I find myself almost furious with her. Like, in order to heal, I have this latent anger. If she goes back to pissing me off, I could leave, but to stay, I have to overcome this anger. I did not have it before. I've been over-reacting, pretty much daring her to Main-event without giving a fuck because I'll just leave.

I just watched the original Rocky a couple nights ago and theres this scene where Mick wants to be Rockys manager and Rocky is yelling at him "where the fuck were you when I was begging you to be there!!" and Mick finally gives up and walks away, and then Rocky follows him out all cheerful with the demons of his anger gone.

I told my wife today that when I say this is "my" family, that it is mine in the sense that I own it. It belongs to me. I don't mean its like the team I'm on. But that she is part of this family like a team-member. I felt there was something important in conveying that because I do feel it. Because as a team-member, she cannot replace me. She can leave, but she cannot replace me. I can replace her. I can put her on the bench or I could give her play. Im not going to be the guy who gets disrespected and then fights for his rights against essentially a subordinate anymore.