I think you took communication lessons from the same school I did. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

That is about how I use to handle arguments. My wife would blow up and I would blow up and throw something back just as bad or worst to make her hurt. It's not a good way to argue. I call that ping pong arguing. You just keep hitting the ball back and forth to each other until one of you gives up.

You and I have a lot of similar qualities. I could probably spend a while teaching you the things I have learned about communication. I had to learn them all the hard way. It took years of punishment. Now I argue and be civil most of the time and even walk away if the argument starts to become heated. I have learned to say I won't have this argument if it's going to take this tone. I will discuss it later. Amazing how you can stop an argument if you want to. You don't have to argue. NO one forces you to except yourself.

I'm proud of you for putting a stop to your acting out this week. If I can encourage you, just let me know.

Michie:

I realize that I might live on a planet light years away from your zip code but...

My marriage thirty years ago cost no more that the price of a marriage license and a blood test--less than $15. I'm certain that with inflation the price tag is probably up to around $50 but you could probably save that out of your grocery money.

And you SHOULD put him on a pedestal. Why? Because that is what get's us women what we want. You should thank him for working 60 hours a week. Compliment him not criticize! A little admiration and respect can go a long way. When he talks about spending money on anything like the hobby car (it is often just talk and nothing more), you simply say something like, "You have always taken good care of us. I trust that you will do what is best for our family."

But now, because of the way you acted, he is going to spend money just to prove that he can.

You have a chip on your shoulder because there is no marriage license. So when he says, "I'm buying it because I can" you think he is saying, "I can buy whatever I want because I am not married to you."

So you say, to hurt him back, "I can sleep with whoever I want because I am not married to you."

But the truth of the matter is that my loving husband of thirty years would respond the same as your man if I spoke to him the way you described.


This isn't about sex. It is about resentment.

Yeah i resent men. i'll admit that. My fiance and i have had discussions/arguments before because i feel that all men are the *same*. I've learned to overcome that issue. I understand how much different he is than most men.

Next point, we have our marriage liscense. Its good for one year as long as it sits in the court house.

He is an impulse buyer. He sees something, thinks we have a little money, he'll spend it. If i never talked to him at all last night, he would've bought that car. I simply told him that i wished he wouldn't because that money could be better spent on groceries, or put away for our wedding. He got defensive, which started the fight.

I'm not saying what i did was right at all. I said a lot of mean things. I hate when i'm trying to get a point across, he cuts me off, and has to say something to prove that he's consistently right about everything.

We could've gotten married this year with taxes. He wanted and needed things. I never once argued with him about his purchases. The year before was the exact same thing. The only things i buy for myself would be an outfit or two once every 6 months and a $5 bottle of hair dye. I wear my tennis shoes until they're so full of holes they aren't comfortable anymore.

I'm basically saying i give my share of sacrifices to make sure my kids have clothes, food, shelter like any parent should.

ASKME- you can definitely give me some encouragement. I think i need it.

I have to go to work now.. i'll check back here later tonight!

Hmmm, two addictive personalities. That's interesting. Impulse buying is an addictive trait. People who feel like money just burns a hole in the pocket until they spend it on something, well they are medicating too. They are feeding emotions. It sounds like you have two people with dysfunctions somehow meeting each others needs, probably in some dysfunctional way.

I learned that my wife and I came together because I had learned growing up to meet my mothers emotional needs. I was an emotional giver/provider. I was good at it. My wife was an emotional taker. Put a taker with a giver and you have a match. But that doesn't mean it's a healthy relationship as I have learned over the years. It doesn't mean it's terribly bad. We have some good things in our marriage, but there are things because of our dysfunctions that we have been trying to improve on.

Some encouragement.....you want to change the way you communicate. You want to keep up the change to stop acting out.

Here is a change I made, if I can do this, anyone can make a change. I learned about masturbation when I was 10. It had been a constant part of my life, habitual, part of my sex addiction up until 3 years ago. Then I decided I needed to stop because it affected me, my thoughts and my relationship with my wife. I gave up something so much engrained in me for 37 years of my life, but I did it. And I haven't done it once in 3 years, so people can change.

He told me he's getting a side job that'll pay pretty good and that i can do whatever i want with the money.

I think some of his problem could be because of his ex-wife. He gave and gave to her with nothing in return.

I agree that he needs things to compensate his hard work. But, i feel that he needs to realize that he should wait until the timing his right. Save $20 out of every check or something. Not just take the whole amount out of one check.

We dont have a checking account because he overdrew both to the point that we couldn't recover from it. We dont have a savings account because we can't "save". We've tried. At some point we get so behind we have to close it.

Its just a neverending cycle and it stresses me out to no end.

He talks about how we have to "plan" our wedding. Plan it, then figure out how much it'll cost, then save up for it. But he doesn't take his own advice. If he comes across a good deal, then he wants it before someone takes it, no matter the price.

I'm not trying to "bash" him. He does a lot for me, sacrifices a lot for me. I dont ask for much. I do ask that he doesn't spend a lot of money on a hobby. I have bills that i would like to pay off. My credit is ruined. His is getting better.

I'm still looking for a 2nd job. Maybe his stress will lift knowing that he isn't working harder than me and feeling that he's the only supporting us. Granted, he'll always work harder than me. He works construction.

I always liked the envelop approach to budgeting. You have an envelop for each expense during the month. Then there is a special envelop for extras. You first have to fill all the expense envelopes and once they are filled, then you can put money in the special envelop. That way you know the bills get paid first before you start spending money on extras.

And for things like a wedding you would consider than an expense that you are preplanning. A wedding is only something that usually comes along once is a couples life, so it should be special.

I have done the envelope thing. Maybe i should give it another try.

If you liked the envelop way of managing money, our church has always recommended an organization called Crown Ministries that helps people manage money. They use the envelop principle and suggest ways to use it properly. They have info at www.crown.org

Many years ago the thing that worked for me was that I led by example. When he saw what I had saved, he was encouraged to do so too.

One year when the kids were young we knew we were going to have a very tight Christmas. But we managed and the gifts were bought. But two days before Christmas, a gas station made an error with our debit card and my checking account funds were tied up until after the holiday with an obscebe overdraft that was not our fault. This left us with no money for groceries. We had never applied for a credit card as many people didn't have them in those days--in fact it never dawned on us to get one.

After that episode I arranged to have a little cash directly taken out of my paycheck for a Christmas fund. I didn't tell my husband. A few weeks before the following Christmas, my H expressed concern over having enough money for Christmas gifts. You should have seen the look on his face when I handed him $500. I know that doesn't sound like much today, but that was alot of money back then and could buy one heck of a Christmas.

I think my husband experienced how good it felt to have that money because after that he was willing to sit down with me and actually plan our finances together. We still do this together.

Another thing that helped was that I started calculating how many hours he had to work to pay for something. My husband is a tradesman also. I'd say "Is it worth standing on a ladder for three and a half months to buy this?"

Another of the many things I do is pack him beautiful lunches with special suprises like homemade strawberry shortcake or pie (and extra sandwiches for the younger guys whose wives do not do this and they end up eating off the "roach coach" day after day.) This makes him happy and proud (he says the guys compare lunches) and save us hundreds of dollars every year.

My husband didn't exactly change his view of money overnight, but I had a positive impact when I communicated how happy I was about our frugal victories as we achieved them.

Today we own our own home with no mortgage and we have no credit card debt. We have put our kids through private school and have some money saved for emergencies and college.

Thanks Pieta.

We do need to do some serious budgeting, or i have to save money without him knowing about it.

I should've let him have that car. I just asked him how much money he had on him , and its gone. How much of that $200 went to household expense... $40. He's writing me a list of what all it went to. I'm sure i'll find things that he could've cut out.

I've tried to pack his lunch. He gets bored easy with lunch meat and i'm sure its hard when none of the other guys bring thier own lunches.

Have you acted on any of your thoughts to have sex with other men? It sounds like you love this man and your sex is satisfying. Fantasizing about other men is not necessarily destructive to your relationship (although some might disagree). But acting on your fantasies would be, unless of course he was into it and you both developed a swinger lifestyle, but as good as that might sound, that lifestyle can have some serious consequences to your physical and emotional health. You said at age 16 you were exploring yourself. Did you mean you were having sex with lots of guys or just by yourself? If you were not acting out with multiple partners, then it is quite possible you won't after you are married either. There are ways to have a rich fantasy life in sex with your husband without crossing that line and perhaps just sharing that with him will help you both feel more secure in the relationship and he will be able to be sensitive to your need for some sort of variety without you going outside of the relationship for it. Hope this helps.

I had been with quite a few men by the time i was diagnosed. "exploring myself" probably wasn't a good term to use. In the last 10 years that i have been active, i have only been in 2 relationships that consisted of me being completely faithful and lasting more than a month or two. Well i should say that the first i wasn't completely faithful. I was physically and mentally abused while pregnant. I ended up recieving oral sex from a high school friend. I was with him for a total of 9 months, 6 of those months that we were together i was pregnant and lived with him. The last 2 months, i moved out and he moved on. I did get back with him a couple times after that. Not really sure why. I'm a smart girl but i guess i was terribly naive. The last time i saw him, my son was 15 months old. I drove down to where he was living to see him and spent some time and drove our friend to his moms. He wanted to go see some friends and i wanted to spend some more time with him before i had to go. And i wanted him to spend some time with HIS son. We drove back to the house that he was staying at and he walked off down the street to see his friends. I should say that we had a small arguement before he walked off because i got a phone call from a friend that he didn't like. He told me to tell my friend that i couldn't speak to him anymore. I was so caught up in my emotions because he wanted to see HIS friends so badly that i did. I guess somehow i thought he wasn't really gonna go. I loved the guy, and i would've done anything for him. Thats the last memory i have of him. Nice guy, huh? My son is now 6 years old.

The friend that i told that i wouldn't speak to anymore, well we reconnected about a year after that. He told me that i had really hurt him. I ended up dating his friend, which was how we reconnected. We went to a New Years Party where my friend was also at. My date fell asleep at the hotel and my friend and i started talking. I ended up leaving the party with my friend. Sex with both of these guys never happened. Well, because i then had hurt the guy i was dating, i lost touch with both of these guys. Then, a couple years later, i reconnect with my friend again. We actually start dating this time. Doesn't last long, about a month, before he leaves me hanging. No sex either. I found out the reason why not to long ago. And i must say i'm not to happy why. Of course, i can't really blame him. Through all this i slept with probably every one of his friends except the one that i had actually dated.

if they were "nice" guys.. i didn't want them. I didn't want to sleep with them. If they seemed like jerks.. yeah i would sleep with them. If i did sleep with them, and then they expressed an interest in me.. I ended up being a jerk to them.

Its a vicious cycle with me.

Overall i think most of my problems have to do with my sons "sperm donor" and i lost my "virginity" to a rape. I experienced a couple other rapes but i think it was because of how i represented myself and my reputation. More like.. "she's slept with so and so, she may say no, but i know i can get her to cave." I guess i now place blame on myself for those, instead of directing the blame on them. They knew better.

I have acted out in this current relationship, just not in a physical sense.

We have talked, and we are trying to work on things.