But isn't he the one that labels YOU as needy? That's what he called you in his letter to the radio show....along with calling you paranoid and jealous. Has he stopped calling you these things?



How can it be blamed on when he feels "emotional" if he flat-out disagrees with POJA and refuses to give up IB?



Dr Harley also told you to not have children until this is resolved and if your H doesn't change, it is eventually going to destroy your M.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=2624#


I don't mean to hammer you, Penny, but I do feel there is some degree of denial on your part of how bad this situation is.

In the radio clip, you wrote that your H didn't want you looking at his cell phone. And you didn't even tell Dr Harley that he has had budding EAs with women before. Does he still get upset when you expect him to be transparent?

Penni, I'm going to throw you a bone here, as someone who has been married to, and is still married to, someone who said such stupid crap as your H.

What Susie quoted above about what your H requested you to say, well, it works. I was thinking all along that you should have simply chosen a restaurant that meets both your needs (assuming his is good food and yours is intimacy) and simply suggested it. "Hey, I thought we could go to [tv-free restaurant] tonight, I heard their [his favorite food] is awesome."

Simple, easy. No fuss. If he insists on tv restaurant, say, "I don't really like the televisions."

There is NO dissing on him in any of that.

He may just be what the others have said, but you can stop the outright complaining and DJs. It's a creative effort. My H doesn't necessarily like me looking at his cell phone, but he doesn't mind at all when he doesn't know I've done it. It's not locked, it sits on the counter, but he will get a little riled if he catches me looking without asking first. If I ask, though, he's fine with it. He doesn't like catching me snooping, because it makes him feel untrusted.

Oh well, comes with the territory of lying.

So indignation does not last for long.

And he refuses to change. He refuses to meet your needs. So yes, Dr Harley did tell you to separate.

Hi Suze, yes, my H really wants to have kids and I have already told him it's not happening until we can get better at POJA.

I think I understand that this situation is bad but I also believe in trying your hardest to have a good marriage and avoiding divorce, if possible. So, I am hear learning and trying. I think the other thing is most of the time, situations where he is not considering my feelings do not come up and he does a good job of meeting my needs most of the time - so most of the time things are good. To me, the primary reason we need to resolve this now is because if we ever have kids, there will be a lot more situations that will require POJA and it will be much more frustrating to me than it is now.

Good point, CWMI, I could leave out the feelings part and just make the request. He considers me saying that I am feeling needy a DJ, like I don't think he is doing good enough, even if I try to preface it with us being busy.

My H is the same as yours now about the cell phone. If I ask, he doesn't mind if I look but he really doesn't want me to be sneaky about it because he thinks it conveys that I don't trust him or I am trying to catch him.

So has he agreed to start using the POJA?

Again, we get lost in semantics. He refuses to use the term POJA and says he will not use any specific technique, but he does in some situations without acknowledging it.

Over time, we seem to be using POJA for more things, I think this is a result of me getting better at it. However, there are some things that he thinks are his "right" to make a decision on without my input. For example, he is refusing to negotiate about Christmas presents for his family (he negotiated amount to spend but that's it) and when he hasn't seen his friends for a while, he will refuse to negotiate the parameters of their hang out time (but this is slowly getting better).

Often times, we can talk about one of these situations he refused to negotiate about a few months later and he will be able to see how he should have considered my opinion. It seems like he is better at it once the emotion and urgency is removed. Often times, if we reexamine something a few months later and he sees my point, he will then do things differently the next time a very similar situation comes up, but it doesn't generalize to new situations. I feel like I am chipping away and a mammoth stone! It's soo much work!

In other words, he refuses to use the Policy of Joint Agreement unless he doesn't KNOW he might be using it.

Well, it's not. You stating your feelings is not a judgement of him.

Please do not have children with this man. He is not father material.

So, the answer is "no."

Basically, there are many, many things that are more important to him than you and your marriage.


Yes. Crappy marriages are A LOT of work. Especially when one spouse flat out refuses to do anything about it.

Look guys, I appreciate you giving me the harsh reality of what I am facing and affirming that my concerns are warranted. However, the truth is that I am not currently in a place where I feel like my marriage is so horrible that I must separate. I think I might have been there a year or so ago, but it has improved and so I remain hopeful. Sometimes I wonder if I am just not communicating what is happening very well and so you aren't getting the full picture.

My husband is making positive changes, it's just that it requires a lot of work on my part before it happens, and that sucks. It would be easier if he just bought into marriage builders and figured stuff out on his own.

At this point, I am still in a place where I think there is value in continuing to try. This is my decision to make, and mine alone. What I am really looking for here is some confirmation that I am heading in the right direction, especially when I am being gaslighted. Also, I know I can continue to improve - I was awful with DJs and SDs and I am better but still working on it. In addition, figuring out new ways to explain things with him is helpful.

In another post, someone mentioned the electric fence personality and so I searched for it on the site and read about it. I think my H might have that. I am not sure what that would mean in terms of what we should do differently, though.

The posters, almost to a person, do not believe you are heading in the right direction, though. It is your decision to make, but you aren't going to get validation from many people for a bad decision. [some people will validate anything though] What you are asking us to do is help you push a car up the hill with the parking brake on because you are unwilling to do anything about the parking brake.

Would you like us to lie?

He is just pacifying you so he can basically keep doing whatever he wants whenever he wants with no regard to your feelings.

I'm with Kirby. Don't have children with him.

Do you have access to the phone records? This is a big RED FLAG.

I don't know if CWMI's H has had budding EAs, when your spouse has a history of crossing the line with women before and of having a Secret Second Life, you are flatout being gaslit when they accuse you of *not trusting* them. Also when they accuse you of being paranoid and jealous.

Ask me how I know.

SSL + IB (or refusal to POJA) = he is at an extremely high risk for having another affair.

I know you don't want debbie downer-type posts, but I can see the writing on the wall and I just figured I would try to warn you one last time...

Penni, that is the point. You don't trust him and you should be trying to catch him. You need to be sneaky about snooping if it is to be effective. Obviously, snooping cannot be effective if he knows you are doing it. He should never know about your methods. NEVER.

And in your marriage, I would be snooping like a bloodhound. I would have spyware with a built in GPS on his phone, a VAR in his car, a keylogger on his computer, everything. You might even want to hire a PI. If he has nothing to hide, he wouldn't mind anyway.

Thanks all, having a downturn. You are all right. I do have access to phone records but he suddenly changed all of his passwords to all of his accounts and his computer. I asked him about one that I needed while paying a bill this morning and he openly gave it to me. I then proceeded to check everything else and realized they had new passwords. So, I am going to ask him about them tonight and see how he responds. I am 90% sure he will say, you don't need all of these just so you can check up on me.

Also, he told me he had to work through lunch today and couldn't do our usual call but I saw credit card activity during his lunchtime indicating that he was online shopping. It was small stuff for his hobby, so not anything I would be upset about him purchasing, just weird that he would tell me he was busy.

This sucks.

He also got out of work 45 minutes late yesterday and didn't call or text to tell me he would be late. When he did call on his way home, I asked him what held him up and he instantly went on the defense and got mad at me for asking him about it and he called me way too needy again (it is very rare for him to work late). Then he said, remember, I almost moved out because of your neediness. Not good.

Sorry PenniFour,
At the very least arriving home 45 minutes late without an explanation or letting you know asap is independent behavior, inconsiderate of your feelings, and suspicious. That he got defensive is a BRF (Big Red Flag). That he called you needy is a Disrespectful Judgement. He threatened your relationship -- that's... I don't even know...
He's removing love units by the bushelfull and doesn't seem to be a bit concerned about it.
I can say, thinking back to my wayward days that I would have acted the same way as your husband is right now during any of my episodes of adultery. Same with the passwords -- I had everything secret from my wife; it was a mind-set, and a very unhealthy one.
I say the above with much conviction as I am now involved with someone who I would literally share anything with (email, passwords, web history, locations, timing/schedules). I would be highly concerned if she expressed uneasiness about anything I was doing - in fact this has come up with both of us and it was addressed by immediately discontinuing the activity; no questions asked. We don't want to make each other uncomfortable regardless of how "unreasonable" it might sound to an outsider -- we know what our relationship means to us.

Opt

Penny, sorry you are going through this. I agree with everything opt said.

Wanted to add quickly (gotta run)...

The tactic of hoping he will slowly come around and adopt these principles into his lifestyle when he hasn't given you any indication he wants/needs to change is not a good one. Especially with someone who has a history of a SSL or trouble being open (as you phrased it on that radio show)

This is the exact topic that I spoke to Dr Harley about the first time I was on the radio show. That is a hard habit to break that will take LOTSA WORK on your H's part, forgetting the question of whether he even believes radical honesty is necessary to marriage or if he even admits he has trouble with honesty & openness (Dr Harley said he would want to see both of these to be optimistic my STBX would change).

So what I am saying is he needs to CARE enough to even try to break these bad habits...which he doesn't. Clearly.

Have you read "When to Call It Quits"?