M,

At times like this I pray and ask God to give me insight into my husband, and direction on how to respond to him in love.

I think that is what you need to do. Something is going on in his head, and you can't reach him, but God knows.

I will pray for you. Dont give up. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Shul

Dear M01069,

I am a husband reading Boundaries in Marriage. It occurred to me that one of the boundaries you would like your husband to follow would be to avoid EA and PA relations. I searched for a good thread on Standing, but I was unable to find a good thread for you. Basically Standing is continuing to do the right thing, being ture to your spouse, even though your partner may not be doing the right things.

One aspect taught by cloudtownsend.com, is that to have the best chance that your partner will follow our desires in boundaries, that we ourselves should attempt to follow good boundaries in every way possible and practical. The idea of the Golden Rule, basicly. It seems that your husband's offer to babysit while you go out on the town, is an invitation for you to participate in weakening boundaries. I just mention that concept for you to consider, if your husband offers to babysit for you again, you might take the opportunity to express the idea that you are Standing.

It is not intended that every idea in the 180 Degree Divorce Busting list apply to all marriages in trouble. Also, the list is not intended to be complete, but rather a springboard for other factors to change.

I did mention deeper listening skills on your thread under General Questions II. Basicaly 90% of thinking is done subconscously, so if you get further tuned into your partner's desires, you can have a better chance of following some good boundaries and processes.

Blessings

<small>[ April 08, 2004, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: Whaler ]</small>

Whaler

You gave me some food for thought. I don't like going out on the town, I would much rather stay home and snuggle, but husband doesn't want to do that.

I am so lost. When I got married I was so secure, so sure of myself and us. Now 15 years later my security has been ripped out from under me

Dear M,

Perhaps you might look for security in knowing that you are trying to do the right things. Some MB threads have suggested that an important concept is what we are able to tell out children, about how we tried to serve and save the marriage.

I pray that you find a sense of security.

Blessings

Dear M,

Two further things came up while I prayed for your feeling of security.

One idea is for when your husband points out your past mistakes, faults, etc., one way to change the dynamics is to ask, "What would you like me to change now?" This question is difficult for my wife to ask of our college age son. It may be difficult for you. It is not agreeing to change whatever he may ask to be changed, it just means that you are listening, and will consider his ideas. It places the responsibility on the person hearing the question, to come up with solutions. "Is there anything I can do or arrange differnetly for you?" This comes from ODD strategies, Dr. James Sutton, docspeaks.com.

The second idea is that issues of negotiation of a divorce settlement have been brought up. To best protect the interests of your daughters, you should probably have a lawyer from whom you can seek advice at this time. Procedures and opportunites vary from state to state, courthouse to courthouse, and even judge to judge. Most lawyers are not looking for opportunities to fix marriages, so you will need to do some shopping to find a lawyer who can work with you to try to save your marriage. You might want to start checking referrals earlier than later.

Whaler

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers.

I am not going out tonight. I told my H I want to just stay home and hang out with him. He had no comment.

I have sought counsel from 2 lawyers so far. I need to see a third just to make sure. Neither have given me much hope with my marriage.

I never heard of a lawyer interested in saving a marriage.

It's scary, because with the exception of child support, both lawyers said they can push for all I want but in the end it's up to the judge. But both said that things look more in my favor right now. What about my kids favor? Seems like I am the only one with the best interest of them.

Dear M,

I did not list out a number of counseling questions for you. There are books of lists of questions, and more books and courses on when to use which series of questions. I will just give you some that come to mind, and you can use your best judgement of when, or if, to ask any of the questions that may help start, or keep a positive conversation going.

What would you like the children to become, do, or have? What would you like the children to avoid doing, becoming or having?
What would you like to take credit and responsibility for? What would you like to aviod responsibility or blame for?
What do you see blocking you from what you want to do, be or have? What options for encouragement are available for making achievements? When is a good time for encouragement? When is a bad time for encouraging ideas? What would you like to see change? What would you like to remain unchanged?

Listening also involves the understanding the balance of choices a person is making or considering. To understand the balance, at least two extreme polemic views of the subject should be visualized. As the listener, you can beter understand, and acknowlegde your husband's ideas, if you repeat back the concept in terms of the extremes he is balancing. "Of course you want to do the best you can for your daughters, but of course you don't want to save money by living a dangerous neighborhood either."

Your goal of snuggling together in the evening sounds ideal, but getting to a point of having some constructive conversation with H respecting a boundary of avoiding needless fault finding with you, seems like a more realistic expectation, that may lead to an atmosphere of trust where afection can be felt and expressed.

I got my Boundaries Instruction Videos today. Maybe you will notice an increase in my savy after I watch them. Whenever I pick up the Boundaries in Marriage book, I am reminded of activities that I should do to make the household more pleasant, so I have not gotten past P. 84.

Blessings.

Whaler

Thanks again. What you wrote makes a lot of sense.

It seems like life has become so complicated, to the point of being unpleasant.

Every word, action, eye movement I feel needs to be methotically planned. Although I am looking at this as changing my habits right now, I am not being myself. Being me means being happy, very silly at times and not letting anyone walk all over me. The way I am now is an exact opposite because I have to re-phrase in my mind every little comment, question and so forth and then I have to take it a step further before I speak and try to tell which way my H will react and how I will comment (or not) about that.

I need to get the bounderies book next.

No snuggling, no conversation tonight. H is deep into play a military game on PlaystationII. I was laying next to him watching him play for a while but I know when he's playing a game the world could end and he wouldn't notice so I decided to come and talk to my real friends. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

My girls and I will be going to Mass tomorrow for Easter, I will pray for all MB'rs and I'll sneak in an extra for you. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Glad to know that you are ordinarily happy. Being able to express yourself in different attitudes takes practice.

We can think of your attitude of ordinarily happy, silly, to be a healthy level attitude. Sometimes we have to deal with people who are ordinarily in below the healthy attitude range.

Sometimes people are temporarily in less than healthy attitudes, sometimes a person will take an attitude toward us in particular, as we have failed to keep our boundaries up.

The most difficult attitude for me to handle is sneaky people. Thankfully, your husband does not seem to be artfully sneaky, inventing elaborate stories and fabrications.

Your H could be functioning in Antagonism, Needing to Punish, Hateful or Resentment, or intersted in the suffering of others.

You may feel more comfortable if you select a particular attitude with which to express yourself. One of the attitudes that I have had to work at being able to employ is Boredom. Boredom is that one choice is as OK as any other choice, as it really does not make a difference. Instead of being happy, you could just practice being, everything is OK, just seen it all, nothing is a real big deal anymore.

If you have never practiced Boredom, it might be a good attitude to have practiced recently. Boredom is really tough for me, as I like interesting things, and making comments, even if I really don't fully know what I am talking about.

There are other attitudes that you might try to work more compassionately with H. But you might try Boredom, first, and see if he responds better. If nothing else, by practicing changing attitudes, you may be more interesting to him. It is a healthy exercise, for you anyway. But if Boredom feels wrong, just switch back to what you were doing.

The idea of acting bored, is to give the other person a chance to catch a better attitude. If their attitude improves, go back to being your ordinary happy self. If they are still in a bad mood, for whatever reason, being happy will seem irritating to them. So acting bored is being considerate, until they show they can be trusted with your true happiness.


BOUNDARIES IN MARRIAGE, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Available in Leather, ISBN 0-310-24612-1, Hard back ISBN 0-310-22151-X, and

Boundaries in Marriage Workbook, Paperback, ISBN 0-310-22875-1.

Boundaries, Face to Face, a new book by Clound and Townsend.

cloudtownsend.com
www.drhenrycloud.com
www.newlife.com

Boundaries Course Video
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1813624&sourceid=1500000000000000040820

<small>[ April 09, 2004, 11:29 PM: Message edited by: Whaler ]</small>

Whaler

I think I might have done a boo boo.

My H has such a bad attitude with me, can't stand me to be frank even though I have been in strong Plan A minus the bounderies. My one bounderie would be no contact with other woman which he flat out refuses.

My H treats strangers better than me. And that's what I told him. I asked to him change his attitude with me. He asked me how do I want to be treated and I said like the wife I am. I want to be held, kissed, treated like a wife. H said that's not possible. He would be lieing if he did that. He has no feelings for me anymore.

I told him that if he doesn't want to treat me like the wife I am than walk. I told him to go find himself, be happy because he's miserable here. He comes and goes as he pleases, does and says as he pleases and I have taken all of this with a smile on my stupid face.

Everyone that has known My H has always been so proud of his accomplishments, his parents, co workers etc.. I told H that whoever is proud of him his parents etc... is also living a lie because there is nothing to be proud of.

H says he didn't do this to me intentionally, I said I don't give a flying F what was intentional or not, he did it. supposedly lied to me for 15 years, leading me on treating me like his Princess and cut it all of in 30 seconds.

I told him I was embarrased to have chosen him to have kids with, I am embarrased of my own stupid judgement.

I know I probably just threw plan A down the toilet, but He treats me like a piece of dirt, like I don't matter.

He's taken my self esteem and squashed it, looks at me like I am a maggot.

Need some support here please.

One more thing, when I say other woman, I mean multiple.

He has phone contact (that's all I know for sure) with many other woman "friends".

H says I can't tell him who he can talk to .

Put him on the back burner, sweetie. It is time for you to go on with your life, and start enjoying it. Join a women's support group, go out with kids, with friends, do some hobbies, organize the house, rearrange, paint, etc.

When you get boundaries, it is like a fence. You do not expect others to change. You determine what you will tolerate in your life. Whatever his problem is, he is taking it out on you.

I feel much better and my self-esteem is back, since I have gone on with my life, and not sat around wondering why WH is not happy. That is something that he needs to work on. I will support him, but cannot do it for him.

feel much better and my self-esteem is back, since I have gone on with my life, and not sat around wondering why WH is not happy. That is something that he needs to work on. I will support him, but cannot do it for him.

How do I support him? I have been supporting him by putting a smile on my face and letting do as he pleases which in turn turned me into instant doormat. Instead of him doing things around the house, spending time with the kids he chooses to hang out at the fire station. This is something that prior to all of this I would put limits on because he would take advantage of it. He would gladly dump all responsibilities for more "fun".

Now that he's "done" with me he says he does not have to listen to me, which is putting more weight of the house, kids and other responsibilities on my shoulders. And the emotional responsibility of being told that your H emotionally divorced you years ago and I was clueless.

I have two small children so my time alone is very seldom. My family all have their own families to deal with. They do take them on occasion, but I feel I am intruding.

I got a wedding invite in the mail today. Makes me want to puke. I remember the words we exchanged back then and the future we promised and now H says it was all a lie.

How can somebody do this to another? He was the most caring man I knew, now he's a heartless guy.

I want my old husband back, he says I don't, that man was a liar. Well, he was the best liar I ever knew to pull me along for 15 years.

I want to send him an email tonight, what's your thoughts. (He's working on his overnighter tonight)

I wanted to put that I love him and want this marriage to work, I will do whatever it takes for us to succeed. I need him to treat me as his wife, the person he married 11 years ago and promised to love and cherish. I want us to be the fun loving couple we were back then. I want to make new fun, good memories together.

What do ya think?

No, no, no. Put him on the back burner. Even though you have kids, you can still do things. Don't worry about burdening your family and friends. You need to take care of you.

Don't listen to his talk - he is deeply in the fog. He has no idea what he is doing. They all do the same things, and say the same things. He is addicted and cannot help himself.

believer

I know he is addicted to something and I am trying to figure out what.

I know he had fallen in love with a girl (he says EA) BUT says it's over. I can't prove otherwise.

I know he was into cyber sex, but says that's done too. I can't prove otherwise, he keeps his laptop at the fire dept.

I know he's addicted to video games, but can that addiction cause or add to this problem.?

I know he's addicted to internet chats.

I've been thinking of going to his mother about this. What's your opinion?

Her and I just reconciled about a month ago from years of bitterness. I am afraid that she'll take my reconciliation as a sign of a trick to get her on my side.

That's not the case at all, I want to help my H in any way possible. I told my H that too.

He is addicted to something. We don't know what it is right now. But you need to put him on the back burner and work on yourself. You will not be able to go on like this for too long.

Yes, our husbands are a big part of our life, but not our whole life. Stick with us and your life can be good again.

Dear M,

One concept in in Boundaries in Marriage is Emotional Distance. Believer says hold your ground. There are degrees of being over-acquiessing and, on the other extreme, being too emotionally distant.

For me, I drew two overlapping circles. There is my desires, my wife's desires, and desires in the overlapping part of the circle, which we agree on. The mutually agreed upon desires in the overlapping part of the circles is the boundaries of the marriage.

Try to improve things that are in the overlapping part of the circle. Try to find things in his circle of desires, to which you have not yeat agreed, that you can work to find agreement, or step-wise progress toward more agreement, and less disagreement.

The Boundaries books, and I watched the first lesson of 8 lessons, seems to recommend that we word our requests for boundaries in a way that is thoughtful and realistic, and stepwise progressive toward what you want.

You have asked him to cut off telephone contact with other women. Certainly that is a clear boundary, fairly unambiguous. There is a wide range of tolerance for contact with other women among the posters on this MB forum. Some want no looking and no talking. Some have forgiven affairs. Some have open marriages. What Boundaries Books would seem to suggest, would be to assess what your husband feels is a reasonable boundary, what you feel is a reasonable boundary, and see if there is any room for step-wise progress toward a middle ground, in any way.

As you point out, there are a number of things that you do not know about your husband. He said he lied to you for 15 years. You might look at other forums dealing with sexual issues. Cure Zone, Herbal Remedies plus Detailed Fourms Another forum to help a wife compete with addictions is Thread on Wife Defining and Competing with Addiction

The power structure of your marriage may also be important for commanding respect. Perhaps I am wrong in my assessment that your husband is not sneaky. If your husband was telling his mother stories about you, to have her have a low, distrusting opinion of you, then that would be an indication H is being sneaky.

The goal of contact with H's mother could be simply to offer to be helpful. Here agian, the magic word "CHANGE" can be used. You may wish to ask your husband first, "I was going to ask your mother to have lunch with me next week, so I could get some advice from her. Do you see any problem with that? Is there anything you want to discuss with me first? Would you rather I delay meeting with her?" Try to operate within agreements of the marriage. POJA, Policy of Joint Agreement in MB.

If your husband is being sneaky, and he has admitted to at least being deceptive, keeping in communication with other people who are important to you, and your daughters, is of vital importance. Your daughter's grandparents can play important roles on occasions. There are degrees of being deceptive and sneaky. If a person is totally sneaky, then you would not even disclose you are making the rounds to keep up communication with other important people. If your husband gets up-tight about your talking to his mom, that should be a flag to indicate that he is in the more sneakier range.

Addiction involves a certain amount of non-disclosure. One purpose of understanding boundaries, is so that you can increase trust in the marriage. If you have any friends who are wives of men who work at the fire house, I bet they could provide enlightening info.

Paying closer attention to your boundaries and feelings, will avoid being passive-aggressive, and saying things you don't mean, and appologising later. Not the ideal cycle, better to have spoken up earlier, with a more even-handed expectations. Telling your husband to get out is not what you really want, nor is it a step toward what you want. So now, come up with some step toward what you actaully want, and let him know what the reasonable step is that you want and see if you can get POJA on it, or some compromise. Telling H to get out certainly expressed some of your feelings of frustration, but see what boundaries you can get agreed to. For some reason, he has enough trust in you to at least come home.

Perahps you can ask your husband that if he is not in a mood to be reasonably affectionate, hug, or accepting a pat on the back, ordinary husband wife stuff in front of the kids, that if he cannot accept that, he should go to his room, until he is ready to behave as a normal husband.

About other women, I try to avoid telling any other non-cyber woman that my wife is less than the ideal wife. The reason for that is that I have confided my complaints about my wife to another woman, in person, and that gave the OW the idea that I was thinking of divorce, and getting together with OW. That created unrealistic expectations. You might ask your husband, that if he is going to talk to other women, that he tell the other woman that he is happily married. That may not work for you. It is just an idea, and a rule I try to follow.

I have read some MB posters advising Plan B, and I agree your husband is probably talking Fog Talk, and you need to mix a pound of salt with whatever he says, but I don't see how Plan B would really help you get your marriage back together. Perhaps things are more clear to you than you have presented here, but Plan B can backfire. After living together 7 years, 1 daughter, daughters' father married OW 4 days after Plan B:

cnf, Her Daughter's Father marries OW after Plan B


Blessings

<small>[ April 10, 2004, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: Whaler ]</small>

ask your husband, that if he is going to talk to other women, that he tell the other woman that he is happily married

That's funny!! Sorry, don't mean to laugh. My H will tell anyone in ear's shot about what a terrible wife I was, he's not happy and he's emotionally divorced and wants the real divorce.

I am going to try the interlocking circle suggestion. Thanks

I asked H last week what he was willing to put back into the marriage and he said he isn't willing to put anything back. And after that he took more away.

He was kissing me on top of my head, now that's gone.

I can see the pro's and con's of Plan B. Plan B would protect me from losing more love for my H and would protect me from LBing him.

Also, I think part of H's problem is the ole "grass is greener on the other side" syndrome. He's not going to realize that it's not greener until I let him go graze in it for a while.

Although the con's outway the pro's, a resolution might come sooner in plan B?

Dear M,

I suggest that having your expectations clearly defined would be helpful before doing a Plan B. Also having a number of other significant people in tune with your Plan B Reasons would give you a better chance, like his parents.

I saw a good T Shirt for your husband, "BEING GRUMPY"

I agree that you should protect yourself. Plan B does that, except Plan B does a whole lot more.

Protecting yourself from criticism in public or in front of others is a skill that is worth developing, in itself. The concept of Boredom, or not seeming overly interested, or Emotional Distancing, can be practiced with your husband. If you have clearly defined boundaries for criticism, and are unable to get H to follow reasonable boundaries, and your emotional distancing is not working, then Plan B may be a risk worth taking.

The question to H, "What more are you going to do for the marriage?" is what you really want to know. Except this phrasiology risks an oppositonal response, which it received. You want to put the responsibility on H, but without any hint of BLAME. That is why the phraseology, "What can I change to make things less contentious?" Has an advantage, as no blame of H is implied.

What are your boundaries for personal criticims from H? What are your signal phrases that H is exceeding your boundaries? What are your options for initial emotional distancing? (Like using Boredom) What are your options for emtional distancing if he continues criticism? (Going to some place that is not a threat to him or indication of breach of trust, like a relative of yours, or a neighbor, etc.) That idea of a trusting breather space is in the books Intimate Enemy.

You mention Addiction, but you don't mention Al Anon. Al Anon is for spouses of addicted or habituated spouses. The purpose of at least some Al-Anon Groups is to assit in recognizing any unintended complicity of a spouse in the responsibility-escaping techniques used by the addicted spouse.

If your husband wants to have a gripe session, in private, that might be OK, within limits. So you could offer to schedule a Gripe session, if he is griping in front of others. If you send H an E-mail, you might want to think of what reasonable boundaries you wish him to observe. I suggest you consider just asking for non-negative vibrations, and not asking for displays of affection, starting our, but these are YOUR boundaries, not mine. Let H know how he can avoid falling into your displeasure and building up the feelings, of "Get out or else!" You may need to adjust your expectations, and feelings of self-confidence, which may have become overly dependent on validatin from affection from H. That may be difficult to develo your own self confidence, without any affection from H.

I am not sure what GQ Forum is, can you give me more info?

I read some earlier post of yours, where you lost your temper. It seems to me you should give having a neutral safe haven for you to go, would be worthwhile. Maybe even a women's shelter, or volunteer home, or the Salvation Army, something, something with a phone if he wants to check on you. I pay $15.00 a month for minimal cell phone service.

Have you ever done a parenting course together? That always brought my Wife and I closer, just being on the same page with the terms and concepts.

What can you tell us about The Four Agreements and the Power of the Word. I am not familiar with those concepts. In what way could you be supportive of his ideas? My wife likes to ridicule my ideas, and I feel that limits our relationship, largely unnecessarily. Are ther any principles you could compromise? Are there any boundaries on disagreeing with his ideas you could exchange for boundaries you are interested in? How would he like to see you change to support his ideas? (Junk)

A further block seems to me to be that you don't have a babysitter set up for your daughters inthe evening. It seems to me that you could babsit for someone, and build up some exchange credit, so they would babysit your children. It seems to me that you should make the effort to get things arranged, so that you can go out in the evening wtih your husband, alone, without the kids.

You mention that your husband appears to be a hard working Hero to others. What are his actual good qualities? Does your husband match up to his Astrology sign? Which One? What esle is positive/limiting about H?

Blessings

<small>[ April 10, 2004, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Whaler ]</small>

Whaler, and all other posters

You are a God sent!

I am printing out these replies and I am going to go to bed and read them.

Whaler, I am not sure where you saw me post regarding GQ forum. I have had some posts under that forum.

I have asked him what can I do to help this marriage and he says there's nothing I can do. He says the only way it would last is if he falls in love with me and he doesn't see that happening since he never was in love with me. <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> I don't believe he never was. This is the strangest thing. How can someone lie for 15 years? He really treated me well, whatever I wanted he would be right there (with the exception of anything I wanted done around the house, that's when he would make a stand and not do it.)

All of our friends are in disbelief too. They all said they thought we would be the one couple to make it to the golden ages together.

Hoppy Easter everyone.!!!