here

Our last 'date night'--last Thursday--was spent babysitting a car for the business. I wouldn't be so opposed if was less often and had more 'just us' in between. I do not want to set up a lifestyle where 'our time' is spent on HIS JOB. I don't think that is unreasonable, to want weeks--or months--instead of days between 'events' for his job.

I think to ask your spouse to spend their recreational time with you doing extra stuff for work, is unreasonable. Occasionally, sure, I asked for that, I do want to be included in his work and seen as an asset. I do NOT want it to dictate our lives.

I'm blown away right now with how his work has consumed our lives for the past few days. I didn't think going last week with him was a big deal until all this other was thrown at me, and that is because I did trust him to not allow this to happen again. He thinks it is wholly better because 99% of the time, I'm invited to be consumed by his job as well.

I don't want to be consumed by his job. I want to live our lives together, doing things we both like. So now I'm really pushing it, eh? I don't want him to do events that I'm not invited to, but I also do not want him doing three outside events in ten days, either--I did NOT sign up for that. I did not agree to have my life dictated by his job. I agreed to the working hours, quarterly events, and no travel.

oh my goodness
uugghhh

This is such passive aggressive behavior on his part and nobody here at MB should even consider thinking that this is a legitimate solution to the problem the husband has gotten himself into.

5 people, 4 of them minor children, flying out to attend an event that CWMI's husband told her wouldn't be a part of his new job's position

He honestly believes that it is ok for his children to miss school for this.....he should know better. I'm sure he does know better, seeing that he's been able to become one of his company's top employees in a short period of time. he's no dummy.

I'm so sorry to read this CWMI.

RMJ, I don't know that he knows better. We went to visit his father last month when H had his first three-day weekend in our whole life together, and I had to remind him that the rest of us had school on Friday...he wanted to leave Thursday night.

I don't think he cares enough to consider any of us. He did agree to leave Friday for that trip, after I pointed it out, but why should a grown man have to be reminded that his kids are in school during the week? Never mind his wife...

cwmi, I wish you guys peace and joy together as you look for the solutions you are both enthusiastic about as a team. You two have a lot of great momentum together.

Huh??

ok, you didn't agree to this. I hope I'm following your story correctly. You told Mr. CWMI what was acceptable to you when it came to employment. Before taking the job, he told you that this new position stays within the parameters that you both POJA'd. Four mos later, you're blindsided by Mr. CWMI when he tells you that parties, events, and overnight travel are now part of his job description? Mr. CWMI basically tells you to lump it or D? And now you feel like you're not certain how to proceed?


hmmmm, did you tell Mr CWMI what the consequences would be if he lied about what the job involved? (I assume that you didn't discuss any consequences because you naturally believed there was O and H POJA.)

I can't see any other way you could proceed short of Plan B. Because he knew what the boundaries were. He POJA'd these with you before accepting that job. The only thing that can be done is for him to tell his boss that he isn't available to do the events, parties, travel, etc. He could say to the boss to put those responsibilities on one of the other "top" employees who is willing to do it.

But he won't and that is your dilemma. If you re-negotiate at this point, or even if you are "nice" and let him go, then he will see your wants, needs, agreements, etc as something that can always be re-negotiated. Your boundaries won't be respected. In fact, he will get angry when you don't reneg. on your boundaries. And this is what's happening with his job.


In the past,I think you have made so many concessions where your wants, needs, boundaries are concerned that he honestly believes that he knows what you *need* more than you do. Not only does he know what you truly need, but he knows best on how that need should be met.

Like I've said before, you've got to say what you mean and follow through with the consequences you say will happen.

Sorry, I'd typed that earlier this evening, under an earlier post, and came back to the computer and hit post. I left it as is, because in the big scheme of things, there has also been a lot of good, too. I mean, what can I say? Any solutions I suggest are never even close, and don't prompt cwmi to talk about other solutions instead. So I can send them some good wishes, because regardless of the day to day circumstances, I still wish them happy, joyous lives. I would love it if that was together, but we do what we can.

I don't see any way to go except B, either.

Dam.

Yes, that makes sense. Sorry, NED. That was actually very sweet.

cwmi, if you go plan B, from personal experience, I can tell you you'll know in your heart that you two have given the kids some wonderful happy memories of your life with their dad together this last year. I don't think a moment of your effort as a team was wasted, whatever the outcome.

cwmi, before you go Plan B, have you spoken to your pastor at church? That's a regret that I have, maybe they would have said something we needed to hear when we needed to hear it. Who knows.

Prisca and I have seen a lot of downturns this year, and every one of them has felt like rock bottom or worse. What I've found is that when something goes wrong we tend to go back to old habits, which include disrespectful judgments, angry outbursts, independent behavior, and all the other things we've been doing to each other for six years.

It just blows my mind that your husband would start talking divorce over this. But then I remember that that is probably one of his old habits: trying to get his way in a conflict by threatening divorce (selfish demand), suggesting that you are overreacting and that the situation is not bad enough to warrant divorce and therefore not bad enough for you to be this upset about (disrespectful judgment). He hasn't had enough time yet to build the habits that will prevent him from using these strategies and cause him to try more loving, thoughtful, and productive approaches to conflict. I'm still working on it myself and have been working on it all year!

And we see your old habits returning as well; Vibrissa pointed out several of your disrespectful judgments, for example.

All of these things contribute to making what could have been a momentary conflict into the end of the world for you, your husband, your marriage, and your kids.

For the longest time it seemed whenever we had a downturn, Prisca was ready to bail on Marriage Builders. After all, she was seeing me love bust, and to her that meant that Marriage Builders hadn't worked. The truth was I had failed to build the new habits I was supposed to build; nothing about Marriage Builders had failed. But she didn't know that, and me trying to educate her about it was just a love buster. I had to show her continued improvement before she was really ready to believe and keep trying to stay on the plan all the time.

Unfortunately when Prisca was ready to pitch Marriage Builders, to me that meant she was giving up on me entirely, which hurt like hell. And my first instinctive response to that was to love bust. You can guess how much that helped the situation.

We're still working our way through the early part of the Love Busters course, but you wouldn't believe how much better things are now, with the abusive love busters mostly on their way out the door. When you don't have these options available to you, you tend to pick other options, and those other options tend to resolve conflicts more quickly, with less pain. Even conflicts that before would have seemed unresolvable. And if nothing else, we escape from the conflicts without having flamed each other to death.

I haven't updated my thread in a long time. What have I been doing since that time? Learning to hold myself to the rule that I will not selfish demand, disrespectfully judge, or angry outburst, no matter what Prisca does or says. I'm not there yet (she just handed me my angry outbursts worksheet for the week, and I'm grateful to see what is on it so I can refine my strategy), but she will tell you that it is much better. At the beginning of the year I would say we were having one fight a week. Not any more, thank God.

There really is a light at the end of the tunnel that you guys can head to to learn to handle conflicts, including this one, in a way that is thoughtful to you both. Of COURSE you can't go there by yourself, and of COURSE he has royally screwed up here and been completely thoughtless. The question is, would you guys like to handle it together and keep working toward a situation that will please you both?

cwmi, I hope y'all have kissed and made up now, but I'm wondering, if part of the problem is that you see your H as, I'm not sure the right word, but like flawed, and he already has trouble connecting with you, having empathy for you, because it gets in his way already, and then this dynamic just feeds that?

Like some folks do take off a day of school at your kids' ages, and college folks usually have Fridays with no class, just homework, and they do usually travel and make up their work or turn it in early and stuff. Y'all should have POJAd it, I know, but maybe he's not like a total imbecile about the trip?

And I'm not surprised your H doesn't post here, it could be one of 100 reasons. But he knows if he comes here, if you're harsh and resilient about calling him to the mat, well we'll multiply that by 100. Why would he sign up for that, when if he's just willing to wait it out, he still sees Plan C as the most likely outcome? It is easy for him to take the perspective that he has nothing to lose in his current actions, and everything to gain, throwing you back off balance. You've lived that way at least 10 years now, would two years here convince him the situation has changed? Apparently it hasn't.

I don't have a lot of comments because I'm not quite sure what to say. I see a marriage where both people are on edge around each other. Both of y'all have a vision of marriage and parts of it completely clash and neither want to meet each other half way. You think he's unreasonable with certain things and he thinks the same about you.

CWMI, is there a reason why you could not have made arrangements for the kids. He agreed to take you, you did not want the kids missing school, he is the breadwinner in the family, it seems like you could have spent some time making arrangements with the kids.


And I don't know why he would post on here either. Depending on the thread posted, either he gets railed or CWMI gets railed. In this thread he's been called disrespectful and selfish and etc. Why would he come here?

CWMI-
I'm sorry you are going through this right now. I was "duped" as well, and I understand it's not a fun thing to go through.

Have you had a chance to make an appointment with Steve yet? To help you with your plan, whatever it may be?

I just get concerned, with all the emotional reacting that's going on right now. Emotionally reacting doesn't solve anything. It just escalates the situation, making it worse.

So, I'm wondering if there's anything you can do to call a time out, for the time being to catch your breath, while you get your plan together?

Everyone must decide for themselves how to prioritize aspects of their life. CWMI must decide how much to emphasize her marriage. As must Mr. CWMI. We would hope that both of them prioritize their marriage. But we cannot be certain that Mr. CWMI will do so.

Clearly, if CWMI wants a marriage in which she is romantically in love with her husband, she will need to set and enforce boudaries regarding her husband's career. That will likely trigger conflict with him. If she wants romantic love, she will have to work through that conflict. Which may require her to leave and find a new partner who shares her willingness to adopt romantic love as a highest order goal.

As someone who does not have romantic love in his life, and who fears separation / divorce, I sympathize with CWMI. Her alternatives are not pleasant. I hope she has the courage to hold to her convictions. And I hope that eventually she finds happiness; not merely peace. Good luck.

I'm reading, just wanted ya'll to know that.

We're pulling for you, CWMI.

I'm glad, cause all I'm pulling is my hair out.