We had our second marriage counselling appointment last night, and once again, my H kept his lid on IN the session, but once we were out of that room, all his anger came spilling out again.

I don't know what to make of it - its like, in the session, he is Mr Reasonable, and he presents himself to the counselor as a rational, reasonable, non-violent person - as he put it "I'm a Christian, and the thought that anyone would think that I am intimidating is something that I should feel concerned about." The counselor was drawing him out, and succeeding in putting his "aggressive" way of communicating with me under the spotlight. Of course, he felt very defensive, but kept control of himself.

She asked me how I felt about the way we communicated. I said that I often felt anxious and apprehensive - there were things I wanted to talk about, but my experience of him was that he was dismissive, and I would get a negative reaction. To try to stay off emotive subjects, I used the example of some bookshelves that I wanted to redo in the living room. I had mentioned this the other night. My H said it isn't top priority. I accept that but I said we had different perspectives and it may be more important to me than it is to him.

The point I was trying to get at was that my H sets the agenda, and he decides what is important, and dismisses what I think, feel, or want. I said I wanted to feel like he listened and took on board what I felt was important.

I said he had said communication was important, and I agreed, and that communication was a vehicle for negotiation, and that I felt he and I needed help learning how to negotiate with each other so that we could reach agreements about things that were acceptable to both of us. I was thinking that the concept of having to, or even wanting to negotiate with me, and reach an agreement with me that made us both happy was a foreign concept for my H, which I wanted to introduce. My H just decides what goes, and there is no concept of negotiation, usually.

So we ended up talking about priorities, and my H said my degree was more important that getting bookshelves done - and we ended up talking about money. We talked about how I wanted to do this degree, but needed funding, and what I have already done to try to get funding, and I'm now waiting to find out. But I need to talk with him about how we are going to fund this degree. He was very reasonable - he brought this topic up. But when I said that it was hard for me to plan when I didn't know what our true monthly income really was (because he keeps a large part of his income in his own personal bank account), he got defensive again, and trotted out the same old story - that he is a free-lance musician, and the income he keeps in his own bank account is intermittent and he never knows how much he is going to have from month to month. This is not true - he puts all the income from his contract teaching, which IS predictable and secure, since it is paid in advance through the school, into his personal account. He also puts into his own account the money he gets from playing rehearsal piano, which is a job he has had for 12 years and is paid by the University. He also puts into his account all the money from his free-lance teaching, and all fees he earns from playing concerts. So- he puts the bulk of his income into his own personal account, and into our joint account goes the money he earns from playing in church on Sunday - in other words, he puts into our joint account the money he earns from one day's work, and keeps the rest to himself.
To be fair, the money he has in his own account, he uses for the family when we need something extra - its out of his account that holidays are paid for, house insurance, car insurance. But the point is, that he keeps control of it, and I don't know how much he has at any given time.

So - we got on to the topic of money, and there we had to quit because time was up. It looked like we had a good session, but once again, outside on the pavement, he exploded at me.

He was fuming as we were waiting for the lights to change and practically spat at me - "so here we are again, once again, all you can talk about is money!"

And it all came spilling out again as we drove home, and as we went into the house, he continued, even though our son was still up and the babysitter still there. He calmed down, and I paid the babysitter, but our "frank talk" continued, and the upshot of it was this...

H said "I feel really put upon now - really put upon. There I am sitting there and she's going on at me for being aggressive. All this is about your unhappiness - well, I'm sick of it - it's all problems, problems, problems. I'm sick of dealing with your unhappiness. I'm a creative person and there are things I want to do, NEED to do, for myself, and I don't have time - it's been 2 weeks since I have been able to practice! But its my own fault, I took on this responsibility and I'm trying to live with it. But you're impossible to live with because there are things about me you "don't approve of". Well, I need to get on with my life, and maybe someday, I am just going to have to go somewhere else, if that's what I have to do in order to do what I want to do."

I never heard such a load of self-pitying bullsh*t in my whole life, and it really made me sad. I realized that this whole counselling thing is just a charade. My H is going through the motions so he can't be blamed when the marriage breaks up. Its going to be "I tried everything but she wasn't happy".

I listened to this and he stomped off into the front room to get his stuff ready to go - he's going away for two days to play for a family funeral. I followed him into the other room and closed the door. I said "Well, I hear what you're saying - you just said that you feel that supporting your family is a burden which is taking your time and energy away from the thing you really want to do in life, which is dedicating yourself to music and composing. You regret getting married and having a family, but you are doing your best to live with the decision you made. And you feel that someday you will have to leave us, in order to get on with doing what you really want to do with your life. I hear you saying that you are unhappy being married to me, and unhappy at having to support your family. Well, I hear you - you are unhappy. And what I want is for you to be happy - so if someday, you feel you have to go, in order to be able to do with your life what you really want to do, I would like you to go. I do not want to live with someone who is unhappy with me. This is all really about your unhappiness, not mine, so stop trying to shift the blame for our unhappiness on to me. You regret getting married and having children, and you want to blame me for it. Well, this is about you, not about me." He didn't like hearing that, but controlled himself so he didn't blow up, because YS was still awake and playing in the next room.

I went out, and H got himself ready to leave. He called me upstairs and said "Just one thing, don't discuss this with YS if he asks." I said I wouldn't, and as it turned out, YS didn't ask.

H left, and he kissed me goodbye when he left. I don't know.

What seems to me is that the stress of having to be "a good boy" in the marriage counselling sessions is so much for him, that afterwards, he blows up and reveals to me what he is REALLY thinking. So its all finally coming out.

He's being a big, fat baby. Poor me. I work so hard. I don't have time to be my wonderful creative self. I don't want to be bothered with my wife's needs, or paying for anything she thinks I owe her. I wish I had never got married and had children, but...its my own fault, I did this to myself, and I have to live with it. No-one appreciates how hard I work, or the fact that I am supporting them all when I don't really want to. Poor me.

It makes me sick. How am I supposed to have love for this person that my husband has become, is revealing himself to be?

I guess my H just wanted an unpaid servant for a wife - that's what it feels like. He said "You think I owe you something!" Like I should be grateful that all these years I've had a roof over my head. What century am I living in? Somebody pinch me.

I have to be honest - I don't have a lot of hope here. My H last night basically told me I and the boys are a ball and chain around his neck and he would get out if he could. Well, he can have it. I can see that I need to get my degree, so I can get a decent job, and then, I am perfectly happy not to waste any more of my precious life on this selfish little prat.

LIR

LIR,

Start defining your boundaries. You are getting near a turning point. Once defined set them. Let him know what those boundaries are.

Also, put a small tape recorder (voice activated maybe better) in your pocket or purse. When he starts, tape him. Then in front of the counselor, let him hear it. NO more secret abusing or venting on you. OK?

Hugz,
L.
ps: Thanks so much for your support. You hit on some key points and I appreciate it. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Dear LIR

I am so very sorry to hear this latest turn of events. Sometimes, I don't feel very well placed at all to give advice, but know that I am supporting you.

What I think is sad is that you had such high hopes for MC and that this would truly be an opportunity for you to work with your H on rebuilding your M. As I said to Jen Brown, it doesn't always work like that, so even (as you have) you get to the point where there is an agreement to attend, each person's agenda might be different in terms of what they want to achieve.

I think Orchid made a valid point about setting some boundaries, and whether or not you could tape these outbursts. I also think they way you dealt with his response was excellent - why should you sit back and just let him have it all his own way without challenging what he was "actually" saying. You shouldn't have to live in fear of speaking your mind and being honest.

Wish I could be of more help, but you know I am here for you.

Lisa

Thank you, Orchid and LIL for your replies - I am trying to pick myself up today, trying to look at what kind of future my life holds, without H -as if we continue down this road, I see no future together. Basically, right now, we are emotionally divorced and he is living on another planet.

Orchid - what do you mean by set boundaries? I am still trying to understand this, as much as I read here. Do you mean if he starts yelling, I should just walk away? We did have that conversation while he was sleeping in the spare room, where I laid down the "groundrules".

I said A - Marriage is an exclusive relationship, B- Physical abuse is unacceptable, C - verbal abuse is unacceptable, D- emotional abuse is unacceptable, E-accountablity - you have to show willingness to be fully accountable for yourself, and F - in order to rebuild the trust which has been broken between us, the model is: Confession (admit your mistakes), Repentence (you have to be truly sorry), then Forgiveness follows (then we can begin to restore the love we have for each other).

OK - so I let him come back into my bed without proving himself - he is still not being accountable for himself, and there is no remorse - I am assuming he has probably got himself involved in EA3. I have been trying to make slow progress and reward good behaviour, and I think he has at least got to the point where he can admit that physical and verbal abuse are unacceptable. But he is so much the persecuted victim and the martyr, that emotional abuse is second nature to him, and the concept of accountablity is totally foreign to him.

I realize that I cannot change him. I'm not trying to - I'm not really sure WHAT I'm doing any more - just trying to get to grips with how best to try to build a future for myself without him, without him knowing that right now.

I think I will get a tape recorder as you suggested. One of the things I find difficult is that other people find it hard to believe the way he can be with me. I see a side to him that no-one else sees. I am starting to think I might need such evidence someday. Thank you for suggesting that - its those kinds of things that I find hard to think of.

I am thinking about you, Orchid and hope that your head is clear right now. My prayers are with you.

Thank you LIL - I appreciate your support and kindness. I e-mailed you. I'm sorry it has been so long. I hope you are OK.

Take care everyone, I appreciate the support right now.

LIR

Hi Lir,

Boundaries: What your inner self will or will NOT tolerate.

For me it settled into the fact that I could not have the OW in my life. It made me sick. Physically sick in addition to emotionally and mentally. Nightmares, the runs, anxiety attacks, suicide thoughts and attempts, headaches, sick to my stomach, vomiting, etc. (sorry to be so gross but as you can see the OW makes me sick).

There were many things I thought I could not tolerate but I did. Then it settled into the above. That is why this latest espisode has taken a physical toll on me. It is not just my mind but my body is speaking up and saying "NO MORE L".

I am not sure why but it does take a while to determine this. Maybe because we concentrate so much on trying to save our M or help the WS.

TAPE RECORDER: In less than 1 month after the WS moved out, he called and left 4 nasty voicemail messages to me at work. Imagine that! When I got to work, ewuuuuuu.... Anyway, I taped it and later, much later )about 5 months when he was asking to come back home, I played it for him and said that if he was going to keep treating me like this (played the messages), he could stay out there.

Then I laid in the rules that the home was a privileged place for those worthy of being part of our family. We both made the choice to be and have a family. But when one strays he or she has to earn that right back. We were not about to take in someone who would not treat us with love, care and respect. This is why I get so upset.......this is NOT a strange concept to the H but a tool for the WS. I have to make sure that when the WS emerges that the standards change to match his character. YUCK!!!

I also told the WS I did not trust him and what was he going to do about it? There are a few more things but I have to go to work.

take care,
L.

Thanks for taking the time, Orchid - I know it is rough for you right now, so I do really appreciate your taking the time right now.

Boundaries: What your inner self will or will NOT tolerate.
Ok, I am starting to get this idea - I think in the past, I have had a sense of what was good/bad, right/wrong, but in practice, I tolerated a lot of what I didn't like because I thought I was supposed to be patient and committed to my marriage no matter what. I tried to set boundaries, but in the wrong way, by screaming back at him and blustering, getting aggressive back, which was pointless and just gave him a club to beat me with. I now think I spend too much time thinking, and am afraid to act. I'm pretty sure of what I don't like and feel I can't tolerate, but I'm still afraid to take action.

For me it settled into the fact that I could not have the OW in my life. It made me sick. Physically sick in addition to emotionally and mentally. Nightmares, the runs, anxiety attacks, suicide thoughts and attempts, headaches, sick to my stomach, vomiting, etc. (sorry to be so gross but as you can see the OW makes me sick). I know you have been through Hell, Orchid - I think you are up against a real psycho OW, which is scary. Your body is having loads of fear reactions which are telling you this situation is potentially dangerous for you.

TAPE RECORDER: In less than 1 month after the WS moved out, he called and left 4 nasty voicemail messages to me at work. Imagine that! When I got to work, ewuuuuuu.... Anyway, I taped it and later, much later )about 5 months when he was asking to come back home, I played it for him and said that if he was going to keep treating me like this (played the messages), he could stay out there. You are one brave woman, Orchid. Sometimes I think my H doesn't actually remember, or conceive of how bad he sounds, and how awful he has been - and I am thinking that taping him would be one way to show him just how awful he has been to me. Of course, once he knew he was being taped, he would feel entrapped and it would make him mad...

Then I laid in the rules that the home was a privileged place for those worthy of being part of our family. We both made the choice to be and have a family. But when one strays he or she has to earn that right back. We were not about to take in someone who would not treat us with love, care and respect. This is why I get so upset.......this is NOT a strange concept to the H but a tool for the WS. I have to make sure that when the WS emerges that the standards change to match his character. YUCK!!! So its like he is two people, and when it is convenient for him, he goes back to being the WS? It is hard for me to decipher my H's reactions sometimes...sometimes I think he talks like he did last night when he is feeling guilty about something he has done which I don't know about. Something he knows I would not like is eating away at him and he gets mad because looking at me makes him feel guilty, so he blows up and blames me and says he wants out. I think I did a good job last night of putting the ball back over the net straight into his court. So I feel good about that part of it.

I also told the WS I did not trust him and what was he going to do about it? I have still to get to this point yet - well, I have tried, but again, I haven't stuck to my boundaries and demanded anything of him.

Thanks for your input, Orchid - I will be meditating on it.

To update - he called this afternoon - he had been to the funeral and was now on his way to our friends' house. He is staying tonight with the older woman friend and her famiy whom I have mentioned before. She is 66, his oldest friend, and I believe they had an affair before he met me. In strict MB terms - they had a long term EA (possible PA at one time) - she is a devout Christian and very evangelical. She has told me she does not approve of what he is doing - says it is time he grew up. Well, I called her a few weeks ago for the first time in months when I was really low. I ended up crying and telling her I thought there was now an OW3, although I had no proof. Why did I do that? I still ask myself that - afterwards, I decided that was the last call I make to her - our marriage has to stand and fail on its own - she has tried to be a help to both of us, but its time these confused bonds were cut.

Well, he's staying with them tonight, and I expect there will be praying and then some sort of conversation around the kitchen table - I wonder what she and her H will say to him. She has always told me that the low point in her life was when her H told her she was like a ball and chain around his neck. She said that they both got down on their knees and prayed, and that was the turning point in their marriage. So I wonder what she would say to him tonight if she knew he had given me the ball and chain speech last night. I think she would be disgusted with him.

Yesterday, when I asked him where he was going to be staying tonight, so that I could get ahold of him in case of an emergency, he said "Well you have my mobile." and then he kind of jokingly mocked me "Where're you going to stay, where are you going to stay - oooohhh! 'm going to stay with A&B of course!" I thought that was unneccessary and disrespectful, but since he does it like he is joking, it is hard to object.

So he calls this afternoon from the car, on his mobile, and he is nice as pie - totally normal - talks to me a lot about the funeral and about seeing his brother, who he says was a little grumpy (I haven't talked to his brother lately). Then he says he has a whole box of videos that belonged to his aunt, and he says that he is going to give some to A&B, but he doesn't want to give away any that I would specifically like to keep. He goes on about this a lot, and he has obviously thought about the ones he thinks I would like - he wants to be sure that he saves the ones I would like to keep. I say that was very nice of him to think of me, very thoughtful and I thank him for being thoughtful and tell him he knows what kinds of things I like. He then talks with YS for a few minutes, we say goodbye and he rings off.

So now what? Is it that he has calmed down and forgotten what he said last night? Was all that just blowing off steam? Is it a good thing he said what he did last night? - It got something out in the open and off his chest - or what? Is this just him trying to make it up to me?

Its confusing. I feel like I am being torn in two - one day he is angry and blaming me for everything and totally refusing to come forward with any kind of "partnership", the next day he is nice as pie and trying to do something nice for me.

Well, I am so tired - I am going to go to bed and sleep - maybe I will feel better and have a clearer head tomorrow.

I just want to thank everyone here - I know I am not "there" yet, or even inches from being "out of the woods", but I think I am a stronger person than I was a year ago, more in control of MYSELF, than I was a year ago. I was thinking that today - that while I am talking to him, both in and out of the sessions, that he doesn't rattle me any more - I am in control of myself and how I react to him - that is so new for me - he doesn't have the power to push my buttons and send me into next week any more - maybe he can see that, too - I wonder?

Just thinking now.

LIR

Hi LIR,
I still don't have time to say everything I want to say. Shoot, I don't even know everything I want to say, all this stuff is still going around in my mind and I keep trying figure out the best way to help.

I believe you have gotten very good advice so far on this thread.

It looks like many of your fears are true. Much of what I have said over the months has come from my point of view - and that is that I needed help from my W to overcome my problems and she helped. I believe you have done the best you could do up to this point in time. I keep thinking ( with your H in mind) " come on, respond, she is giving you such good chances, come on, come on!!"
Again from the signs, he does love you and he has his own problems and he doesn't see yours very well if at all. That's what communication usually does for people, and it did for us. It helped us understand the other and have empathy for them even if we didn't always agree.

That only works if both want it to work badly enough to listen to and care for the other. Your H is not doing that yet. He does not listen, he spends his time thinking of his next response, and he think he cares but his behavior does not show care.

Remember Christ at his trial. The scripture does not say his feelings, but we know enough of him to figure some of them out. He was taken in front of the Jewish leaders shortly after his arrest. It was in the middle of the night and it was an illegal trial. I can imagine my thinking " Go ahead you jerks, I'll be back someday and you'll get yours!" I can imagine his thinking, " Even now, they could be saved if they would only listen, Oh please don't' do this, you will regret it forever, why won't you come and partake of salvation?

I don't know what you think when you go through these hard times. I hope you lean towards what Christ would think. My thoughts are about what you will do the next few years. Christ knew the hearts of those that accused him. We know some of what your H thinks but we don't know if he will change and improve or indeed if he has what it takes to do that. You are only human, you can't go on forever in the stressful life you are living now. I think I have posed similar questions before, but what do you think? I suggest you continue counseling, you won't go anywhere for the next few months anyway. I think the suggestions you got from Orchid are very good, and she is much better at those things than I am. ( Orchid, you're a doll, why can't your H see what he has got? ) If you already intend to stay you may as well see if you can get somewhere with H. I believe you have already decided to do this, but I just say my thoughts.

I worry about how long you can take the pressure. If you could get your Dad to finance a visit to Ca for a month when the boys are out of school, it may do you a world of good, and it may be a mini plan B to H. I am just thinking out loud, I had better quit for now. I have to be to a meeting in an hour and I am still at work. This post did not go where I intended it to go, I had better think some more.

One thing I wanted to say is you should probably simplify things a little bit. You are tracking to much information to process it all and still make sense of it. It would probably be wise to concentrate on the few most important things - and discuss them. Perhaps making a list of your concerns and prioritizing them and then trying for the ones that worry you the most first of all.
Only problem is that you have H saying what he wants to talk about and it may not work.

The tape recorder thing may blow it all apart and do your decision making for you - it could make it very easy to know what you are going to do.

Oh well, I had better quit, you can see why I take so long to post some times, I have to sort out all these thoughts so they make sense. I don't know this made much or not.

SS

Hello ss - thanks for your insights again, and yes, you have helped me a lot and continue to do so - especially in one very specific way - you have helped train my mind to try to look at things from a perspective different from mine - I know most of us at least think we are being tolerant and understanding, but it is actually very hard to really understand what another person might be thinking or feeling - especially, if they are like my husband, they consider their thoughts and feelings about things to be a state secret! You often see implications of things that are still fuzzy to me.

If I do get a tape recorder, I don't think I will use it to try to influence him to change his behaviour - I would use it to gather evidence of abuse. Even if he heard himself on a tape recording, with his mind-set, he would just say I provoked him, so it is useless to try to use it to try to change him. I think it will take a long time for him to see that he is aggressive and controlling, if ever - he just has a blind spot there. He could change if he recognized he had a problem and wanted to change. But he doesn't recognize that he has a problem so there is no desire to change. He said in the counselling session - "Someone once told me in a meeting - 'you obviously feel passionately about this issue - and I took it as a put-down - it was code for telling me I sounded angry' - well if that's the way people want to interpret me, that's fine - if I express myself passionately and forcefully about things, thats because that's the way I feel - and if I were Italian, people would just say - 'oh, he's just being Italian', and accept it." So you see he is very defensive about his behaviour and sees it as other people's problems - he sees himself as being passionate and emotional and if other people have a problem with that, its their problem. Not a lot of hope there that he is going to change.

I take your suggestion of going home for a month and letting them find out what life would be like without me for awhile - I would like to do this, but could only go, because of work, in the month of August, and I don't think I can afford it. What I am thinking is that he is planning on going to visit some friends of ours in Europe the first two weeks of August. I know he is planning and assuming that we will all go - on the order of a busman's holiday, as always. He will play and participate in this music workshop course which will last a week - the family will come too and we will have fun together and visit with our friends in the "off-time". Well, I really DON'T want to go, and I am thinking I should say that he should take the boys and go without me. He will then find out what its like to be with them for two weeks without me to be nanny, cook and dogsbody - he will have to do it all. That means he will not be able to stay up until 1am having drinks with friends because he will have to be the one to get the kids back to the hotel room and into bed. He will also have to be the one to get them up and dressed so he can get to his morning class on time - our friend will probably look after them while he is busy, but he will have to get them up dressed and breakfasted. He will also have to be the one to see that they are fed during the day, and he will have to listen to their pleading and whining when they get bored. Real life will throw itself in his face for once. And he will have a taste of being a single father and taking his boys on holiday. That will all be good for him. And I...will do something else for me. I will miss my boys, but it is time we started trying to do more things independently. A mother is always the unpaid servant - she cooks, packs the car, wipes the bottoms, remembers the toothbrushes and the asthma inhalers, gets the sleeping bags out, finds the lost pyjamas, patches scraped knees. I have no problem doing this for my boys, and I get my reward - they love me. But when you do it and get no reward from your husband, then you feel used. So I think its time I stopped letting him use me while he has all the fun. The friends he is going to see, I know for a fact, from reading his e-mail account that they have sided with him, so I really do not want to go and subject myself to having to be with them. I would end up talking to the wife, and there would be tension and I would get the blame for it. So why go? It will cause a row when I say that I don't want to go, but I think its for the best. The boys are old enough to get along without me, so I know they will miss me, but they will have fun anyway. It will also be good for my husband to have to cope with them genuinely missing me.

I have been mulling things over yesterday and last night and I think it boils down to this, if I can keep my thoughts organized here, I will try:

My husband is going through a pretty classic mid-life crisis - he is frustrated and angry about his own lack of career accomplishment - he feels unappreciated. He is projecting all of these feelings on to me - I am an easy scapegoat because I have suffered from depression in the past - because he is blaming me for the unhappiness he feels, he has turned off any feelings of love and loyalty he may once have had for me, and is actively seeking to have his emotional needs for Admiration and Sympathy met by other women. He still does not understand what is happening to him, even after a year of individual counselling.

The more thorny issues are to do with the way he is - the perspective he has on life and what he thinks is acceptable:

He wants to think it is acceptable to have "emotional" relationships with other women, even if most people don't do it.

He doesn't see any dichotomy between being autonomous and being married - he has never seen marriage as a state that changed his way of life.

To me, it seems that he thinks that when he got married, nothing changed for him except that he acquired a Wife, and he recognized that he was financially responsible for her upkeep, like buying a dog. A dog is not just for Christmas, a dog is for life. A wife is not just for Christmas this year, a wife is for life. Damn, I wish I hadn't bought that wife, but now I guess I'm stuck with her, somebody give me a medal for remembering to feed her every day.

The trouble is, you don't really know that a person is thinking and feeling this way - it takes years to figure out that a person is, deep down, really thinking this way. We always assume that someone else is thinking along the same lines as we are, unless something radically jumps out at us to shake up our perception. In our case, he presents himself as a devout Catholic, so I, like everyone else he knows, had every reason to believe he shared the same values I did. Maybe when he is his "better self" he does. But right now, he's stuck in the Taker - the primitive part of his brain which is pretty reptilian and only looking out for number one most of the time.

I sound hard on him and I am. But I was thinking about something Terrified has said in the past - that her angry H was different once. That brought back the memory of my H - four years ago, he stood in our kitchen and put his arms around me - he said "I know it is hard for you to stay home all the time, looking after the kids, but I want you to know that I appreciate everything you do for me and the family. I know you are frustrated now but it won't always be like this. And I want you to know that I couldn't do what I do without you - I know you are here for me and because of that, even though I am the one who is going out and achieving success right now, I want you to know that you share in every one of my successes." I was stunned when he said this - in fact, it is the only time he has ever said anything remotely like that. But he did say it. My H had the capacity in him at that time to say that to me. Is he the same person now? And does he still have the capacity to be that way? I really don't know. It may be that he can, but will I wait forever and allow him to go on treating me badly in the hopes that he will? I don't think I can do that.

A year after that conversation, he was falling in love with OW1 - I could go back and try to dissect what happened in that year, and I have tried - he had terrible career stress and setbacks which neither of us could have forseen, and I was, by then, feeling very isolated and frustrated - when he was selfish, I lashed out, and he recoiled. We both made mistakes. But for some reason - he does not have the emotional resources within himself to handle setbacks, and his sense of commitment to marriage was, subconsciously never really strong - he turned on me. He looked for a target to blame for his unhappiness and I was the nearest.

I sound like I am saying this is all his fault, but I'm not. I have been on this board long enough to know that I am far from being perfect, and being here has helped me grow out of a lot of the bad things I was doing. But I have picked myself to pieces enough, and there's only so much responsibility I can take for this. He is a BIG part of this marriage breakdown and I don't yet see him taking any real responsibility for that.

I think I am moving into a new phase of worrying less about him and really shifting to being stronger myself. This has all helped me these last few days for one great thing - it has helped me see that he does not push all my buttons any more - yes, I cried after he left on Tuesday - I am not going to say he cannot still hurt me. But I found out that I am much more in control of ME now, and I am much more able to see through his "babble" - his double speak - the blame game. I am able to decipher a lot better what he is really saying and say it back to him - I am a lot better able to put the ball back into his court, because I am not overwhelmed by my emotions of hurt and anger anymore. So I am finally feeling more in control of ME. And that is being healthy - being disentangled from his attempts to abuse and control. He cannot rattle me anymore, so I am slipping out of the emotional traps he sets for me. Its a slow process, but I am getting there.

Well, I better go and get some work done now - I need to pay attention to my goals now, too. If anyone has got through this post, you are a star! Thank you everyone for being here and listening to me.

Thanks,
LIR

Hello LIR,

I really came to say one thing tonight, and in reading your post again I see you have already said it. ( later edit - that'ell be the day, when I only say one thing. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> )

I think I am moving into a new phase of worrying less about him and really shifting to being stronger myself. This has all helped me these last few days for one great thing - it has helped me see that he does not push all my buttons any more - yes, I cried after he left on Tuesday - I am not going to say he cannot still hurt me. But I found out that I am much more in control of ME now.....

I was going to say you need to worry most about you and the boys for a while. When work can be done on the M you work on it. When nothing can be done, you work on things you can do something about. I don't believe nothing at all can be done, but I think you need a rest again. I try to see things from your point of view too,( though the other gals that post to you usually take care of that) and I feel like you need a break. If you were feeling like H was really pulling out all the stops to support you and really trying in the C sessions, that would have been good enough, but that is not happening. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I am not suggesting you ignore him, or not attend C sessions. I suggest you spend time and energy on some of your other goals too. I believe if you can do that you will be happier and it may be actually easier to help him.

So, perhaps not spend as much time thinking about what will happen in C and just let it happen.

The only other suggestion I have is to try and disarm him every time he attacks you. Just keep saying words to this effect, "H, I know it sometimes seems like you are being singled out and attacked, but remember that I love you and we are trying to help each other. That's all this is, trying to help. Please don't be angry with me because I don't understand you, that's the reason I am going to C, so I can understand. OK?"

I am really happy with how you have dealt with his anger so far, but I am concerned for you. Sure, you are tough, but I still worry about your mental and physical health. Please be careful.

When he attacks, repeat some variation of the above. " Hon, please don't be angry, I want this to work just like you do, and I love you. Remember that I need help in this too, please help me by not being angry, please?"

Perhaps you have some buttons you can push to calm him. Use whatever you can, but protect yourself from further harm.

I have thought much about your life and M and I can't say I don't see any hope at all, but I worry, as I said. I used to ask Jante almost weekly if she was OK and she would always say yes, but I worried about her too. You gals shouldn't have to put up with this kind of pain.

Well, enough said. I see my W's tears sometimes (in my mind) and It hurts to know I caused pain for her in similar ways. Sometimes I wish I could go back, but I can't. I hope someday your H has these feelings of regret, and I hope it happens soon enough to make things work. My children complain that there is too much PDA in our home now, but that is much better than anger and tears.

Please be careful.

SS

<small>[ March 13, 2003, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: still seeking ]</small>

LIR: TAPE RECORDER - ..... Sometimes I think my H doesn't actually remember, or conceive of how bad he sounds, and how awful he has been - and I am thinking that taping him would be one way to show him just how awful he has been to me. Of course, once he knew he was being taped, he would feel entrapped and it would make him mad...

Orchid: WS' often develop a 'senior moment when it is convenient. The BS find it hard to believe but if you read from the WS even in recovery, they are able to block out this painful memory. Mine did also. In fact he was amazed how good my memory was!!! As for playing the tape, WS was shocked he sounded so bad. So it was good to play it back for him. The timing and how you present it is important. I told the WS that he may find it interesting to know what he sounded like to me. I peaked his interest. I also told him to go and look in the mirror when he was making those ugly faces to me. See those Ws give themselves away with their twisted faces and twisted words. They spew it out not considering for a moment how stupid it looks and sounds to normal people. The mirror and tape recorder are real reality boosters.

LIR: ...... So its like he is two people, and when it is convenient for him, he goes back to being the WS? It is hard for me to decipher my H's reactions sometimes...sometimes I think he talks like he did last night when he is feeling guilty about something he has done which I don't know about. Something he knows I would not like is eating away at him and he gets mad because looking at me makes him feel guilty, so he blows up and blames me and says he wants out. I think I did a good job last night of putting the ball back over the net straight into his court. So I feel good about that part of it.

Orchid: Yes the WS have split personalities. Another reason why the BS works so hard to try and get the real mate back. Have you ever had a bad dream where you tried to stop yourself from doing something or stepping into a bad situation but just couldn't help it? Well that is what the WS feels like. Am I making this up? No, that is what I have learned from speaking with other WS. Maybe some of the ones that post here can atest to that.

When I finally figured that out, I changed my method of dealing with the WS. Instead of trying to reason with the WS (loosing battle), I learned to lean into their mode by partial agreement. Not condoning the A but when the WS would sound confused, I would acknowledge the confused state. Even let him know that his actions confused me also. When he said he was angry, I agreed, yep me too. If that made him more angry, I would again agree then ask.....what can you do Ws, to remove this anger, I don't think it is healthy, do you? Putting the ball back in the WS' court took stress off of me and certainly added stress to the A. You realize that the stress has to go somewhere. I learned to be smart about it and it sure helped.

LIR: So now what? Is it that he has calmed down and forgotten what he said last night? Was all that just blowing off steam? Is it a good thing he said what he did last night? - It got something out in the open and off his chest - or what? Is this just him trying to make it up to me?

Orchid: Peaks of santity are really all you have right now. Savor those moments and at a later more calm time, let him know you appreciate seeing your real H peak through. This tends to be real useful when the WS shows signs of confusion. When I did that to my WS, he admitted he missed his old self also.

LIR: Its confusing. I feel like I am being torn in two - one day he is angry and blaming me for everything and totally refusing to come forward with any kind of "partnership", the next day he is nice as pie and trying to do something nice for me.

Orchid: Yes, it is very confusing. You are NOT crazy. You are being torn in to because you are dealing with a split personality and it sure isn't melding well. Jekyl and Hyde..... I let mine know I was confused and didn't know how to react to his changing personality. When I saw a sane moment, I jokingly asked him to define himself so that I could either run or be available. He laughed.

LIR: Well, I am so tired - I am going to go to bed and sleep - maybe I will feel better and have a clearer head tomorrow.

Orchid: I am glad you are getting some rest. This is important and though our adrenaline runs what appears to be endlessly, we do need our rest.

LIR: I just want to thank everyone here - I know I am not "there" yet, or even inches from being "out of the woods", but I think I am a stronger person than I was a year ago, more in control of MYSELF, than I was a year ago. I was thinking that today - that while I am talking to him, both in and out of the sessions, that he doesn't rattle me any more - I am in control of myself and how I react to him - that is so new for me - he doesn't have the power to push my buttons and send me into next week any more - maybe he can see that, too - I wonder?

Orchid: Good to know you are feeling stronger. Your being able to be more in control is a good thing for your personal healing. Bad for the A. He will soon realize his ability to push your buttons is fading. A's thrive on locating and pushing the BS' buttons. In fact some Ws would continue to do it forever if allowed. That is when plan A is no longer effective.

LIR: I found out that I am much more in control of ME now, and I am much more able to see through his "babble" - his double speak - the blame game. I am able to decipher a lot better what he is really saying and say it back to him - I am a lot better able to put the ball back into his court, because I am not overwhelmed by my emotions of hurt and anger anymore. So I am finally feeling more in control of ME. And that is being healthy - being disentangled from his attempts to abuse and control. He cannot rattle me anymore, so I am slipping out of the emotional traps he sets for me. Its a slow process, but I am getting there.

Orchid: Now this is progress. I am proud of you.

take care,
L.

Lady_in_Red, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I don't know all your story but what struck me most was his selfishness on the money part!
You named some things he pays, but who is paying house payments, groceries, utilities and all the other expenses?
This is not right to have his own separate bank acct with you having no knowledge of what's there, or access to it. And to put most of his money there?
When my H took our joint acct and changed it to his name only, I later found out it was so I wouldn't know about the lies and money hew as spending on trips to see OW. supposedly the trips were for work and paid for by his employer, Si he has to hide the money.
That got changed back within a short time as we've never had separate accts.
This is one nasty place that is causing you big problems and money is usually the problem in most marriages.
If he can't share all he has with his family, then he is not sharing all himself either.
I'd say bring this all out to counselor. But it has to change because this is not going to help you heal at all.
Sounds very selfish and controlling to me. A lot like my FWH!
Don't put up with this. You can find out about his bank acct. Even if you have to get a lawyer, especially if you're in a community property state! Take some positive actions for your security now!
God bless and good luck, LouLou

Hello - I'm sorry I haven't got back to everyone who posted to me yet - I was able to grab a fe moments to read, but not able to get time alone to post until now - I want you all to know that I really appreciate you taking the time to try to support me through this.

Orchid - Thank you for taking the time, when I know your own situation must be really tense right now - your insights are very valuable to me.

Yes, my H shows a lot of anger that my memory is so good. My mother has told me that research shows that when a person "rages", they often don't remember afterwards what they said or did - in fact, in extreme cases, a person can even kill and not remember what happened or why they did it - its something to do with brain chemistry and adreniline. So yes, maybe it would be useful to tape H and play it back to him. I threatened to do that once and he said "go ahead!" H does seem to have moved forward an inch in this respect that he is expressing his anger but he is not being threatening - he has not called me names or been physically threatening, other than leaning forward and focusing on me, which makes me feel very uncomfortable. He has never been an abusive spouse who slapped me around - he has exploded into violence - shoving, pushing, kicking objects around me, punching the wall, grappling with me, and throwing things at me. There is no excuse for this behaviour, and I DO see that it is abusive. Because I have experienced this, I am scared of talking to him about emotive subjects - and that means that I feel intimidated. But I see no progress being made if the counselor is going to try to reason with him and "get him to see" that I feel intimidated BECAUSE he IS intimidating. This is an issue which goes way beyond reason, and also beyond normal WS behaviour - this was there long before any WS behaviour started. It was exacerbated by my confronting him on his WS activities. I am here in the R still, despite this, because I believe that he can change this behaviour if he chooses to do so - everything I have read has said this. I am waiting to see signs that he recognizes that he has a problem and that he is willing to change. I see some progress here, but not enough. He vacillates back and forth still. So perhaps taping him would help him understand how awful he can really sound. The scary faces I can relate to, also - I have said he looks like a mongoose focusing in on a snake - his face is just so twisted out of all recognition to the person he "really" is.

Split personalities - yes, this is what it feels like - and the thing is, I'm not sure why that is. It seems to me like he gets "up" sometimes, and in the past, when I was sure he was emotionally involved with an OW, I could identify that it was because he had talked to her - had contact - it like gave him a happy pill for a few hours. That was one way I knew before I had any proof that there was something going on. He would be unpredicatbly "up", and the rest of the time miserable. Well, supposedly, OW1 and OW2 are history, and now I have no proof of OW3, because I no longer snoop. But I don't trust him, so I question all his "ups" - his "ups" don't make me happy any more, because I am not sure where they come from.

Agreeing with the WS - Its interesting that you bring this up, because this is what I have been trying to do, too. I read somewhere the 5 rules to avoid divorce on someone else's thread - go with the flow the jujitsu way - to meet resistance with no resistance disarms the feeling of resistance. The idea being that as long as the WS thinks that what you want is something different from what he wants, he will have resistance to coming over to your way of thinking. So agree with him. He wants a divorce - agree with him. He wants separation - agree with him. Stop fighting him. So this is the tack I have been taking - and sometimes I have actively put the ball in his court, like I did the other night. I say "I don't want anything you don't want. What I really want is you to be happy. If you are not happy with me, and you want to go, that is what I want, too." And since I have been saying it, I MEAN it. If he left tomorrow, I would be totally accepting - I would grieve, but I would accept it. There is no more "fight" left in me. What I am not sure of is how long I can go on with this, because at some point, you feel like a doormat if they stay - I DON'T mean that I approve of what he is doing, or that I accept living with it. But I do validate his feelings. What we haven't got to yet is the point where I say,"OK, I hear your feelings on this, and I don't understand why you are still choosing a R with me, if you are so miserable" - and then saying "You and I see things from different viewpoints and I cannot live on the terms you want to live with me on." (Actually, I did say that last year - but he promised to work on the R, and here we are a year later. Maybe I am going to end up having to say it again.)

Peaks of sanity - Thanks for this - I REALLY need reminding that he isn't all bad - that he does possibly have moments when he values me and what I have contributed to our family life. But they do seem like blips on the screen - so you are saying that I should recall those moments to him when he shows signs of being confused, and remind him of his "best" side? I do think he seems to be caught in a bad dream - that's a good analogy - sometimes I feel like I am in my own bad dream, but I think he feels like that, too, but this anger and sense of "entitlement" and ressentment have totally taken over his personality.

I do sometimes question my own sanity - its hard for me to tell who is right and wrong sometimes - I feel vulnerable because I have suffered from depression in the past. BUT...I RECOGNIZED that I was depressed and went to my doctor for help and got myself sorted out. I have been to my doctor over this past year, asked for anti-D's, she gave them to me, and I took them for 3 days then quit, because I also feel that I am NOT depressed - and she said that she could not see that I was depressed. Stressed, yes, depressed, no.

However, I feel that my past experiences of depression have given my H an easy target for his own unhappiness. And I know from reading his e-mail account, and from the conversations that I have had with the mutual friends that he is closest to, that he has convinced them all that I am "a depressive" - and they are giving him all kinds of "diagnoses" of me from a distance - "passive-aggressive" being one label that I know of. This really galls me. I am the honest one, who has admitted my problems and tried to handle them openly and honestly, yet I am the one who is being labelled, and the finger of blame is pointing at me. He is the talented, accomplished, together one - if he is unhappy, it MUST be because I am making him miserable because I am so difficult to live with. Poor H - what a trial he has trying to live with her. It really gets to me - that. The injustice of it. If I show my feelings to anyone, if I cry, then I prove to them that I am "a depressive" - and without proof, they can just believe that I am jealous and imagining things.

Thank you, Orchid, for the thumbs up - the progress - this helps me to know what I am doing right, by which, I mean, that which is healthy behaviour for me. I do mean that - that he does not have the power to push my buttons anymore. I found that out last night - we got into a disagreement which started when he asked me if I had turned the heating off for the night - he was irritated with me and I said that in all these small interactions we had about ordinary things, it felt to me like he had a lot of anger and resentment towards me which came out during these ordinary interactions. He denied this and said I had just made a sweeping generalization and to name one time when this had happened. I couldn't think of anything, so he said he was right. I said that when they happened, it was always when the children were awake and he refused to discuss anything when the children were awake, and if I were to bring it up afterwards, I knew that he would just accuse me of keeping a score of petty complaints against him which I brought up later, after it was all over. He said that wasn't true and that next time he did do it, I should say so. I said OK - there was no anger in the way I expresssed myself - I then said that I was talking about it because what I really wanted was to try to understand things from his point of view. He couldn't argue with that.

I have to admit that I felt a little down today - trapped. But I don't feel so bad right now - tomorrow is another day. My life is not yet over.

ss - thanks once again for your words of support. I am taking on board what you say - that it is time to start paying attention to me and less to what he is doing. This is exactly what I am trying to do - I am trying to devote more of my time to the project I have to do - a research project, which means I have a lot of reading to do. I cleared off my desk, and handled small things that were piled up waiting for my attention. I am starting to write to my friends and family again, by snail mail and also by e-mail - I am trying to break out of my isolation. Today I took YS out for the afternoon on my own instead of sitting home with him all day. I appreciate your support - I need it. Sometimes I feel quite hopeless about the marriage and I need support to find the person I once was and still can be. Thanks for being there for me.

Ladylou - I appreciate your comments - the financial situation has been a problem since the beginning of our married life. He is not financially irresponsible - the bills are paid - its that he retains control of most of the money. This is one of the areas that I hope to address in future counselling.

I have to go now because he is due home - will check in when I can.

Take care, and thanks again.
LIR

LIR,

I will comment on some of your reply because I don't want to 'overload' you with my thoughts. LOL!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

LIR:.....H does seem to have moved forward an inch in this respect that he is expressing his anger but he is not being threatening - he has not called me names or been physically threatening, other than leaning forward and focusing on me, which makes me feel very uncomfortable. He has never been an abusive spouse who slapped me around - he has exploded into violence - shoving, pushing, kicking objects around me, punching the wall, grappling with me, and throwing things at me. There is no excuse for this behaviour, and I DO see that it is abusive. Because I have experienced this, I am scared of talking to him about emotive subjects - and that means that I feel intimidated.

Orchid: I used to think like this also, until the sheriff's dept came by and say one of those 'innocent' pushes. WhatI would have described as 'just a push' to them was an act of abuse that landed him 2 1/2 days in jail for domestic violence.

Really? Yep. Go figure. Now step back and read your thread again. See we are too much into the sitch and sometimes our excuses enable the improper acts to continue.

Now my WS said that he treated me much harsher on other occassions (like when he threw down his laptop and it went flying all over the house (5 rooms and a hallway). What did that tell me? I said, well if the police got wind of that story you would have spent more time. See? I should have reported him them, there was another occassion when he came home and threw his keys in the front yard, his sister called the police that time and the police was willing to arrest him then. I honestly thought it was making a big deal out of a small incident but that is NOT how the law sees it. Now this is from a man who is normally quite gentle. See what the A did to his brain? Scrambled logic topped with assinine acts.

Be careful. Don't underestimate the acts of disrespect.

LIR:........Agreeing with the WS - Its interesting that you bring this up, because this is what I have been trying to do, too. I read somewhere the 5 rules to avoid divorce on someone else's thread - go with the flow the jujitsu way - to meet resistance with no resistance disarms the feeling of resistance. The idea being that as long as the WS thinks that what you want is something different from what he wants, he will have resistance to coming over to your way of thinking. So agree with him. He wants a divorce - agree with him. He wants separation - agree with him. Stop fighting him. So this is the tack I have been taking - and sometimes I have actively put the ball in his court, like I did the other night. I say "I don't want anything you don't want. What I really want is you to be happy. If you are not happy with me, and you want to go, that is what I want, too." And since I have been saying it, I MEAN it.

Orchid: I said agree but I didn't say to do what they say. Verbally acknowledge their point then do what you need. Ex: WS says there needs to be a D. BS agrees. Right WS, as long as you keep acting that way, you should go get a D. WS wants the BS to get it. Again agree, ok you have my approval now go get it.

LIR: If he left tomorrow, I would be totally accepting - I would grieve, but I would accept it. There is no more "fight" left in me. What I am not sure of is how long I can go on with this, because at some point, you feel like a doormat if they stay - I DON'T mean that I approve of what he is doing, or that I accept living with it. But I do validate his feelings.

Orchid: You are near a turning point. You are also running out of the adrenaline to fight for your M. Don't fight for it, let him see what he is losing. That is why it was important for me to let the OW meet all his needs. Believe or not, many BS are meeting their WS needs even if they are apart. Look at all those WS calling the BS even if it is in anger.

LIR: What we haven't got to yet is the point where I say,"OK, I hear your feelings on this, and I don't understand why you are still choosing a R with me, if you are so miserable" - and then saying "You and I see things from different viewpoints and I cannot live on the terms you want to live with me on." (Actually, I did say that last year - but he promised to work on the R, and here we are a year later. Maybe I am going to end up having to say it again.)

Orchid: I think you have. Be patient with his responses though. It will take a while to formulate anything in the fog. Practice patience.

IMHO,
L.

Hi LIR,
Hi Orchid,
Hi everyone else that reads here,

Hope all of you are having a good, or at least better than average ( for you) day when you read this. I hope you have happy times on a regular basis.

LIR,

There is a lot going on in your posts. I think Orchid covered best what you can do and how to react to H. I think she is the best advice you can get right now.

I notice ( I think) some bitterness creep in to some of your writing, and there is some pain also lately. I think I will take a different direction today.

I don't know anyone that has no troubles in their lives. I know those that have problems different than mine are. I know of people that are on their up cycle when I am on my down and right then their life looks really good. I have noticed that some look at me from the bottom of the down cycle when I am on the top of the up and think I have it really good.

When I am in the middle of the down there are things I look at to help me overcome the depression. This is one of them.

John 16:33
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

If he who had so many trials can say this, then he can help you and I overcome the world. It takes effort and faith, but you have given both of those. I believe you can overcome with his help.

I have heard you say that you don't feel you can help others much because you haven't been able to get out of your own problems. Can you imagine Christ saying: "well, I can't do you much good, they took me and killed me, I was never able to do anything about it."

Actually, he could have gotten out of it. And you could have taken the easy way out and left before now but you stayed because that was the right thing to do. I think the help you give others is very valuable and very apt. I believe you can have a little more faith in yourself. I believe you SHOULD have a little more faith in yourself. SS makes lots of mistakes, and I bet Orchid may even admit to a few, but hey, that's life. You always try and improve upon them, and that is what counts.

I recommend you continue to pray about what to do and how to best help H. Also continue to pray to know what is best for you and your boys, you will get help when you need it. This is a promise - and it has come true for me more than once.
James 1:5
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

I want to encourage you in your faith. I want you to know that many times I have sought help and have gotten it, and I am not any more worthy than you are of God's help.
Pray before you go to your next session that you may know what to say and how to react. Pray that you will be able to remember what you need to know. Pray that you can remain calm. I believe you will get help as you need it.

I'll be gone for a few days, and may not be able to post again before next Monday. I wish you well and I'll be praying for you also.

SS

<small>[ March 17, 2003, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: still seeking ]</small>

Thanks Orchid, for the help - I hope you know that when I don't come back to answer a post right away, its because I don't have the privacy to post, and that I come back as soon as I can. I often am able to snatch a few minutes to read, but posting is impossible if H is in the house, so I do a lot of my posting from work on my break.

I appreciate your clarification of the principle of agreeing with the WS. I have tried to do this - agree with him, but put the onus on him to take the action. I have said that quite clearly - if you want a D, I accept that, but you go and do it.

I am feeling quite low today - thanks for your words of support today, ss - I don't know why I feel so low, but I do - I guess I am once again at the bottom of a low - I know these feelings won't last forever, so I am persevering. But I feel very withdrawn from H - it is hard to respond to his cheerfulness when I feel so despairing inside. I know that he is able to pick up on this, and it just makes him feel more angry and hopeless - drives him further away from me. For once, I wish he could just reach out to me and say "I'm sorry I did what I did - I know it was wrong of me and I was so stupid. But I still love you and its you I want to continue in life with. What do I have to do to mend and heal what we have lost?" I want to talk on this level, need to talk on this level and without talking on this level, everything I feel for him is being slowly whittled away.

I talked to my oldest friend last night, my girlfriend who I have known since we were both 21 - we were roomates in college and she knew me through both of my other boyfriends. I asked her who it was I used to be - was I really "depressive"? I told her I felt I had only myself to blame for the way my life has turned out, since the "relationship" I had with H before we got married had been unhappy, and I had gone ahead and married him anyway, against the advice of my family and many friends. But everyone was happy when we got married because everyone else wanted so much to see a happy ending, too. My friend and I both have alcoholic parents, and with her I share an awareness of co-dependency - I also trust her to call me on it if I start acting out the Victim or the Martyr role.

She told me it was important that I not take on "his stuff". She said I was not a "depressive" before - shy and cautious sometimes, but with a heart of gold and looking for the best in every person around me. She said it made her mad to hear that I would take on this view of myself - the label he has made for me.

She told me that as far as the finances go - to figure out what our household budget was - all the expenses, and figure out what the monthly budget should be. Then I could figure out H's annual income from his tax return (he told me himself to go look at it if I wanted to know how much he made). Then to figure out proportionately how much each of us should contribute to the monthly budget based on our income. Right now all of my paycheck goes into our household budget account, while he puts what he says is half of his income in. (H said a while ago that our contributions should be proportionate - I resisted, saying that ALL of both our incomes should be considered family money, and we should give ourselves an "allowance"). I still believe that this is the way things should be done, but H obviously does not agree. My friend said that since he will not come my way any futher, then the fair thing to do is to level the playing field. If he wants his own account and wants to contribute to the family needs only proportionately, then so be it, but it should be fair. Which means that I should open my own account, and contribute only a proportion of my income to our joint account, and keep the rest. If H is going to keep half his income to himself, then the fair thing is for me to keep half my income to myself, to use as I please.

She also said since he had now made me a signee on one of his credit cards - that I should use the credit from that card to now get my own VISA, so that I can get credit in my own name. If there is any chance that our M could break up in the future, be prepared for that eventuality.

I think this is good practical advice, so I am going to do this. Although emotionally, I am in a low place right now, it helps me do something that is practical towards standing on my own two feet.

I am still praying, ss - sometimes it seems that everything is falling away that got in between me and my own personal relationship with God.

Thanks for all your support guys.
Take care,
LIR

Dear LIR

I am sorry you are feeling so low at the moment. I think sometimes you just have to accept that you will have bad days, so when the good days come along they seem all the better. At least we have had some lovely sunny warm weather which I know will make you feel better.

I think your friend gave you some good advice, and as I said to you, look at the worst case scenario, try and work these things out. It doesn't mean it is going to happen, but knowledge is power. It helped me immensely just to take an hour appointment with a Solicitor to find out how things for me stood.

Take care of yourself and thinking of you.

Lisa

Thank you LIL -

Yes, you are right - most days are reasonably OK, but like all people, there are some days when I just feel really low - and yes, I am thankful for all the lovely sunny weather - I think that's one of the things that bothered me and made me feel worse about myself - that it is finally so sunny and yet yesterday and today, I just felt so bleak and tired inside. But I will come around. I know that if I am just patient and I wait long enough, the mood is bound to shift.

It's true, like Orchid said, that I am running out of the will to fight, and that makes me feel sad.

But after I posted my last post, I called him from work. I was alone at work this morning and there was no-one in the library, so I decided to call him. He used to call me a lot, but now he never makes contact with me when I am at work, does not leave msgs on my mobile either, or e-mail me. So I thought it could do no harm to call, and I called him on the pretext of asking him if he'd be home for lunch, or whether he would be teaching. He was not available for lunch as it happens, but then I said that I wanted to talk to him - I said that I just wanted to say that I DID want to talk to him, but that it was very difficult for me sometimes, still, I wanted to talk because what I wanted most was to understand where he was coming from and what he was feeling, and there was no way for me to understand unless we could talk together. I said that I was still upset about the things he had said to me last Tuesday, that I would be lying if I said that it hadn't hurt me, still, I felt that it helped me to understand how he was feeling. He said "What things do you mean?" I said "The things you said to me before you left on Tuesday night." Now maybe he doesn't remember exactly what he said, or he has "forgotten" about it already and "moved on".
But anyway, he just said "Oh." Then he said it was costing me too much money to talk to him on my mobile and would I like him to call me back. I said yes, and hung up, but then the library started getting customers, so when he called back I had to say I couldn't talk. He sounded disappointed.

I am now home and will be out this evening - he is gone to do some more work, but when I came home, he was cheerful and friendly. I got the feeling that he really wanted to talk, to hear what I had to say, and that he was disappointed at not being able to continue. I also got the feeling that maybe it would be better to have these conversations by phone - when we are face-to-face, it is too confrontational for both of us - perhaps with some distance between us, it will be easier to say what we both want to say, without risking a ferocious and dangerous row.

I also was upset by something he said to me on Sunday - on Sunday morning, he reached out to me as we were getting up, and he obviously wanted s*x. I went with the moment and it was quiet, but OK. We said a few things to each other about what each of us liked - which felt OK, but then he said "You never really do much in bed anyway." OK - that hurt. Because its not true - but I haven't exactly felt inspired to do a lot for quite a long time. It hurt because its the first time he has put me down for how I make love and I didn't know he felt that way - thought that way. It was such a frankly mechanical comment. So I shot back with "Compared to who?" and there was no answer. Our sex life has been practically non-existent since last June - going on 9 months now. And I can't believe that he doesn't have the same drives that other men have. The longer time goes on, the more I am wondering how he is getting satisfied - maybe he is looking at pornography now and is getting ideas from that - or is he having a PA?
I just don't know. But it didn't feel very good - not that I can't take criticism or anything - its just that he has always "wanted" me - even when the EAs were ongoing. So this feels something different, and I'm not sure what it means. But I think that contributed to my feelings of depression the last two days.

I'm feeling a little better now and I will take charge of the things you all have advised me to do - I think its called "getting your ducks in a row". Time for me to "get my ducks in a row"!

LIL - I am having trouble accessing my hotmail account from home again - something to do with the browser - so if you do e-mail me, I probably won't get it until I can get into work, OK? Thanks for the pep talk - and I hope you are OK - feeling better and having some good days in this sunshine!

Take care,
LIR

Just a little update -

H and I didn't get a chance to complete that conversation until yesterday at lunchtime. I came in and found him just going out, but he hesitated, then he came to the back door and stopped in the doorway. He wanted to say something, so I was quiet and listened - he said that he was sorry about what he had said last week (the ball and chain speech) - he didn't remember exactly what he had said - but he was sorry if what he had said hurt me. I said that I knew he had spoken in anger and I understood that he was feeling very frustrated. I said then that all I wanted to do was understand how he was feeling, but I wanted to know if he had meant what he said, because it sounded similar to what he had said 2 years ago, and I was upset by that, feeling that we hadn't moved on at all from 2 years ago. (Two years ago, he said that my "depression" was dragging him down). I said that I felt that his feelings were valid, and if he had meant what he said, then he didn't owe me an apology, since he was expressing his true feelings. But if he had said what he said deliberately to hurt me, then that was different. He said that he had "moved on" from last week, and he had been "just blowing off steam". He said that he didn't remember what he had said 2 years ago - or even last week - that he was a person who moved on into the new day without looking back - he didn't want to look back, he wanted to look forward, OK? I said OK, and I thanked him for trying to talk to me about it. And we left it at that.

I think this is good in that we both struggled to try to talk to each other - I was honest with him about feeling hurt by what he said, instead of hiding it. And he showed a willingness to talk to me, recognizing that it was important to me, and apologizing for hurting me.

What does bother me a bit is the "moving on" attitude he has - OK, maybe I am like a dog worrying a bone here, but it feels like he does and says whatever he wants regardless of whether or not it hurts me at the time, and afterwards, he thinks he can just say "sorry" and I will forgive and forget. Its like standing next to a firework all the time - you never know when its going to go off, and burn you. There's a pattern there, but I am not supposed to notice that there is a pattern - I am supposed to just "go on". The fact that I do notice and say so, that there is a pattern, becomes, in his mind, evidence that I am "focused on negativity". To me, it feels like I am trying to cover up a lie all the time - the lie is that there is nothing wrong, and the problem is mine, that I am a person who just won't "move on", while he is the one who lets go of things and gets on with life.

One more development - for those of you who have followed this thread. Last night he told me that next Wed, he has invited this woman singer to come down from London for a rehearsal here in our home. This woman is the person I suspect him of having EA3 with - the only evidence I have for that is from seeing 2 clues in the e-mails I read in Jan. In one, his "buddy" cautioned him not to get in any deeper with this woman, since if he did, he thought it would put his marriage into a "fatal spin". Well, that advice coming from "buddy" is enough to make me suspicious that he is already in deep with her, since "buddy" vociferously argued with me by e-mail that H was entitled to have private fulfilling friendships with other women. The other clue was an e-mail to this woman, that I didn't read, because it was still "unread" on his account, and if I had read it, he would have known someone had been snooping in his account. But it was entitled "Now" - which, in my suspicious mind, makes me think that he was telling this woman how things stood between he and I at this time. Those are the only clues I have. I have not snooped further. I think I kinda told myself that I would stand back this time - and if he got himself in deep, then at least he would have something to feel guilty about. Interfering in the previous 2 EAs only bought me the "rap" of being controlling and irrationally jealous over "innocent friendships".

This woman is my age or older - and a VERY accomplished musician. I'm not jealous of that - in fact, I am no longer jealous. Just angry at his disloyalty. But anyway, this woman is coming into my house on Wed night and I am not supposed to have a clue that there is anything personal between them. He seems to have planned a concert with her. So she is a "professional colleague". I sometimes go out on a Wed night to do some singing of my own with a friend. He (a little too eagerly, I thought) suggested that next Wed was a good time for me to go out. I said I didn't think so - next week I am off work and I can get together during the day, while YS is in school, to do my own thing. I think I am doing the right thing by staying here, with YS - they will be rehearsing together in the front room on their own. I expect he may try to go out for a drink with her afterwards, to the pub around the corner. Should I line up a babysitter and offer to go with them - put them in an awkward spot? Or should I let them be alone - if he kisses her goodbye when I am not looking, perhaps that would not be a bad thing - it might shake them both up. I feel like I am gambling here.

Or maybe its all in my imagination - maybe she has told him - would love to do a concert, but is keeping her distance emotionally. I don't know what kind of person she is at all - don't know her personally at all. But since it does seem to me, from the slim evidence, that there is some kind of personal friendship that has grown up between them, that she will be coming into my home and sizing ME up - you know how women are. So how should I best meet this challenge?

The last thing I wanted to say was to ss - I have been thinking about what you said about not feeling like I had any good advice for anyone else. I think you have helped expose, for me, my lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. I don't usually think of myself as insecure, but you pointed out (in the nicest possible way) that I think that I have little to offer others. I have been meditating on this, and thinking that usually I look for the good in others and not the evil. And I realized that I could do that more actively in my life and let others around me know when I thought they had done well - that my genuinely felt words of encouragement were the gifts I had to give others. Thank you for helping me to see this about myself. I will try to be brave and come out of the shadows more!

And thank you also, ss - for giving me just the right scripture lesson I needed then.

God bless everyone.
LIR

At the time my h's affair was at its height we were having vitriolic rows about nothing. I was, at the time, very angry because, knowing nothing of the a,I couldnt see any sense in what was happening.

To relieve my angry feelings I filled in every day of my life, which he ruined, by blacking out the day in pencil on a calendar .The blacked out days started to form a pattern. They were occuring once a month in groups of two or three at a time.I thought it was my fault and put it down to hormonal problems.

I now see that it was his tension build up, over the containment of the a, that caused him to explode at regular intervals I would imagine that the intensity of the emotion involved in the argument would be an indicator of the intensity of the a.

I only did this for about 8 months I wish now I had done it for longer.Your remarks about looking for patterns made me think of this.The trouble is that the secrecy removes many of the pieces of the story and we are working in the dark to try and make sense of our lives.

I would also recommend

SECRETS AND LIES BY FRANK PITTMAN

Once the secret is gone the relief is phenominal.

Hello H2O - thanks for looking in on me - yes, that sounds like a good idea - marking the rows on a calendar, and trying to see if there is a pattern - I haven't thought of this, but it would be interesting to see if it coughed up any results. Thanks for suggesting that!

You said - At the time my h's affair was at its height we were having vitriolic rows about nothing. I was, at the time, very angry because, knowing nothing of the a,I couldnt see any sense in what was happening.

This is what I am pretty sure started happening when he was emotionally involved with OW1 - I remember in particular a row over what kind of computer table we should buy in which he turned "nasty" for no reason at all - all I had said was I thought we ought to get one with some desktop space and he suddenly exploded and shouted that "nothing he did was ever good enough for me" - at the time, I didn't understand about affairs, that it was more than just the WS being turned "on" by contact with the OP, but that the WS would turn on the BS to justify his involvement with the OP.

I confronted him when I did find out about his EA with OW1 - and (as far as I know) the personal contact between them ceased a couple of months afterwards, due to the intervention of her family.

But that experience seemed to teach my H to watch his step - because I really had not much clue that he had shifted his attention to OW2, until I snooped into his e-mail account to see if there was evidence of contact with OW1 - I was still suspicious because of his lack of interest in me, which continued, even though I had some idea he was no longer in contact with OW1.

The s*** hit the fan when I did find out, and there was a lot of anger on both sides. I found MB shortly after that and have been trying to get my own actions and behaviour and attitudes under control since then, as well as trying to find out and learn just what I am actually dealing with here. A year ago this month, I asked my H to leave - but he then got himself into individual counselling, and after a very rocky year, we have now started MC - so I feel that I am trying to work on our marriage in good faith - I do strongly suspect that he is somehow emotionally involved with this other, older woman now. It is my feeling that he still is not committed fully to his marriage - he is still "hedging his bets" and not taking responsibility for himself. I will meet this other woman on Wed, and will keep my feelers out. I still feel that my H has a secret life - and that is the main barrier to our marriage being what it could be.

Thank you for the recommendation of the book - I will read it - SECRETS AND LIES BY FRANK PITTMAN - maybe it will help me get a better perspective on how I can deal with this.

Just to update a little further - on Friday, my H came down before breakfast and again, he initiated another conversation. He specifically, as it turns out, wanted to ask me about my previous relationship - my previous boyfriend had been an alcoholic, and I ended my relationship with him because of that, and also, because I could see that, although we both loved each other, there were intellectual needs I had which I knew he would never be able to fill. When I was with him, I was 23-25. I had already separated from him, moved in with my best girlfriend, moved city, got a new job, and had applied to university before I met my current husband, although there was still some contact between me and my former boyfriend - phone contact.

My H asked me on Friday - said that he had never asked because he had assumed it was a bad experience for me and that I would find it painful to talk about, but he wanted to know if I had talked to my counselor about my relationship with him. He was wondering if I had had "bad" experiences with him which could now be affecting our relationship and how I related to him - in other words, he was presuming that my previous boyfriend had been abusive to me, and that I was now primed to overreact to him "over nothing". Once again, my H is trying to shift the responsibility for our rows on to me, and shift the focus away from his behaviour.

Well, I replied very quietly that that was not true - my previous boyfriend, although he was an alcoholic had not been abusive - in fact, he was a very warm and affectionate person and he and I had genuinely loved each other. I said that he had given me all the affectionate physical attention that I really needed. He had "coddled" me - he liked to cook for me (he was a wonderful cook), and he had bought me presents - I said that he was someone who had limited means, but when someone with limited means tries to give you everything they have, it is a moving experience. We were both young and from completely different cultures - in his culture, most of the men drank themselves into oblivion on the weekends - he didn't see why this was a problem for me. He was not aggressive and I did not feel threatened until the very end, when he knew that he was losing me. Only then, in the final weeks, did he verbally threaten me twice when he was drunk. But he was never physically violent, nor intimidating, not even when he was drunk. He simply drank, and then passed out. The "abuse" I experienced was the neglect - he would say he was going out to visit his buddies for a couple of hours, and then not come home. There were many weekends when I found myself alone, wondering what had happened to him. There was never another woman - he was always respectful and I was integrated into his social life - he took me to meet all his friends, to football matches, to social occasions like weddings and birthday parties. I knew nothing about alcoholism and learned the hard way that there was nothing I could do to change him, and in the end, I gave up. That was a very painful thing for both of us. I also said that I hadn't talked about it not because it was too painful for me, but because I felt that it was unfair to him (my H) - that I didn't think it was right to hang on to feelings from the past, or to compare one partner with another - I had tried to forget about him and move on with my life, into a new, committed relationship. I said I didn't think it was fair if one party held on to emotional attachments from their past life - that that prevented them from forming a close bond with their current partner. He didn't say much except to say that I was now getting sidetracked. (True).

My H listened to this, without saying much - we didn't have much time because we both had to get on with getting ready for work. I did say that it had puzzled me that my H had never asked me about my life before I met him, nor had he ever confided to me about his life and relationships before he met me. I thought that people who shared trust and affinity for each other would want to know about each other as part of sharing their lives, but this didn't seem to be part of our life together. H didn't say anything - he started to get frustrated and said he wasn't interested in getting into anything more specific.

I think I see that the good thing is that there are some meaningful conversations going on here - but I still feel my H is not taking responsibility for himself, and is searching for ways to shift the "problems" on to me, which bothers me.

H2O - How are you? What is your current situation now? Do you post on a different board? I hardly ever look at the other boards since I have limited computer time - maybe I have missed you. Are you doing OK? As I remember, you have been through some difficult times. Thank you for posting to me - I think I will start keeping some kind of record of when he is antagonistic or cold.

Take care,
LIR

<small>[ March 23, 2003, 06:18 AM: Message edited by: Lady_In_Red ]</small>