I'm sure my WH is no different from many others. His biggest line of defense is the silent treatment. He puts up the big, high, cold, silent wall and acts like nothing is going on. He was communicating for a while but I see the fog coming in again.

I work on the assumption that he's not totally deaf and dumb. I state my position in a calm rational manner. Like, If you believe you want to work on this marriage then these things needs to happen, you need to call me more, we need to do things together, we need to make some family activities. That I have to be able to feel trust for things to work. Not unreasonable. No nagging, no shouting or emotions. But he continues reading his paper.

Do you think ANY OF IT slips over the wall? I don't feel it's helpful to response to silence with silence. Any other techniques?

Yes. Plan B.

Your WH sounds very much like mine.

He likes having a double life.

He likes having a wife at home and girlfriends on the side.

He likes being thought of as a great guy, a great husband and a great dad who would *never* do anything wrong.

He likes being in control of all this with nobody to dare say there might be something wrong with it.

But now somebody like his wife comes along and starts changing the rules. She starts asking questions and she starts objecting to his behavior. She's rocking his world and changing the rules, and he doesn't like it one bit.

So his response is to bully you and ignore you until you go back to being the quiet mouse who never questions anything he does. He is sure that if he can do this long enough, he can force you back where he wants you and his life can go back to "normal."

My husband had the highest and most solid stone wall. He wasn't in the "fog" -- he was encased in solid concrete. But one week of 100% pitch-dark Plan B made a real difference.

Why? Because he never thought I'd be able to do that. I'd been saying for months that if it were not for our son I would leave. After the one-week Plan B, he ventured, "Would you really leave?"

YES!

Sure, try Plan A for a while if you can manage it. I think Plan A is mainly so you can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I did everything I could to fix any problems I may have caused." But the more you read here, the more you see that if anything is going to wake them up it's Plan B.

And I will add that you can't just go into Plan B, turn out the light, and wait for them to "get it" -- because they may not. Plan B is to protect YOU. Either way, you win, because either they WILL wake up and realize what they are losing, or they will stay gone and you can have a peaceful, normal life with a chance to rebuild with someone who wants to be with *you* instead of with whatever piece of @ss they can pick up.

Good luck.
Mulan

Well said.

Well said.

Stonewalling....the death to strong women's spirit. My WH is classic and then some. As Mulan said....he wants everything to appear to be perfect, can never admit that maybe his behavior has something to do with the failing marriage. My WH moved out and didn't tell anyone. Why? God forbid it look like he did something wrong, and when people did find out that he had moved out, do you think he mentioned the EA? No way in hell. I am having a terrible time not LBing because even when I start out a conversation calmly and non-attacking he throws it right back at me and says..."See your pushing again,...maybe you should get a clue" he says we are working on the marriage but has yet 2 months post EA to tell me what his EN's are. The only way he can communicate is by stonewalling or telling me that there is something wrong with me. he even walked out on me when I asked him for 5 minutes of his time...he looked at our kids and said " I'm leaving..your Mom is weirding out" I am so close to filing papers because he wont. Once again he wants me to be the bad guy. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

***Once again he wants me to be the bad guy.***

Of course he does. And you know what?

Let Him.

Just tell him that if wanting to save your marriage and have a husband who puts you first is being a "bad guy," you will be more than happy to be a "bad guy."

Unless he is physicsally abusive, you cannot be afraid to stand up to somebody like this. He's got you right where he wants you with his bullying and stonewalling, and he'll go right on doing this because he fully believes you'll never stand up to him.

I used to tell my H that he was absolutely right about the marriage problems being all my fault. If I just could have tolerated his having girlfriends at work and strippers on the road, we would have been fine. I readily admitted that this was a failing of mine and I was sorry I could not be this accomodating.

I told him I was sure that one of his girls at work would be much better for him than I was, since she would be far more understanding of his need for other women and this would never bother her the way it did me. I also told him that if and when we got a divorce, he should feel free to tell anyone he wanted that the breakup was my fault for not being able to tolerate being ignored for other women.

And I meant every word of it.

Harsh? Yes. But in this case, that's what it took to start blasting through the concrete surrounding his head.

Look up Orchid's posts on "reverse babble." I think she has a link to them in her sig line. And stop letting this man bully you and muzzle you.
Mulan

I love the reverse babble technique. It's something that really works.