This may be long and confusing but bear with me...I really need your help.

It occurred to me this morning that this may be the case due to a few things said since d-day and actions.

I have been looking and researching and wondering for so long as I try to put the pieces together and fail.

I have wondered if he is a narcissist, manic depressive, perfectionist, a lot of different labels but what seems to really wrap it up into one ball is passive-aggressive.

I have been thinking of all the things that fit into this description and how it happens with us. Today I thought that the very first thing he did that was hugely PA was right after we were married. We were both working, and his dad had just bought a business with some partners in another town across the state. FIL mentioned he wanted us to move and go run this business. Well, I had been raised by parents in a business similar to this one and told H I didn’t really want to do it as I didn’t feel qualified and hated what I had been through with my parents as business owners. A few days/weeks later (don’t really remember) he came home from work and told me he got mad over something and quit his job. I asked what are we gonna do now...”I guess we’re gonna move and take that job”. And, I think it was planned that way. What could I really do about it if he was unemployed and here was a job? (However, we lived in a booming town and there were jobs everywhere in his line of work.) We moved and are still here 23 years later. Not much job opportunity here at all. The job by the way only lasted 1.5 years or less and it was the mess I feared-to the point we even had a gun pulled on us!! It was not an upscale job opportunity. And, this is where A #1 happened. The job involved alcohol and H was an achiever in those days. This was also the time I caught him on the phone with his HS sweetheart telling her how awful I was and how he wanted to get back together with her...and then laughed at me when he caught me behind the door listening as I discovered the conversation.

Fast forward a few years. Still in the same town, but it is very small and very harsh winters. Pay is low, jobs are hard to find. Have a couple kids. Continue to drink. Find a good job. Have another A (this time at 8 yrs. married). Go to treatment for alcoholism. Have another kid. Go to AA for quite a few years. Stop going to AA. H files for divorce because I am not making any progress. I am still in the same place, haven’t made any improvements per the al-anon way. There was no active group here at the time. I had the literature but I’m not really good at figuring it out on my own. However, I LB’d a lot and was not a very nice person. Pretty sure at this point that A’s are caused by drinking.

We stay together, I have been a SAHM since #1 came along. We do better than we have in a long
time. Figure since he is not drinking and I keep my mouth shut/opinions to myself, life is good.

Well, after awhile we decided to start our own business. We agreed how to do it and we did it. After a few years we can’t keep up with everything because the business is growing so much and so he quits his good job. The one with insurance, profit sharing, bonuses, the works. And there wasn’t any real plan for it. Just about 6 weeks notice and he was done. Talk about stress. No more insurance (right after son breaks his arm and H has stitches). No more regular paychecks. Just a big dream.

Tension builds, stress is getting to us. Some character traits really start to rear their ugly head. H has some mantras that start to take their toll. Some of the sayings he would spew (and I would disagree with) were: bite off more than you can chew, and chew, chew chew. Well, I didn’t like that at all. And I told him so. He would reply, how we ever gonna get anywhere if we don’t? Then, when we had more that we could chew and he gets stressed out, guess who got the brunt of the angry outbursts? Yep, me. Discussions always turned out to be that I just wouldn’t let him do anything he wanted. That I was the one that always held him back. He still says that but it’s much more subtle.

Well, at 20 yrs. married and right after I turned 40 we have A #3. And guess what? He wasn’t drunk. Blew my world apart. I made him move out (we had a place available he could live) and we tell the kids he is moving out. Horrible. We never told them about the A. He moved back in 2 weeks later.This has been the most miserable 3.5 years of my life. I found MB and all the books, read the boards and somewhere in there we called SH. I did a few times first and after a long time H did it too. Once or twice alone and then together. We did the questionarres and were instructed to review them with each other. We only did our top two needs and quit and never went back. I have an advantage though. I found his and read them. It was awful! Steve had H fill his out like he was applying to dating service so it was all about what he wants in a mate. It was very difficult and still haunts me. H knows I read it.

So, I try to meet his needs but since he has never explained them to me (like how does he expect a SAHM to contribute $1500.00/month to the household) then some just sit in my pea-brain and fester and make me angry.

During the time of the last A, he started going to AA again. When OW found out about this they used that to meet on Tuesday nights. Well, just recently he started going to AA again. I know the OW has moved from the area etc. but you can imagine the trigger that was. I have thought about checking up on him but I am pretty sure he is there, and if he’s not, well whatever. It will come out sometime.

I still have huge issues with trust. Do I think he will cheat again? Most times no. Sometimes yes. Because he has never gone to IC for himself. So, consequently, I haven’t seen a lot of the change I need to see. Yes, he does the dishes now but that doesn’t take away the pain I still feel when a huge angry outburst comes along.

Last week we had a big argument because he LB’d me about money. Really bad. I told him I have done so much to change me and my behavior since A #3 and I am finally becoming happy with myself and the things I can do. I went to IC for months and then on AD meds, I am now exercising and taking better care of me. I love to be out around fun people again and I’m not intimidated by them. I told him that even with all the changes I have made he still finds something I am doing wrong. He is never satisfied and still LB’s me. I told him I am not the only one who had these flaws and that he needs to look in the mirror next time he wants to yell at me about what I am doing wrong, because I am not the only one. He is also guilty of everything he is accusing me of. His reaction? He just nods. Never responds. Leaves the house. Comes back like nothing ever happened. That is another PA trait that makes me insane! He won’t say anything, just lets me get it out of my system and maybe I’ll feel better? He uses silence to control me.

This is a paragragh from an article on passive aggressive behavior:

Dealing with passive aggressive people can be crazymaking. You feel dismissed, shut down, ignored...but in a subtle enough way that you don’t know how to react. At some point, you explode. Over time, this can turn into a vicious cycle: passive aggressive behavior begets anger and finger-pointing, which in turn begets more passive-aggressive behavior. Among the causes of PA behavior is fear of conflict. The more your partner sees you as a formidable opponent, the more they’ll tend to take what feels to them like the cautious approach-the PA approach. You, in turn, feel increasingly irritated; you act in ways that they perceive as increasingly formidable. And so on. Creating a climate of safe and open comminication within your couple can go a long way toward changing the pattern of PA, on the one hand, and anger and blame on the other hand.

So, I have tried to change my communication habits so as not to be accusing, etc. and listen more. Talk about how I feel. I get accused of being manipulative. If I were to cry (and it is rare) that is manipulation. Just last week my daughter was having a horrible time and her and I were at odds and I went to bed crying. He asked if evertyhing was o.k. I told him what was wrong and I was crying. He said, hmmm, and turned his back to me.

Yesterday he goes to a meeting. He said it was an emotional meeting. Someones teenage girls were giving their mom a lot of trouble (the mom is the one at the meeting and she is crying). I asked if it was the usual teenage trouble or something worse (thinking drugs/pregnancy/running away). He said the usual. He said there were lots of hugs. I asked if he hugged her and he said yes, everyone did. Later I said, “maybe I need to go to AA so I can get a hug. When I was crying you turned away from me.” I could have said that really hurts me but that may be manipulation or something. I just left it. He knows. He doesn’t want to hear it. He will say something like “are you ever gonna get over it? It was just a hug. ) Of course, his deal with SH and myself was that he wouldn’t hug other women. If I brought that up now, he would just brush me off with the silent treatment or argue that she really needed a hug. Whatever. And I know this from an incident last summer after he went into a single divorced ladies house (another no-no per our agreement, which was his idea not mine), and defended himself to the end. Didn’t matter how I felt he didn’t see how his agreement had anything to do with it and I should just lighten up.

That is when my dedication to meeting his needs really changed. I then realized that he was not committed to protecting me and definitely not going to answer to me if he does wrong. And I did not LB at first...I told him it made me feel like xxxx, but later it was rather ugly.

Well, if you are still with me, what do I do from here? I can not commit to anything else until he goes for IC. I know the excuses he will use if I suggest it. They are all quacks, we can’t afford it, I don’t trust anyone here (very small town-could go to the big city), you name it. I don’t want to be in business with him anymore. I can’t take it. We are about to fire up for the season and I am so dreading it.

I could write for days but I will add on as necessary or if anyone has any questions.

Please help me get through this before I lose my fricken mind!

I have been married to a serial adulterer for 25 years (divorce should be final soon).

There are a lot of similarities between your WH and mine:

makes decisions without you

then blames it on you when things go wrong,
claims he supposedly did it your way,
that you won't let him do what he wants

says what he's looking for in a woman is something he knows you can't/won't be

This is what I finally figured out:

He NEEDS the marriage/finances/whatever to be a mess because that's how he justifies fooling around.

I recently read the book Men Who Can't Love and it explained how some men cruelly criticize women for something they KNEW about her before they got involved, preferably something they know she can't or won't be able to change. This gives them an excuse to not make a real committment to her, because they can claim she's just not the right one for them...

And I think it's especially sick when the thing they say they don't like is something the woman started doing because the man wanted her to! (like being a stay-at-home-mom but then the WH finds working women irresistable and says you're not meeting his needs because you don't have an income to spend on him)

IMO your WH has a lot more problems than drinking. You've already discovered that he was just using the drinking as an excuse for adultery (couldn't help himself because he was drunk and not thinking straight at the time?)

Please read Love Must Be Tough and get yourself ready to do a very firm Plan B.

<small>[ February 21, 2005, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: meremortal ]</small>

thanks meremortal!

I have been thinking plan b...but I always read about it in terms of trying to end an A or more accurately to preserve love while an A is ongoing. My H ended his last one right after d-day.

I have the book Love Must Be Tough but never finished reading it. It seemed to be a plan b map and I didn't think I needed that at the time. I might now.

How did you finally get the guts to get out? What was the breaking point? How do you know? Did you and your H try counseling or was he just not interested? I feel so alone in this as it was never exposed.

"How did you finally get the guts to get out? What was the breaking point? How do you know?"

My WH became physically abusive. That of course was the last straw! I think he wanted out and knew I would continue to 'stand by him' unless he did something so drastic.

"Did you and your H try counseling or was he just not interested?"

My WH said the same things about counseling that yours did. I went to counseling off and on over the years, but he rarely came with me.

"I feel so alone in this as it was never exposed."

I exposed the last two affairs to both of our families, coworkers, friends, total strangers... LOL

My WH wanted me to just keep the affairs a secret, would promise it would never happen again, said we didn't need counseling...

I realize now that I should have exposed everything the first time he strayed and should have insisted on MC or else divorce.

Also, my WH expected me to somehow just get over it without even being able to talk to HIM about it! Of course that didn't work. He still feels he had no responsibility to help me heal and to rebuild the destroyed trust. Apparently my hurt and fear were just flaws I had or ways I was trying to be mean to him...

Unfortunately, this sort of guy is very skilled at convincing women they are so much more sensitive, romantic and caring then your average male. But in reality they're very cruel and totally clueless about what it takes to really love somebody.