Malachi 2:13-15 "This is another thing you do: you cover

the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with

groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or

accepts it with favor from your hand.

"Yet you say, 'For what reason?' Because the LORD has been

a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against

whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your

companion and your wife by covenant.

(Cherished, I believe you H has dealt treacherously with you.)


Lady

Screw the 15 hours, Cherished.

ITS TIME TO END THAT FARCE OF A MARRIAGE.

Good Lord, file for seperation and GIVE YOUR KIDS A PEACEFUL HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cherished,

I am sorry u r scared. 15 hours of bad quality time is no way to have a M. Your children appear t/b suffering with the amount of time he is spending right now.

U nor your children s/b settling for such an attitude.

Forget the hours. Look for the quality, up your value and boundaries. Don't settle for less than the best for your family.

Don't accuse him of NOT doing it right, ask him if he is doing his best, if he says, yes you know what u need t/d. If he admits it is not, then task him with coming up with a plan on how he can. If he choose not, to, then do what you must.

Got it?

L.

Cherished,

Please see an attorney and get a restraining order before you do anything. Talk to a IC about methods to protect yourself. Get all of your ducks in a row so that you can effect your protection as best you can.

Then get rid of his AS$.

He is still displaying abusive patterns after all these years and will NOT change in the given environment anyhow.

Your fear of him is a product of his efforts to control you with his anger.

He sounds like a very sick man; the kind that Dr. Harley says is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve success with unless complete and total recovery is realized from his end with his abusive behavior.

My heart goes out to you. YOU CAN DO THIS!

I think you will need help and support from professions and family to get through this though.

Best of luck,
Plank.

Cherished if you are ready to do this, please don't try and get him to leave. Get yourself and kids to a safe house/shelter and let them help you.

They will help you with the atty/RO as Plank has advised. Please don't try and do this alone.

And please, please no warning to him.

I've already determined that I cannot get an RO, and the police told me that I cannot take the kids away. I think I'll talk to them about what I can do. The shelter is no place to take kids, that's for sure. Maybe I go to a hotel but work with the shelter so that it is as if I am at a shelter. I spoke with three attorneys, and all three told me I cannot get an RO. Also, Tom's anger management therapist told me I should take the kids, and so did my IC who has seen me with Tom in MC about 20 times.

I was listening to a tape of the book Emotional Intelligence yesterday, and it talks about what happens when there is an emotional hijacking -- people just go wild with anger. This has to be handled delicately. Harley told me that, since I have figured out that I cannot cope with a marriage of emotional divorce, then he would recommend separation. I'm going to see what happens with the rolling average of hours, but I would expect that he won't maintain an average above 0. This rolling average is more of an exit strategy for him. He'll get a lot of support from his family and probably his group about how demanding I am to insist on 15 hours together. It's all very confusing. I was sick last Thursday, the second sickest I've ever felt. And I'm sick again today. Your support, concern, and prayers are helpful. I think my thread on GQII really underscored that I cannot simply allow this situation to continue to deteriorate.
Cherished

Cherished, how are you sick, physically?

Eat fruits and vegies, take a womans multi-vitamin, preferrably at night. And drink lots of juices. Do a body cleansing. Lemon water, etc.... And of course prayers.
These will all help you feel better while going through the stress.

Would it be possible you are pregnant?

Lady

Ladysheep,
I'm not pregnant. I'm 47 and Tom broke my arm 12 days after I had a hysterectomy and weaned our 10 month old back in December, 2001. I think a lot of it is that stress lowers the immune system, but all four of our kids have also gotten sick since Sunday.

Last week, I had a headache on one side of my head that was really awful. I just slept. This morning, I had symptoms of the flu, but I'm feeling better. Of course, Tom is saying maybe we can't make our time this week because of illness. Well, he's home all week. There's no reason why we can't, except that he doesn't want to.

Cherished

I'm glad you posted as I have company coming soon and won't be on the rest of the week and I have been checking continuously for update.

I am glad you are doing your research and thinking this through. That gives some comfort to us.

And after all the 2x4's we have thrown your way, you don't think we would leave you now, do you?

Take care.

Cherished, I'm glad your feeling better. It does sound like a bit of the flu or some other virus.

One thing I don't understand is that he is used to being out of the home for weeks at a time. I don't understand your reasoning of this. He isn't a child Cherished, he's a grown immature man. You cannot treat him as though he is a child and you are grounding him outside of the home to a hotel or something. You have gone through years of his failing to commit to anything, and I feel very sad for you and your children. He is not loving you as Christ loves the church, therefore he is not in alignment with God, and because he is not in alignment with God it is hurting the family. That is why he is so angry Cherished, that is why he is saying things like he will just shoot himself (I hope he did not mean that btw). Can't he see if he get in line with Gods will toward his family he won't have to be in such agony, therefore bringing agony to his family???????
He is supposed to be head of the household there. If he isn't taking care of all of you there, he's in trouble with God, and nothing else is going to go right. Please God, let him see this!!!!!



Don't worry about what support he has. You know and God know what you are living in. Some would try to make you feel as if you were crazy. I think your request for 15 hrs a week was your last resort, to yourself. If he didn't commit to that, then you feel within yourself that nothing else good will happen in your marriage. In a way you are right. You were testing him, and he has failed again. It shows how much he does not care.

I know how it feels to feel stuck. You are at a point of having to make the decision to make a Big move or not.

In the meantime, pray, take care of yourself and the children.

{{{{Cherished}}}}

Cherished,

I have read your posts for a long time but don't think I've ever responded. I can't help but respond right now after reading this entire thread. I have tears streaming down my face.

Cherished, you are setting yourself up to lose EVERYTHING!!

I could go on and on about you and how this is ruining your life. You know that though.

But Cherished, you write about your children. They are terrified. They have no control. They are at YOUR mercy here.

I can't believe that you continue to allow your children to live like this. You see what it is doing to them.

Many people here, including you may not like what I'm about to say but I'm going to give you the reality of what my biological mother is living right now.

She lived 10 miles away from me for 11 years and I never once spoke to her or saw her.

Why?

She refused to protect her children.

I understand the dynamics of abuse. I saw it and lived with it until the day I walked away from her two months after my oldest daughter was born.

She saw her father molest her children. She knew about it and she allowed it. I'm sure she didn't like it and I know it would have been hard to stand up to him being that she had been abused in the same ways by him.

But she had a choice, Cherished, and so do you.

She chose to allow what was happening to her daughters. Maybe she believed he would change. Maybe she believed it wasn't as bad as it was for her (admittedly, it wasn't).

She allowed her children to live with the fear and the shame. Three of her daughters had children by the time they were 16. One has a seventh grade education, one has an eighth grade education and one has a ninth grade education. Two have been beaten by boyfriends to the point of being hospitalized. All of us have had issues with suicide attempts in our teens.

I don't know how or why, but by the grace of God and courage I was the only one to make it out and build a life for myself.

She offered her children up on a silver platter to her father, Cherished.

Frankly, you are doing the same to your children.

They are scared. No child should have to see or feel what they are on a daily basis and no 15 hours of time is going to change what they are living through.

Your marriage, IMVHO, has no hope right now because there are too many deep issues that have to be dealth with first. Why are you trying to treat the cancer when your bleeding to death from wounds requiring your immediate attention?

If you want hope, create a situation in which hope can sprout.

Get away right now. Staying with your husband is enabling his abuse of you and hurting your children. I know it's hard to imagine but that six months that Weaver spoke of is your lifeline. It is hope for your children and for you.

Please!!! If you don't get out for the sake of yourself. Do it for those children who are at your mercy. You keep saying that you've put the ball in his court. How much sense does it make to give HIM the control over the very ones he doesn't care if he hurts.

It is YOUR responsibility right now. If you choose to leave those children on that silver platter for continued emotional abuse and fear, you will never be able to forgive yourself. And your children may not either.

FIM

I'm extremely new to this board and as such, have avoided giving advice - I don't feel that I have the experience or the right. But in this case - I have more experience than I'd like. And I have to heartily second FaithInMe.

There's no need to go into gory detail regarding the abusive childhood my mother made for my brother and I. Suffice it to say that my mother allowed my step-father to ill-treat myself and my brothers, and to this day, not one of us has completely forgiven her. We all carry the scars of having the person who was supposed to love and protect us fail us.

You may see it as choosing to try to save your marriage. But I promise you - your children see it as you loving him more than them. They see that you would rather keep them in constant turmoil, never sure when the next bout of yelling or fighting will start. They see that you can't or won't stand up for yourself, let alone them. And that's not something children every completely forgive.

Even if you don't see it yet, you've lost your marriage. Don't lose your children too.

How about some info from the attorneys out here. Under what circumstances can an abused spouse NOT get a restraining order. Not that they mean a whole heck of a lot. Is a separation or some type of other legal action necessary first?

Cherished, can you go to some family member's house for a while or something like that? Failing that, can you arm yourself against his violence? I'm retired military, btw. I believe totally in the 2nd Amendment. The need for self-defense is precisely why the guarantee of bearing arms exists in the Constitution.

Failing that, can you arm yourself against his violence? I'm retired military, btw. I believe totally in the 2nd Amendment. The need for self-defense is precisely why the guarantee of bearing arms exists in the Constitution.

HOLY MOLY! Where is the [color:"red"]HORROR [/color] icon????

Are you truly suggesting that she get a firearm? She has children in that house...and a madman for a Husband...and you want her to get a gun....

Unflaming real... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

committed

No guns in the house. He has not been physically violent towards me since 3/22/02, but I won't ever have a gun in the house. The problem with an "emotional hijacking" is that a gun could be used without any sort of restraint by reasoning.

The police came to our house on 5/7/02. I had found out about the affair on 5/4/02 and more or less came close to a nervous breakdown. It wasn't my finest moment to go to this woman's house, in a nice section of Minneapolis, at 3 AM and yell "Sophia A... is a ******." I told my parents that day that he had been having an affair and also that he had broken my arm months before, right after I had surgery. My parents, who live in NJ, flew out to take the kids and me out East, they wouldn't leave the house, I called Tom, he told me to call the police, and they came and said there was nothing they could do. The broken arm was 12/17/01, and I was just at the end of physical therapy when the police came. They said that a RO was not possible then. Three attorneys told me the same when I went shopping for an attorney in 2003.

Harley suggested a separation in which we dated. Well, if he truly is interested in a marriage of emotional divorce, what could be better? As my father said when we separated in late 2002, he has a "bachelor pad." He could come and go as he pleased -- was over here for meals, laundry services, and sex and back at his "pad" for uninterrupted downtime with the Vikings. Sorry. I'm not repeating that.

Today, I'm forcing a decision. Spend 15 hours per week alone with me, or separate. We can worry about meeting ENs after we attend the MBW this summer in the Twin Cities.

I put up with an emotional divorce for years in the hope that he would turn back to his family, and instead he blamed me for ignoring him which is why he had an affair, even though I was upset enough about this relationship to pick up the phone to call her and he was interested enough in preventing that that he broke my arm.

He has told me he is ashamed and feels guilty and wants to make me happy. The 15 hours is a very minimal line in the sand. Either he is willing to take on the role of husband and father, or he isn't. If he isn't, it is safer for us to be separated.

I have given up trying to change him. All I am doing is letting him know this cannot continue and giving him the option to spend time with me or separate. I want him to choose to leave, not be forced to leave. It's safer. I'm looking for a safe way to end this, if he isn't willing to step up to the plate and change his behavior.

Harley more or less thinks he is toying with me and trying to sabotage our time together. Fine. That's why I am saying I just want both of us to be conscious together for 15 hours per week. What is the point of continuing if that isn't achievable?

Cherished

And what if he chooses not to spend 15 hours with you and refuses to leave? I know, another ultimatum!

Your opinion is noted, Committed. Weapons are tools for self-defense and might just be useful in this case. I have grandchildren, great-nieces, and great-nephews who shoot their .22 caliber weapons and 410 gauge shotguns on a regular basis (under adult supervision) and they all have a deep respect for the danger of firearms. They don't have to wonder what that thing is up on the closet shelf and they'd never think of using it inappropriately. It's only when you hide something they investigate and, in their ignorance, cause accidents.

You also need to know that restraining orders don't do a darn thing for anyone. There was a Supreme Court decision in June to the effect that police departments don't have to enforce them. And guess what? Violent abusers don't give a da*n about pieces of paper anyway. The police can't get to Cherished's house quick enough to do any good if he decides to get physical again. The children in the house are precisely why I wondered if she could arm herself. You're entitled to your opinion Committed. Can you deal with my right to consider your opinion in…well, let’s say…less than complimentary terms?


********

Cherished, you've decided you won't have a firearm in your house. That's your privilege. Please excuse me for a temporary hijacking of your thread. Sometimes I have to let go.

It’s been a while since the last time your husband is violent, but all the information I’ve read in books and on the net indicates that, without a lot of treatment, the cycle is not ended. I’m terribly concerned that I’ll wake up one morning and realize you haven’t posted anything in a long time and no one will ever know why. Please understand that you and the children’s safety were my only considerations in making that suggestion. I rather prefer thinking of you as a female grizzly bear. They are so ferocious in defending their young that the much larger males of their species back off and run.

Please be safe and take care.

Sorry but Cherished never seem to answer the questions of how her kids are sufferering at her hands, she knows what she has to do yet she continues on about her marriage, I will say it but shame on you Cherished, fo letting your kids live in a war zone, your marriage is that war zone.

Funny how you give your husband chance after chance, at the expence of your kids futur.

If he refuses to leave, I will file for legal separation.

Shame on me for allowing my kids in a war zone. Don't you think I realize that? Our 11 year old crying on Christmas Day..just the latest. The one who is about to crack is our 9 year old son.

What I am trying to do is force a choice on my husband so that he is not violent when he decides I'm not worth his time.

As for the gun, I don't know how to use one, and I'm not sure that it is wise to have one in the house even for self-defense. He's had a lot of anger management training with guys who have been in jail. He has a healthy appreciation of what it would have meant if I had called the police four years ago when he broke my arm. He doesn't want to hurt us. He really doesn't.

I think the only way he won't hurt us is if we have the type of marriage Harley describes, one in which there is a lot of time spent together and we follow the POJA enthusiastically.

Sadly, I think part of our problem is our conservative Catholic faith. The Christmas sermon included just a few words about marriage -- about the need to sacrifice for each other. I sacrificed plenty for him -- and he felt as though he sacrificed for me so I could stay home with the kids. Harley's approach is radically different from the Catholic tradition of redemptive suffering and virtue in sacrifice. John Paul II spoke about the need for mutual submission and the "he shall rule over you" as the manifestation of sin rather than the natural order. That gives me hope.

Cherished

Cherised: "What I am trying to do is force a choice on my husband so that he is not violent when he decides I'm not worth his time."

It's not your jo to force him to make a choice, he is a grown man fo one thing, and another is that it's of his own free will to make changes in behavior, towards you and your kids.