I'm still here, as in on this earth. Not sure if i'm still in a marriage or not. I left awhile ago and am typing this on a computer at the library. I love him so much and I want to make our marriage work, I just don't think I am strong enough to continue to try with out any feedback from him. I need love from him and I need him to show me that love!! He can't or won't touch me sexually and my self esteem just plummets ever lower, every time I make the slightest advance towards him he shuts it down. Sometimes by getting angry, but mostly just by avoiding me. I feel unloved, unwanted, ugly, undesirable, unlovable, and so completely pathetic for loving a man so much who wants absolutely nothing to do with me! How do I turn off my love and desire for him? I don't know how. Maybe it just eventually gets replaced with hate. I don't have anywhere to go to sleep tonight. I'm taking the kids to their dad's house, because I don't know where I'll be. If it wasn't winter, I'd sleep in my van. As it is, I'll probly end up back at HIS house and have to endure his cold hatred. I don't want the kids subjected to that or to me crying uncontrollably. It scares them. He can be soooo cold and say things that hurt me to the very depths of my soul. Why do I care? Why does it hurt so much to be rejected like that? I'd rather never have fallen in love than to feel this pain of my lover rejecting me. Here I am crying at the library... how embarassing. I threw my wedding ring at him. I don't want to wear it. It hurts too much. What do I do now?

"What do I do now?"

What are you hoping to accomplish by running away from home? Why choose that--what does it represent to you?

I don't understand. I want to, but I don't. You read Love Must Be Tough...you understood that your H fears engulfment, you smothering him, failing to be adequate for you, etc. It was working. You leaned back instead of forward. You were focused on you and taking the very best care of yourself and your children. You were concentrating on not watching for his reactions.

Then he moved in your direction and it seems to me, you started leaning forward, towards him again, lost your focus, lost where you were going and why. You felt anger and resentment that he would react and say things he did. Yet you stayed concentrating on reading his every gesture, word and asking of him what feels most engulfing for you.

You're human. It's a lifetime habit for you. You have no knowledge of your self, your loved, wanted, desirable, whole, beautiful soul, by itself without a single person to mirror you. You stand alone, not defective, allowing others who dug holes in you to keep their shovels if they promise not to dig anymore. You don't take the shovels away, you don't look to fill your own emptiness, you just keeping asking others, please, please...it hurts.

I know this well because I was that way, too. It was the only system of loving I'd been taught. Free yourself from this--you're not defective but your belief in this love system doesn't work, can't work. Believe and teach yourself a better, balanced way to love. The pain will drop away, along with the guilt, shame, anger, frustration, aggravation...all of it. You will build your own self-esteem, because you are the only one with a right to do that. You can give it to yourself and take it away. No one else. You allow others their shovels and you are their emotional slave. Take them back and break them. Only you can.

You're worth it. Time for big growing up, taking bites out of your past behavior and leaving it in the past, so you aren't reliving it again and again today, making your present choices the same way, hoping for a different result.

LA

How do I take their shovels away??? I left because of how hurtful and cold is to me, and no matter how much I try to not let it get to me, it does. So I left to run away from the pain of being near him.

Sutherland,

How do you take their shovels away? You gave them those shovels. That means, you can take them back. You grew up without boundaries. You gave your first shovel to your parents when you opened your eyes in the hospital. It isn't your fault they had them. Growing up is taking them back. Making boundaries that have consequences.

You're still so honest about running away and your pain. He has the biggest shovel right now. Take it out of his hands. He is a whole, seperate human being. You are addicted to him and what he represents to you. That is all in your control. All of it. You feel rejected because you expect something different. In a way, it is your belief that he can ease your soul, fill your holes, should do these things, that is caving you in.

He has no power over you except what you give him. Take back your power. Learn a new way to love. You can only see a way in trying not to let your pain in. It's already inside. It is created by these beliefs of what he should do...as your best friend, your husband, your drug.

You control your expectations which arise from your beliefs. Can you begin to believe differently? Believe that you are fully lovable, loved, completely, without doing anything. You don't earn it. You just are. It is a fact. Period. Loving yourself for existing, for being a wonderful creation of God. Start there. Talk to yourself, nourish yourself, examine your beliefs. Leave others to do the same thing.

If you could go home and not speak, not react, but hold yourself in your own home, look to your children and know that you are enough of a mother, a wife, a person, a woman, a daughter, just as you are, then you will take those shovels and break them. Rub your own feet, arms, shoulders. When you shower, imagine it is love pouring all over you. When you eat, see it as love flowing into you. That you are taking care of you. You are worthy and valuable.

Loving a new way means you recognize you are lovable, feeling God's love in your creation, filling yourself up, and then, letting it flow outward. Right now, the way you love, is to pour it out, away from yourself, and rely on it going through others to come back to you for nourishment. You depend on others to give you worth, value and what you need. Begin inside and grow outward. The extra of this way, is that you're already full when it pours outward, soaks in around you, spills and flows, endlessly. You even get more back because you no longer depend on it from him to need it so desperately.

Recognize yourself as the capable, whole and complete human being you really are. Get that down into yourself, like a homecoming, and your self will stop craving.

Everything you crave from your H is your self craving from you. Your attention, focus, concern, love, desire, comfort and safety.

You know this. You want to hurt back, hurt him until he stops hurting you. You have to stop first because he's thinking the same thing. The pain is in you. He is not the source of it. Your happiness is in you. Your responsibility, your power. Not him. Even as you cannot make him happy, he cannot make you unhappy. You do this.

Your power.

God gave it to you. Store your shovels or break them. Love yourself enough to listen to your pain and break it into the informational parts that it really is. You're believing stuff from when you were very young. You've learned a lot since then. Change your beliefs.

You can do this. You're not alone. You're not defective or a mutant. Many have been and will be right in your shoes. Walk a new way this time. This pattern in your life needs to be broken for good. I know you feel this. All of this feels done over, time and time again.

You are loved.

LA

Thank you so much.. I am trying to digest and understand what you are saying. It is hard for me to change the pardigm of my life to see things this way, but deep down, it feels right, like this is the truth of the direction in which I need to go. I will write more when I can.. but thank you again..

What does this mean? Is this what I think it is? What do I do now? How do I not freak out? Ok, ok, details.. today at about 2pm, my H announces he's going to get a haircut, over at the Cost Cutters a few blocks from our house. He returns at 4pm with no haircut. I said "what, no haircut?" to which he says that there was an hour and half wait so he just said forget it. I said "really? At cost cutters? They can usually get you right in" He said "no, not at cost cutters, at another hair cutting place over there" gesturing with his hand towards a nearby shopping center. Then he said, I actually went to 3 different places and there was a long wait at all of them. I said "over there?" gesturing towards the shopping center" to which he answered yea. I asked if he wanted me to call and make an appt for him but he said no, he couldn't remember the names of any of them, he'd just go in earlier tmr. I didnt' say too much and after about 10 minutes, he says I really need to take my van into this car wash he went to, that they did a really good job. (I felt like he was trying to explain where he had been for 2 hours) He said that this car wash was all by hand and then you put your car in nuetral while it was being rinsed by a machine, and that for $11 you got the whole deal, including washing the undercarriage. I said " where is this car wash" and he told me the name of a major street in town. I asked what the name was, and he said it just says "Car Wash" in really big letters on the sign. I said hmm, we might go there sometime to wash the van. Then he told me how he had first went to another car wash on that street, but there was this huge deal with one of the employees, and so he ended up leaving there and went to the other one. He said there was an old man working there (around 60 but wearing much younger type clothing) who was being a real jerk to another of the employee, bossing him around, and calling him "new guy" (an aprox 45 yo man who walked with a limp and couldn't use his left hand much, looked like he'd had a stroke) My H, a lady, and a black man were watching this and getting angry about how he was being treated. Then the boss insulted the black guy, and he insisted on talking to the owner. (the black guy looked like a gangster, with bling bling, yet was driving a minivan) So the guy who had had the stroke gets the owner on the phone, and the black guy, then the woman, then my H all talk to him, telling him what a jerk the older guy is being to the employee. So the owner asks to talk to Nathaniel, the guy with the limp, and says he's to take the keys from the boss and wait there, that he was on his way over. Then my H said he left so never got to see what happened.

So while he's telling me all this, I'm having huge red flags going up in my mind, thinking that this story sounds really preposterous and also that when someone is lying, they tend to invent way too many details. So after H goes to work, I drive around to see what I can find out. First of all, there are only 2 hair cutting places within probly 5 miles of our house, let alone in that shopping center. One was Cost Cutters and the other one is a really froo-froo type of salon that old women go to to gossip more than anything. Neither of them said they had been busy between 2 and 4pm, nor did they remember a guy meeting the description of my H going in there. (he stands out in a crowd, really good looking, dark hair and skin, 6'3", 250lbs, in very good shape.. women notice him) So I start driving towards where he said he went to wash his truck. There were a few more salons on the way there, but by this time they were closed. I found 2 car washes on that street. One was a self service type and didn't look like it had an office, but I'm thinking of going back tmr to see if they have an attendant on duty. (let alone two, and one name Nethanial with a limp) The other one said "CAR WASH" in really big letters on the sign and in smaller letters advertised totally hand washing, and thought, well at least something checks out in his story. The building is set back from the road a little, so I pull in the parking lot. When I park in front of the main door, I notice that there is a small for sale sign on the door. Then I drive around back to the bay area, and they are all boarded up. So did he just see the sign as he was driving home from ?? and decided that would be his alibi, without realizing it was shut down? I didn't go to see if his truck looked newly clean, but will in the morning when he gets home from work. But then he could make up a story about how it got dirty at work, oh, and he actually just washed it yesterday! Why didn't I think of that before? Although he said he wasn't happy with the carwash yesterday, that it didnt' get very clean. So... I really need some thoughts on this!! This doesn't add up does it? Or am I just being paranoid? Where do I go from here???

PLEASE!!!!

Sorry, Suther...

I don't know what to say. You're home now? And you're focused on your H's honesty or lack thereof? You're fearful of what he's doing/not doing. All your instincts are honed in for the lie. Are you asking if you're right?

How would we know?

If you're asking why you have the compulsion of catching your H doing something to hurt you, maybe I could help.

What do you really want?

How do you really want to feel?

What will make you okay with your actions and choices...or stop you from addiction so that you can choose your actions and know your choices?

LA

I don't understand any of what you just said!! Yes, I am home now, because I didnt' have anywhere else to go, I ended up staying here. After a couple of days, he came into bed with me, and held me all night, tightly. And we've made love 2 times since then. (maybe I should say, had sex, though, because it wasn't particularly loving, but considering that it had been months since we'd had any kind of sex, this made me feel he might love me, or at least desire me a little) We haven't talked about any of this junk and he's refused to continue with MC, saying it was all my fault that our marriage has went through this junk. So yes, I'm wondering about his honesty or lack thereof. But isn't that part of what MB is all about? If you suspect the affair is continuing, you have to be on top of things to find out if his words match his actions. Not just to "catch" him, but because I have a right to know, so I can make choices based on the facts of our relationship, not on any illusions. Why would he want to create an illusion for me? Because I'm pregnant and he feels he has to at least be here for me during the pregnancy? Because he does love me, in his own way, while feeling entitled to an affair due to resentment and anger towards me? If any wife discovered such discrepancies in their h's story, wouldn't they wonder? I don't think it's a compulsion to "catch" him hurting me, it's just that I don't want to be a fool, believing lies. I'd rather know where things truly stand so I can better make decisions about my life and future.

I really am trying to look at this from the perspective of what do I need to do for me, for my life. Because I know I can't control what anyone else does, including my husband. But is it wrong to want to know if there is an affair going on?

Okay, Sutherland,

I can't tell you what is right for you or wrong for you. You decide. Your choice. Think about what you're asking...your gut says there is, you're taking action to find out, and you come here for validation. You caught him in online EA's and know if his past infidelities in his prior marriage.

You are watching his every emotion, mood, gesture. What do you want me to tell you?

Wanna play scenario?

Okay. You catch your H having an affair. Then what?

He has already been treating you, his pregnant wife, with withdrawal, DJs, AOs, animosity and rejection. Will an A prove that it isn't your fault?

Next scenario.

Your H is going to AA meetings behind your back. He's embarrassed and will be darned if he'll give you the satisfaction of measuring his progress, charting his course and telling him how he's doing.

Next scenario.

Your H is looking for a Valentine's Day present and doesn't want you to know about it.

Real scene: I can't tell you. You feel he lied. You have great radar. You gloss over that you just got back from having nowhere to go, disrupted your children, feel like you can't take anymore if you had any choice but your marriage...and you want to know if your H is the cause of your feelings of powerlessness, rejection and worthlessness?

If he is having an A, will that make a decision for you that you weren't willing to make?

I'm trying my best to help, Sutherland. I really am. I'm just at a loss. You have all this information on this website. You know your moods have greatly affected your life and you've made choices from feelings. I was attempting to show you how I stopped living that way. To know where your control ends and to be really honest with yourself.

LA

Yes, if he is having an affair, then that would make the decision for me, wouldn't it? I don't think that he is the cause of my feelings of powerless and worthlessness. I think I feel powerless because of my own choices to not have a back up plan, in case I needed to be on my own, for whatever reasons. I'm working on becoming more powerful and having more control over my own life, but that takes time. And in the meantime, yes, I would like to know if my radar is correct. I really believe that he lied about today, but as you pointed out, it could have been for very different reasons than what I immediately assumed. I no longer think that it is my fault that he has been treating me badly, even if he continues to insist it is. I know I don't deserve to be treated badly. And he is starting to treat me better, at least for the last few days. But it isn't good to be lying to me, even if he is being nice to me. So I'm just trying to sort my feelings out loud here, of what my options are, where I should set my boundaries, and what I can live with while trying to get my life together. Maybe by the time I get my life together, he will work his way through whatever struggle is going on inside of him, and maybe not. But no matter what I have to do, I will not stay here, even if only temporarily, if there is an A going on. That's why I'm so insistant on finding out. I know you can't tell me and I'm not looking for validation. I just have a hard time, sitting here by myself and trying to sort it out in my head, all alone, and just need a shoulder. That's all...

"Yes, if he is having an affair, then that would make the decision for me, wouldn't it?"

What decision would that be?

Why would you leave if he's having an A? Shouldn't he leave? Both stay? Both leave?

I want to give you your own shoulder, your own knowledge that you make choices, why you make them, and why no one makes decisions for you.

Wanna talk boundaries?

LA

The decision would be give him the choice, either he ends it and makes a committment to our marriage, by continuing counseling, and cooperating with MB, or he leaves. If he refused to agree to any of the above, then I would take legal actions to get him to leave while helping to support me and this baby. Without an affair going on, then I don't feel that I should make this kind of ultimatum. That I have the right to leave if I truly don't feel I can or want to accept any more blame or anger or neglect from him, but I don't feel it's right to try and get him to leave, when he says he is trying to work on our marriage, just that he's going very slowly. But if there was an affair, that would make all those sentiments about trying, insincere, and I would feel, in myself, right about asking or making him leave.

"Without an affair going on, then I don't feel that I should make this kind of ultimatum."

Why not?

Because my standards are such that anything in a marriage, short of violence or adultery, is something that should be worked on, instead of leaving. Not that that is always easy and by my actions last week of wanting to leave just because of the pain, I showed that I don't always live my standards, but when it comes down to it, those are the only two reasons that I would end my marriage. (at least when I'm thinking logically, not just reacting to the pain)

Standards are what you don't allow yourself to do to others.

You're saying that you won't allow yourself to take steps to seperate short of violence or adultery. Standards mean that you won't commit adultery or violence on your spouse. And if you do, you would dissolve the marriage.

Your standards and boundaries have to match, right? Balance.

Boundaries say that if your spouse does either one to you, then the consequences you would give would be legal seperation.

You have dealt with adultery already in your short married life. What were the consequences? You stayed and worked on the marriage, took in a lot of pain, felt a ton of rejection. How was that a consequence?

Maybe your consequence for an EA is different than for a PA? For little EAs...flirting online...then you ask that he stop his behavior and choose the marriage. If he doesn't? What is the next consequence?

Counseling? He was going, right? How was that working for you? What were you learning about you, about him? Did you feel safe? Respected? Hopeful? What are you measuring progress with? What kind of yardstick you got? Are you meauring yours or his? How can you tell?

In your individual counseling that you've been doing for two years (?)...what have you discovered about your emotions? Can you react to something someone says or does in the present with an intensely old emotional reaction from years before? Where you might have felt a tad frustrated in the present, instead you felt overwhelmed with combinations of anger, fear and pain?

Do you think you have to make right choices? Do you see all the choices you make every day?

Boundaries...what is violence to you? Slap? Push? A shove to get by? What are the consequences?

If you do it, what are the consequences?

Have you sorted out your pain, finding all of the layers to it? Can you identify really well what each emotion you are feeling is and where it is coming from?

I just realized that you moved out 10/19 and last week. Does it really stop your pain, this moving out, leaving? Or does it exacerbate it?

LA

Quote: "You have dealt with adultery already in your short married life. What were the consequences? You stayed and worked on the marriage, took in a lot of pain, felt a ton of rejection. How was that a consequence?" I don't know the answers to any of this..

Quote: "Maybe your consequence for an EA is different than for a PA? For little EAs...flirting online...then you ask that he stop his behavior and choose the marriage. If he doesn't? What is the next consequence?" Yes I think the consequences for an EA are different than for a PA. He did stop his behavior, as far as I can tell, and said he chose the marriage, but has since quit counseling and refuses to even acknowledge his part in our problems, blaming them all on me.

Quote: "I just realized that you moved out 10/19 and last week. Does it really stop your pain, this moving out, leaving? Or does it exacerbate it?" It helped my pain in October. I felt stronger, more in control. Like if he refused to quit the flirting on the dating site, then that's his choice, but I choose to not be working my butt off to pay for the internet that he does it on. And I choose to not live with someone who thinks it's ok to do that to me. But this last week, it made me feel more vulnerable than ever, to make that threat and that be all it was. To be unable to carry out what I said I was going to. I said that if he refused to continue making an effort to improve our marriage by going to counseling and showing some sort of progress, like by coming to bed at least one night a week or making an effort to spend even a few hours a week with me, then I couldn't stay in that kind of marriage, because he's not following through with the original agreement when we got back together.


Quote: "Counseling? He was going, right? How was that working for you? What were you learning about you, about him? Did you feel safe? Respected? Hopeful? What are you measuring progress with? What kind of yardstick you got? Are you meauring yours or his? How can you tell?" I don't know what kind of yardstick we were using. He said that he didn't think counseling was doing any good. I thought it helped at least because we could at least discuss things in there without it turning into a huge fight. I felt more hopeful with each session but he thought it was a waste of time.



Quote: "In your individual counseling that you've been doing for two years (?)...what have you discovered about your emotions? Can you react to something someone says or does in the present with an intensely old emotional reaction from years before? Where you might have felt a tad frustrated in the present, instead you felt overwhelmed with combinations of anger, fear and pain?" Yes, I tend to react with old emotions to new situations, even if just remotely similiar. I know that's what happened when I called the police on him. Because of the violence of my first marriage, his angry (but non violent) actions scared me beyond what it would probly have scared someone who'd never been hurt physically. I feel that I am getting much better about this though, and am learning to separate the current situation from my past, and react to it instead of the past.

I'd like to comment on this. I was committed to marriage no matter what. My H broke my arm when I threatened to call this woman who kept calling him. It was the week before Christmas. I had just abruptly weaned our 10 month old 12 days before because I had had surgery for childbirth related injuries that included a hysterectomy and kept me in the hospital 5 days. I needed surgery, that same month in that same hospital, for the arm -- because my ulna had been broken in 7 pieces. I had a cast or splint (removable only in the bathtub) up past my arm until after Easter. There were two additional surgeries as well, one at the end of February when the cast was removed and one in December -- a whole year later -- to remove a plate.

The broken arm did not affect my commitment to marriage at all. The exposure of the affair -- yes, the woman who kept calling him was doing a lot more with him -- nearly unhinged me.

What I have learned is that, if you tolerate neglect, you open the door to infidelity because there is no opportunity for your spouse to have empathy for you. What have empathy for a person you aren't around? In fact, my H saw me as the obstacle to get him to what he really enjoyed -- which started as golf and running and led to sex in the park.

Cherished

Thank you cherished. Yes, sometimes I feel as if physical abuse would be so much easier to handle than all these mind games, emotional neglect and possible infidelity. But how do you NOT tolerate neglect? I've tried explaining, reasoning, asking, even begging, then realizing I can't make him want to show love to me, I've pulled back, started working on myself and my goals in life, but other than threatening to leave if things don't change, I really don't know how to get him to realize how serious all this is. Even if it doesn't include outright sexual infidelity, all these lies, and the emotional neglect, still have a detrimental effect on our marriage!