Keep silent. Listen to what he has to say. When he is done, you can respond. For instance, if he complains about you not living up to your promise about the house payments, you can admit it, and say you are sorry.

I hope he comes. Otherwise you are going to be a little angry.

Last night H was suppose to sit down with me at 7:00 and tell me everything he is angry about. Well 7:30 comes and still H not showing that he is going to follow through on this assignment, so I take the bull by the horns and ask him, where he wants to do this at (car, outside, upstairs, etc). Finally he says outback. I tell him Okay, I'm going outside to wait on you. About 5 minutes later he comes outside.

Here was some of our dialog:

Me - What are you angry over?
Hubby - Everything

Me - Will you please elaborate on that?
Hubby - Everything

Me - I'm willing to sit here and listen to you tell me everything you are angry about.
Hubby - I'm angry about that to. It's like you are better then everyone else willing to sit here like this.

Me - The assignment is that you are suppose to tell me everything that you are angry about.
Hubby - I'm angry about that to.

Me - I can understand why the counselor wanted you to tell me what you are angry about.
H - I can't. What's the purpose of it?

Me - Because you are so full of anger that you won't allow yourself to open up to the idea of us working together to have a better marriage then we had.
Hubby - I'm just angry over everything.

Me - Everything that I do?
Hubby - Yes

Me - Are you afraid that if you release the anger, it might take some of the weight off you and you might start to care?
H - No reply

This went on like this for about 30-45 minutes. Absolutely No indication of what he is angry over.

I then told H, I share in the responsbility of why our marriage got to this point but I will not take responsbility for the affair. I then said, that our marriage got to this point because WE were not meeting each other's emotional needs. I asked him if he knew what his emotional needs are? He replied NO. I asked, do you believe we could have a better marriage then we had before. He said Yes. I told him that if he would look at the EN questoneer I gave him it might be able to help him determine what his EN are. No reply on if he would look at it or not. (I guess I have to look at this as planting the seed for him to look at it).

Since H wasn't willing to talk, I told him, that the marriage we had before is dead. That I am not willing to settle for that type of marriage again. I said I belive in US. But in order for us to work on a better marriage he has to remove the nails from the door he has locked. I told him one of my top 5 emotional needs is conversation. That when he shuts me out he is continuing to hurt our marriage.

Conclusion of last night, H is still angry, not willing to share what his angry about and I'm still as lost as ever.

Hubby Wins. I don't think I can do this much longer. No matter what I do, he doesn't seem to want to remove the nails from the door around his heart. I have to get through one more week of this, hopefully then son will be on first shift and I won't be needed as a nighttime babysitter. I'm really going to have to start saving as much as I can. At this rate, I will be the one to move out.

So much of me wants to say "H*** with it". I can't do this alone. He is just so angry so no matter what I do or say or don't do or say it makes no difference.

One of the things I hear H saying is, He is tired. I did some research on the net and found this on conflict avoiders. It seems to fit.

The problem is that unresolved conflict will drain our energy, it will hinder us on our path to fulfilling our destiny. Unresolved conflict can lead to unforgiveness.
By shutting out the conflict, the avoider shuts out the solutions too.

Leslie,
I have to admit I chuckled when I read your dialog...maybe not chuckle but a grin of deja'vu. It sounds like the exact same dialog my WH and I had just before I contacted the lawyer to start D proceedings.

No offense to the MC but I think you were given bad advice. You read on here all the time about how after NC is established and WS is in withdrawl to avoid R talk. That you have to start spending time together for LB deposits that will allow for a feeling of safety for WS to open up.

I'd wager a lot of his anger is at himself which of course he projects to you. Can you image that you had done a beastly thing, emotions are in turmoil you are confused and you are not use to dealing w/ emotions at all...then be asked to put them into words. it might just be too soon to be focusing on all this emotional stuff especially w/ CA.

Have you talked to Steve Harley?

Leslie - It is waaaayyyyyy too soon to expect anything from him. With your top need for conversation, I suggest you join a women's support group. I don't see your WH ever filling that one.

Ditto that. On some level, he probably realizes that his anger toward you is irrational and unfair. Verbalizing his anger will expose that. Not verbalizing makes it easier for him to continue to blame you and thus avoid taking resonsibility for his own actions and choices.

I agree with ChaCha, Leslie. As I said at the time you first spoke about this "assignment," I was surprised the counselor decided to deal with all of the problems of the marriage before dealing with the infidelity first. I hoped he'd seen something but, in light of WH's reaction last night, I'm pretty sure it was a tactical error to try to get WH to open up on so vast a subject just now. That having been said, I don't know when would be a good time either.

I see a lot of petulance in WH's words and I hope it's part of the withdrawal process. That he is mad about “everything” concerns me, but it might just be fog-speak. There is so much pent up inside this man though. At this point, you may well be getting the blame for that birthday party he wasn’t invited to in the 3rd grade. He’s very much projecting his anger and focusing it all on you. He’s not going to be very good at introspection for some time.

If there’s to be a breakthrough in this, I think he’s going to have to do a big turnaround and start opening up during MC. If he’s left to his own devices, as these “homework assignments” do, he will let them slide as long as he can, then react badly when he’s finally faced with the necessity of doing them. A conflict avoider naturally resents being called to task and made to face a personal conflict. It’s what they do--it defines them, I think. Your counselor has his work cut out for him getting WH to open up and begin communicating.

Believer is correct. I don’t see how your WH is going to meet your need for conversation anytime soon. Let’s face it. He hasn’t been doing that for a very long time now and he’s pretty well set in a comfortable pattern of not communicating much at all. I don’t know what can break that pattern.

Whatever happens, Leslie, don’t move out of your home. Beyond the legal implications, you deserve to have your things around you. You have not done anything wrong in this. You shouldn’t punish yourself for it by making yourself relocate.

Hang in there as long as you can, Leslie. Come out here and vent as often as you need to. This is the time in Plan A when the betrayed spouse is called upon to sacrifice a little of themselves in order to let the wayward spouse heal a little. Unfortunately, the time for the betrayed spouse to heal their wounds comes later. This is the hardest time for you. If you can stay with it a few more weeks, the dividends for your sacrifice can be enormous. We’re with you, Leslie. Come talk to us whenever you get the urge, okay?

No ChaCha I have not talked to Steve. Unfortunatly it boils down to finances. Since I'm in Limbo Land and not sure which way things are going to go here, I need to keep some money in my bank account. Granted there is not much there.


Believer, Isn't a spouse suppose to be willing to meet our EN's? To not expect or hope that he would attempt to try seems against MB HN/HN principals. Now, I agree he may not be ready right now, but to say you don't see him EVER filling that one? That confuses me. Does it then make all of my EN irrelevant?

Peach - Thank you for your reply. I do think H is projecting a lot of anger on me that is not warranted. As long has he can manage to hang on to the "anger" then he to some degree has provided himself a way to keep from loving me again. The difficult part is working our way through the anger since he doesn't seem to want to let it go.

LH, I did find out that H thinks anything other than talking about the weather is harrassament.


The biggest problem is my having the strength to hang in long enough to find out. The daily rejection from him is not easy to deal with. You have to remember this has been going on for a long time. Even prior to posting here. I asked H why he came back, His reply was "I thought things would be different", My reply was "Have you done anything to make them different". He replied No. Yet he agrees we can have a better marriage then we had before. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I guess that means he just doesn't want to do anything about it.

[quote]Whatever happens, Leslie, don’t move out of your home. Beyond the legal implications, you deserve to have your things around you. You have not done anything wrong in this. You shouldn’t punish yourself for it by making yourself relocate.[quote/]

Right now the thought of moving out is beginning to sound better and better. The peace, the quiet, being able to be me (whoever that is). In TN desertion is not a factor until one has been gone two years. If I do decide to move out I will talk to the attorney first though.

I keep hoping that MC'g will start to turn things around. That is the reason I am hanging on. I know that if I move it will be because I can't continue with trying to make something work on my own and I will stop going to MC'g with H. At that point I would transfer over to IC'g.

The thing is I know in my heart that if I take the step and move out our marriage is over. It will be by my choice though.

Okay I may be slow lately, but I honesly believe that H will never let go of his anger, because as long as he is angry at me he doesn't have to take responsbility or accountability for the condition of our marriage.

I plan on bringing this up in MC this Thursday, and see what happens then

Leslie:

Your H admitted that he is in withdrawal, missing the OW.

If my personal experience with this helps at all, withdrawal for my FWH took a full 6 months.

During withdrawal, the Harleys recommend MINIMAL Relationship talk which is much different than the approach being used by your therapist.

During withdrawal, my H remained FOGGY. When asked a question about his EMOTIONS, he remained clueless and, as I said before, HIS ACTIONS SPOKE LOUDER THAN HIS WORDS.

I think asking your H to talk about HIS FEELINGS right now is having overly high expectations for him...for him to do this NOW..when he didn't do it prior to the affair?

Does this counselor have training in helping marriages recover from affairs? I think it takes special expertise and experience. Plus, from my reading and experience, it is extremely difficult for most men to openly express their emotions, especially when asked directly about their feelings....

I still say during early recovery it's best to focus on the present and future and on simply being with each other....

My opinion..based on my personal experience..yet I still say that your H has features much like my H's..if pushed to express his feelings, my H would have imploded and fully withdrawn from me...

He has done this VERY SLOWLY..in his own timeframe...

Just this morning, surprisingly expressing his feelings about our sons who MIRACULOUSLY gave him LOVING Father's Day cards..in their own handwriting saying, "I LOVE YOU, DADDY"....

This has taken almost 3 YEARS..and it seems that you are wanting this to happen within days/weeks...

MiMi,

Thank you for all the help you and so many others are giving me here. I promise I am trying, but my head is starting to hurt so much from beating it against a brick wall. My memory is shot, and now my health is going downhill. I've lost about 20 pounds so far (went from 140 down to 120) the only reason I can continue to work is because most of my job is so repitiive.

Everything going on now is turning me into something I don't even like. I no longer laugh, I no longer smile, The tears are back as bad as they were on DD.

I have no choice but to think that H is still in contact with her even though he says he's not. He has not given me the password to the cell phone account, (matter of fact he said it makes him mad that I want it) (I haven't even asked for password to e-mail yet, was going to cross one hurdle at a time).

Strange though he said he lost his phone, and cancelled my phone (now he did cancel mine because I get the recording) but why not just cancel his also if he lost his phone? (something smells fishy here)

Maybe in a few days I may think differently when I get over this funk and cold that I've got (going to the doctor this afternoon - hoping I caught it before it goes into pneumonia).

BTW - did you have a good trip?

Leslie,

I'm so sorry to hear about your health. Of course, you have got to put your physical well-being first. I believe in trusting your gut so I would agree that he most probably is still in contact with her. He does not seem to be sincerely working on Recovery in my opinion. I certainly understand how it feels to be beating a brick wall.

It smells like a FALSE RECOVERY to me. You just have not caught him in anything.

So, in my opinion, the first issue needs to be your insistence on an OPEN BOOK policy. I was leary about you pussyfooting around on this. For me, this was a nonnegotiable this last time around. If my H was not willing to do get rid of the secrets, then I knew he was not serious.

If I were you, I would make this the first and only point of discussion during the next marital counseling session or else I wouldn't return. That's just me these days. Encouraging your H to talk about his feelings now seems useless is he continues to be in contact with her and/or refuses to commit to the marriage. If this is the case, counseling sessions turn into means to enable the affair or to blast the BS...YUCK!! Tha's why I was thinking that this counselor does not have experience with waywards...especially waywards who are foggy. Your H smells foggy to me....

Maybe time for PLAN B..to safeguard your love for him and most importantly, your health...

My trip was wonderful. My life is wonderful. I pray the same for you.

Hugs to you, Leslie!!!

MiMi

H is minimally working on the relationship, (wearing his wedding band, going to MC, sleeping in same bed) and that's about it.

The only thing that is preventing me right now from the insistance of the cell phone bill is that I know H won't leave again, (so I will be forced to) right now I have to be here to watch my grandson. As soon as son transfers to first shift (hopefully on Monday) then I will insist on the cell phone information.

Right now H is not serious about anything, he says he is to angry to know what he wants. When I asked him on Saturday if he wants a divorce, his reply was "NOT TODAY". <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> I told him that I believe in us and our marriage. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

He says he is "tired". I'm sure holding all that anger towards me is tiring. I found this on a website: The problem with unresolved conflict will drain our energy. By not dealing with the conflict, the avoider tends to lock up anger, frustration and hurt inside. These unresolved feelings often lead to a major emotional blow up. No Wonder he is tired.

I still think the counselor is a good one. H doesn't like him (#1 cause he's male, #2 cause he gets in his face - not true, counselor sits about 10 feet from us) I think it's just that he is hitting to close to home with H.

MiMi, The question I have is this,[color:"red"] I agree H is in a "fog" and / and or withdrawal Can H honestly commit to the marriage when he admitted in counseling almost 2 weeks ago that he misses the OW? [/color]

Another thought here, do they ever milk the fog and or withdrawal for extra attention? For example everyone says NO relationship talk now, Plan A H, (this gives them extra attention) and in my case, H is not doing much to work on the marriage.

Are you taking anti-D's?

First of all, Believer is right. When you see your Dr., ask for an AD. Those pills are lifesavers...were for me. Recovery is hard..the hardest part for me.



Oh, Leslie. I know how hard it is to accept..but your H had a RELATIONSHIP with the OW. His feelings about her just can't abruptly end. So, I see it as BEHAVIORAL. Yes, he can commit to the marriage, evidencing the behaviors that indicate commitment. I know I'm flip-flopping here but you filled in some blanks. He is doing some of the necessary BEHAVIORS..sleeping in the bed, wearing the ring, being at home, being there with you, going to counseling.

However, it will take MONTHS for him to be over her..longer than that for her to be completely out of his system....

IMO, there's much, much, too much relationship and emotional talk going on for your H...He's probably overwhelmed by all that he is trying to do...get over her..show a commitment to the marriage...

I read somewhere recently, in the book, LOVE AND RESPECT, that a man gets ANGRY when he feels FORCED to talk about his feelings....

He does need to be open, though. He needs to evidence a PLAN to prevent contact. Do you think your counselor will help you with this if you ask?

Believer,

No I am not on AD's. I am terrified to get back on them. Once before when I was on them by the time the DR finished prescibing meds to me I was taking 11 pills a day (he had to keep giving me pills to counter the side effects) I tried committing suicide.

I had never attempted this before and I truely believe it was the meds that made me act on the thoughts. Additonally I know how H is against AD's, in his mind Mental Illness is not a true illness. It's simply someone choosing to cop out on problems and mask them with meds.

H definatly gets angry when he is forced or when Relationship talk is brought up. For example - tonight no R talk and he's fine and we were having idle chit chat. (of course on my part it's forced because I am one that wants to deal with issues and be done with them) however I have decided at least till Counseling I will not be doing any Relationship talk.

Depending on what I find out about my son's transfer to first shift will determine what I bring up in MC. I have to make sure if I tell him that I have to have the password to the cell phone account that I state it as a boundary with me. My boundary on that one is if I don't get the Cell Phone Info then more than likely I will go to Plan B. (This will require me to move out as I know he won't move out again). So I have to make sure my ducks are in a row as far as my grandson is concerned.

Plan B scares the bejesus out of me but if the alternative is living in a marriage like we have now, then Plan B is a necessity.

I'm scared that if I go Plan B, H will run back to OW and all hope of us is gone. In my heart I know that if H is still seeing OW or returns to her, it's over on my part. No if's ands or butts.

For whatever reason at least so far, Counselor has been to some degree babying H in sessions. I guess he's trying to gain his confidence. He was able to get H to admit that it was an emotional affair and that H still misses OW. What makes me wonder though when I asked H if he was ever going to tell me about OW he said NO. That kinda tells me he had NO LONG term plans with her.

I know the counselor's thoughts are we can't work on the issues in the marriage until H is able to let go of his anger. The counselor is concerned that if we talk about the affair right now it will push h ever futher back. In the mean time it leaves me with so many unanswered questions. I know I may never have all the answers I need but I can hope that someday he can be open and honest enough to know that I need some things answered in order for me to be able to forgive.

Do you have a copy of the book Surviving an Affair. I encourage you to get it and read the section on Recovery.


Just being with my H..doing idle chit chat is EXACTLY what I did for several weeks during early recovery.

Why do you need for this to go so FAST, Leslie?

Dealing with these issues quickly and being done with them? I don't think that's possible.

Setting your boundaries..expecting openness and honesty regarding his means of communication..developing a PLAN to avoid ALL contact with the other woman..YES..

These are the tasks of EARLY recovery..



The key word is SOMEDAY...

That day may even be in the next couple of weeks..but now is much, much too soon...

Yes Mimi I have the book SAA, guess I need to get it out and read up on Recovery. I just don't see us in Recovery right now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />


I would have to say that I am starved for attention from H, just to have him act like he cares even a little bit. Obviously it goes without saying he's not meeting any of my EN now. I don't see how one is expected to put their own ENs to the side? Wasn't my not meeting h's EN's a contributing factor to the deteriation of our marriage?

H has always been a "loner" and prefered no one from the outside. When I use to try to have friends over, my friends felt like he didn't like them because he was always so quiet. I would have to explain to them that was just how H was, that it didn't mean that he didn't like them. Now me on the other hand, I'd enjoy having friends over to grill out, play cards, talk, or just have fun together. Anyway the point of this is eventually H would up driving my friends away. Sure I could have gone out with them or had a friendship just not brought them home, but that wasn't what I wanted. The friends I am referring to are married couples and it would have been to awkard for me to do that w/o H. So now, I have NO friends that I have outside contact with (sure a lot of work friends) but only one I would socialize with outside of work, (but she's married and has young children at home so she can't get out). No Family in area. Basically I have my H, sons, and grandson. I just want to feel like I matter to someone. (Right now, I know I don't matter to H, Oldest son has his own issues and only needs me for a babysitter, Youngest Son only needs whomever is willing to buy him what he needs when he needs it. So when I say I am starved for attention from someone that's exactly what I mean. (Sorry if this sounds like wineing, got any cheese?) I was just trying to explain why I have a tendenancy to rush things along.

You know it's funny I really don't want to know that much about OW, but they are a few things I want to know. If he would ever open up and share with me I would feel he was truely commting to working on the marriage.

I will get out SAA and reread "Recover" as soon as I get my 4 homework assignements done.

H has school tomorrow night (yep have driven by OW's house on school nights to see if H is there and he hasn't been yet) then I'm hoping to stick to my idle chit chat on Wednesday then Thursday morning is our MC.

Thanks again MiMi <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi Leslie -- Sorry your planned talk didn't go the way you had hoped. I was concerned that would go too far the other way -- where he's spend the time berating you.

What are your plans to tell your conselor? What we asked for very directly and what our MC was very good at, was to listen to us go through one of our discussions, and coach each of us through it, so we could LEARN the counselor's expectations of just what "talking to each other" entailed and didn not entail. This worked for us after several sessions. In fact, we agreed not discuss ANY R talk until we were with her.

That was good, becauase he hated talking about it all the time, and he could relax a bit, and I learned better impulse control.

Learning this way has helped us immensely and gotten the big issues on the table.

Your MC has got to listen to you two interact and coach you BOTH through on how to proceed so that issues are resolved. Again, it was essential to us, and trying it on our own didn't get us very far. In fact, it impeded our progress.

Let the counselor ask him why he answers. Then he'll answer. Good luck and hang in there the best you can!
Shellybird <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />