i'm not saying i want out now, i don't.

nor am i saying i am sure this would be a deal breaker, although i highly suspect there will come a day when it will be.

i guess my first question is: am i wrong to feel that someday (after the kids are grown) if this does not change, i don't want to be married to DH any longer?

should any issue be that important?

because when i examine it, i realize that what i am saying is this issue is more important than the marriage.

right now the marriage is more important. but i don't see how i will be able to leave it that way long term.

do my questions above depend on the issue?

i suppose one would say, if you are talking about adultery, of course that is a deal breaker. well that is not the issue. (nor is SF, in case anyone is jumping to that conclusion)

but it does bring me lots of pain the way it is now.

and DH says it will not change. because the alternative would bring him pain.

so there seems to be no resolution, at the moment.

except for me to accept his decision. which i can do now.

but i really don't think i can accept it long term. is that wrong?

do i tell him that now? do i tell him how serious this issue is for me. doing so will just make us have to deal with "yet another issue" something he really does not want to do.

not telling him means i am not giving him info he needs to know.

will he be blindsided in 7+ years (youngest graduates HS then) when i tell him i want to go seperate ways now?

or, should i just leave this to God, wait 3 yrs and re-visit it then? that is what i have been doing. but it is becoming harder.

i know i have not said what the issue is yet. i don't want to right now. i don't want other peoples opinion about the issue itself taint their answer to the basic question.

should any issue be that important?

and if it is feeling like it is, how does an individual (me) change her opinion?

If there is something that you find unacceptable right now why wait years to reveal...you are already dealing with major issues...what is one more? Don't you want to know how things stand with all cards on the table? Why hold out at this point? Is it fair, honest, open to withhold information that could shape the future?

Don't know your sitch but after all you both have been through I would opt for honesty about your feelings...doesn't mean feelings don't change or that you have to act on them...at least your DH would know what he is dealing with and what you are going through

hi, thanks for sharing your opinion.

he does know that the issue exists. he knows the present situation is hard on me. but he is adimant that the alternative would be harder on him and that he is totally justified to be taking the stand he is taking.

what he does not know about how i at times think about how this is going to eventually become a deal breaker. and it saddens me. but it truely is an unacceptable long term situation in my eyes.

and what i am trying to explore is can i change that fact. can i successfully make my need go away?

can i live long term with the sacrafice it would require?

should i look at this as a long term pennence that i have to pay?

the same issue existed for the majority of our marriage. it was one of the issues that pushed me farther and farther away. and it was an issue that DH himself finally decided to "fix" and he changed his ways. and that was one of the significant reasons i wanted back into the marriage leading me to eventually confess. it was not the only one, it was not the top one, but it was a very big one.

and now the problem is worse than ever before.

but i do love my DH very much and I want this marriage to suceed. the cost is high in this area. the cost is very high and it pains me very much.

i don't want to pain him. which is why i was going towards the waiting 3 yrs before saying something like, "this is so important to me that if it does not change, i cannot stay married to you."

know what i mean?

I won't make the mistake of assumption.

But it is my personal opinion that if you do not address this issue, it will behave like a wound; it will not be easier to deal with later. It should be addressed ASAP. Let it wait, and it would be like letting a known heart condition just sit, without doing anything about it. What will result in lack of vigilance is heart failure.

Do not let this issue that you both know is a problem push you apart again. Don't let it fester and get infected over time. Take care of it now. If you are going to leave this big issue to entertain itself, it will just grow.

If this issue is one of the major reasons for conflict and drifting apart in your marriage, and you want this marriage to succeed, doesn't it make sense to not ignore it? If you do ignore it, then it would appear that you don't want to succeed.

In the long run, it will be best to not cap this issue and resolve it now.

Just my opinion.

Are you asking if marital issues other than infidelity are worth divorcing over ?

Yes IMO

Are you saying that if you are experiencing one of these without hope of resolution, you should tolerate this for ever as a punishment for your past infidelity ?

No IMO

Are you suggesting that if you are experiencing a dealbreaker you should tolerate it till your kids are graduated ?

Absolutely not IMO. I know a situation like this and the kids (18 and 20 when the parents divirced) felt like CRAP because they believed they were the reasons why their dad had tolerated a dealbreaking issue for longer than he need have.

Just be careful that you ar ecertain this issue, whatever it is, is a genuine dealbreaker. Don't threaten to D over it.

Do it or don't do it. And if you choose to D, do it as soon as you are CERTAIN there is no chance of a resolution.

All blessings

I think Radical Honesty requires you to tell your husband your future plan is to divorce him over this issue.

Sounds like you don't have closure.....even if you do, the trust factor takes a long time.

Will the M make it past the time when the kids leave? Yes or no. That depends on what you both are willing to put into it.

In reality, that question c/b answered now or later the same way. Bottom line is how much are you both willing to put into it.

If either one doesn't put in their share and look out for the interests of their mate, then eventually the M will fail.

So why not tackle that question now? Call Steve and get back on a plan.

I often wonder how spouses (Xws or BS) can say they want to save the M and love their mate, yet wonder if it will last.

I told my H that now I love him as much as he loves me. Hm...... guess who has t/d most of the work now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

L.

Hi all,

I was gone all weekend as well as monday and tues, kids had no school so i took off too.

"do it as soon as you are CERTAIN there is no chance of a resolution."

how can anyone ever be certain??? i wish i could be.

maybe that means this must not really be something that will ever be a dealbreaker.

"I think Radical Honesty requires you to tell your husband your future plan is to divorce him over this issue."

i suppose if i were certain, then i agree, i am so far from being certain about anything these days!!!

so for me then radical honesty requires i tell him that sometimes i think about how this might be a deal breaker one day.

but then i would have to tell him there are other days when i think that maybe the best thing for even me personally would be to think more like he does on the issue.

so time to say what the issue is... my extended family, 3 siblings (all older than me) and mom.

DH has made it very clear he will never see any of them again.

no one knew what occured prior to my marriage or what occured 5 yrs into the marriage.

one sibling knew all the gory details as it was unfolding as far as the internet goes. in fact, she is the one that first talked about chat rooms as she too chatted a lot, and eventually met someone, while she was married. her husband, now x-husband, was, and is, a very strong and mean alcoholic. she should of left him many years ago. but she never had the strength. her boys have suffered greatly because of it.

she was the sibling i was closest too, she is 4yrs older than me. and she was the only sibling my DH almost liked. so for him, she was the worst one to have been tangled up in this mess. he feels very betrayed by her. and i can understand why. i feel very disullusioned by it all. i looked up to her. but in reality she was not a good person to look up to.

then there is my brother, he is 5yrs older than me. he is someone my DH never liked because he felt he is extremely self-centered. DH knew about what occured when we were kids but i dont think he thought much about that, because i downplayed it so much when i first confided in DH about it (the first and only person i ever told until i was in IC a few years ago). but it is true, the oldest child, a boy, from an italian family, is a bit self-centered at times. and yet i believe deep down he has a good heart.

i beleive that of my sister too.

my brother didn't know much except one time we were having lunch, and i confided in him that my marriage was so messed up, that DH wanted nothing to do with me most of the time and my brother very carelessly and stupidly said, then have an affair on him (which was already occuring) so i then told my brother i already was. but that i was very unhappy. he was not equipped to help or advise me. so the conversation pretty much just ended with "i don't know karen". DH knows about the one comment and therefore feels betrayed by him too, and justified to never see him again.

this was a point in time when we were all so messed up over the extended illness and death of our dad. we all ended up on meds for depression.

the last sibling, a sister just 13 months older than me. she has been a mess her entire life. she has serious mental problems, hospitalized, on various meds, has even been given shock treatment. too much to explain there!!! she often causes much trouble, but i still love her, she is my sister. she knew nothing, but DH includes her on the blackwall list.

my mom, also mentally unstable. she was a single mom of 4 uncapable of adequately mothering anyone. she knew nothing and when she found out was very disappointed in me. however she also is on the blackwall list, as she is the mother of the others and therefore responsible for how poorly then (oh yeah, that would include ME too!) turned out.

so that is the issue.

for the past 3 yrs i have really isolated myself from them all for the better of the marriage.

but it goes against my nature. i don't believe in writing family out of your life. my dad did that to his sister, and we, as kids, lost our cousins because of it. i just think that is wrong.

i called my one sister, the unstable one, last night, just to say hi and she was in rare form and some of the things she said really upset me very much

and so i'm left wondering..... why do i care about my family???

and yet i do.

it would be so easier if i did not.

Wrong. It is not wrong to care about your family, but you must remember, as I did; forsaking all others means just that - forsaking all others.

In the good book it says you are to leave your 'family' and become one with your spouse.

Don't get me wrong, you still have an obligation to your family, but your marriage is to come first. I gave up my whole life, my family, friends, everything to move 1500 miles away for Stacy on a moment's notice. Even though my marriage has pretty much failed(not for lack of effort on my part). I still keep in touch with family, as much as I can.

My childhood was sorted. I know what it's like to have problems with/between my family and wife. But when I made my promise to her, it was to spend my life with her as the center of my world. Dr. Harley even teaches that for a marriage to work, no one, not family, not even your children, are to come between or take time away from your marriage.

is your H stopping YOU from seeing your family, or just avoiding seeing them himself ?

str8jktmn, thanks. i agree with you. marriage comes first. my immediate family, DH and my children come first!

bob, No, my DH is absolutely not stopping ME from seeing my family. (He does prefer the kids don't see them.)

That said, it is undeniable, it has definitly been better for our marriage that I have kept my distance. and so that is why I have choosen to not have much contact with them. I won't say i have not seen them at all in the past 2 yrs, but it has been extremely limited.

and here is the reason.... he would be ok with it but he would not want to hear anything about anyone, including nices and newphews. and so if i were to have much contact with them, i would have to be keeping it all quiet, know what i mean? and i just don't want to have any part of my life be secretive. does that make any sense?

and there is another part to it too, which is all mine to own. absolutely mine.

as far as my older sister goes. her and i were VERY close, very much alike, too much i guess. i still have problems thinking about how much i wish she would have knocked sense into me and if she could not do so, that she would have blown the whistle herself. that is what i really needed. i was hurting myself and she watched. now, i'm not saying i blame her, but i am disappointed in her. and i HATE feeling that way but i do!!!

and all that is so confusing to me that i must admit, i don't mind not having contact with her. because when i do it's too hard. ever once in a while we try to connect, but majority of the time i end up in tears. i don't know if it is because i feel like i lost something or if i cant admit to myself that i never had what i thought i had with her. and so no matter how DH fits into the picture, i personally have not figured out how to come to terms with all that.

times like now, tears streaming down my face trying to express it those feelings here, i realize just how much IC would really still benefit me. (or maybe the book pep recently suggested, i looked at it AGAIN in amazon)

the thing is, as i look into the long term future, there are weddings and births of babies (neices and nephews babies) and how will all that work? will i eventually be forced to have a "secretive" part of my life in order to not miss out on all that? will i have to contain my happiness over that sort of stuff? not share it with the person i am sharing my life with? see what i mean?

DH won't have anything to do with ANYONE on my family. I had an uncle and aunt come to town recently, my dad's brother. he knows nothing!! DH did not want to entertain them either. i did go see them at my cousins house instead, by myself, with everyone there wondering where is DH???

it's like he wants me to come from nowhere. and it was always like that. he wanted me in his life but would not accept my heritage. and that was always hard to deal with. i don't want to not have any roots, even if they are a tangled mess of disfunctional roots. i don't want to come out of thin air. does that make any sense???

how does all that get worked out???

Interesting. This strikes such a chord in my for my Wife's sister was fully aware of my wife's affair even though she did not support the affair she enabled it.

It's damn hard with family. For "friends" that do the same thing it's a no brainer. They get moved from your list of friends and added to the list of people you used to know.

But Family. Not at all simple.

I made a decision that for my wife's sake, we would maintain relations with her sister. Me - I'd cut her off in an instant but she is still my wife's sister. I maintain a cordial relationship with her because of this.

The more time that has elapsed, the more I believe this is the right decision.

I could have insisted on NC with her sister and my wife would have just stuffed it down. But you can bet she would have resented that and that resentment would build to breaking point.

POJA is a thought that immediately strikes me here. I do think it is a shame your H is taking this approach.

Why don't you write a details journal of your family meetings & events that your H can read if he ever chooses to ?

That way your family interactions will not be 'secret'.

Are there any members of your family that your H DOES see and get on well with?

And does he see and get on well with his own family ?

Does he force you to meet his family ?

See with ME, I don't wat Squid to have "come from nowhere but so many of her family are utter arseholes I don't care if I ever see them again or not. Amazingly Squid keeps on meeting them even though the meetings usually end up in tears or arguments.

I stay away from all but unavoidable family events.

However there are many folks in Squids family who are wonderful people, and we have embraced each other as family.

I'd be interested to hear of your H likes ANY of your family or if its a blackout.

Hey FL -

I agree that your H and kids come first before your extended family.

Sorry to admit I sort of skimmed most of these posts, so just to clarify, is it that your H believes your family is a bad influence on you and your children? I seem to remember that you were molested by your brother, so I can understand why your H wouldn't want your kids around him (or alone with him anyway).

IC would definitely still benefit you - my IC (who was also a family counselor) helped a lot by allowing other family members to attend my appointments, at no extra charge. That way we could discuss and work out interpersonal stuff (at one point, there were 5 of us in the room besides her). I also went with my son and his wife to one of his appts, which made a world of difference for some of the problems that were going on. I think it would help if you could do that at some point, at least with your sister. Just something to think about. Maybe if your family members got help, and were able to make some positive changes, your H wouldn't be as opposed to being around them sometimes.

I'm not online very often anymore, but I'm still praying for you -

God bless,
Rose

Some of FWW’s FOO and friends knew to one degree or another about her LTA. They did and said nothing all those years.

I do not attend her family’s functions, and I do not invite them to our house.

If they show up around me I am cordial for the sake of the general welfare.

That’s it. That will always be the extent of it.

I told each and every one of them what I thought of their actions, too. I wrote it down so I would get it right and stay on point. I handed it to them and explained it face to face.

I gave them a chance to explain, apologize or otherwise excuse their lack of ethics. Only one tried to explain himself. It was totally self-serving and exemplified amazing ethical laziness.

But I felt better for it afterwards. It’s why I can be cordial, I think. I know that they know what I think of them.

With prayers,


PS: I explained all this, Radical Honesty, to FWW too. She didn’t like it, but she understands, I think.

its late but i wanted to do a quick response, we are leaving early tommorow and i will have no access to internet again.

Bob, he does not, nor never has liked ANY of my family.
the ONLY exception was my great Aunt and Uncle who died many years ago. He will say he has been cordial and nice enough to them all in the past and I am sure there are some that do not know his dislike of them all. But I certainly do. He has made he feelings/thoughts of them all very clear.

yes my family was (ok, is) pretty disfunctional. I understand to an extent the view he has but he takes it to an extreme. he has a critical streak in him (he would admit this himself) that is quite frankly just not very nice. i on the other hand can pretty much turn a blind eye to almost any vice because i know how flawed i am AND because i truely believe there is good in all of us (ok, so i have a hard time including myself in that sometimes but that's another story!)

He expects the worse from people, and so he finds to worst.

The very first exposure he had to my family was my dad and step mom and i admit it was pretty pathetic. I was in college and called them to say i wanted them to meet a person i was dating. this is the ONLY time i ever did this. they told us to come over but when we got there they were working on the house (outside) and never even invited him into the house. they were pathetically rude.

and then he heard stories of me growing up and they were not very flatering of any of my parents (dad, mom or stepmom) and so he wrote off my entire family. lock, stock and barrel. there is one cousin of mine (ironically not blood relative because she was adopted!!) that i believe he would say he likes. we had dinner with her and her husband in the spring. he was ok with that and i don't think he even said anything negative about either of them afterwards.

he didn't like the majority of my friends or co-workers either. there was always something wrong with them... their kids were too loud or misbehaved, the house was a mess, ... he would be cordial to them but i would always hear about it on the way home.

as for his family, he likes his brother and parents. he likes the cousins from his dads side, very much although not all the cousin's in-laws.

there were problems on his mom's side. his mom and one of her sisters did not talk for many years. thankfully that has since been patched up. there is one cousin (from that specific aunt) that he does not like still. one that he was close to as a kid but due to their mom's falling out, their relationship got messed up too.

he does not like his brother's wife or any of her family. i can see his point. she is a bit self-centered and at times not very pleasant.

as for me. i am pretty easy. i don't love that one sister-in-law either (his brother's wife) she can be a pain and her family can be loud and obnixous at times. but i have no issues with anyone else. I like his brother, his aunts, all the cousins and especially ALL the kids <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> (i love kids!!) he has never had to force me to meet his family!

i like family. for better or worse, family is important to me.

Rose, so nice to hear from you!!! I do hope all is going well for you. Not sure if he thinks my family is a bad influence, he just doesn't think they are high quality people. never has. for our wedding shower, he fooled me because i got suspicious (the shower was at my sisters and he was not putting up a fight about going there, he knew about the surprise). and so i started to suggest we skip going (kinda to see his response) and he said great, lets not go. which convinced me it was not the shower.

but then i wanted to go and we had a big fight about it, i had to drag him there, he complained all the way to the front door. i guess it was funny, his strategy worked, i was very surprised. but...

as for my brother. yes there was bad history but i finally talked to my brother about it and that is now all water under the bridge. my brother responded very well actually. he swore he had no memory (he was pretty messed up and on drugs during that period in his life so i believe him) but he accepted my story as truth and appologized quite sincerly. and he has changed some since then, been nicer, more giving. to all three of us.

i know IC would be good for me. i am very close to setting something up with the harleys. DH is open to idea now. agrees to do one session per month. i'm draggin my feet a bit now. i need to get to it.

i'm praying for you too rose!! thanks for the hi.

aphelion,

i understand. i really do.

i am glad you are able to be cordial. i am glad you were able to speak to them all. i think that is good.

i hope in time you might be able to least attend the important functions like weddings, baptisms and funerals.

thanks for the post. time for me to get some sleep now!!

FL

I relate to your situation, really. Squid forgives her family anything, when in fact she has held ME to a far more stringent rule of behaviour.

Her family get forgiven for open abuse while I used to be "punished" for sayng one accidental wrong word.

Under those circumstances its hard to feel positively towards her family.

Some folks, like me and perhaps your H in some way, treat all comers in the way their behaviour dictates: i.e. you're decent with ME, I'm decent with YOU.

I just don't see how abusive or dysfunctional relationships can possibly add anything useful to EITHER party's lives.

I could visit with Squids middle sister who shafted me and Squid dreadfully despite our help in the past, but what would that progress? Another opportunity for me to be stung and for her to abuse or embezzle. Crookedness and entitlement are in her like sugar's in ice-cream so this is less unforgiveness than self protection, believe me.

So I stay away. She does too. Our lives are improved by the absence of each other.

My own sister and i don't get along. We're polite, meet at family events but no more. We have done nothing but fight when we have been forced togethr all our lives culminating and a particularly vicious bit of behaviour from her towards my mom when she was dying.

I don't wish her ill,I don't wish her anything. That we share genes does not make me behave any differently than if she were a neighbour who behaved in the same way.

I guess, like Squid, you can't understand my approach, just like I can't understand hers / yours.

Having said all that your H seems to be afraid of maintaining relationships with pretty much anyone, so I would say it speaks volumes about your current marriage problems of intimacy.

well bob, i read this way back when you wrote it. i just have not had the internal ability to respond.

i can't give you a good answer about what good it does to have a relationship with a person just because they are blood.

i just know it how much it hurts to not have any relationship with my blood family.

i'm sorry to say, i am not making any progress here.