I am confused as to why my husband is being the way that he is. He left me in July after several months of us being at a stalemate- neither one of us would really do anything to make our marriage better without the other one doing it first. In retrospect it was just sheer stupidity on my part, and I thought his part. The thing is is that I really do not want to not be with him, I still love him, even though we had a rough couple of years after we had 2 kids. He just could not seem to do anything with me, without the kids, and it was driving me crazy. I alway did like my family time, but I wanted to feel like a normal woman, not a mom, once in a while. So I just snapped one day, and decided that was that, if he did not want to do anything with me, without the kids, I would make him miserable too. Well, it worked. It worked so well that he is gone. I have tried everything to get him to come back, all of the things that you should not-begging, bargaining, telling him he owes it to us, our family, etc. But he has not budged on his position: He does not love me anymore, and he does not ever see it changing. I have recently started to go to marriage counseling by myself, and he is going to go by himself next week. He says to help him find a way to get it through my head that he is done with our marriage. But he will NOT file for a divorce. He every so often suggests that we do things as a family, and I was ok with that, but then I started to have hopes and expectations that this was his way of trying. He then would tell me that he just wants to spend time as a family, for the kids sake's. I want to do what is good for them, but at the same time it is killing me that he does not want to do anything with me, and that he will not consider trying to save our marriage at all. The marriage counselor seems to think that there is hope since he did not file, and since he still wants to see me on a social basis, with the kids. The marriage counselor also suggested that I not call him at all, and if he calls, or comes over I be nice and "sweet" to him. That was going ok, and seemed to have a good reaction, he seemed to want to be around me more, and was more pleasant to me, but still, no budging on his part. He does not want to be with me, he is enjoying his freedom, I am not going to control him anymore. I do not know what to do- continue having "family time" even though it makes me so sad after he leaves, or stop it. The marriage counselor said that my husband feels that I am controlling everything (he had seen the MC before) and that I need to let my husband "lead" the relationship.Which would also be that if he suggests spending time with me and the kids, I should say ok, and be nice to him when he is around. The problem is, is that I am seeing him not lead the relationship, but I see him having his cake and eating it too- he is free to do whatever he wants, but whenever he feels like playing house, I am sitting here, hoping, and waiting, and he is taking advantage of it. I also struggle with "being super nice, and pleasant" to be around when I am so upset and confused. I do not know what to do.

Sadmo, sorry you’re here, but welcome.

Your immediate question—what should you do?

That depends on what you want. Do you want life to be meet your idea of fairness, or do you want your husband to fall back in love with you? If you want the latter, I suggest you follow your MC’s advice, and read up on “Plan A” here on the MB site. You need to consistently demonstrate a dramatic change in behavior in order for your husband to feel safe around you. A feeling of emotional safety is necessary in order for romantic love to return. This change probably means you cannot express your feelings in any of the channels that feel normal to you.

My guess from what you’ve said is that you perpetrated a bunch of LoveBusters in your day-to-day married life. Usually a spouse accused of being controlling has used selfish-demands, angry outbursts, disrespectful judgments and independent behavior to get his or her own way. I know many people believe in sharing their feelings and “not bottling it up.” That’s fine so long as the feelings don’t come out as an angry outburst, but often “not holding it in” means lashing out.

Right now, even a carefully phrased “I feel hurt when you don’t want to spend time alone with me” could be felt by your H as pressure and control. He’s hypersensitive right now and he’s probably very anxious not to get sucked back in to the same misery he had before.

Now, about that misery…. You said he stopped wanting to spend time alone with you, and only saw you as “mommy,” then you set out to make him unhappy. My gut says he was already unhappy in the marriage and that’s why he didn’t want to do stuff with you. So, not only do you have to clean up the mess of purposefully making him miserable, you’ll need to address the earlier behaviors that unintentionally made him unhappy.

So, how do you do that? Read this site, and you may also want to read a book called The Surrendered Wife. Don’t let the title fool you. It’s not about subservience; it’s about letting go of controlling your husband.

The four principles of MarriageBuilders (Rule of Care--Meet Emotional Needs, Rule of Safety--Avoid LoveBusters, Rule of Negotiation--Follow Policy of Joint Agreement, and the Rule of Time--spend 15 hours alone with your spouse) are all equally important. However, in recovering lost romantic love, there is an order to them. No one will want to do spend time or negotiate with you if it feels unsafe or scary. So, the first thing is you must stop any and all behaviors that drain his love for you. Stop them completely and absolutely. Then, you need to demonstrate care. Meet his emotional needs… as he allows you. At first he won’t want to. Then negotiate using POJA. This agreement is that neither of you does anything the other doesn’t ENTHUSIASTICALLY agree to. If he says “yes” but the yes is causing him sacrifice, you don’t do it. But, if you are hurting him with LBs or you haven’t demonstrated care, your H won’t trust you enough to negotiate with you. Finally, there’s the time. This won’t happen until the LBs are gone and some ENs are met.

So, if I were in your place, I’d let him play house. If I thought I was going to lose my temper, or get surly, I’d take a quick run to the grocery store or something.

I know. The thing is is that I have been trying to save our marriage the only way I know how, by being honest, upfront (not mean), and by being receptive to him. Whenever I think that things might be going in a better place, he has to throw a wrench in it, for example, he would say that he was going to watch the kids for me so I could get my hair done, and then he would not call until after my hair appointment. This in turn would lead to an angry outburst by me, "why did you not call and tell me that you were not going to watch the kids? I never get time to do anything that I want to do!" This has been an ongoing thing once the kids arrived. I would have to do everything, and he would do nothing. I would tell him that if he at least would take me out, it would make me happy, and I would be able to relax more. He in turn would go out without me. I work full time, as does he, and I never was catching a break, and it was stressing me out. I tried talking to him, yelling, begging, pleading, reasoning. NOTHING would work. The thing is is that we used to get along so well, and now he tells me that he does not ever remember getting along with me. We used to spend so much time together, and after the kids came along, he started to go out, which he never did before, and I got stuck with all the responsibility. He would tell me that, "families need to do everything together, parents do not need to have all of this alone time." I would tell him that I needed it, I wanted to not feel like a mom.I was cracking under all the pressure of a job, cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, etc. And he would not help me. I just do not know if it is worth it to do the "Plan A" when he has not budged at all on his position of "I do not want to be with you, I do not even want to try to work things out. It is too far gone." It is so hard for me to just act like I do not care, and do the family time. Whenever we do the family time it goes well, and I start missing what we had. But I do not think that he is missing it, and then it bothers me. I am trying, and he is not trying, and I just so much want him to even throw me a bone and try. But, sigh, it is just family time to him, and he is just trying to "do the right thing" by the kids. I guess that the real thing that I need to know is HOW do you follow through with the plan A when the only time you see or talk to the other person is on their terms, and it just makes you so sad that they do not seem to care? I can do it for a week or so, then I crack, and bring up something that he has done that is not nice, or where he said he would do something, and he hadn't. I just need advice on how to continue to do the Plan A for any length of time, without jumping the gun, and either a.) think things are going really well, and then he will tell me, "I am so glad that we had a nice time. Even if we divorce it is good to know that we will get along well." (or something similar to let me know that he is NOT trying to work anything out- which is not said under duress from me asking him. Which just hits me in the gut, or b.)getting super frustrated that it does not seem to be doing anything to get him to want to be around me more, or want to do anything with me. Our marriage problems seem like they can so easily be resolved by communicating better, and by fulfilling emotional needs, but he is just not receptive at all- how do you know when there is no hope left if they have not filed for a divorce, but they are not trying to change anything???

Sadmo, Is there another woman in the picture?
Here’s what I know from my own experience. You can make him want to come back (provided there’s no one else) by doing it all and expecting nothing from him. You can make it so that he feels staying married to you is in his best interest. Hopefully, that will put him in a place where he is willing to change his behavior in order to stay married to you. He’s not in that place right now. He has no motivation to change, and since change is work, people usually don’t change unless very motivated.

My personal experience was that my xH began to enjoy being married to me, but my resentment built and built. B was unwilling to change the behaviors that made me miserable, and I ended up hating him. So you could do all this work and your husband still may not be willing to lend a hand and stop going out alone.

But it’s never a waste to learn to control your temper. It’s never a waste to learn new coping strategies for when people consistently let you down. For example, especially now, you should always make arrangements that don’t rely on him. Get a babysitter so you can have some adult time. If he offers, you drop off the children to him. Set the time and place up front, don’t wait on a phone call. And send him an email confirmation of the time and place. If he can’t commit to a time and place, thank him for the offer, but refuse to take him up on it.

Remember to use “I feel” statements. The tricky part of I-feels is they can’t be disrespectful judgments disguised as I-feels. In other words, you can say “I feel frustrated when you are unable to fulfill a commitment because then my plans end up in chaos.” But, you can not say “I feel you never do what you say you’re going to do, and I feel like you always let me down.” Those are simply DJ’s with “I feel” stuck in front of them. A good way to tell is the I-feel should be followed with a feeling adjective: sad, mad, happy, scared, frustrated, irritated, thrilled, threatened, anxious, etc. If the I-feel is followed by a sentence, you may be headed for trouble.

I hope this helps. I don't have any answers for you. I can hear how angry you are at your husband, and how hurt you are. I know it's horrible to feel that way.

Thanks for your advice. I am very angry with him, for him not telling me when HE had a problem with me. When our problems started, and I would try to talk to him, he would shut me down with, "that is your problem, not mine." I could not believe how cold he was being. When I would ask him why he would not want to have a better marriage, he would say, "I am very happy. You are the one that is not happy." So like a fool I believed him. So I kind of feel like I was duped. I gave him an ultimatum, either care, and try to resolve our problems, or leave. Well, he stayed here for a few months of doing nothing differently, and I finally just told him to leave, after much heated arguing.
I am mad that he will not try, and I am hurt that he does not see our marriage as being worth fighting for.
What I do not see is how I can motivate him to want to try, or change any of his behaviors. The MC thinks that we are locked in a power struggle, and I need to let my husband lead the marriage, but he is not here, so how is he supposed to lead it? It does not make sense to me.
No, I do not think that he is with someone else.
I do not know if I am in the right mind set to plan A him. I am angry with him, he does things now that purposefully antagonize me just to get my goat. It is very hard to be pleasant to him sometimes. The MC suggested that I just bite my tongue, and let him be a jerk, and then one day, he will be ashamed that he his being that way, if I am consistently being nice, and his behavior will change. I do not know if it would or not. I just want my old H back that I loved, and who loved me. I do not know this person that he turned into, and I do not see why he is being this way. I have been trying to be nice, but then on occasion I just cannot bite my tongue. I want to be nice, but I do not want to be a doormat either, and that is how I feel it is headed. If you are really angry at your spouse, can you plan A them? Or should you just distance yourself? He just seems so shut down to the idea of working things out, and so shut down to showing me if he still cares at all. He is very stubborn and prideful. I do not see how I can motivate him to waver on his, "I do not have to lift a finger here" stance, and have the nice, sweet man he used to be resurface. He keeps telling me that he wants us to get along for the kids sake's and do things as a family, so when we get the D, it will not be so hard for them. I have told him that that is not what I want, it would be too upsetting to be around him when I did not want our marriage to fail. He tells me that I am being selfish, and I need to think of the kids. He also says that he does not want to file for a divorce until he thinks that I can handle it. That is why he wants to get along, so when he files, it will not be that bad. I told him that it will not matter WHEN he files, it still will upset me, so if that is what he wants, he should just do it. But he has not done it, yet. I hate the waiting game.

Sounds to me like there is another woman. I would do some checking.

Sadmo, I do think you need to look into the possibility there is someone else.

Doing things as a family but not willing to work on the marriage is not unusual when there is someone else.

Biting your tongue is not being a doormat. If your husband says something abusive, you can say calmly, “Please do not speak to me like that.” If he insists, you end the phone call or leave the room. Or you can simply refuse to respond in any way, shape or form.

The non-response technique can be highly effective when someone is trying to get you to retaliate or escalate bad behavior. So, how would this look? You both are sitting in a park watching the kids play. He says something about how you let the kids run around looking like shaggy dogs and why haven’t you gotten their hair cut? You continue to play with leaf you’ve been twiddling in your hand. He then says “I don’t know why I bother.” You continue to twiddle the leaf. He storms away. You continue looking at the leaf. After a few minutes, you are free to do something else.

Were you a doormat? No. You didn’t accept his criticism. Did you reward him with the reaction he wanted? No, you did not. Did you do any of the things that really lose love points? No, you did not. Were you seething inside? Probably. However, in a very quiet way, you beat him at his game. You refused to let him control you simply by pushing your buttons. The beauty is there was no power struggle. You simply did give him power over you—You didn’t try to exert power over him.

One question I think you need to ask the counselor. Does the counselor draw a distinction between leading and controlling? If so, what is it? Would the counselor be able to share this difference and guide your H to leadership rather than control? Leaders are leaders because people choose to follow them, not because they coerce people to obey.

If the counselor can answer these satisfactorily, then I think you could eventually have a discussion about in which areas in the marriage you could take a leadership role.

This man has replaced you but cannot replace his kids. Focus on exposing the affair and let him deal with the fallout. I was too controlling, too. Lots of BSs are viewed that way by spouses involved in an affair.

My husband asked for a divoice Nov. 1st. At first I agree because he upset me. After thinking about and talking to my pastor about it.I came to realize that I still love him dearly. I want to work out our problem. He tells me no because he doesn't love me like he use too, but still loves and cares for me as friend. We have 3 kids over the 10 yrs of marriage. We been through very rough times together. He's tried of fighting, scared to say anything cause I might take the kids away from him, I'm controling,lack of commucation, and me pushing him away when he wants to get close. I now know that I have a problem with controling, lack of sex drive, lack of communicate. I've told him that I will go to counseling for me to help with my problems. He still doesn't want to try he says he is scared to get close to me again and getting hurt again by me. I told him that it will take sometime to fix my problem but he is'nt willling to try it. Then later I find out that he has feeling for a co-worker that has given him the attendtion that I haven't given him. He says they haven't done anything but kissed couple of times. He told me he wouldn't do anything with her until the divorce if final. Right now they are really go friends. Is thre anything I can do to get him to give us another try.

Sadmo,

Your H is behaving exactly like mine.We were married 6 years with three kids and then he just completely refused to do anything with me without the kids. Even when I would ask directly he would think up some excuse. Eventually he said that he was leaving, did not want to try to work on the marriage and did not want to go for counselling because it just wouldn't help anything. He however insisted that he didn't want a divorce although he had no intention of coming back home. The bottom line was that he had another woman. She was meeting most of his needs and so he had no need for me. However he still needed to be around his children hence the vists back home and having lunch and trying to do the domestic thing once in a while. Basically he was ensuring that all his needs got met by whatever means necesary.


So just as the others have said I would seriously look into whether or not there is another woman. I know how frustrating it is to have to do the happy families when he feels like just to have him walk out the door when he's had enough. If you don't look into the possibility of another woman you may not be able to find the correct way to deal with the situation.

If he has always been like that, it sounds like he may be Passive Agressive...agreeing to watch the kids and then backing out. You asking him to go out, and then he goes out with out you. You wanting adult time, him countering with family time. Anything so you don't get what you want. He thinks you are controlling, because you want things some times.

"People with this disorder resent responsibility and show it through their behaviors rather than by open expression of their feelings. Procrastination, inefficiency, and forgetfulness are behaviors commonly used to avoid doing what they need to do or have been told by others must be done.

A person with this disorder may appear to comply with another's wishes -- may even demonstrate enthusiasm for them -- but the requested action is either performed too late to be helpful, performed in a way that is useless, or otherwise sabotaged to express anger the person cannot relate verbally."

If it is recent behavior, then I would look to an Emotional Affair as the culprit.

No, in reality, I really do not think that he is having an affair. I have had a few people "check" on him when he was out, and he was with his guy friends, no women. I really do not think that is it. He seems to be very angry with me, and he has changed a lot of things that happened in our past to reflect me as this horrible controlling person. He will say that I said things that I never would have said. He is very fond as of late of telling me that he will do something, and, oops, something else came up. The thing that really gets to me is that I always BELIEVE that he is going to follow through with whatever it is, and then when it falls through, I get very sad and upset. I should expect it already, but I keep having faith that he will do what he said that he would do. The marriage counselor seems to think that at this point in time he is enjoying getting me upset, and I should just ignore his bad behavior, but I find it so hard to do.
As far as an emotional affair, I do not know about that. I thought that maybe that was going on, but now I do not think so. He has a group of guys that he hangs out with, all single, no kids, and every time he hangs out with them, he becomes distant towards me. I feel that he is being influenced by all of his single friends, living the fun, exciting single life, and I am no match for that, with kids and all. But the whole passive agressive disorder fits him so well. In fact his mom was telling me that he was always that way as a child. And I see that he is that way now. How do you deal with someone like that? It is just so frustrating. I think a large part of our problems started once we had kids, and he became overwhelmed with responsibility. Our marriage took a turn for the worse after our first child, and after the second one, it took a nosedive. I do not think that he could handle having to always think about them 24 hours a day. He liked to relax, and when I would suggest that we should each get a set amount of time a day to just do what we wanted to do, without taking care of the kids, he would say that he did not want to live by "rules and regulations" I would tell him that they were not rules and regulations, but merely guidelines to keep us each happy with having some time to ourselves. He has been completely unreasonable when it comes to trying to discuss anything, and it always turns around on me, since I am so controlling. Or so he says. It is just so frustrating. But the passive aggressive comment is so true. It fits him to a T.