This is a link to my original thread.

Jealour Wife or Legitimate Concern?


Sadly, I have to update you all and let you know that things are much worse than they were 5 months ago.

DH is still up to his secretive ways and is still playing the same old games.

The woman that he was trading IM's with was fired in October but he has managed to find a new buddy and this one is younger, very attractive, and single.

Also, I have nothing to worry about from the woman he sits next too. It seems that he has become disamored of her because she is his supervisor and treats him as a subordinate and he cannot abide that so she isn't as cool as he thought she was.

I also caught him trying to set up a lunch date a former co-worker on Myspace.

I am so sick of it all. It seems to me that it is all cyclical. We go through all of this drama and we have periods where things are supposedly great and then wham! I find out something new and shocking. I now know from information that I have read on MB and other links that this man is passive aggressive and that carrying on EA with other women is his way of punishing me because he knows how much I resent his female friends. Each and everytime we have a problem with a female buddy of his the end result of all of the discussions, tears, and drama is that he wants to know exactly what the boundaries are so that we can get along then he purposefully chooses to cross the boundaries in a relatively short period of time.

It's obvious that I am not fufilling his EN but I cannot fufill needs that I am not certain of. I know that one of his needs is to be complimented a lot and have his ego stroked so I try my best to thank him everytime he does anything around the house or with the baby. I tell him he is handsome and when he complains that he needs to work out I tell him that he looks great just the way he is. Other than that I don't know what else to do.

I have tried and tried to find out what he would like in me as a partner but he is incapable of sharing his feelings with me. He loves to pretend that everything is copacetic between us and pushes me away with silence or biting sarcasm whenever I try to talk about "feelings" with him. He will behave in one or two fashions: He agrees with me 100% then does exactly what he feesl like doing anyway or he poo-poos my feelings and says that I am always trying to complaining or arguing and tries to turn it all around on me.

We had an episode straight out of the twilight zone during the last week. After catching him trying to set up a lunch date with a former co-worker and having had a chance to meet the "buddy" from his job and seeing how uncomfortable they were together in the same room with me around I tried to resolve both issues. I decided that since he does not respond to angry out burst at all that I would try to be loving with him and gently discuss the issues with him.

I wanted to establish what we both felt was a good boundary etc. I raised the point of what do we both agree is appropriate behavior with opposite sex friend's as a married couple. I asked him to tell me what he felt was appropriate because I didn't want to act like I am laying down the law because I know he would rebel if I did that.

He would not tell me what he wanted he asked me what I wanted him to do. I told him I would not mind him having female friends because it is obvious that he will whether I want him to or not but that I want total honesty from him. I also told him that if they engage in any activity outside of work that I want to be informed and involved in that activity. Meaning, if he is going to meet a co-worker for lunch that I should also be invited and that I did not like the idea of them going off to have lunch w/o me because that would almost be like a date.

His response was non-commital he would not definitively say he would agree to what I said. I told him that I wanted to know for sure if he was fine with it because I only want what he is willing to give. He went off as usual and said I need to stop dwelling and focus on forgetting. Meaning, I just need to forget about him trying to go to lunch with his co-worker and I need to forget about the issue with the co-worker from the summer. He said that I need to ask myself if I want to be in this marriage becuase it seems like I am always focused on the bad stuff and might be looking for a way out.

Next he said he did not want to discuss "this" right now. I told him that would be fine but that I would like to resolve the issue so when would be a good time for him? He refused to give me a date or time. I asked him again and I said I want you to decide because now is good for me but it is not for you so you may choose whatever time and place you want to discuss this issue. He still would not give me an answer and said that he hoped that when we did talk that we wouldn't argue like this. I was floored because I never raised my voice or spoke to him in a dis-respectful tone of voice on purpose because my goal was for him to NOT FEEL attacked!

I am damned if I do damned if I don't. The only satisfactory behavior for me from his perspective is my acceptance of his actions with other females and my silence. He wants to do whatever he wants to and he wants me to remain cheerful and loving to him.

It was like the twilight zone and that is when I got mad becuase I realized right then and there that he had not taken anything I said seriously and was just going along to get along and fully intended to carry on as before and he had no intention of implementing any changes. I said thank you for bulls*tting me. I should have known better and that was the end of the conversation.

Later on he approached me and said he was sorry for being diffucult. I asked him "being difficult about what?" and he said that he was sorry for being difficult about the conversation and that not wanting to talk at that moment. He said that he was not bulls*tting me. I said I accept your apology and that I apologize if I was getting on your nerves but it seems that everything is difficult with you and that you like it be that way.

That was it he still did not want to speak on the real issue and managed to make it seem like the entire issue was about him not wanting to talk about the problem.

After that he acted like we never had the orginal converstaion. Nothing was resolved and he began to try to go back to being friendly like nothing had ever happened. I was feeling so confused inside. I still wasn't getting it. When we went to bed that night. I lay there and I couldn't help it. I started to cry. At first it was very quietly but after a while I was sobbing because I feel so much emotional distress over our relationship. It's the women and the denial that anything is wrong. It's the lack of communication and real intimacy. It's killing me. I want to run away from all of these problems. I was sobbing and it woke him up. Here is another episode from the twilight zone. He woke up and noticed I was crying and asked me if something was wrong. How could he even ask if something was wrong. I told him that I am very upset over all of these issues that never get resovled. I am upset because we are always pretending that nothing is wrong when there is an elephant in our living room. I am upset because he cotinues to lie and lie to me. I am upset because he insist on having these relationships with his female friends and co-workers that are super secretive and to the point where it makes them uncomfortable to be in the same room with me. I am upset because I don't know the person I am married to.

His response?


Nothing...nothing at all. He was very still and he had his hand on my shoulder. After a while he laid down and fell back asleep. He never said another word to me about it. In the morning it was like the conversation never took place. He had two days off and he spent them being jovial and acting like we had the best marriage in the world. He put extra effort in around the house. He woke up early did the laundry and ran errands and took care of the baby all day. His behavior is starting to creep me out and make me feel nervouse. How can anyone be in such denial? He is very out of touch with his feelings. I am frightened because if he can behave in the way then it would nothing for him to have an PA and act like everything is normal.

Gosh there is so much more.

I have been very calm because this has all fallen down on me like a load of bricks. I don't know what to say or how to handle this huge problem on my own. He has noticed and is acting out. It's like he is trying to test my response since I have not said anything else about what happened the night I was crying he is leery but putting on a cheerful front. He is trying to get some sort of a rise from me. He has been acting sexually aggressive even though he knows I am on my cycle. He has been fondling me and making a ton of suggestive comments. More for shock value than any real interest in sex is my opinion because he only seems to want sex when I don't want it or when we can't have it. He is making all of these comments about buying me a second x-mas gift which I do not want at all since I do not work and we cannot afford it.

What am I going to do?

I hope that someone here has the link to conflict avoiders. It sounds like that is what your husband is.

Bumping because I did something really stupid last night.

I am getting to a point where I am beginning to lose my cool and act very irrationally. Last night after WS went to bed I once again broke into his computer. He has changed some of his passwords but continues to use the same on for a particular email account. From there it was just a matter or requesting his Myspace password. I got the email and save the password and then of course I deleted it so he will be none the wiser.

Why did I find out that he has had contact with this same co-worker that I have a problem as recently as this week? The last exchange being on 12/19. The only incriminating thing is the nickname he called her is the same one he uses with me. Also she requested to add him as a friend but he did not add her to his friends list. I am assuming because he knows that I will see it. So it goes like this on 12/18 she requested him as a friend and I guess he declined for reasons he likely told her that I would see it and I am some jealous irrational wife. However, that didn't stop him from exchanging several messages with her proving that he is determined to lie in my face and do exactly as he pleases.

It was about 3:00am and I got so mad I walked out of the house. I ended up buying cigarettes and smoking which I haven't done since before I became pregnant. I just wanted to murder him. I got so angry I came back in the house and took down several pictures of us together and destroyed them and threw them in the trash. Next I took something he bought on the same day he was exchanging messages with her and threw it out the window. He woke up and came into the kitchen and asked me if I was all right. I told him to not speak to me because I was "this close" to losing it. I told him to just walk away.

Now I feel like a big idiot for losing my temper and reacting so strongly. I am at the end of my rope here. Today I feel like I really want him gone. I feel like telling him to not come home from work today to tell him that he has made his choice by continuing to lie to me no matter what. I feel so much despair like this marriage is coming to an end because I am the only one who is willing to try and do the work to save it. It seems to me like he wants to be married to me but he wants to have his flirtations and God knows what else alongside the marriage.

We are supposed to go to his parents home tomorrow and I don't think I can stomach sitting next to him and acting as though everything is fine when it's not. I feel like screw him let him explain why his wife is not by his side.

I don't have no idea of what to say other than my prayer's are with you, but here is what I think of your situation..

First, never let the WS explain the situation to anyone especially people that can help - his parents.

You have to get ahold of yourself - you have to set your boundaries - his lies and contact is a boundary that if you set should not be crossed. It doesn't matter if he sleeps with her or not, do you want to keep lookign for evidence or are you ready to confront and set boundaries?

If you think all he has ever had is EA's then you have enough for D-day material.

If you can't plan A - which needs to be done while the affair is going on, then you may need to expose before going to the inlaws and let your WS deal with the consequences... Either way you should go to the in-laws, with or without the alien

Make sure you have printed out or copied those myspace pages for your own documentation.... AND never give them to him. he might plan A you for a few weeks and convience you to give up the goods, but you have to realize your in a 1-2 year program now

Wish you the best

He knows what the boundaries are. He just chooses to continue to ignore them. I guess the writing is on the wall but I am in a deep denial here.

What are the consequences when he ignores your boundaries? Maybe you need to step up those consequences instead of just LBing him. Show him that those boundaries dare not be crossed. You need to stand up for yourself, he is walking all over you. He doesn't respect you. Gain back his respect without LBing.

Don't give up. What you are feeling now is normal and expected. I got so fed up with my ex that one Christmas, I threw all of the presents into the street. The neighbors enjoyed that one.

Now I'm happy again - minus ex.

Stick with us and we will help you get through this. I promise you that things will get better.

Everything you all have said is 100% true. I have sort of confronted him and this is the result because I am fearful. I keep thinking that if I lay the proof in front of his eyes it will make him leave and I have been afraid of that. Things have gotten to the point where living like this is much worse than having him just leave if he chooses to do so.

Most of us have felt fearful. The thing to concentrate now is working on yourself, and changing you. Realize that you cannot change or control your husband. But when you change, he will have to follow along.

After I made my changes, I no longer wanted my husband. I wanted a DIVORCE. But lots of people get through this with a better marriage than before.

I went back and read the original thread so that I go to really know the situation.

You can't change him; you can only become the more inviting prospect for him to have a relationship with and right now, your taker is so angry, jealous and fed up, that it's not going to be easy for you to be that attractive to him.

Take your focus off the women at work. They're not the problem as much as the conflict/conflict avoidance behavior going on in your marriage that prevents the two of you from having a marriage building conversation.

So you don't know what his needs are? Have you read His Needs Her Needs? One of the things that really stood out to me in the book is that when we're first dating, we don't know each other's needs at all. But we go for meeting all ten of the EN he's outlined - playing full on to make all sorts of deposits. You haven't been making any deposits in his love bank and your taker is so large and in charge that you don't particularly care because you're screaming about your own empty love bank and all of his withdrawls.

So - you're going to have to assure your taker that your needs will get met, but for now, this is a campaign to restore his love and caring for you, so that if you potentially bow out of the picture (plan b), you have enough deposits in the bank to remind him what he's missing by not stepping up and making deposits in your bank?

I hope this makes sense. But this is a proactive approach that will make this board much more useful to you - venting won't restore your marriage - plans and action will!

Great post, Kayla.......

Kayla you are correct. I am acting foolishly and allowing pent up frustration and rage get the better of me. Why would he want to work with me on our issues when I am acting like an angry raving lunatic? My anger is likely as attractive to him as his dishonesty is to me. It does go both ways. I got a gift certificate from Amazon and this time I finally have ordered his needs her needs and love busters.

I have to start somewhere before I go crazy and mess up everything.

It sucks that I am not allowed to just karate chop him in the neck and be done with it. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Read up on the Key Concepts link on the front page of the web site about Givers and Takers. It was written after the two that you have, but you would benefit from the free information here on MB about how givers aren't always good and takers aren't always bad - but you have to be aware if your needs aren't getting met and your taker is out of control, trying to stop lovebusting without a strategy to calm the taker is likely to be nearly impossible.

Work on setting aside all your concerns about his dishonesty for the next several days and create some wonderful memories with you and your baby for your husband to treasure.

I confronted WS with all of the information on the 24th.

I don't feel like typing out all of the details so I won't. I think he is just going along to get along as usual and that it is only a matter of time before he is back to his old tricks.

I am using plan A but I am not happy about it in the least. We had a very nice X-mas together and we have been very close over the past few days. I have not LB him at all and we have been having SF and doing a lot of things together. He is LB me every chance he gets and it's driving me crazy. I apologized for my angry outburst and told him that I can see from his perspective that my AO are about as attractive to him as his dishonesty is to me. I told him that I felt terrible for my AO and that I was going to work on that. So what does he do? He thinks it's some sort of joke to keep bringing up that I threw my x-mas gift out of the window even though after the first time I told him that I felt terrible about it and asked him very nicely to not bring it up again.

So what does he do? He brings it up everyday at least twice a day. He made a wisecrack about it on the 25,26, and today. The paper towel holder fell off of the wall and he fixed it but he had to joke and say" Next time you get mad don't rip the paper towel holder off of the wall." I said I didn't rip the paper towel holder off of the wall (I really didn't) and I wish you would stop talking about Sat already, it's not funny. Then he says "Oh, joke with me already." I got really annoyed and told him that I already told him several times that I was very sorry for what happened on saturday and that he promised to not bring it up and here he was throwing it in my face again.

I realized then that he has a double standard. I am not supposed to throw his past actions in his face but it's O.K to do it to me. Even when I tell him how much it hurts me and ask him over and over again to drop something he does it anyway.

I am quickly reaching my breaking point. I am starting to feel very very sick and tired of always being the one to try and fix all of the problems in this relationship. I now realize that I am simply married to the wrong man. We had problems long before we married and I was in serious denial from day one. All of my friend's hated this guy with a passion and thought I could do so much better. I was just so full of self-loathing that I refused to let go of the relationship and continually tried to work on it no matter how badly he acted.

Things haven't alwyas been bad but they are never really good for any real length of time. It seems that everytime we get our act together something happens and we are back at square one. At this point I don't even trust him when he agrees to work on the relationship. I think he is just agreeing with me and that he will be back to being a jerk in the near future.

I am coming to the conclusion that there is nothing that I can do that will change his behavior and he will never change and I will never be able to accept him as he is. It just popped into my head that I may be missing out on being with someone who really loves me and thinks that I am enough.

I love my child to death but I am very sorry that I had a child with this man. If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't! Right now I am full of regret and just beating myself up for getting myself and my child into this mess. The child doesn't deserve this and it's very unfair that the babe will likely grow up in a broken home.

I plan to continue with Plan A because I am not working and am not in a position to leave right now. I am working at something that will improve my financial situation but it's going to take about a year to finish. In the meantime I will just make nice with him as best I can and let him finish making his bed.

Just continue working on you. Might want to see a counselor to learn how to speak up to a bully. Bide your time, and get in the position to leave if you choose that route.

As you change, he may change too. But even if he doesn't, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried your best to save things.

Thank you believer. I am seeking IC because I want to feel better about myself. I am still going to ask him to fill out the questionnaires and read the books with me when they come. I guess I owe it to the baby to try and make the marriage work. However, if he agrees to do it (like he does in almost every situation) and then turns around and doesn't do it I will never bring it up again. It takes two and if he is subconsciously sabotaging this marriage because this isn't where he wants to be but he doesn't have the balls to just get out then I will give him what he wants.

How was he before you married him?

I hate having to answer this question because truthfully he was the same maybe even a little worse than he is now. I have no one to blame but myself for getting into this mess.

Well lots of us bought into the "Happily Ever After" dream. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Did your husband have a good childhood?

No, he is from a broken home. Funny you should bring this up but I just found out on X-mas eve the real reason why his parent's divorced. He had always told me it was because his father was in the military and his mother couldn't take the moving around or being alone when his father would go away but that isn't true. On X-mas eve the men were hanging out around the T.V and the women were in another room. His mother told me that she had never told her children but she divorced the father because of repeated episodes of cheating. Now I know she said that she never discussed it with the children and he was around 7 when they split for good but I wonder if he has no idea about what was going on? It seems strange that he wouldn't but I feel like I can't say anything to him because it's something that his mother told me in confidence and if he goes back and says something to her she will be angry with me.

I tend to think that most men who have a serial cheater for a father end up being serial cheaters.

It was another detail that made me feel like this might not be fixable.