His dangerous and unstable behavior is not acceptable. Nor is this infidelity support board equipped to advise you on next steps for helping your husband's emotional health, His behavior is severe and requires a professional intervention. This IS more than infidelity, this is bordering on criminal.

You should leave and take your children to a safe place. Do NOT stay there. Before doing so, you should take those guns in your house and give them to someone you trust for safe keeping. Hiding them WITHIN the house is not a guarantee he won't find them. You must know that.

Please read this post in the serious tone its intended.

I'm praying for you.
Jo

Take your children and leave, or get a restraining order - tell them that he waves guns around when he is upset.

One of my son's friends from Highschool was just killed by her boyfriend waving a gun. It accidentally went off and this beautiful 25 year old girl is DEAD. The boyfriend is in jail.

You cannot subject yourself to this kind of behavior.

Please listen to what you are being told here. You have been given some great advice which could save your life. All I have to add is do not mistake threats of suicide as love for you. IMO, threatening suicide is a very manipulative and selfish act. No good can come of his behavior. You must be strong and smart right now, if not for yourself then for your children. Remember WS's do not think rationally. You said "I am not concerned that he will try to hurt me with it." Is the thought of him hurting you with a gun any more unbelievable than the thought of him having an affair with your bestfriend. I am new here, but have read about the wayward spouse being in a fog. I also think the BS has fogged thinking during this time. If one of your daughters called you in 20 years and told you her husband had done what yours just did what would you tell her to do?

TW, please get you and your children away from this man before he does something stupid. You will never forgive yourself if he hurts you or them accidentally... or if they see him do something to himself. It will scar them and you for life.

Better yet, call the police, have him removed from the home, change the locks, get a L to file a motion for temporary sole custody, and make sure he understands that you cannot allow him to come back as long as he is behaving this way around you and your children.

Tigerswife - The man I was telling you about had a history of waving guns around. Nothing ever happened, and his friends were used to his irresponsible behavior.

On Christmas Eve, somehow the gun went off, hitting the girl in the heart. Needless to say, it ruined everyone's Christmas, and many, many lives.

This post may sound harsh and I apologize but you need to hear it.

What else is totally unacceptable is you staying there with your children and placing their welfare at risk when you know there's guns in the house and your husband is emotionally (if not mentally) unstable.

They depend on you, as their parent, to keep them safe. PLEASE do the right thing.

God Bless,
Jo

You know, you read every week in the paper about some guy that kills his family and then himself. I have to wonder if those wives felt like you do tigerswife?

You need more help than this board can provide I think. I think you need to remove yourself, and most definitely your children, from a potentially very dangerous situation.

Get yourself to a safe place, please. If he wants to kill himself, he will. That would be a tradgedy, but don't give him the opportunity to take you or the kids with him.

Florida Tragedy

I am acquainted with a friend of the family. This sort of thing happens all the time, unfortunately. No one ever sees it coming.

Things can be slow on the weekends especially. Plus, people like tst and I are here somethings hoping to offer some help to someone to make good of the ****** we've been through. BUT we are also working through our own pain and hurt, and trying to rebuild our own marriage. Sometimes I NEED him. And sometimes he NEEDS me. I'm sorry your husband was discouraged.





What could be more serious than committing adultry with your best friend??? Uhm, his comment makes NO SENSE.

Unfortunately, the people here are all too familiar with your situation, although we wish we weren't. And although the details may be different, your situation is still pretty typical. AND what is most important, although we may not understand the intricacies of your relationship, we DO know Dr. H's program to HEAL AND RECOVER FROM INFIDELITY. And that is why you and your husband are here, right?

But you both have to be willing and committed to do what is necessary.




He can make all the excuses he wants to. But until he OWNS he CHOICE to [email]scr@w[/email] your best friend, he is still foggy and living in denial. He is choosing to step up, be a man, own his sin, and repent. You see, until you can't really repent when you are still making excuses. He sounds like Adam in the garden. "It was all the woman's fault." Uh, that didn't fly with God back then, either.




You SHOULD BE very scared. He is so absorbed in his selfishness that he was willing to terrify you to get you to quit demanding what YOU NEED to HEAL from HIS BETRAYAL!







COMPLETELY UNSAFE????

So was your reaction, TW.

WHO is protecting the children????

You staying there was just as unsafe as him waving the gun!






Yes, you are doing something wrong. You are allowing this childish, dangerous behavior without enforcing a single boundary.

You can TELL him that is unacceptable all you want. But your ACTIONS told him that it IS acceptable.

No, you are NOT being too hard the man. He f*cked your best friend...and he CHOSE to do it...MORE than once. He chose to lie, to deceive, to covet, to commit adultry. And until he CHOOSES to OWN ALL of that SIN, he is still a liar, and deceiver, and an adulterer.

Until he owns HIS STUFF, there can be no remorse, no repentance, no humulity, no healing, and no recovery.

God can heal your heart and the heart of your husband's. BUT your husband has to first fall face down before God in humble brokeness, not continue to hide behind the OW in the "garden".

Please do not tolerate his dangerous behavior. Remove the guns and give to a safe friend. Set your boundaries...and ENFORCE them. LEAVE the very minute he starts any of these threats...to hurt himself, you, or your children.


As much as you want to save your marriage, your children's and your safety MUST come before the irrational, immature behavior of your husband.

What I am speaking to you comes from a fellow sister in Christ and is spoken with Christ-like love.

There is nothing more I want than to see your husband own up to his choices, and sincerely seek forgiveness, grace and mercy. Because IT IS THERE for HIM...when he is ready for it. I am not bashing your husband. I love my FWS with all my heart, and know that if we can heal, so can you and your husband. But first, he must allow himself to be broken. And until that time, all you can do is protect yourself and your children from his emotional (and maybe physical if this continues) abuse.

I think this is the most important point. He is manipulating you, to serve his own ends. I don't care how much he is hurting, how remorseful, how much he needs professional help. Threatening suicide is step one in emotional abuse/control, and an emotionally unstable person having a gun in a home with children is selfish and immature. You letting him do it, IMO, is worse. Your first responsibility in such a circumstance is to remove the threat to your children. At the VERY least, please take your guns (why do you have more than one?) to someone else's house for the time being, if you can't maintain a healthy boundary about him accessing them.

I already decided to take the guns to someone else. Thankfully this didn't happen in front of the kids. I don't want to take any chances though. I would not put my kids in danger. I realize that he is manipulating me. I realize that him saying that if it wasn't for OW, this never would have happened- is basically him not taking the blame. I can't really make him change his mind. I can tell him that there is no hope for recovery, which I have, as long as he keeps it up with the suicide threats. He has to decide for himself. When the subject of him possibly moving out came up, that is when things went south in the first place. He says I can't tell him what I need. He says that everyone just keeps saying, "be a man" and "be strong" but he doesn't know what that means. He said he can go out into the garage and lift weights all night- he is strong. But where would that get us? He doesn't understand.

As far at the guns- he has two guns because a couple years ago he started working in an environment where encounters with bears and mountain lions is very common. He still works in those areas sometimes. He is also in charge of some equiptment worth several hundreds of thousands. Also he has to enter onto private properties, which he has every legal right to do for work purposes. Sometimes these people are none to happy to have someone on their property and have even been known to pull out guns. It was basically a work requirement that he get a permit and a gun.

Based on the incident with the gun that took place, the focus really should be on YOU at this point. Are you willing to remove YOURSELF and your CHILDREN from potentially dangerous situation. Your H has pulled a gun, waved it in the air, ponted it at his own head in front of you as a controlling and manipulative/abusive tactic...It would be extremely irresponsible not to remove yourself and your kids from this situation TW..I don't think this board is capable of helping you with recovery with an unstable person at this point, you have some much more serious issues to face. Are you unwilling to remove you and your kids from the presence of danger???

TW,

Here are the questions I asked him.........

[color:"blue"] TR,

Are you willing to begin seeking a church where you can worship as a family?


Are you willing to read SAA (Surviving an Affair) a book by Dr. Harley?


Are you willing to confront your parents about their poor choices and to stop defending you and any of your actions?

[/color]

I think these are simple things to do and are a good begining place for him to start.
He knows I'm not asking him to lift weights and be a tough guy.....come on! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

You've also said that he works in a situation where he carries a gun, even if you take the guns elsewhere, what is stopping him from getting his hands on another one?
That is why you are being advised to remove yourself from him..if he is capable of pointing a gun at his own head in front of you, even if you remove the guns from the home..he is still unstable..you have no idea what he would do next..

He works in a situation where carrying a gun is highly advised. They do not provide him with one. He had to provide his own. I know that there is no access to guns at all anywhere else. I suppose he could always go out and buy a new one if he was desperate. In the state I live there is a "cooling off period" of 10 or 15 days I can't remember which one it is. When he acts suicidal its usually in the heat of the moment. So having a gun imediatly available is what's dangerous. I really can't see him going out, making the purchase, then waiting 10 days just so he could get the gun and hold it to his head threatening suicide. He has NEVER threatened me. Yes taking out the gun and saying he is suicidal was very stupid and dangerous. I talked to him about it. I don't think I really need to have him thrown in jail, as I don't feel that my children or I are in danger. He already knows that what he did was stupid and if he tries anything close to that again I WILL ask him to move out. If it came down to it and I felt that my children were in danger, yes I would take them away. If he crosses the line again I wouldn't hesitate to call the cops on him. I did call the cops on him when he pulled this 6 years ago. But if there are no guns available, then why are you telling me I am leaving my kids in danger? My husband would not hurt the kids, that is something he has never done. He was not trying to hurt me physically, I know that. He may have been trying to manipulate me or scare me, but he didn't lay one finger on me or point the gun at me. It was pointed to the ceiling and his own head. I think he does need help. I have suggested it and several of his friends have suggested it. If he decides to be irrational again, I will have no choice but to call mental health out on him again. He won't have access to guns but In the past he has talked about maybe driving off a cliff. Which there is one nearby. The thing is, he has been suicidal for years. It's really nothing new to me. Usually its something that he has done himself that makes him feel suicidal. Now he says that if I had just let him take his life 6 years ago, none of this would have ever happened. He actually had alot of resentment towards me for not letting him go through with it for a long time. It is part of what fueled his affair. OW and WH always talked to each other about how horrible of a wife I was to push my husband to suicide and then not let him go through with it, jsut keeping him around to suffer.

TSt- as far as your questions to my husband and his answers, I don't know about that because I was told to stay off of his thread.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

This is one of the most ridiculous things that I have heard here. Now he's blaming you for STOPPING him from committing suicide. It was such a horrendous thing to do that it was the reason he had an A? How manipulative is that?

This is some of the worst balmeshifting I have ever heard. TW he needs some big time help.

TW,
This is part of the problem. You are numb to his abuse/control/manipulation because you have dealt with it for YEARS. You mentioned he's threatened to drive off a cliff in the past...this type of behavior is abusive and possibly dangerous..hopefully he wouldn't attempt to control you/scare you by driving off a cliff with you and your children in the car.
If you are comfortable allowing this type of abuse to continue, there is nothing anyone here can do about it..however, if you want to enforce a healthy boundary and remove yourself and your children from this situation, by taking responsibility for your safety and well being, then I am sure there are plenty of people here who would help you along the way with that.

Just saying to him that if he pulls a gun out again you will call mental health people to pick him up does not make a difference to him, to your own admission, you have put up with this for years, that is why he continues to pull the suicide stunts..ETA: He knows that he can continue to do this and there are no consequences for it..couple that with the fact that he is emotionally and possibly mentally unstable and you have quite possibly a volatile situation just waiting to happen...the danger here is that he is unstable, and you can't tell what lengths he may go to continue controlling/manipulating you...Even with the guns gone, an unstable person could easily use a knife or anything else that could be used as a weapon around the home...he has shown you that he is out of control...it is going to be up to you to remove yourself and your children and enforce a boundary with him that you will not remain in an unsafe environment. The choice is yours.

P.S. Good luck to you. I hope that you will make the decision to protect yourself and your kids..and hopefully your H will get help for his very serious issues as well. I don't really think Infidelity support is the first order of business in your situation, I think there are much deeper problems than anyone here can really assist you with until your environment is safe..I hope you will seek the necessary help and I hope you will be safe. God bless.

IMO, either he is abusive/manipulative and you are numb to it and need to get away from him so that you can start seeing the truth. OR he is mentally unstable and needs dedicated, professional help. In neither of those situations do I see you and he living together, same ol' routine.

Maybe he really doesn't get what "be a man" and "be strong" means. Have you tried having a calm conversation with him about what this means and about what you need from him?

I realize his instable mental state and the guns are the big issue, but since you just defend him on these issues I am not going to tell you again to get you and your kids out. Well I guess I just did, sorry I am really concerned for your safety.

I do wish you would have responded to my question as to what you would do if 20 years from now your daughter tells you her husband is acting like this.