Cat, I'm sorry that things are still in process with the ADs. I'll be so happy to see you reconnected to your joy.

Are you all planning anything for RC this weekend? Is that something that is a top EN for you and your H?

You know, I just realized that I never asked what was tops for you guys. What are they?

We have the baseball game my brother gave me tickets for. I asked MrCat if he wanted to go, cos I know he doesn't like baseball (I love it), or any other sport except hockey. But he said he wanted to go. D17 invited a boy she likes, so she's a mile high.

I guess my needs are domestic/repair support, and caring about me as much as he cares about himself - whatever you would call that. Well, I know he cares about me, so I guess it would be more like paying an interest in me and what I am about.

If I had to guess on him, it would be SF, admiration, and support - as in being available every time he calls, helping with his problems, doing things for him like mailing bills or making appointments.

Him offering to make dinner, and taking D out for dinner while you worked; him going through a pile of papers and taking out the trash; those are great steps on his part! And of course, sometimes the hardest part is the starting. Just maybe, things are going to take a turn for the better.

It's also really cool that he's going to the game with you - an activity you like, not him.



Maybe this would be Undivided Attention, in MB terms? I think in the 5 Love Languages, it might be Quality Time?

Is him going to the baseball game with you putting drops in your love bucket?

Well, yes and no. On the one hand, he's doing something he doesn't enjoy, so that's admirable of him. But that is tempered with my knowledge that he wants to do everything with us, and for us to not to anything without him. He gets upset just by me taking D17 to piano class across town, because we're gone 2 or 3 hours on Saturday.

I did tell him thank you last night for all the help. I tried to do the WIFT(?) thing, but it was just such stilted tak that he and I have never ever used, I just couldn't get it out! So I just cuddled and said thank you.

Someone suggested that the extra things I do for him don't register with him as being 'payment' or thanks for his help, but I feel like, when more things are done around the house, the mood improves, and he benefits from that improved mood and cleanliness, etc. He is more calm, when his stuff is taken care of. I guess I hoped that he would come to sense that, when he's helping with the house, there's a better feeling overall; therefore, do more of that! But I'm working on finding a way to point it out.

So what I hear you saying is that you find this to be as difficult as what I think you said was difficult for your hubby (or was it someone else's hubby) to have conversation without dismissing you.

Perhaps this exercise will let you experience first hand the difficulty he's experiencing with his changes.
Both can be true. His mood may be better and still he doesn't connect the two consciously.

You may have to. He may not be good at playing connect the dots.

Cat,

I was wondering whether you have ever had times where you moved into an empty house and things were organized for a while. Did you dh's mood and emotions improve?

The reason I ask is that you said that he is feeling better now that things in the house are improving. I'm a fan of the basic idea of feng shui in that your environment affects your mood.

I wondered if you could shovel the stuff out of one room and see if his mood improves. I'm very susceptible to mood changes because of clutter even if I'm the one causing the clutter in the first place! Bizarre but true.

If you want to keep this marriage (and it sounds like you do), you may have to be the one making the home decisions. You can help him go through his stuff, one on one with him. Not like "Hubby you need to clean out your paperwork, go do it", but "we're going through these papers this afternoon. If you don't want to do it, they will go out in the garage to wait until you have time for it."

He may scream and holler, but I doubt it will come to much. You might think of it the same way as getting a small boy to take a bath. They will resist and yell, but its for their own good.

Anyway, just my opinion, so please don't feel insulted. I know you have tried similar steps before, but I think you get too scared off by the yelling. Maybe when you are back on the AD's you'll have more energy for dealing with this sort of thing.

Also, perhaps your daughter could lend her voice to this effort. He seems very open to the idea that things could hurt your dh.

Hi, cat, you are sharing a lot of important things, and some of it is still sinking in. You amaze me every week, keeping the courage and doing things when there is such a huge inertia to just let them keep going as they were. This stuff in the house is so symbolic of how you excavate from your life those coping skills that just don't fit your life, the awesome one that you're creating, anymore. I am proud of that you getting the support that you need to keep getting healthier and healthier.

Your H, can I make a guess about him? That once he decides to do something, he is going to do an amazing job with it, too. It's so cool to read your thread and see him stepping out in faith, trying things that he doesn't know if he'll be successful with, The being willing to try and fail. So inspiring, both of you!

Hi. You're right about me being afraid of yelling. And he's fine if things are going smoothly.

I think my biggest issue is my lack of energy to get things done, so I'm hoping the meds will change things.

The other major issue here is what IC calls his being 'stuck.' I was looking on the thread about things to get done, and my list is so long I felt uncomfortable to try to list mine. I truly have a hard time getting past it. I have such a resentment, lack up understanding, irritation about it.

Honestly, I don't think feng shui woudl work right now. Our house is in a perpetual state of disaster. I'm looking at our living room. An extra tv sitting on the floor that MrCat brought from work. Four boxes of papers from the taxes I'm trying to do, plus 2 piles on the coffee table. A bag of socks to match on the coffee table. Movies over on the floor by the DVD. Extra glasses, a MP3 charger, some papers, extra pair of glasses, a pen, some mail, some magazines, a pile of clothes/towels to be folded and put away, a candle holder that needs to be hung up, some of MrCat's work papers on the floor, a pile of mail I need to go through, some computer disks I need to go through, a stack of maagazines, some other papers, a phone that needs to be hung up, a bag of paperwork I need to go through, MrCat's Q-tips that need to be thrown away, a dirty glass, D17's computer bag...that's just in the immediate vicinity of this couch. Not to mention the kitchen table piled high, the kitchen full of dirty dishes and paperwork and other junk, the laundry, stuff that needs to go upstairs, on and on.

MrCat chose some outside chores to work on - things that he decided he needed to do, like cutting out roots from a tree in the grass, which I thank him for, but it doesn't effect the house and all the stuff that needs done.

I'm starting to take steps to take over the housework, just because I can't stand it any more. Some will say I'm being insensitive. But looking around at this house, where I know I'll have to do all the cleaning myself, I'm beyond caring. I think I'm ready to finally not care; at least I hope so.

Hi Cat,

I wasn't really talking about the concrete tenets of feng shui, just the idea that too much clutter causes stress. Could you look at the idea of moving the extra things out of the livingroom as a way to make you feel better rather than inconveniencing dh?

I spent a lot of time earlier in my marriage griping because my dh wouldn't help clean the house. I tried waiting until the mess was totally mammoth and still no use. His tolence for clutter is truly monumental!

Me, however, I get stressed at empty cups, magazine, shoes, empty pop cans, etc. So, I started using the bucket and toss method. I go through the living room and remove everything that I feel doesn't belong. Small items go into the bucket, large items are removed by hand. Everything goes into a separate room or into the garage.

I know it's not fair that he not only won't help, but he complains if you do it. However he doesn't have the right to insist on living in squalor. Its kind of like the airline speech where they tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. You seem to have given up all of the rights that are usually accorded to the woman of the house, the first and foremost being the right to a clean environment.

By the way, what does he plan to do with the extra tv?

You're right about the stress level from clutter.

Long ago, I tried renting a storage room for him. I went through all the work of moving everything to that storage room, one load at a time. Made no difference, because he just continued to bring stuff home, buy more electronics, stack more papers, etc.

The truth is what you say - I just have to man up and say what I'm not willing to tolerate any more. IC is helping me with this. Helping me visualize that what I'm living with is not normal, trying to get me to become if not indignant, then at least too respectful of myself to accept it. Those of you who haven't lived like me, where you simply don't feel you're as good as everyone else, you don't have as much right to circulate around people, where you have to be on your best behavior to 'get' to do what everyone else does...it's hard to describe how hard it is to climb out of that pit, that way of thinking. It's easy to say 'just say you won't put up with it,' but when your whole being is about fear of abandonment and having to please to feel you have any value...you don't just stop thinking that way. Not easily, anyway. I'm working on that.

I have to say, MrCat doesn't think I don't deserve what I want. He just has no idea what I want, because I never tell him. I never tell him because early in our marriage, when we were both young and insecure, he had knee-jerk reactions to any attempt by me to say what I wanted - he took it as me trying to wrest control away from him, and he was afraid I would leave him, so in typical abuse fashion, he tried to control me more and more by isolating me from family and friends. So I kind of lost touch with reality.

The main thing about the mess, is that I'm like that Vince Vaughan movie. I don't want him to clean, I want him to WANT to clean, you know? But until I can get across how important that is to me, he has no clue it's upsetting me. I will say I have been visualizing in my head ways to say what I need to say. That's what IC wants me to do, keep seeing myself doing it until it feels comfortable. I don't mind cleaning, I just mind cleaning when everyone expects me to, and expects me to clean after them. His mother lived with us the first few years of our marriage, which was fine with me. But when she left, the house fell apart. It took me awhile to figure out that she had been going around behind him, cleaning up after him! By the time I realized it, we had already set our patterns of me not speaking up or demanding anything. I was thinking this morning that I never taught D17 to pick up something when she sees it, you know? So things will sit somewhere for weeks on end, because neither of them think to pick stuff up unless I say so.

I have no idea about the tv. I thought he was taking it home from a customer and was planning to take it back to work, but he said something about work told him to take it home, but I don't remember why. We have...let's see, at least 6 tv's, and probably more in boxes. This one is one of those flat ones, so maybe he's planning to mount it on the wall or something.

I think I feel for you Cat so much because by best friend from school is living in much the same situation. Early on she and her husband established patterns that are now indelibly imprinted on their marriage.

He's a packrat and a shouter also. I just wish you and she could pick one room in the house and say "This is mine. Keep your stuff out of here". I think one space to call your own would improve your stress level tremendously. For us, we've decided that dh can have his "office" is any sort of clutter that he likes. Anything that doesn't belong in the living room goes in the office.

I don't think of it as cleaning up after him as I do chucking his stuff away. Probably makes me feel better about the whole thing. I can empty our living room in 5 minutes flat!

I came across this link about OCD and hoarding and thought that it sounded like your dh. Might be some help there: http://www.ocfoundation.org/1005/m100a_002.htm

Thanks for the link. I'm printing it out, and I'm going to read it to him, I think.

I guess that, after 30 years of doing the same thing over and over and over, I simply DO mind picking up after him. I'm not his mother, maid, secretary or anything else. Yet I do it. Because when I don't...he doesn't. And I can't stand living like this. It really boils down to me having and expressing boundaries, which I'm trying to do. I really don't mind cleaning; I just mind doing it over and over and over. I've tried putting all his stuff on his side of the bed; it just stays there and he sleeps with it on the bed! I've tried putting it all where he keeps his mail in the kitchen; it just piles up til it starts falling over onto the floor. I've tried putting in boxes, and the boxes pile up wherever I start them. I've tried putting it in his office, and you currently can't even walk across his office because there's no space on the floor to walk, it's so full. I've tried putting it in the garage, where it never gets seen again, and we now have a 3 car garage filled 8 feet high, and I have to climb over the lawn mower to get to the freezer. I've tried renting a storage room for him; he doesn't care.

But the basic issue here, is it is ME doing all the work. THAT is what I have to stop. I have to man up and demand what any normal family would expect. I'm working on getting back my self-respect so I can do that.

Aside from just not helping, the way he exerts control is to always be living in a state of catastrophe - in which, if I don't help him, I'm abandoning him. For instance, every single trip he goes on, something goes wrong the day before, so we end up staying up all night fixing the problem, and if I say I'm going to bed, he freaks out and plays the pity party "how am I supposed to get this done before my flight? Fine! Go to bed! What difference does it make if I lose my job?" - stuff like that. I've got to learn to let him own his own stuff.

He learned early on that if he keeps up this feeling of impending emergency in our lives, that I'll forego doing anything else but attending to him. For instance I used to want to visit my mom in another town, and he'd say 'but we have to put down the tile in the bathroom and if I do it myself it'll get messed up' and if I tried to say sorry, just do it, he'd return with a huge rant about how selfish I am and all I do is go 'gallivanting' around (his favorite put-down word). So I quit visiting her or anyone else decades ago, unless he felt like going. Typical abuse stuff, though he would never see it that way.

He leaves today, and this trip's emergencies are that his coworker scammed him for some money, his office manager didn't cut his check to pay back his expenses from the last trip, and he didn't pay his credit card because of issues with the last trip, so when he tried to use his card to get a haircut last night, it wouldn't go through. So I 'had' to drive to his hair salon and give him money. Then his laptop literally fell apart last night, so I spent an hour helping him tape it together instead of doing what I needed to do.

Now I know full well, I could have said no to either of those things, but what follows is the 'you're so selfish' mantra I'd have to listen to all night long. And I've been listening to them for so long that I'm instinctively doing almost anything I can to avoid them. IC says I have to just be willing to brave them, to show him I've quit. And I need to tell him ahead of time, that he needs to start owning his own responsibilities, I won't do it for him any more. I just need to be in a better place to do that.

btw, thanks, y'all, for all your help. It really means a lot.

Catperson,

I understand that you are not getting everything you want. I get that.

However, one thing that you keep saying is that your husband tries to control you using this technique or that technique, as if you KNOW his motives.

Have you ever considered the very real possibility that he's NOT trying to control, but you feel controlled or influenced or whatever by his responses?

As I've said before, just because you feel controlled, doesn't mean he's TRYING to control you. When you impart these motives to him, it does nothing good, as far as I can tell, for your relationship with him. Instead, it just builds up more resentment.

He's different than you, it's that simple. So, he needs or wants a crisis to work through. Some folks thrive and live for drama and crisis. It's your choice to join him in the crisis or not. If he acts like he's abandoned, tell him that you love him, but can't really participate in the crisis, and take back control over your response.

After all, he only has control if you GIVE it to him.

Otherwise, as I've said before, YOU are as much a controlling person as he is, as you write time and time again that you want to change, to control his responses, the way he responds and so forth.

So every time you write a post about wanting him to do things differently and then complaining about how he wants you to do things a certain way, what I see is someone who is controlling herself, but only wants to complain about the controlling nature of her husband.

Either you are in deep denial about this, or this is an elaborate blame shift, where you are putting all or most of the blame on your husband while still doing the very same things you complain about.

So, if you were to put the shoe on the other foot, and was reading about your husbands complaints about YOUR controlling ways, while watching him acting in the same controlling fashion, what would you think? Double standard?

So did you show this thread, or what I wrote to your husband? What did he think?

No I haven't shown him the thread. We don't talk much. Rather, I don't talk much. When we do talk, it's almost always about his work, or about someone else who is doing something wrong to him. I am his sounding board. And the few times I've tried to talk about our relationship, he goes ballistic and I end up crying and wanting to die. So I rather do avoid it.

I fully realize my problems. I know I shift blame. It's borne out of 30 years of frustration at both of us having dysfunctional patterns and things not getting better. At least until now, since I've started applying MB, and my attitude - and I'm hoping, his - has improved.

Like I said, most of our interactions are based on an emergency, or a problem, because our lives are based around procrastination and clutter and lost papers, etc. I've tried to respect his wishes all these years to stay away from his stuff, but most of our most important decisions have to do with papers that he maintains control of. But I'm at a point where I don't want to live the next 30 years in a state of catastrophe, so I'm finally ready to do as you say, refuse to participate, stand up for my boundaries, and finally try to talk to him. But it's hard to change that interaction.

Here's an example. He went out of town yesterday. Knowing that he wears no watch, he always (sorry, not a DJ but the truth) waits too long to leave for his next appointment (and then blames everyone around him for making him late). So I call him 3 hours before his flight, to say "calling to remind you the flight is 3 hours from now." Which he says he wants me to do. But he's mad at me because he emailed me something to edit for his work, but I had already left work, so I didn't get it. He gripes at me and hangs up, mad. I get home a few minutes later, he calls me and says he forgot his passport (he has to use his passport to fly because his driver's license expired in December and he hasn't taken time off work yet to go get it renewed). Frantic, he says "what can I do? I don't have enough time before my flight to come home and get it." So I say, "Well, I guess I'll have to bring it to you. Where do you want to meet?" So instead of doing what I took off work to do, I drive across town (big city, takes an hour just to drive across town) and meet him and give it to him. He says thank you and kisses me on the lips (he never does this).

So in that one little example are all kinds of ways in which I enable him, but the other way to look at it is I am meeting his needs. And in it is my inability to set and keep boundaries because our life is full of such emergencies. And the inevitable bad wife/good wife scenario that has helped turn me into such mush. Does he set these up on purpose? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. If I don't play along, I'm the selfish one.

I realize that if I had strong boundaries, none of this would be an issue. If I had any self-esteem, it never would have developed this way. I'd laugh at him and say, sorry, you should have been more careful to pick up your passport, or you should have emailed me the work earlier, or even why are you using me as your secretary? But I'm not. I'm flawed, I'm weak, and this is what I deal with. He doesn't hate me, he's not evil, he's just dysfunctional, and this works for him - not owning his own mistakes because he knows I'm there to pick up the pieces. Until I become strong enough to do what I need to do, I remain miserable. I'm not saying he's trying to control me in a malevolent way - I'm saying he has learned what works for him, just like I've adapted for what works for me - to not get yelled at or put down or deal with his angry actions, which affect me just as harshly as a slap.

But whats controlling about that? He has an emotional outburst, but I don't see where he is controlling. He is asking you to do something, and you don't say no.

Forgot your license, don't have a watch, say that's awful, I hope you get it worked out, I've got to work, love you! Then hang up the phone, period.

He may be annoying, he may have angry outbursts, but this is NOT control.

You are right, what you said about his waiting too long is a matter of your opinion.

But as long as you keep bailing him out, he'll keep doing it.

If he has control, it's ONLY because you've given it to him.

That's what I've learned about control. No one can TAKE control of me and I can't take control of anyone else. So if you are "feeling" controlled, it's because you've given away control over your decisions.

If you have a problem with him being "controlling" well, then do what you have power to do, take control over your decisions and responses.

If it were me, I'd give him a heads up, saying that you are no longer going to bail him out. He's an adult, he can get a drivers license, remember to pack his passport, etc.

How does he rent a car at the other end of his travel, without a D/L, etc?

He may be messed up and disorganized and then frustrated about his circumstance. Well, that's his way and those are his emotions.

So let him have his emotions, and stay out of his orbit if you don't like his angry outbursts.

But let's be real, he's no more controlling than you are, maybe less actually, as you seem to want to change him, he's too disorganized, too messy, too this, too that.

All of those are DJ's.

It's subtle, but it's there. If you were to say, he is messier than I like, that's fine. Why? Because it's not saying things have to be done YOUR way. When you wrote your post above, it's about how he's doing things wrong. Well that's a judgment, and since he's an adult, it's a disrespectful judgment.

Finally, so you are saying if you went to your husband and showed him where a man was taking apart what he felt you (catperson) was doing wrong and hurtful to the marriage and wanted his opinion regarding if that man had a pretty good handle on how he (Mr Cat) was taking your actions, he would not do it?

He wouldn't read and tell you if I was in the ballpark about how you are hurting the marriage? He wouldn't read something that was not very critical of him, because he's not here, but was critical of you, because your words tell the story of how you are acting badly at times in this marriage?

Why not just ask him. Leave out the judgment for now and just ask?

After all, I suspect he'll talk to someone who he doesn't perceive is out to change him, or is against him.

I really believe he feels, with some good reason, that you are both of these, out to change him and at times are against him.

I suspect he wants a partner, not a project manager who wants to tear him down and rebuild him in her image.

But you'll never really know until you ask.

Isn't that what I just said? That I know it's my issue and not his? That I have to learn to take control? That that is the reason I came here in the first place (thus the title) - to learn how to talk to him?

EE, I completely understand what you're saying. I agree with it. I keep telling you I agree with it. I keep telling how I'm going about trying to get to that point of taking back control.

But it all sounds very easy from your view. Well, unless you've lived in my shoes, or someone else with severe self-esteem issues, you really don't understand my situation. Yes, your solutions are the right solutions. For someone with a healthy self-worth. For someone who doesn't have a healthy self-worth, even commenting about being overcharged at a grocery store is a test to our nerves. If I had a healthy self-worth, I would have left 25 years ago.

I'm seeing IC, I'm taking ADs, I'm taking baby steps to learn to deal with him as an equal. But for someone who feels inadequate compared to everyone around her, like I do, these will all be baby steps. I have to work up the nerve even to ask him to hang up his own clothes; it makes my stomach turn just to do that. Does that make sense to you? Of course not, you are in a position of power over yourself. I have to learn that position. I have never had it, not once in my whole life.

If it bothers you so much, just consider my thread to be a rant thread - the only place I can go and gripe, ok? Like I said, I never tell him any of the things I gripe about here, and the stuff that I would like to see happen rarely does, because I don't push for anything. In his world, we're doing just fine.

Why not just do it, instead of talking about it?
You are right, I don't. Self esteem is just that it's your self view. It's not dependent upon how someone else sees you or acts, etc.

Yet most of what I read here is your complaints about how HE acts, as if you are forced to respond like you do.

You say you know your are not, or you are trying, but then you still pin much of the blame on him.

So which is it, do you believe or don't you?
You seem to have no problem stating what your husband needs to change. So that's the inconsistency I'm faced with when I look at what you write. You say you are so messed up, but it appears to me, most of your effort is focused on him, his faults, what he needs to change, etc. Then throw in some, "he's controlling" to round things out a bit.

I'm sure you don't tell him. But what good does that do? It's not fair to him, it's not fair to you. It's a lovebuster, it's dishonest.

So while you may not tell him, it still impacts your marriage. Since you choose to remain in this marriage, and are MB'ing as far as I can tell, why not do the best possible?

I don't buy your line about not having power over your life. You have ALWAYS had power over your life. You have simply chosen to give that power to others. Or, perhaps you simply have not exercised that power. You've always had the power. You may not know how to use it, or be comfortable with that. I know that.

But you've always had the power available to you.

Minor point: An AO is an attempt at control, as are SD's and DJ's. So her H is attempting to control, and in the most effective manner given cat's history and personality.

And a comment about my own stuff: I don't think I'd be able to say no to someone who needed me to get their passport or else they'd miss their plane. Sure it would be a good boundary and a lesson to them. But if I had it in my power to get it, and didn't... wow, I'm not nearly as afraid of AO's as cat, but I don't think I would be able to just refuse to do something in my power, knowing they would miss an important plane.

Maybe because I'd often be the one who forgot the passport. (It's happened!)

These patterns of cat's H having someone behind him to "pick up after him" have been entrenched for years, first established when his mom lived with them at the beginning of their M. Cat wasn't a strong enough person to fight that established pattern when his mom left. Now here we are, years later. I worry that suddenly refusing to do something that he desperately "needs" in an "emergency" would be a huge huge huge LB.

Say we read our kids a couple of bedtime stories at night, every night, without fail. No matter how bad they may have been that day. If they do something wrong, punishment may be time-outs, or no tv, or no dessert, but we NEVER withhold the bedtime stories. Then say they do something wrong. They know it's wrong, but they've been taught to expect a certain level of punishment. But then right before bed, without warning, we say, sorry, no bedtime stories tonight because you were naughty. Too bad, so sad, see ya in the morning."

That would seem very unfair in their minds. The unfairness of it would overshadow any potential good learning experience, IMHO.

I'm not sure what the advice is regarding how to stop enabling behavior, especially if you want to follow MB principles to preserve the marriage - i.e., meet needs and avoid LBs. Suddenly refusing seems like pulling the rug out from under them, when the pattern is basically entrenched throughout their whole life, literally passed on directly from mom to wife.

I dunno, maybe this will help...
-Is this what you'd say to Hold? Just do it, stop talking about it, you shouldn't FEEL what you're feeling, just do it?

-Is this what you'd say to Mrs.Hold, or to another survivor of SA who is not meeting their spouse's SF EN? Just do it, you shouldn't FEEL the way you feel, just do the deed?

Well, let's be clear. I've never told anyone what they should or should not feel.

But I have told hold to just do what he knows is right.

Again, I'm not telling them what they should or should not feel. But I would tell her that if she made the decision to marry someone, that person is looking to them as their only legitimate source of SF, and that their healing falls largely on their own shoulders.

Probably not a popular message.

Finally, sometimes anger is just anger. We can't know if an angry outburst is an attempt to control, or simply a vent.

Otherwise, just about every vent on MB is nothing more than an attempt to control.

I could see where anger is often an expression of frustration for not being in control, or "feeling" like one is not in control. But that doesn't mean it's being used to control another person or situation.