Not,
Sorry that this happened. I would be so angry.

The only thing that occurs to me other than what others have written is that the consequence needs to involve Mr. Not's making his business totally transparent to you. All of it. The business can not and must not be a hiding place for any kind of secret.

Thanks for the replies guys.....

I have a lot of things rolling around in my head. You all are great with the support. I cannot tell you how much I really miss this place and the safe-haven that it was for me for so long......It really just bites sometimes....

not2fun

Actually, this time around I am more numb, which scares me more. Anger is there, but mostly just sadness at where this is at......

not2fun

Not - if you need to email me let me know.

I did notify the mods once trying to exchange those, but I never got any response. I would like that.....not2fun

Not,

I'm grateful for your thread today and I loved Kayla's suggestion to Mr. Not.

I'm dealing with a MAJOR boundary crossing this week and just wanted to thank you for having the courage to post what you are going through for others to learn as well.

Take care.

Well, the courage is more of a desperate plea....

Giving up this place as my safe-haven has been difficult for me....stupid MB for going down when it did.

Anyway, sorry to hear of your sitch. I would lend a helping hand, but as you can see, I need all the hands I can get.....

not2fun

Good morning all....

Well, I would like to say we have worked out the problem completely but we haven't. Though I do have some things I would like to discuss with WS and will do that tonight.

On a good note though, I would like to tell you what WS did this weekend, which was a HUGE showcase of his growing love and care for me.

On sat, we had had a good day. Late in the afternoon, he was cleaning his motorcycle and I was cleaning the house up. I went and told WS that I was going to the store for some cleaning supplies. He had made the comment that we should have had my eyebrows done when we were at the mall earlier. I told him I would go do that now, since I had time (WS has a high need for PA. He knows exactly what he likes.....hence, he notices my eyebrows... :o)

Anyway, they were super busy at the mall, and I had to wait 45min. Well, when I got home, WS was gone. Almost as soon as I parked, he pulled in behind me. He was near frantic and worried.

Seems to be that he didn't hear me say I would go get my eyes done and when I was gone for so long he started to worry. Since my cell is broken, there was no way for him to get a hold of me. So he went to ALL the area stores where he thought I might be. He thought I might have gotten in an accident (or arrested...but that is ANOTHER story....) and was REALLY REALLY CONCERNED for me......He was very glad to see me ok......

It did put the start of our evening in a small damper, BUT after we got dressed and went to Hooters (UFC fights....this is becoming a ritual for us,,,,which we are BOTH loving...) it ended up being a FANTASTIC EVENING.....actually the whole day was great except for that little blip....


Now, isn't that some evidence of love and change???????


not2fun

Deal with the conflict avoider within - an astute financial manager/love bank account manager recognizes the huge withdrawal and doesn't ignore it.

Yes, it's great he's making deposits. Good - He needs to. And he would need to even if he hadn't made the humongous withdrawal blunder last week.

Now he's got to do more than make quality deposits.

A wise professional coach once told me that you must metaphorically disarm all booby traps and bombs up front. Otherwise, you can't control when they're going to blow up on you if they are ignored. Damaging ordinance does not simply go away. Just the slightest trigger and you could blow up everything you're trying to rebuild - or he could.

You cannot afford to be a conflict avoider about this!

It does sound GREAT, though!!

Along the lines of what Kayla was saying...

A lot of people get themselves into serious financial trouble because they spend money they don't have on stuff they don't need and end up in a hole. Most of these folks think the solution to their problem is to make more money. They change jobs, add a part time job or work extra overtime. Sometimes they work hard to get noticed and get a promotion that gives them a 300 dollar per month raise which they celebrate by taking on a 400 dollar per month car payment...The result is they end up further in debt.

As it applies to your situation...

Your husband is doing phenomenally well at making LB$ deposits. He's working overtime at filling your love bank up. And this is a good thing.

But what he needs to do more than anything else is to stop making withdrawals by being stupid. What he did last week was moronic at best. The fact that he did business with OW's company was really a doofus act on his part. But then he covered it up, lied to you about it and the tried to justify it after you found out.

So every time he lies, hides something from you, he is racking up debt. His solution so far is to work more at making more deposits to cover it. But their will come a time when your LB$ will be empty. His account will be bankrupt and no amount of hard work will pay off the debt.

The problem of course is how do YOU get HIM to STOP making stupid withdrawals? The answer is to stop letting him make payments on future debt until he has paid off his past debt. Cut off his credit! When he commits a Love Buster of any kind, call him on it at once. Until he stops borrowing against future deposits, the day will come when his account will be bankrupt.

And since we're talking about his account in your love bank here, it means that a day will come when you will no longer love him and will in fact hate him...

Then you will cancel his account and the bank will be closed to further deposits...He'll be history and you'll be gone...

So now we need to talk about boundary enforcements...

Mark

IMO, one of the main things for you to remember is that he will remain FOGGY for a long, long, time to come.

My H was not NORMAL for at least a year.

This is EARLY RECOVERY!!

To me, your situation remains very HOPEFUL and there is not MUCH cause for ALARM.

I agree to NOT avoid CONFLICT, to keep your EYES and EARS open and SPEAK YOUR TRUTH right away.

But, FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE because it is VERY POSITIVE.

I'm listening.....what are your suggestions???

This was not something I was prepared for......

not2fun

Not2,

Imagine a baseball game. The umpire calls a hitter out on a close called third strike. The batter turns around and glares at the umpire and the umpire ignores him.

The guy returns to the bench but then begins to heckle the umpire relentlessly. At first he is ignored, but it is becoming distracting and the umpire feels he must take action. So he takes off his face mask and glares at the guy in the dugout.

The heckling continues a while and the umpire eventually goes over to the dugout and warns the player and maybe his coach as well, telling the manager that he needs to keep his players under control. When the heckling continues, the umpire decides to throw the guy out of the game, but he might also toss the manager because he let his player continue after being warned.

But now suppose the guy comes out of the dugout and rushes the umpire when he is warned. He will likely be ejected at once at that point. He might also be fined by the team or maybe even the league and could even face suspension for a few days.

But if he charges the umpire with a bat in his hand, ready to inflict harm. He will be thrown out of the game, fined by the league and suspended for sure. If he actually attacks the umpire, he might be fined, suspended and maybe even banned from the game for life. He might also be brought up on criminal charges and face jail time.

And if the umpire were to die because of his attack, he could face the death penalty!

Each violation of our boundaries must be weighed as to how serious it is. If it was intended to do us harm, we might need a stronger reaction to it than if it was just an unthinking type of act by the violator.

But each infraction of the same boundary calls for escalating enforcement and higher consequences.

In marriage, the ultimate boundary enforcement is divorce. Right below that might be a separation and Plan B. But below that in order to give our spouse a willingness to make changes, we need to have other things we can do that show them that there are consequences to their actions without calling in the lawyers at the first sign of stepping over the line.

Since you spent a lot of time and energy trying to have a chance at recovery, I don't think divorce is your first line enforcement of his boundary violation. But maybe taking off for the afternoon and spending the day at the mall, maybe getting your nails done or just sitting in the bookstore reading would express your feelings in a stronger way than yelling and shouting and at the same time diffuse the battle that could ensue over trying to MAKE him see things your way. If he violates the same boundary again, maybe you can go visit friends or family without him for a day or the weekend. Subsequent violations can result in a separation for some defined time period (he can spend a week in a motel and not talk to you during that time) or eventually could end up in you filing for a legal separation until he "gets it."

For a boundary to be enforceable, it must be clearly defined. This must be done BEFORE it has been violated. It is usually a good idea to state the things you will do to enforce that boundary ahead of time as well.

If you haven't yet read either of these books, you might want to check into them...

Boundaries
Boundaries In Marriage

Both are by John Townsend and Henry Cloud and are available from New Life Ministries

Mark

Mark,

Thanks for the clarification. That is what I was needing when I started the post on this infraction. Yes, my boundary was VERY CLEARLY defined. But not so much on what I would do to enforce them. Well, other than a D, which was is not what I would do in necessarily in all cases of crossing boundaries.

I have also found in R that I need certain boundaries that weren't in place or stated before. Either because a situation hadn't arisen before or things that were "acceptable" before are no longer "acceptable" (yes there was a situation earlier that had come up that didn't have anything to do with BOW, but with his assistant....pre-A I wouldn't thought much of certain things, now post-A certain things aren't.....KWIM???).

Like I said, this is a whole new ball game for us. The rules are different. But I am hoping that we will enjoy this game much much more.....

not2fun

ps....looks like I have more books to get....

Not2,

Try your library first before you buy any more books. If I had purchased every book I wanted to read or that I thought would help over the last two years, my library would rival the one in our home town for numbers of books and the section on marriage, infidelity, boundaries and the like would be about 50% of it all.

Before all this began I read my Bible, books about the biblical topics, bible commentaries, fishing books, photography books, racing (technical type) books, gardening books...

I'm one of those that even reads soup can labels and cereal boxes. (Would that be all about cereal data?) and in the past two years most of my time has been spent reading Harley, Pittman, Grunzburg, Carder, Townsend and Cloud, Arterburn, Glass, Weiner-Davis, Yerkovich...

Still read my Bible though. It's what got me through the dark days of the beginning of it all...

Currently we're doing a series on finances called Financial Peace University from Dave Ramsey. Most of it is just a repeat of what I learned years ago, but now my wife is on board and she was the one who came up with the idea.

Now if I could just get her to actually complete FILSIL...

One good thing to come from all of this though is that our pastor is working with several couples using Dr Harley's materials and of course I have made some new friends, that I've never met in person, but maybe that'll happen some day. I also been able to help other people who have experienced the same thing and now I have something to say to them besides "I'm sorry..."

If you are going to buy just one of the two books, get the original Boundaries as it is applicable to much more than marriage. It can help at work, with neighbors and with the kids!

The other one probably applies more to your current situation, but the try at the library first.

Another book for you to look into is Lasting Love by Alistair Begg. See if you can get your husband to read it, especially the chapter on "Hedges." Our copy is autographed. We actually got to talk with Alistair for about 20 minutes one night about 5 months after D-day.

Mark

Cool! I'm taking that class right now. The Chaplin at the base is puting it on. The pastor at my church kept mentioning it every now and then, and by coincidence the chaplin offered the class on base about the same time.

I bought boundaries on CD and I just happend to have the book as well.

Sometimes I get inundated with reading material. For me, listening to a book on CD while i'm driving to work is a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

jeez Amazin,

Stop by my thread and not even a "hi" to me.....

fine, be that way.....

not2fun

Hey Mark,

I hear ya on the whole "marriage help" library. I am a very big reader myself....actually, I have finally gotten to read some fiction lately, which was a very nice break from all the "marriage help" stuff. I was reading so much there for awhile that it started to become confusing.....so I took a much needed break. I too need to finish FILSIL. I also should probably finish "The Dance of Anger".

Anywho, thanks again for the help. It's funny how you step in just at the right times for us....(that would be me and WS....).

Oh and BTW, how is the summer fishing going???? Good I hope...as long as the rain is keeping you away....

not2fun

Not,

I've been following along with your sitch and the experts are giving you some great advice. Mostly, I just wanted to ask "DO YOU EVER SLEEP?"

Want2Stay

p.s. Don't you have laundry you should be doing?