Kudos to you if you guys read my story and his...it's long, although most of them are.

Here is the first post from him and mine is in his thread as well in a link. Our story

A few things I need advice on.

1. He is a past alcoholic. We never went to bars when we were dating as he was sober. Now it is important to him to go out and have drinks as per his post. Also, alcohol is what got him in the situation he was in. I see this as a huge problem. Heck, I don't even really drink anymore, because he always wants to. When we dated, I never had alcohol in my home, it wasn't important to me.

2. Since finding out, I have seen him flirting on a diet blog he posts to. In March, before the affair, I found him logged into his yahoo messenger and saw a name I did not recognize...it was a chick from Ohio (where we live) from the site....They were just friends, although when I read some of what he was posting and their flirting, I got pissed....he deleted her off his friends list.....I still have my emails to her and she apologized to me...apparently he complained about our relationship to her and she even knew when he was off from work...they had cute little names and inside jokes....Her and I worked it out and I made my presence known...But now on the diet site when I see stuff, I get the But's.

"But it is who I am, it is in my personality to joke around and flirt"

"But it doesn't mean anything" (which he has proven to be false, as his flirting has taken things to a whole new level with his ONS)

"But it isn't intentional" Ah, but it doesn't hurt any less.

My attempts to tell him that stuff bothers me gets me the reply that I am trying to control him and kill him as an individual.

Hmmmm BUT what about my feelings?

BM,

I would suggest you copy and paste this post on the Infidelity "General Questions 11" board. It is the most active and also the board most relative to your sitch.

I cannot find it...it is hard to navigate around here.

That is a tough one BM. I do sympathize with how you feel, but after reading both your threads, it does sound like you are trying to control him. The rules you've established are the kind you implement for your children. I'm not sure how your marriage can recover and become healthy while one of you acts like a parent and the other like a rebellious teenager. Since you are the one posting here, can you take the first step in changing this dynamic?

Which is more important? Your feelings ("I feel threatened") or your husband's feelings ("I feel controlled")? When you structure it like that, one of you has to lose because it's your taker (in Dr. Harley-speak) that is running things. Since both you and your husband are reading Dr. Harley's concepts, have you tried using the Policy of Joint Agreement to solve these issues yet? It seems like it would apply to both your conflicts.

Your way of dealing with your unmet needs has been to demand changes from your husband. Your husband seems to have a different way of dealing with unmet needs, so maybe you don't realize what it is like to be in his shoes. How would you react if he demanded that you go to all his shows and be more friendly and outgoing?