The one place it should not leave you is being blamed for having emasculated your H. There is a whiff of this emanating from the discussion.

Your explanation above shows that your H gave no indication that your achievements were a problem for him. Indeed, he married you knowing of your ambition and talents, and was proud of you. If he became uncomfortable with these factors, then blowing up yours and the children's worlds was not the way to deal with that.

This is where you start:

Shallow is a disrespectful judgment of a serious emotional need. Take a closer look at the heart of this; he has an emotional need to be admired. And "shallow" is a judgment of that need.

Just like the attractive spouse need can be judged to be shallow, admiration-emotional need is what it is.

In order for him to feel feelings of love and value for himself, he NEEDS to be admired.

Start there. I'm guessing that's where Steve is going to lead you as well.

That's why I suggested he get a different job. Because the emotional need to be admired and you being the brains behind the business may be in conflict.

Read the lyrics to "Wind Beneath My Wings" - it is cold in your shadow. Make it warm if he is to stay there - or better yet, find a way to bring him out of that shadow, into the sunshine with you - let him experience the glory of being the man!

40!
I'm gonna need to make a few phone calls. We may have underestimated the size of the dock we need. And we may need to do some dredging depending on the draft of the boat...er, Ship.

I'm not sure either.
Perhaps some of his entitlement about feeding his ego will clear with the fog.

Do you think there is anything extra you could do to feed this need once you reach recovery? Would you be willing to try?

THANK YOU SC!!! Our first MC actually told me that...it weighs on me.

It just shows that the fog is very thick in an A...the sitch is the same for me, OW and I are opposite in just about every way and furthermore, DH said that many of her personality traits annoyed him.

Confusing, isn't it?

I will try to do better with DJ. But the truth is I don't admire BaT. He is capable of things I would have never imagined. I am not exaggerating. Could I imagine a man having an affair, yes. But there are things that I will never even post on here that BaT has done, because it is too terrible and I have posted some pretty crappy stuff.

We have talked about this ALOT, but BaT doesnt have any college or techincal training (and has zero desire to go back to school). The jobs he could get would not contribute financially in our sitch (which seems like it would be counter-productive). Money aside, BaT does not want to be on "someone else's" schedule and has said on more than one occasion that another job would interfere with our life (we travel alot). Basically, he likes the "perks" of our business, but doesn't like it that I'm the boss.

I know the song...I just never thought I made BaT feel that way. He still insists that I didn't, but his actions say otherwise.

Of course I am willing to try. BaT says he just needs me "look at him like I used to" to let my "guard down" and let him "take care" of me again.



IT IS SO FREAKIN HARD!!!!! I feel like he stabbed me 37 times then held me down while POSOW stabbed me 25 more. And now I have to admire and trust him again? It really is the hard to even type the words. I DID ADMIRE HIM!!! I DID TRUST HIM!!! And he used it against me...VENT VENT VENT

Well, POSOW never annoyed BaT...he thinks/thought she was perfect until she started stalking our kids. He's told me so...that she never once did anything that bothered him. This came up while I was questioning him...because I could only tolerate her in increments (OMG, that was SO amazing!! This was LIKE the most fun EVER!) Her personality was "cute" but it grates....

So for me, its more sad than confusing...I just think that at this point in his life (for reasons I do not understand) BaT doesn't want to be challenged and intrigued...he wants to be AWESOME and AMAZING....

Wait until the fog starts to clear...and he looks back on the A then...all of her annoyances will come out in his mind.

You will probably be even more amazed then! At least this is how it worked for us. I was completely dumbfounded...had to pick my jaw up off the floor even!

As many people at MB have pointed out, you can drive yourself nutz trying to figure out the "why" of what another person does. That's not surprising considering that sometimes we don't know the "why" of our own actions.

That is why (haha) MB works so well. I don't really care why my husband has IB, I just need for him to stop it so I can stay in love with him.

Are you a Type A person? Maybe they call this something different now. Hardworking, hard-driving, the reward of hard work is more hard work. . . .

My husband is Type A and I gotta tell ya, although I have not dealt with my frustrations by banging the hired help, it is a difficult fit.

Ever since we met in the workplace, my feeling is that I always come off unfavorably compared to him.

He worked on his days off. I didn't. He gave 150% to every project. I gave 80% and said let's go have a drink and watch the koi swim. Guess which one of us our bosses raved over?

I do admire a lot about him, but the hardworking part is just a part of it. Sure, it helps to balance out the "we're all going to be dead in 100 years any way why are you killing yourself working" part of me. But that hardworking part can easily take over because everyone else admires it so.

You are frustrated because you cannot make BaT do what you want him to do. You are trying to take control of something that is not yours to control. Sure, you can scare him into hitting a lick at a snake with threats of leaving the marriage, but not much more.

The bottom line is that unless you both work to overcome this incompatibility, your marriage is doomed to limp along until one of you bails--and I bet it will be BaT. You know, it's easy to focus on BaT's flaws because they are so egregious, but you both contribute to the problems that you are having. Time to listen to what he is saying that bothers him. You may or may not be willing to change--and I see nothing wrong with that. But you cannot force him to change and you cannot drag him along forever in this marriage.

Would you sell the business in an attempt to keep your marriage--no guarantees? Would you be able to "gear down" some? Can you find attributes to admire in your H? Could you stop assuming that he is only a good father because you are forcing him to be?

This makes no sense because then you say...



hbh cannot force her H to do ANYTHING, like you said above. She can encourage it but she cannot FORCE it.

What is the point of your post? You are making it sound like it's hbh's fault that BaT banged the nanny because she is successful.

Hopefully he will eventually see that he should try and Re earn your trust and admiration.

But like other things involved in recovering from an affair, you may have to "Fake it Till ya make it"

I understand totally.

Then I would ask him what makes him so Awesome and Amazing?

Honestly (And once again I hope I do not offend you) BaT just seems like a spoiled little boy. I don't know how else to explain it.

All waywards place there happiness above all others.

But BaT just seems to believe he is superior to everyone, and needs to prove it in anyway he can.

I kinda think he has become so spoiled by your success, and his need to justify his own feelings of superiority over you and all others is so strong. That the only way to realign these two opposing ways of thinking may be to...


If you will forgive the term...

"Hit the reset button"

What would he do if you went to Plan-B and cicked him out?
Plan-B would mean NO financial support AT ALL!!, none, zero, zip, ziltch! Not one penny of support from you, nothing but his clothes and a car.

What would he do?

To be clear, I am sure that the dynamic of their relationship has played a "part" in their struggles, but BaT is still 100% responsible for his selfish, entitled choices.

He could have been seen as a much bigger "man" if he had chosen a moral, upstanding route to beefing himself up. What he did accomplished the exact opposite of how he wishes to be viewed and that is NOT hbh's fault. It's 100% BaT's.

Also, FWIW I think getting rid of the business would be a huge mistake ~ they have the opportunity to spend oodles of time toegher, to travel and to avoid many of the stresses of financial problems.

I beleive their best bet is to POJA a new "plan" to the management structure of the business. They are smart people...with some thinking they can surely come up with a plan that includes giving BaT more responsibility so that he feels like a partner and not an employee. They each bring something valuable to the business...they just need to make the footing equal and POJA can allow them to find this place.

Absolutly, 100%, tottaly correct.

Real quick cuz I'm at work , HBH, re- read kaylas post.... It had a ton of good gems in it.....

Not2fun

Notice where you look down on him. I hate the fact that he reads here in some ways because you need to consider your contributions to the demise of your marriage and this is one BIGGIE!

You have a degree. He doesn't. You have ambition. He doesn't. The comparisons can't be subtle in your marriage because they're blatant here.

Please understand, I hold this in a very tender place. Because there are so many similarities with myself and Kasey. I have the degree; he doesn't. He lacks ambition and focus. I'm driven. And Kasey has such a strong need for admiration and appreciation. He was a sitting duck for a predator OW, and thankfully we had enough marriage builder practice under our belt before she came on the scene that it stopped at an EA.

There are many things that it doesn't take a degree to have high income and competence. And it sounds like your husband could step into any one of those things and do well, from what you've described.

He deserves your admiration for those competencies. Start there. Let go of the fact that you paid the price to earn the degree and build a business and he didn't. The fact that he has other gifts doesn't make him lessor.

His cheating heart is what has hurt him. He needs to deal with how he gets his emotional needs for admiration met. That was the most extremely self-destructive thing he could have done to get that need met. Which means he has no internal reference for being a good man - he has to have other people tell him. He has to grow in this area if your marriage is to be recoverable.

Humble men can be great if they know their own worth from within themselves. He doesn't need to have those external references if his own validation means something to him.

But make sure that your behavior doesn't rob him of validation.

I can share more if you want on how to do this. I'd rather not give away my secrets and deprive your husband of the chance to grow in and of himself!

I believe it's the underlined word that is currently frustrating HbH.

She did admire him, she did look up to him, she did need him, it just wasn't enough for BaT, he needed more.

I don't think she feels like he does deserve her admiration at the moment. But it is obviously his highest need, so she will have to fake it for now.

What if this comes at the cost of her own self worth and ego?
Her giver is about to collapse from the effort, and her taker is starving!

I just hope BaT gets a cranial/rectal extraction performed before HbH's taker assumes command.

You guys are starting to make BaT sound like a gigolo. Though a gigolo hand-selected and molded to personal preference over the years by hbh.

I suspect it�s a lot simpler than that though. BaT simply is who he is. Change will be hard. Too hard. Perhaps too hard for this one.

BaT probably no longer even admits it to himself by this late date, but I suspect he deep down wishes he had a traditional stay-at-home wife who looked up to him with admiring doe-eyes as the manly provider and head of the family. That will never be, given who he is and who hbh is. So he is pretty much just acting out. Frustration maybe.

I don�t think Plan B is indicated in this case. Acceptance of and adjustments to reality on both their parts is required. Way hard though. They need SH and an MB weekend more than any case I have see here recently.