Oh, and I will need a way to tell him he cannot go on this trip without TELLING him he cannot go. I am 100% UNenthusiastic about that.

This sounds like you are trying to find a way to manipulate him to not go on the trip. While I agree that if you start confronting him about his lying, he may go underground to party with the friend and then he may start going underground with affairs too....

I do not know what to say. Your husband likes that lying friend of his and you know that "birds of a feather stick together".

I fault YOUR HUSBAND for choosing and keeping a friend like that. I can predict it will end up hurting him and hurting the family in the future.

Sounds like your husband knows how to "playact" for a while giving you a few good days to soften you up and then he manipulates to get his way to drink, party, and flirt with other women hoping you will not mind.

Does your husband have all the power in your marriage? If so, he does not care if he lies or cheats on you since he has all the power and you will do basically nothing about it. What power do you have to put your marriage on track?

"On track" may look like this:

1. No lying to each other
2. No doing things with liar friends
3. Loves to be around the family/your children
4. Likes to get home from work early
5. Cares about you more than anything else
6. Cares to communicate with you
7. Diciplines the kids along with you/same page.
8. Takes care of the puppy
9. Other things______________ and __________ and _______.

I find that agreed upon "rules" are best so everyone knows what is expected. For example, my DH is Catholic and I am Protestant. There is only so much Catholic service I can put up with (as they don't let Protestants take communion!) so we mostly go to a local Methodist church. But every once in a while we would go to the Catholic church. But it got to be every Sunday I would feel nervous asking about what church we would go to or him just saying we should go to the Catholic Church this week. After a while this bothered me so we worked out a POJA that we would go to the Catholic Church on the last Sunday of the month (Donut day!) and on any major religious holidays and the Methodist Church the rest of the time.

Similarly with my kids, if I asked them to help clean up after dinner, one would put the food away and one would wash a couple of things, but nobody was in charge. If there was a possiblility that someone else could be responsible for the work they would try to get out of it. I got tired of this so I made rules so that one of them helped with dinner on odd days (the other was in charge of the dishes) and visa versa on even days. No more whining because everyone knows what is expected.

Maybe spell it out for your DH.

Yes, this. Exactly. I have the book Living with the Passive Aggressive Man and I HAD made some changes to how I react to this. Last night, though, I chose not to address it because right now (with his work) he has bigger issues and I was trying to avoid andy and all conflict because he was in a bad space.

I agree. Problem is, we make agreements like this all of the time and they never stick. Ever. This is where I am powerless because I do feel I have tried every approach, many of them I learned here, and nothing lasts. All the way down to the Post It Notes (I believe EARS or Stella suggested) a couple of years ago. Problem with that is, if you look at something X amount of times, it no longer stays visual. Like piles of laundry that just get stepped over. Once you step over it X amount of times, you lose sight of it and it becomes a habit.

I agree. I am. If we were MBers and we had POJAs and whatnot, I would have a different stance. There is no way in hell he is going on this trip. If I tell you WHY this is a no-go, you are just going to hate him more, Stella. And that isnt good for you, me OR my marriage.

Gdar....wow...I am not sure how you can handle this....In the LB book it deals with this issue of "friends/relatives" and your H's buddy is a poster child for that chp! In my case it's my BIL who is the terminally single party prono king...so he's never going away...at least friends you may have a chance of getting him out of your life at some point.

The fact that he is single is a huge issue IMO...single men are on the prowl everywhere they go....and they like to go to bars and strip clubs and so on....I suspect this is what your H is planning with his single buddy....there's noway my H would be going on something like that.

If you have to....tell him straight up that YOU and the kids will be going on this 2 day vacation with him....that is what I would say....no seperate vacations...I can't believe your MC is saying that's a good idea....I think you need to dump that MC...and shop around for someone willing to do it the MB way instead or at least be open to read the materials and apply them...good grief...I feel for you.

GDar,

IMO, the larger issue isn't the trip..it's the lying and the destructive friendships. On your side of the street is the pasive-aggressive manipulation thingy.

Have you considered picking one program and sticking to it?

What I mean is - I am not seeing how your MC is helping.

This MC is an enemy of your marriage. BTDT. I like how ML says that your money is better spent on a pedicure. At least that isn't slashing your marriage to shreds the way this person is. I have thought about calling the folks that I paid good time and effort and money to, and letting them know how their bad advice affected us, but I haven't gotten the courage yet. It makes me cry inside when I hear my friends whose MCs saved their marriage, by advocating MB concepts like POJA and Rule of Care and Rule of Protection. MCs in my area. Because I could have acted and ditched the substandard MC for a better one, but I didn't, until it was too late for us. We could have had the same lasting marriages my friends have earned, had we just invested our time more in line with our values. Another part of my half of the breakdown of my marriage.

ITA the LYING is terrible....should she tell him she read those texts? if she does he will just make sure to erase them right away next time and she won't know anything that way....just thinking out loud here....and yes that friend is toxic...just like my H's brother can be....barf.

gem,

I believe that gDar needs to stop concerning herself with micro issues (individual incidents) which are merely symptoms of the larger issues.

I also think that she's going to continue to go around in circles because she's working with a MC who is giving them marriage advice which appears to be opposite from what she's learning and talking about here @ Marriage builders.

I believe that as long as this is the case, she'll always be dissatisfied ...being caught between what the MC says (which her H will be able to use against her to maintain the status quo) and what she knows is the right way to have a marriage via MB.

I see that too Chris....that's why I haven't even suggested MC for my H & I here locally....if it's not MB then it won't "fix" the issues we have....so I get what your saying...doing what Gdar's MC is telling her to do is using the giver/taker situation....I get one party vacation then you get your party vacation....and I can see where her H is gonna just LOVE this MC and hate MB concepts like POJA and so on LOL....anyone that is heavy into lying/IB isn't gonna be happy about POJA....that's why my H says it doesn't work...says POJA still causes someone to "lose" it is not a win/win....he doesnt understand it or the value of it but that is the key "understanding" why these concepts are so important.

Sorry I got carried away.....no more t/j Gdar!

Some MCs can hasten your way to the big D with extra helpings of pain and suffering along the way

No, this idiot is married with a child and broke as a joke (but always has money for beer).


I need to get that LB book, at least for myself. I have 3 other Harley books.

He knows I check from time to time. It was an agreement we made after the EA - that he be transparent with me. Thing is, now he feels enough time has passed and he should be trusted and does not like me looking at his phone. Not so much as what I see, but because he feels untrusted. But yes, after I have told him I checked his phone in the past, he just started deleting the texts, but usually for a few days. He still deletes his emails pretty regularly, though. But I do have full access to his email, as well.

He reminds me of a kid with his lying. He feels I treat him like his mom, whom he has always lied to, so he lies to me so he doesn't have to listen to my "wrath". It is not an everyday.non-stop lying issue, but when it is about things I am not comfortable, like this loser friend, he lies by omission because he knows I cannot stand the guy.

Chris, I do believe you are correct on all counts. I feel like I cannot micromanage the small things, but they are indicitive of a bigger issue. We have not been to MC together for a while now because of his work schedule, but during and after the EA, I did find it very helpful, but simply because my H saw the hurt he caused me and was proactive in putting more care into our M.

I would love to find something and have it stick. I unfortunately do not have the faith in my H it will stick. That saddens me.

I need to do a MUCH better job of cleaning up my side of the street. It has been a long process and I have made many changes, most unnoticed by him, but I can feel them. I have learned ways to pick and choose battles because of his passive aggressiveness, but things like this situation, where I am having a BAD reaction to even the THOUGHT of him going on this trip, I fail. I honestly have no idea how to handle it. Being what he is dealing with right now with work, I feel I cannot bring it up right now, but the weekend is fast approaching (end of June).

No apology needed, this is exactly how I feel about it. This is why I bought the books, why we do the HNHR questionnaires (3 times so far in 2 yrs), he has the books on his nightstand. Why I am super hesitant about bringing him HERE (because we cannot afford an MB weekend, though I know those have ceased) is because there is no way POJA is going to happen here. We discussed it a couple of years ago when he skimmed the book and he did not think that was doable.

But you're working 2 noncongruent programs with your H, Gdar...

He said he wasn't going, so leave it at that. You sound like you need to clarify that with him, and I think that would be a fine thing to do. "I just want to be clear, honey, that I understood you correctly...you are NOT going on that overnight with d-bag, right?"

Hopefully he will ease your fears about it. If he hems and haws and gives you the IDK, just tell him how it would make you feel if he were to go. Perhaps offer an enticing alternative.

He told ME he was not interested in going, did not say he was NOT going and did not say what his response was to his friend other than "not interested in the overnight", but what he actually told his friend was "not interested in an overnight for that length of a drive, it would make more sense for TWO nights" or something along those lines.

I will seek clarification this weekend, because today is going to be a horrid, horrid day for him.

I am still in the "try anything" place. I do not believe he will be on board with MB at all. It is too disciplined. History has shown me he cannot stick to even the most basic of marital agreements.