I'm pullin for you G - I've got to take off and probably won't be able to get on again for a while.

Please, please, please think about what we're saying. What do you want? What are you willing to do to get that? Will what you are willing to do get you what you want? If not, then what do you have to do to get what you want?

No! If he goes away with his friend next weekend, he takes all his stuff with him and doesn't come back unless and until he is ready to commit to no overnights, ever. You change the locks. You shut off the phone. You give him a plan B letter telling him exactly how he can come home, and who he can contact instead of you (a liason who will only allow pertinent information about the kids to get through).

Interestingly enough, he does not even have a key to the house. He loaned it to a neighbor and the guy lost it. It is my fault, however, that he does not have a replacement key, because I never went and made a copy FOR HIM. Ha! I have a boundary surrounding that! WAHOO! I told him if he wanted another key, then he was plenty capable of getting it taken care of. It has been over a year and he still does not have a key. I refuse to do it.

He will just bang on the doors and make a huge stink. Do I want my kids to see that? No. My kids will cry and try and open the door!!!

My mom used to lock my dad out of the house ALL OF THE TIME (now realizing she was enforcing a boundary, but as a kid I thought she was terribly cruel). My dad would come home and yell at the door for her to let him in and she would hold me back while I cried and begged her to let him in.

I just cannot do that to my children.

Well, if he knows this is what I will do, then he will not go on the overnight, I know that much. He has canceled them before because I was so UNHappy about it. But that is why he is so resentful of me, because he sees me not "letting him". He will not pack up his stuff and go to his friends house if he knows I won't let him back in when he comes home.

Then you tell him if he comes banging, you're calling the police. Put it in the letter. He's a principal, he won't risk a police report, will he?

You KNOW I will not do this, right? I am telling you as much.

Ok, again, I would really like help in crafting a reply. He wants to talk about this tonight when he comes home from work. Meaning, he wants me to agree to his overnight.

I would like to have some sort of talking points mapped out to help me through this.

Then he's made a choice! Congrats! Look at all this time you have together now.

I told you...straight from the book of Waaaa...he'll get over it. Make the weekend fun.

If he's still pouty a week or two later, remind him that you will not tolerate being treated poorly for HIS choices. If he chose to live with his wife and family instead of hanging out in a garage, it was his choice.

CWMI, but he won't feel like he made a choice, he will feel forced and will resent me more, however fun I make it or not. We just went though this 3 weeks ago when he wanted to go overnight while he had MONO. He was "too sick" to help out with anything family oriented, but wanted to see his friend. When I told him I would not feel comfortable with him going drinking with having mono, he ignored me most of the weekend and then told me he was cooking for me (He BBQs a lot and the meat is on the grill for several hours, but it is not like he has to BE standing over, watching it cook) me, "so sorry I am making you a nice dinner". He totally checked out and sulked and the weekend sucked.

Hour and a half til he gets home. I do want to effectively have this talk with him, but I am afraid I will fail. Pooo. I cannot believe what these past 2 years of turned me into! Gah!

Well, he came home, made 3 comments in a row how hungry he was, as again today, he did not take the time to eat lunch. Dinner was in the works, but only about half way done when he got home. Snipped at me and told me to "relax" when he jumped in and tried to get things going faster (but in a take over kind of way, not a helpful way, as he was clearly stressed out). I was in no way needed to relax, and was not acting like I needed to. So I said "I was not aware I needed to relax", when I should NOT have said anything at all. I was trying to get dinner ready for everyone and that put a damper on my efforts.

He dished himself up a plate first and sat down and started to eat. He looked up and saw me plating up dinner for the 4 kids, so he said "do you want me to get a plate for the baby", so I said yes and thanked him.

Sat through a completely silent dinner (from my H). He did not say a single word other than "I am so tired". Finished before the rest of us, got up and went into our bedroom, laid down on the bed and started texting a friend. Two HUGE HUGE HUGE LB for me. Both sitting through a dinner where he does not engage and stares down at his plate AND when he texts during our time - when the only family time he could have tonight short, as he had to return to work 45 minutes after he got home.

So, what I do when he texts and it upsets me, I leave the room he is in. I refuse to be around it, he knows it bothers me, yet he continues to do it. At least when I am not in the room watching him, I can focus on other things. He came back out while I was sitting at the dinner table while the 4 and 2 yr old were finishing up their dinner. He plops down in a chair and puts his head on the table and groans "I am so tired".

So that means during the 45 minutes he was home, I heard "I am so hungry" 3x and "I am so tired" twice. Not much else. Not how was your day, not how are the kids. The older 2 wanted to go back to school with him for the concert, and I welcomed that. So they left.

No time to "talk" obviously and I feel pretty set up with how tired he says he is, to avoid the discussion this evening, as well.

aaaand he just text me, asking me if I have silence (the younger 2s bed time and he took the older 2) and "I am so tired".

I feel he is asking for a thank you, so I will give him another one.

K, thanked him.

Texts that he is looking forward to this weekend (some sunshine in our forecast FINALLY), though it also stresses him out because he is that much closer to NEXT week, which he has already dubbed the week from hell. The last week of school. We do not have any plans, so I was not sure what he was referring to. Last weekend when we had our BBQ, one of my closest friends said she was fully expecting at least my presence, at her daughter's graduation get together this coming Saturday. I have known her since she was 4. My friend made a point of saying this in front of my H, that it was IMPORTANT to her that I (or we) attend. I know that H does not really want to go, so I asked if he was interested in going for an hour-ish. His reply "whatever you want". Since I cannot decipher tone via text (usually the comment above means he will do whatever I say, because he feels he cannot do what he wants anyway, so why bother - is it a DJ is this is how it has happened in the past?) I told him we could talk about it later. Then he text again, whatever you want to do is fine.

Ok.

I best make it enjoyable, then!

I just reread his email from before. He DID say that if I come up with perimeters in regards to the time with his friends, he will follow them. I think I missed that, and everyone else missed that. That help a bit. I need to come up with those. Again. I wonder how we can get it to stick?

Gdar, have you gone back and re-read this thread?

You have been in denial to varying degrees throughout about several serious issues...I think just this morning you were saying you didn't know if you should be posting here because the A was two years ago and there has been nothing since.

Huh?

He made out with your friend and asked you to have a 3some!!

He doesn't have EPs in place. He isn't transparent.

He wants overnight drinking outings and basically gaslights you when you ask him not to do this.

The one that really bothers me: he wants you to go with him to a conference where OW will be? She will be coming into his school and he withholds this info from you? This makes me sick to my stomach. If my H did this one thing to me (never mind all the other things), I would be Lovebustering all over the place and no book or advice on a message board would be able to help me.

He is still wayward, selfish and entitled.

Stop looking for a bandaid to put on the problem. Yes, you need to work on boundaries....but make just one for now ~ that your H coach with Steve and see if he can't get him onboard.

I feel sad for you. Sometimes we women fall in love with a man and gradually over the years he disrespects us more and more and more until in order to stay with him, we have to completely ignore our own needs and we basically have to stop respecting and loving our own selves.

How can you love this man who is treating you badly? How can you accept his behavior?

You have a dillema.

1. You dont want to lay the rules down LIKE HIS MOTHER because you do not want to have to step into that role.

2. You do not want to go along with everything he wants, his over night drinking parties with friends, being the babysitter while he travels, his flirting with other women and getting ego stroked by them every day, etc.

3. You have lost the ability to set and keep boundaries..

4. You have two young kids so you are committed even though he is disrespecting you daily and you are trying in vain to please him again and again. You are almost groveling for crumbs of his affection and some crumbs of respect.

I feel this way. He never wanted kids, you had some. He did not want your kids, you brought them. Maybe you feel you owe him for all this and for supporting all of you. You may not like what he does but if you feel you owe him then the imbalance will be there and will cause all kinds of problems.

For example if you had kids he did not want and brought stepkids he does not really want for him to support, then maybe him expecting you to take that puppy out to pee was normal, a normal act for the BIG BARGAIN you have made when you entered the marriage.

Look at who has the power in the relationship
Do you feel you have brought so much heavy baggage to the marriage that you have to put up with his bad behavior.>

Gdar, I agree with SusieQ. I don't understand why you are choosing to live like this. You have become a volunteer for all this by choosing to not have even the least of boundaries. It has been years and there is not the slightest hint of recovery. Nothing. You have lowered the bar so low that your H is simply living down to your expectations.

Talking a problem to death instead of focusing on implementing the program in its entirety is a distraction from the main problem.

It is waste of time to come here and ask people for talking points about some individual dilemma when the problem is that your marriage needs a drastic overhaul. You are discussing the peeling paint in the girls bathroom on the sinking Titanic. Pretty soon there won't be a girls bathroom to worry about if you don't right the ship.


Ever heard of Marriage Builders? Its a really good program that some of us here have used to recover our marriages. Why have you never used it?

Instead of fiddling around the edges, how about trying the program in its entirety?

Gdar, I was thinking something similar, but if I can't say something nice, why say it at all? I'm glad these folks did find a nice way to say it. That it would be nice if we all brainstormed words together that felt like nice words and felt like he would try to back off on the hurting you until it was back at the level you've become accustomed to again.

But that's not the fullness of what I want for you, to dial back the pain to a tolerable level again, like your first go-round here. I want for you the MB marriage, one where you two fall more and more back in love with each other, with all Four Rules for a Successful Marriage in place, Care, Protection, Time, and Honesty. Are these exactly what you're asking for, a list of guidelines that you can be excited to share with your H, something that is a freedom to become best friends with you in a way his buddy could never provide.

Your H may well respond as you posted yesterday. That's okay, it's a moment in time.


How would you feel about giving this a real shot, letting the MB plan heal your marriage, as it has so many others? What outside support would you be willing to get to help you and your H?

Well. Gdar, you wanted more input, you got it!
The advice is more blunt here, but it is honest!

Looks like you have a lot of thinking to do.

How is all this hitting ya?