Thank you, Gem! I am happy for you and that you no longer have these situations in your life!

Hi resentment towards me for not liking his friend is pretty intense. He will tell me that he thinks I am not liking him ON PURPOSE just to have control over what he does. What a crock of crap! When the guy got married and then got a DUI, they would count down the clock for an entire year for when he could legally drink again. Really? That was not a wake up call AT ALL - now the guy just has a wife to drive his drunk a$$ around! I have no idea how this woman can not be totally miserable. I understand why she likes my H so much, because my H is 10 times easier than hers, if you can believe that! She ENJOYS it when my H comes over, because then at least she doesnt have to wake up their 2 yr old from sleep to go pick up her loser H at a bar. Well, actually, they moved within walking distance of a bar, so I suppose that sure helped (insert eye roll). Blech!

Again, I still have no idea how I am going to make these changes. My H is going to put the brakes on full speed if he feels I am trying to control him.

Can I live my life like this? Pfffffffffffffshhshshss, bah. I guess so. I do not want to be divorced again.

Gdar what does this other wife look like? With your H going over their home drinking.....I bet she has her eye on him....you better watch this also...unless shes seriously ugly or old and I mean seriously deformed or something...this is very very bad in my mind.

Gdar,

I have not read but the last couple pages of your thread but boy does a lot of what you wrote sound familiar. Your H is very immature in his thinking. He is a married man with children. He is an adult with responsibilites including a job he signed on for. His choice of friends speaks volumes about the way he thinks. He is on the fence about being an adult. My H spent most of our marriage being like that. I was that "single" mom while my H went out and I stayed home. Boy did I come to resent that.

What I read from your emails/conversations with him is he is used to using blameshifting, gaslighting, your fear of him leaving, and guilt to control you and keep you in your place. You need to take this power away from him.

One more thing, gdar. Boundaries are for you not him. If *you* set a boundary then it is up to *you* to enforce it. IOW, if you say you don't want him to go to strip clubs and then he does...you need to know ahead of time what the consequence will be. It could be you pack his bags and he has to leave. It could be that you ask him to move our of your bedroom for a week. Whatever works for you, you need to decide ahead of time what behavior is unacceptable and what the consequence will be and then follow through. If you don't follow through you lose your credibility.

Remember this...we can only control ourselves and our own behavior but we do not have to tolerate someone disrespecting us.

She is plain, very overweight and freckled. SUPER nice woman, whom I like. I am NOT worried. His friend would slice him in two if anything like that was to EVER happen. His friend was a 36 yr old virgin when he met her and they married 6 months later.

Also, he invites me most of the time he goes over there, so he can feel better that "at least he tried to include me", but I said no. He KNOWS I do not like going over there, at all.

Oh, and he blames me because upon my acting like a complete insecure freak when I found out about the EA, I told him about a sex dream I had that involved another girl. He LOVED this, and we brought the idea of a 3some into our bed during SF. It was fun, it felt harmless, we knew we would know actually DO this, though he enjoyed it when I talked to my friend about it (the one I had the dream about - she lives in NY).

So, even though he was remorseful about his actions and he went into a deep funk for a couple of months following this incident (and quit drinking cold turkey and even got an AA sponsor), he still did say to me that I was the one that brought this "idea" about, so I was not blameless for what HE did. Yeah.

I had a BIG talk with my friend he kissed. She thought that he was trying to get something going between the 3 of us, and that excited her. She had recently had gastric bypass surgery and lost a TON of weight. She had never been thin, and being 32 was just coming into herself sexually because men never wanted her before. She is moving away, so we won't be seeing her again.

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Change can only come from within him. You clean up your side of the street, get rid of LBs and be the best wife you can, in order for your marriage to work HE will have to get on board at some point... or you'll just limp along forever like you have been. He won't do that. He doesn't have to. You'll never divorce him because you don't want to be divorced again.

A boundary is not defined as "something I don't like."

A boundary is defined as "something I will defend no matter what."

A very common question is, "How do I enforce a boundary? How do I make my spouse stop lying, how do I make my spouse stop dating OP, how do I make my spouse start taking care of our family instead of someone else's?"

The answer is: You don't.

Trying to "make" people do the things listed above is not enforcing a boundary. It's control, it's manipulation, it's laying down demands, etc. etc. etc.

And none of it works.

The answer to the question, "How Do I Enforce A Boundary?" is virtually always the same:

You remove yourself from the situation. You stop allowing the boundary trespasser to have any access to you at all.

This is what's meant by, "You can't control others. You can only control yourself."

You can't "make" your spouse stop lying to you - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse stop dating OP - - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse take care of your family instead of someone else's - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

Get the idea now?

Boundaries are for *you*. They are to protect you from people who would do you harm. They are NOT about "making" others do anything. They are about protecting *YOU*.

Castle walls don't make the invaders stop their cruel and destructive attitudes - but they do protect you from their intrusion.

Boundaries are castle walls.

And as far as anger goes, you will find that good boundaries will make much of it go away. Good boundaries really do make RAGE dissipate, because anger + fear = rage. Good boundaries keep you safe, and when you are safe, fear goes away. You will certainly have some righteous anger left, sure, but the RAGE will fade away because there is no longer the fear hanging around to fuel it.

Make sense?

You make a plan to enforce your boundaries, NL...and you stick with it. Doesn't stop him...stops you staying present for his verbal abuse.

And smirks aren't, btw. You need to stop your own DJs, too, in order for you to do boundary enforcements.

First, you look to your code...which has respect in it. (Let me know if it doesn't.) So your boundary is that you will not act from disrespect. If you do, then you will own what you said/did, why you said/did, and how and why you won't do it again.

Same for enforcing DJs from your H. You state what the DJ was...and that you don't do those anymore. If he continues, you state that he's continuing and that you need to remove yourself from the conversation for 20 minutes while you settle your reactive feelings (which you know you have). Then you'll return to continue.

If he continues, you remove yourself for two hours (take the kids if necessary), making sure you state what you're doing, why you're doing it and when you'll return.

When you return when you said you would, and he continues, then you remove for overnight. If it's name calling/yelling, your choice can also include calling the police on domestic violence. Just state the boundary enforcement from the beginning when you explain how you've disrespected him by staying present for verbal abuse and that you won't anymore.

And you won't do it, either.

That you commit to not distancing your heart, spirit or mind from the marriage...and that removing your presence was the way you were dishonoring the marriage, your part. And that's why you were getting down so much...not only that he wouldn't stop, that you wouldn't either...you wouldn't take your part, your power, to remove.

When you choose to act from respect because it's in YOUR code, then you will enforce your boundary. If you believe he can make you treat him disrespectfully, then you're not in your power...cannot do what is solely your responsibility to do...and makes him the bad guy, the monster, the one to fear and withdraw from...rather than focus on you and what you're up to when you are not enforcing your boundaries as part of your goal for a healthy, thriving marriage.

We are in part responsible for our own love banks, too...because we can make a lot of withdrawals and believe our spouse alone did it...we do it with our own DJs, our own justifications and we do not protect it. Feelings follow actions. When we act from love and respect, those are the feelings that will follow.

It's amazing how much loss of loving feelings we have when we focus on getting another person to stop hurting us...when by staying present for the hurt, we are doing grievous harm ourselves.

LA

Your frightening me even more here....I don't understand HOW his having a EA would make you feel open to even discussing a 3some in fun or in jest?? I think this would send a very confusing signal to your H....like maybe your open to this as your dreaming of it and telling him this....I am not saying this justifies his actions to kiss this so called friend of yours....but opening pandora's box is never a good idea....it's crowded enough in marriages with just 2 people let alone 3.....you aren't to blame but you must send a consistent message on all of this....your H will run with whatever he thinks he can right now IMO.

If he is telling me his needs are met, and HE is happy, and I am doing things he likes and the way he likes it, then HOW ELSE can I be the best wife I can be?