Universe,

Yes, talk with your H about having another child and tell him honestly your thinking and what is driving it.

As for the spying, there is an old Ronald Reagan saying "trust but verify". I think it is good, but I would not spy right now, I would work on clear, clean, productive communications. This does not mean you should not state displeasure about something, but make sure YOU understand what you are displeased about.

Further, if you want something from him ASK HIM! Don't hint, tell him what you want from him and how you want it. Sounds demanding doesn't it?? But, men need to be needed. That doesn't mean you turn into a vegatable, but it means if he can help you you ask and then you thank him very much. He is needed at work and he thinks you have everything under control at home. Us guys tend to do this. He also knows that his pay check is needed at home and would be even moreso if you two decide to have another child.

Please really pay attention to Schoolbus's comments. She can really teach you how to effectively communicate. Finally, don't make the mistake of overlooking the small things in your life that are good things. It is easy to focus on the negative, but it is often more productive to focus on the positive.

By the way that is also part of plan A and it really is a good thing to do with a spouse. Your H has some pluses, remember them.

One final thought, the reason to have more children should not be at the whim of a 7 year old. This child is NOT going to be the one rearing the new child, paying for cars, paying for education, and being responsible for this new child, you and your H are.

I look forward to seeing you and SchoolBus talk more she is exceptional.

God Bless,

JL

Get your marriage worked out and good before even thinking about having another baby. That would be crazy right now.

And if your husband never wants another baby, do not have one. Both people must be 100% on board with that idea.

I think your husband isn't sure about having another baby right now because the two of you are not stable.

He is not sure that your relationship is steady enough. From his point of view, you do not trust him, you spy on him, your ability to communicate with him clearly and calmly is limited. He is disrupted at work with calls about issues that have been talked to death, only to be exhumed and beaten to death again. He sees your insecurity, he feels nagged, and he isn't sure that the two of you are on steady ground. He will need to see a huge change in this arena before considering another child. He needs more security here (and you think YOU are insecure!).

He has concerns about your career - and wants you to have a job. He has expressed this emotional need to you...what is your response to him on this?

You have expressed concerns to him regarding the time he spends at work, and your concerns regarding his treatment of you not being up to your standards. He knows he is not meeting the needs of the current family situation - yet you are asking him to increase the size of the family, and therefore the needs of that family, and YOUR needs as well. He is aware he does not meet your needs in the area of FAMILY. Why would he then consider your request to add more family????

You suspect he is interested in another woman, or has been. If this is true, then there are emotional needs that he is having met outside the marriage. This tells you that your marital situation needs attention, and in particular you need to evaluate his emotional needs and improve your approach to him and how you meet his emotional needs. He also needs to evaluate his own behavior, boundaries, decision making, judgement, and work to regain your trust after this serious violation. If the situation is, in fact, that he is seeing another woman, then he most likely would not want to have another child at this point. He would be focused on himself, and not at all considering new children in his life with you. Additionally, you certainly should not even be considering this move if you suspect an emotional or physical affair on his part.


For all of the above reasons, the idea of another child at this point in your life is certainly not a terrific idea in his mind. Do you see his reasoning, now that I have gotten inside his head....just from the conversation that

YOU

had

with HIM?????


SB

Thanks JL, B4U and SB, I can not thank enough for your advise. I did not press my husband for having another child after our last conversation in July. I was a bit disappointed initially since it was a mutual decision until last year and I guess we do need to be stable before we can have second child. I decided to look for work and I will be more aggressively looking once my son starts school next week.:)
Things have calmed down considerably over the weekend. We had wonderful weekend. I have started reading "his needs her needs" My H opended up a little bit last night and he mentioned three things that would be huge love bank withdrawals 1. not letting him focus on work which is really important to him and his educational goals. 2. forgetting that we do have wonderful time over the weekends whenever we can as a family. 3. sleep deprivation.. he hardly gets any sleep so talking at night time is a big no-no when he is exhausted from work.

I guess I will have to work on these three things for the time being and I have started working on plan A.

Thanks SB, you have made so many things clear for me and also I feel much calm now and in perspective. I will keep updating since it will help me stay focused.

Universe,

You got some very important and reasonable information from your H. I also think that SB has helped you as she has done for many here by allowing you to see that things are not as mysterious as they might have seemed. Take heart cause and effect do still work even in your universe.

So now that you have this information, have you started to make some plans for how to work on strengthening your marriage? You should do some reading here and then start making some plans to show to your H. I would recommend that you start with Harleys "four rules" for a good marriage. They are simple and I believe they will provide you some good ideas.

Reading HNHN's will give you some further input for your plan and the discussion you should have with your H about a plan. And then read Harley's two policies: The policy of radical honesty, and the policy of joint agreement, POJA. They will help you two with strategies for designing the plan and implementing the plan.

More to say but must go.

God Bless,

JL

Glad to see that your H was willing to talk about his needs, and it looks to me like he had a very clear list ready to go for you.

This tells me that he was probably relieved to have that talk.

Now....your job....

pay attention to what he said, and make sure you meet his three items.

The payoff will be huge.

Take a look at the body language and memory thread that I bumped. It will make those long-night marathon "talks" that he is complaining about (the sleep-deprivation issue) disappear....look in that thread for ideas on how to make your talks with him much more productive, and make him lots more open to talking.

The rules are in that thread. Use them.

And those talks? They don't always need to be about bad things. They could be about.......how to please him....SF...affection.....foods he wants you to cook....vacations......nice things too!

Hi SB, I could not find the body language/memory thread. Is it in SAA or somewhere else in the forum?. I do need to work on my communication skill with him. We decided to read His Needs Her Needs every night before going to bed for only 20 mins.. 15 mins read and 5 mins discussion. As we did that the day before yesterday. He understood the concept of love bank. He did not like the example of Love bank Love story " John/Marry and Noreen" The affair at work since EM not being met at home. MY husband had the opinion that since I read these kind of examples and they put ideas/doubts in my mind about things happening at his work place. But anyways we made progress and he talked about his EM needs for those three things that I mentioned earlier. Last night we read about Affection. He rated himself at 7-8 on scale of 1-10 while I rated him 6 and half. We went through the examples and I pointed out which ones we do not do often and that offended him. Probably I was too blunt and I should have put it like " I would like these more often etc" The problem is that he does not see any problem in this area and wants the things to be as they are and tells me that I am trying too hard and even the book " His needs her needs" is someone else's ideas and he does not necessarily agree on. I feel violated since I am making an effort here to fix things in our marriage but how am I suppose to do it without him realizing that he needs to make improvements as well.

Now tonight I do not know if I should read his EM " Sexual fulfillment" To be honest, he does not care for sex. He says he does not have that need. He is not like other guys. BTW he is 34. I have to initiate it every time to feel loved/feel that affection etc.Especially after I had a talk with him about how I want to be feeling wanted as well sometimes. For the past few months (4 months). The frequency has dropped to once a month and I do all the work from initiating to whatever!! He shows even less interest in fact he started making excuses that he is having problems and he does not want to be pressured. I was understanding and asked him to see the doctor and get his heart/hormone level checked. his appointment is in September. We did get together last week and things were okay and when I asked him that I thought he was not interested. he responded laughingly. " What are u talking about"? Seriously I do not understand anything at this point. telling him my feelings directly/indirectly do not work at all. I am working on my communication. probably need to approach him differently since he gets defensive and keeps this straight face. I can not get through him once he has his guard on. he was fine and affectionate the night before last night. But as soon as we had the talk and my EM needs. He shut off again and I suspect lot of LB withdrawals. How do I avoid this? I feel hurt too when he acts selfish and insensitive.

When you are talking about ENs, you can't tell him what HIS are.

He is the world's best expert on his own emotional needs.

He is the world's best expert on what he is thinking.



There is a pattern here - he is telling you things, and you tend to pass off what he says as what YOU don't want to hear.

As though what he says is not valid to you - if it does not match what you want to hear, or what you have already decided he feels or thinks.

At this point, he cannot win. He says you are trying too hard. Maybe the issue is that you haven't come to the point in the book where you've hit on the thing where he will rate something high....or....the book doesn't adequately describe his needs.

Ask him to keep going with you through the book.


Instead of you telling him what your needs are in a pushy way, just comment instead. Say things like, "I think I would rate this one high for myself." Then rate it - and for now do not push the discussion into so many details unless he asks.

He may already know and understand.

For now, he sounds like he is indicating a little resistance - but he is still expressing ideas.

So you need to take it easy with this. Let HIM TALK.

As far as how YOU rate HIS needs? I wouldn't do that. Those are HIS NEEDS. Let him rate them for now....and you LISTEN TO HIM.


You need to remember that your listener is broken.


And you are in repair mode.



By the way, his distance in the SF department is an indicator of possible affair behavior. His willingness to go to the doctor weighs in the opposite direction is unusual.

You need to do some spying that would be more fruitful than searching his luggage.

showing affection was my need and he defined affection as not the physical affection of hugs or telling wife sometimes that she looks beautiful etc which I think is important in a relationship. He defined and justified himself by saying that affection is mutual contract.. affection is when you show care through taking care of the family.. going to places together..not talking about things that make them unhappy etc. which is fine but showing physical affection is important as well. The book talked about it and he agreed to it but is persistent to the fact that he already does show a lot of affection.

He made me doubt myself so much after the bag checking incident. When I asked him who the chocolate were for? he responded he especially bought those chocolates and put them in his bag to test me if I will snoop on him since I promised him that I will not. There were too many chocolate bars $40 worth of and knowing him he would not spend so much on candy. But he never gave me any satisfactory answers. He had unexplained transactions for a cafe place for two people 6.95 each.. the weekend he had to work and stay late to get done with some email migrations. In the morning we had breakfast together at a breakfast place and then he left for work. He also bought donuts for his team which I could see that those were for team (understandable). When I inquired about the transaction to that cafe place. He got angry that u go through the accounts ? and my pockets etc for receipts. "Should I have a separate account now. Just stop this!!" and he swear on our child's life that nothing was going on and at the same time he said that if something was to happen to our son, it would be my fault since I made him do that.(SWEAR)
after that he has taken out cash twice and gets rid of the receipts in his pocket. I have stopped checking ever since I have joined the forum.

It started in March the feelings of detachments( emotional/physical) and I started looking for online articles on how to fix things in marriage. Then the child talk took place in April which kind of disappointed me. May/June still problems in the same areas and I told him how I felt about not being approached by him and he tried to make effort. But his efforts seem like a wife who is not interested and just lay there!! LOL! Around the same time I happened to check our accounts since I keep track of my spending and I noticed these online chocolate ordered and sent to his office address. $134 worth of Italian chocolates. I asked him about those and he said he ordered them for me. I asked him why not get delivered at home or POBox UPS place. He reasoned that we dont check that POBox too often(they would get spoiled) and he wanted to surprise me and bring them home hence the office address. IT JUST DID NOT FEEL RIGHT. He has not even bought flowers in two years and 134 dollars spent on chocolates knowing that I am avoiding chocolates for some time to avoid skin issues. he has given me surprises before and done some nice things which I really appreciated. This one did not make sense for some reason. I don't know, he has made me believe that I have created these doubts in my mind. Then what about the distance that I was feeling for quite some time now.

For the time being I will stay quite and listen more and let him talk even though his definitions and understanding of things confuse me and make me feel like that he does not want to fix things between us. He just wants them to be as they are.

SB sorry for the previous long message and venting soo much!! I appreciate all your help so far and also bumping up the body language/memory thread.. great info!! still learning:)

Now last night I spoke to his mother and it was after a while. I found out about how he is keeping some things from me. In the past we never kept anything from each other. We took a trip to back east three week ago to see my dad who is not well. My husband stayed with us for a day and then left for business trip to Pennsylvania and Boston. On his way to Pennsylvania he stopped in NJ before or after since Downing town is not too far and he visited his uncle from maternal side. Only he did not tell me that he will make that trip which I would not have mind. I found out about this last night from his mother. Funny thing is that while we were in DC (My parents live there) a mutual friend told me how my Husband talked to her about how family is important to him etc and that he would like to visit his family in NJ. When I asked him about that when he was in Boston. He denied that he had that talk etc or that he payed that visit to his uncle. Now I really do not know how many things he is keeping from me and why such behavior all of sudden and how do I communicate to him about that.?

Note: my relationship to his family (His Mother/father has not been great. I have tried to please them and fit in but they had hard time and had always issues) The rest of his family is very accommodating and accepting and I absolutely have no problem with that. His parents wanted to visit us in Cali this summer but I asked him if they could visit us later during the year since summer is not so good. He is busy all the time and I had planned a visit to my family because of my dad.

First, you need to figure out if he has a Facebook account. Or, if he has relatives who do, you need to get on FB and find him there. He may be using another name, so find him by searching his work email, or another email he might have. You might also find him by looking for his friends on FB, and checking for him through the friends they have on there. I would look for him, and then see if he has female friends in the NJ area he might be friends with and talking with. Online affairs are common.

If you can install a keylogger program on his computer, you need to do it. It will give you emails and passwords so you can spy better. Look for the Spying 102 thread!!!! I don't help in that area much, sorry.



As far as why he lied about visiting his uncle, you know now that he did. For now, do not reveal it to him. There may be a female in the area or another reason he is keeping it secret, and you do not want him to go further underground to hide her if there is another woman. If this is an affair, he made a small mistake here, and it might help you. Keep this quiet for now.

You really need to be working on Plan A, so you show him your best side. Meanwhile, you need to be spying on him to see if there is, in fact, an affair going on. I do not see why he would lie about candy or about seeing his uncle. Doesn't make sense to me.

He does not use computer at home. He uses only his work laptop to do everything and he refuses to give the password since the work info is sensitive in nature and he does not want to share it with me Blah Blah! I think that is a bit too much. When he was still in Boston and I had a fight with him over the phone being not honest about things.. (Not the visiting incident) Just in general the things he refuses to share.. like his blackberry password which is also from work. we said mean things to each other then apologized the next day and he came back home from his trip. I asked about the candy and also demanded to see his laptop which he showed me but still did not give me the password. so I don't know how to access that or break through password. He is the IT guy and not just an IT guy deals with securities of the whole company. HE knows exactly how to hide things and make them disappear temporarily.

If anyone know how to put the password in from the key which he has and it has numbers which keep changing from time to time but I think there needs to be something else added to it. I have his password for blackberry for three more days. I got it since some relative called and he had to give it to me but he changes that too every month.The problem is he guards his BB all the time even takes it to the bathroom. I can only get one of those spy ware from the net and install on his BB while he is sleeping.
should I?? I am so nervous about spying since he's made me feel like crap about snooping on him.

Hi universe,

This whole secretiveness points out that he really has something to hide.

Can you install VAR in his car? Or can you afford PI for the next time when he goes visiting your relatives?

I have seen people here using VARs and getting the truth within few days in case installing keylogger etc has been difficult.

Do not feel bad about snooping. In case of infidelity, it is the only way to break through the lies. I snooped and it saved me.

If he is an IT guy who deals with security I would not try to get info from hi computer. Im no IT guy but I know enough that a good IT guy will easily spot software running in the background. Plus Im sure he has a complicated 12 or more character password with mixed letters, number, and symbols that changes every 3 months.

You have to search the stuf that he does not protect. Like phone bills, follow him when you suspect him. Dig for info in other ways than his computer. Get some help from a PI.

Thanks Guys for your advise!:) I think I will use VAR initially and after finding some solid proof, I will hire PI to find out more. I agree the key logger and spy ware on laptop and BB would be easily spotted because of his expertise in the area. will update on the situation.

Soo here is the update on the situation.. weekend was good.. he spend time with me and our son. It was good weekend. I am working on plan A. As far as the spying goes.. We have joined accounts and anything I will purchase online will show on credit card statements..I saw few websites for VAR.. His hours are extended so I need something that can have long battery life and data can easily be transferred to my laptop for later listening. Any thoughts?? Someone mentioned u can buy the VAR at radio shack.. I wonder if I should check that out.

One more thing I feel really annoyed when he mentions something like.. last night he was talking about how wants to learn diving.. hmmm.. he does not know how to swim!!.. JUST because it is HER hobby (scuba diving and underwater photography).. now he wants to learn diving.. I mean even if there is no physical affair, my husband is highly impressed of the OW..I found out that she is married and about the same years as us.. 14 years .. no children.. I searched her on face book and she has this website for her hobbies where her bio was posted. Pictures of her and her husband.. seems like they share common hobbies. I am keeping quite and doing my search.. it is just so hard to not feel like screaming! I wonder if it is just emotional affair and how do you break that?? please direct me to the right article or info on the MB website. THANKS!

Can anyone look at this website to suggest which VAR should I get?

http://search.brickhousesecurity.co...87951&query=voice+activated+recorder

Thanks

BTW today is my birthday and I feel so depressed.. he is taking me out tonight..I just don't feel good..Why Me? We had everything so perfect and I never thought I would be at some affair forum expressing my feelings instead of expressing it to him :<