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Maybe ask yourself this:

"What is the worst that could happen if I let him go on two short business trips a year?"

Most likely letting him go on a couple trips and one party a year...with your blessing...would not be worse..... than an ugly DIVORCE.

BTDT, he refused my phone calls and came home drunk off his butt. No thanks. We worked this out with the help of SH, remember? SH didn't suggest I just tolerate it, he told my H to get a new job where this stuff wasn't required of him.

Which he said he did.

Except he didn't.

Ned--the only thing I can think of that's off is we skipped church three weeks in a row. One was to go visit my FIL (high stress there). But we went today. I thought it was great, asked him afterwards what he took away from the sermon, and he said nothing, what was I looking for him to take away from it?

It was about technology and getting into more face-to-face interaction, but there was a part that hit me like a ton of bricks: the preacher (not Andy, another one) said that it should bother us if our loved ones don't care if we're distracted from them. And H does that--he WANTS me to not care if I don't have his attention. He wants me to not care if he cares for me or not. At least historically and very recently, but there was that little time period in there when stuff was as it should be.

Bubbles, I'm suprised with a question like this.....

What's the worst that can happen?

As I understand MB, the goal here is to restore romantic love. Nobody restores romantic love by giving sacrifical blessings. Sacrificing is the antithesis of successfully practicing The MB Program.

CWMI's H is practicing half measures by lying. Lying is also a Love Buster! Honesty is NOT a Love Buster. CWMI has been honest about her needs and her H has deceived her and pretended to meet her needs.... Actually he betrayed her. He lied about an extraordinary precaution that CWMI needed in order to feel loved and cared about by him.

When we allow a boundary to be moved as a sacrifice, we establish a dangerous precedent that will do more harm to "us" than to our spouse. Eventually the lack of boundaries/EP's will erode the marriage and put the love bank in to a negative balance. A slow death of the M is the result.

Bubbles, you asked, what's the worst that can happen? Well, creating an environment for an affair to occur is much worse than establishing boundaries IMHO. Your spouse betraying you and actually having an affair can be worse than a divorce too.

I believe CWMI's vent about being duped was a legit. vent. She was lied to and betrayed by her H. I hope others will come along side of her and help her practice Dr. H's program in a practicle way instead of attempting to lay on inappropriate guilt for having boundaries and needs.

just my .02

I find that my husband treats me the worst (pushing back, and blaming me) when he feels the most shame. When he feels that he has disappointed me "again" (his word).

Also, like your H,, I could see me misreading the entire interview situation. Feeling as if I had gotten clarity, and feeling that my questions were answered sufficiently, when really I had inadvertantly read between the lines.

In fact, I did this once. I attended an all-day interview. It was quite rigorous. During the course of the ay, I met with some of the people who held a comparable job. I asked them to describe their position, and had pointed questions for them. Frankly, it sounded like exactly the one I had come from, with the same kinds of hours I was currently enjoying.

In the very last interview of the day, I discovered that the hours were DRAMATICALLY different than what I had understood, and would have required extensive childcare for my daughter, where currently I had no such requirement.

Naturally, I withdrew from the process.

The point is, had someone not thought to tell me one detail about the job, I could have walked away from those interviews thinking that it was similar to what I had. Even after asked everything I could think of to be clear on the position.

What if your husband felt the same? What if he really and truly did his best and thought he had found something you woudl both be happy with?

To me, that sounds more consistent with how he has been acting... happy, invested, proud.

Now, this expectation comes up, and what happens? Suddenly, he is mean, accusatory, blaming, belligerent, threatening divorce, and coming home drunk.

Just from looking at the change, I strongly suspect that he was as surprised as you by this expectation. And now he is trapped, and full of shame.

He probably knows that he "blew it" with you, and he may not even know if he can fix it. Part of him may be glad to have developed their trust already to be "the guy", or he may be worried that to not be the guy will lead to termination.

I wonder what would happen if you assumed the best about him on this one (i.e. that he really thought he had investigated the situation as best as he could, and was surprised by this twist) and gently tried to work it all out with him.

I think gentle may be the key, because your husband reminds me in some ways of mine, and he is desperate for gentleness. It stuns me sometimes how mean he is to HIMSELF when he makes a mistake... No wonder he is tempted to lash out at me... He already feels like crap, like he has failed me... And when I talk about it, it reverberates in his head.

What's that line from Jerry McGuire? "That's the difference between you and me. You think we're fighting, and I think we're finally talking!!"

Gentle may well be the key to renegotiating all of this. Touch him sweetly before speaking. Help him to relax first. Then he may feel safer thinking through it all with you.

It's not your fault, but you may be able to help.

fwiw, I am not letting your husband off the hook, AT ALL.

I'm just trying to help you deal with what you have.

The other day, my H got distracted at work, and came home considerably later than expected, without a call. He was tense and on teh brink of defensive, and I was quietly upset.

As I watched him eat, I got so sad, cwmi. I saw that underneath what looked like anger on his face was really shame. I began to wonder how his food could even taste good when he was in so much pain.

I went behind him and hugged him and held him. He soon relaxed completely in my arms, and under my gentle kisses to the side of his neck. His gratitude for my love, healed me too.

Then (as a bonus) I got what I also needed. A heartfelt, soft, and sincere apology. We went on to talk about how it has been TOO busy, and what are we going to do to change that?

Anyway, I think you guys can work through this, and I think he really does love you.

Bubbles, if couples are working MB, part of MB is no overnight trips without the other spouse.

I really like what Telly had to say

Yeah, not lying and not demanding that a spouse just 'put up with it' is a part of MB, too.

Telly, I hear you, I can see how a misunderstanding COULD take place, but it shouldn't have, because all of us (me, H, SH) discussed H finding a job that didn't require spouse-excluding events or overnight travel. He KNEW to put these restrictions on his job search, that there was no point in taking anything that required this. He knew to say, "I will not be present at any events that my wife is not invited to attend and will be unable to do any overnight travel. Will that be a problem if I accept a position here?" He KNEW this, we discussed it FOR MONTHS. I told him the very day he went to talk to them, Make sure you tell them you can't travel or do events, and he said he would and then said he did, it wouldn't be an issue.

I agree about being gentle. He told me on the phone. I said, "I'm not happy about that." Then he went ballistic. I'm (not) sorry, but I firmly believe that people who KNOWINGLY disappoint others deserve to hear that they've done so, and even those who unknowingly do it should be informed as well.

He has flip-flopped a couple of times about speaking up at work, is back to saying he will take care of it to my satisfaction. Because of the flips, I asked him how he thinks I should handle it if he doesn't follow through. He only said, "I will, so there's nothing to handle!"

I don't have high hopes.

I'm not happy to be in this position, again. I wish I had more options besides plans B, D, C or FU, but I know that I don't. I'm Plan A'd to death. C is emotionally destructive to myself, and I can't afford that. B and D are frightening, but I know they are my only option to remove myself from this continued lack of care and protection. I've withdrawn from my first period class to take care of that issue before the school deadline, but I haven't worked up any more of the plan yet.

I'll write up a letter tomorrow.

Then, honestly? I'll pray that he comes home with the solution and we can return to MBing instead of MDestructing.

If not, I'll have to follow through on Plan B, because I cannot trust negotiations. omg, I pray it works.

I've never heard of Plan C? Is is like Plan Concrete? I can only joke because I know you're not like that.

There may be like 100 intermediate steps you could take between Plan A and B, right? Maybe you could talk to Steve about a way to modify Plan B so you would be more enthusiastic about it, and less impacting on your kids. How about going to visit like your mom or someone for a weekend or a week, with or without some or all of the kids?

If a married couple can completely trust thier spouse like I can trust my husband, they can go on overnight trips without the other one a few times a year!

If you cannot trust your spouse not to have affairs on overnight trips, then you cannot trust them in any other way either and must keep them on a very very short, tight, painful choke chain and leash.

If you have to BE CRUEL to your spouse and pull the choke chain until they wince in pain to keep control of that beloved spouse, then your marriage is not worth much.

omg, my Mom would make it worse. She loved having her H away on business, hated him being home, then cheated on him and divorced him when he lost that job. No way! lol. I'm pretty sure she cheated on him the whole time, but I didn't live with them, so I'm not certain. She spent an inordinate amount of time at the bar...

Plan C is for "Compromise", which is what my H would like to see happen. He does what he wants and I put up with it. He has said that if I don't SUPPORT the travel and functions, he'll divorce me, he won't even tolerate me being detached, he needs me to be enthusiastic or he's done. lol. wow. That so blows my mind. I think I've repeated, "Then why did you change jobs?" at least 20 times over the last few days. All I hear is, "For YOU! I did it for you!" I'm all, wth? If he was doing something for ME, shouldn't it have been something I like??? That would be like me making him a mushroom lasagna and then getting mad that he doesn't LOVE it, never mind that I already know he doesn't like mushrooms.

Like me threatening to divorce him if he doesn't start liking mushrooms RIGHT NOW! Not just tolerating, or working around them, but really really loving them and being enthusiastic about me preparing them for him all the time!

Ridiculous example, but I'm feeling like I'm in the Twilight Zone here already, may as well go with it...

My husband completely trusted me and I was completely trustworthy...right up until I wasn't.

NOT Marriage Builders advice. This has NOTHING to do with trust and EVERYTHING to do with creating an affair proof marriage. EVERYONE is capable of having an affair. EVERY HUMAN BEING on this earth is capable of it.

Some people are more likely to than others. The difference between those that do and those that don't: Boundaries.

Plain and simple, that's it.

What can help, along with boundaries? A marriage lifestyle that makes an affair virtually impossible. This lifestyle includes:
The meeting of Emotional Needs,
Avoiding each other pain by avoiding Love Busters,
Spending enough time together giving one another Undivided Attention to create and sustain love,
Intimacy created through Radical Honesty,
Avoiding any possible Secret Second Life, which is created through dishonesy, and spending time apart.

Avoiding overnight travel is a safety precaution a couple puts into place, not because they believe their spouse will cheat, specifically, but because they realize that EVERYONE, including themselves, is capable of cheating under the right circumstances and would rather not take unnecessary risks with a relationship as important as marriage.

Rather than travel a winding mountain road at top speed hugging the edge, TRUSTing that they won't barrel over in the middle of the night, they build up a guardrail and drive as close to the mountain as possible at a reasonable speed.

Their marriage is important enough to not take unnecessary risks for the sake of proving how much they trust one another.


NO ONE can be trusted to not have an affair, if they fail to put in proper precautions. CWMI is capable of having an affair if her husband goes on overnights. Her husband is capable of doing so as well.

Trust is created by trustworthy behavior. Proper boundaries is what creates trustworthy behavior. Not going on overnights away from your spouse is a healthy boundary that reinforces trust, it is not evidence of a lack thereof.



The cruelty here is in CWMIs husband's desire to ignore her needs and what she needs to feel safe in this marriage, because it is inconvenient to him. She does not desire control, she desires consideration in the decision making process. Not to be made to feel like a servant to his job, but to have value in his life. WHY? Because she is the partner he committed to love and cherish ABOVE ALL OTHERS, not second to his job and career, but BEFORE everything else.

That was the promise he made to her.

It doesn't seem that CWMI wants to bludgeon her spouse into doing things her way, she desires a REAL POJA Negotiation in which they can BOTH be enthusiastically satisfied. Her husband continually confirms her second-class status in his life by hiding and obfuscating the truth.

HIS desires, HIS standing and HIS job are more important to him than her.

And THAT is the real cruelty.

She isn't asking for the unreasonable. She is asking to be included in his life, and is rightfully disappointed and hurt when he dismisses, appeases or outright lies to her. Should she not be?

This isn't about the travel.

This is about the outright and blatant disrespect he affords her through his Independent Behavior. She requires certain needs be met for her happiness and sense of safety. If he is unwilling to meet those needs, he needs to move on. He keeps promising that he can meet those needs, to CON her into staying married to him - for his own benefit (NOT for her benefit). But he fails to meet the needs again and again.

Are things getting better? Seems like it. Could they continue to get better? I believe so.

However, the thing I find MOST troubling about this, is his attitude towards MB that has been revealed. He felt bullied into POJAing....think about that for a sec. He felt manipulated at the sheer FACT that he had to consider his wife's needs.

The cruelty isn't manifested in CWMIs behavior here, not by a long shot.

It's too bad your husband won't post here. I think that could be helpful to him.

Exactly.

Daily dish: he's decided to go back to the failed attempt before of taking me with him if he must go out of town overnight. Yeah, he's not getting out of the trip. How's that for a heck no he didn't discuss this during the interview?

So he said that, that if he ended up having to go, he would certainly take me with him and that he needed me to BELIEVE him that he would follow through this time. So he emailed me the itinerary and asked me if he should purchase a ticket for me. ??? I responded, somewhat snarkily, "I know you'll keep your promise this time."

And...he's mad again. Went rounds with me about the kids, what was I going to do about the kids? I said, I'm not putting us in this position, why do you think I should take care of what to do with the kids? Then more threats, he'll just leave me and he'll keep the kids, so I said, okay, what would you do about the kids during this trip if I was out of the picture? And he said he'd just hire someone to stay with them while he was gone.

I said, why don't you do that now, and keep me? Doesn't that seem the best solution considering the situation?

I don't blame him for being mad. Having your crazy logic pointed out has got to sting.

He bought airline tickets for all six of us, at just under $1k. Sent me the confirmation. He is pissed about it. Can't say I'm real happy, either. The other five of us have other commitments, to school. Now there's a lose-lose situation.

I thought he would have back when I was being totally reamed here. He peeked into the forum a couple of times. I've asked him many times to post. I agree, it is too bad, I do think it would be helpful to him.

So far he has two people who he has spoken to who believe in MB, and nobody else. For that matter, I have very few people in my life who believe in this stuff--we live in a 'stuff happens' world, where nobody has control of their lives and 'go along to get along' is the norm. It's sad.

CWMI - I know that right now you are stuck in a negative cycle. I know there isn't much to do about it to FIX it, but this is a valuable opportunity for you to demonstrate love and care.

I know, it isn't fair your husband gets to bail on love and care, but you must be loving and caring because that is what a good wife does.

You need to work to foster an atmosphere of gratitude and appreciation to ENCOURAGE him to be loving and caring. If he puts forth ANY effort and his only guarantee is that he is going to be griped at, then next time he won't bother to put forth the effort.

You're in a crummy situation, but it's time to make lemonade.


I know this probably felt good. But think for a moment. You felt good at your husband's expense.

Yes, he probably deserves it.

But this negative cycle will NOT STOP unless SOMEONE stops it.

Sucks that it has to be you, I'm sure it feels like it is ALWAYS you, but if you aren't willing to B/D, then you have to take responsibility for the consequence of that choice.

You don't get to stoop to his level and perpetuate the negativity.


Of course he is. He screwed up, big time. And he's alone with his screw up. His partner has turned into his enemy.

Yes, it is his own doing.

But just as he vowed to put you before all others, YOU vowed to love and cherish him. Not love and cherish him if he is nice to you, but love and cherish him.

You antagonizing and your enmity isn't going to help this situation, in fact it will make it MORE unpleasant, and will ensure that it probably happens again. You can't control him, but you can control YOU and use that control to respectfully persuade and influence him to better behaviors.

So use this as an opportunity to demonstrate love and care, to show him you are willing to be a partner to him, even when he screws up, even when he is neglectful and abusive.

You can say "Thank you for trying to fix this, I appreciate it." and not negate the fact that you are disappointed that the situation arose.

You punishing him is just as abusive as his IB.


Why did this fight have to occur? Why did you let this situation disintegrate to this point? Because you are being governed by your emotions: anger, betrayal, disappointment. You are letting your emotions dictate your behavior.


THIS is evidence of the DJs we discussed in the now shut down thread. You are disrespecting him here. You have been love busting throughout this whole situation. You've been throwing fuel onto a raging fire to make yourself feel better....

Your kids are stuck in the house.

You relinquish control of yourself and your actions when you chose to REACT to your husbands LBs with LBs of your own, and your children are the ones hurt by all this.

Crazy logic is a DJ.
Interpreting his anger to analyze the reason for it is a DJ.

Instead of DJing him, ASK him why he is angry. ASK him what you can do to help remedy the situation. TELL him what it is you are feeling and thinking, straight out, no 'what if's' 'what would you do's'.

Simply stating "I am very upset and need to see some effort put forth. This situation needs to be resolved and I need reassurance from you that you care so I would appreciate you finding a solution to this problem."

You guiding him to the answer by asking "What would you do if you had the kids? Don't you think that's a good solution?" Is condescending and disrespectful. You treated him like a child while you were the adult with the answers.

It is clear why you do this. It is an attempt to regain power after he has rendered you powerless.

But your strategy is backfiring.

He doesn't want to engage with you because it is unpleasant.



He fixed the problem.

Unfortunately, rather than use the situation to fix the damage done to your marriage, you have allowed him and yourself permission to FURTHER damage the marriage.

You can still turn this around though. You can thank him for finding a solution. Since you abdicated having input in the decision making process can you really blame him that you are unhappy with the result? Instead of being his partner to fix it, you left him alone to fix it. Yes, it was his mess to fix - but you're his partner, his companion.

Sometimes marriage is cleaning up other people's messes, because we love them.

I'd suggest you sit down and try to find a way to be positive about this. Mini-family vacation at least!

I want you to know, I'm not trying to beat up on you. I really am not. I can imagine your pain and how much this just stinks. I really do. But I want to help you, I want to help you stop this terrible, destructive, negative cycle you have slipped into. YOU have power here CWMI, power to affect positive change.

Positive: it's not in TX, as originally planned, but in good old N'Orleans.

I have asked him why he is so angry at me (You keep pushing me to do things I have no control over!) and what I can do to help (Just accept the REAL WORLD, cwmi!), and have told him how I'm feeling (this leaves me feeling uncared for and unprotected, and I need your care and protection) (to which he replies that he IS caring for and protecting me and I just don't see it).

I agreed, three? Four? Five? trips ago that I would be okay with it if he took me with him. It's been that many that he has not done so, after promising each time that he would. I don't even know how many times this promise has been broken.

omg, and here's another: now he wants me to go with him to take a car to his boss's daughter's homecoming game, and at first said that he would not do it if I did not want to go, but he thought it would make a great 'date night' for us.

I said I did not think that would be a good date for me and I would prefer to do something else that did not have anything to do with his work, just had to do with us.

Now he's saying he'll just go without me since I was invited.

What. The. You know.

I'm done. I'm married to someone who is clearly married to his job, and whatever job it is, does not matter. He'll marry any job.

This sounds reasonable. Why not go with him? It meets your requirements.

Except that you have decided YOU DONT WANT TO GO.

Thats like saying you should trust me to go drunk driving. You shouldn't trust anyone to engage in risky behavior and that is exactly what traveling without your spouse is. That is how affairs start. You SHOULDN'T trust your spouse, it is too much trust that leads to affairs. Its not a lack of trust that is the problem but a lack of BOUNDARIES.