Good for you, Grace.

A lot of husbands say really insensitive and clueless things. A lot of husbands just plain lack the empathy to figure out how their remark is going to appear.

Exposing your husband's mistakes to your friends would be a really harsh thing to do to him at a time when you guys need to be focusing on making Love Bank deposits.

At one point in time, Markos believed in exposing my disrespectful mistakes to our friends. The only thing it did was drive a deeper wedge between the two of us.

Exposure is ONLY needed in an affair situation. NOT just because your husband did something mean. It makes MASSIVE Love Bank withdrawals.

If you need to talk, make sure it is with someone whom your husband doesn't have a problem with you talking to. I don't think he has a problem with you talking here. If he does something to you, talk here, and let these people knock him in line for you.

NED, I'm pretty sure that her husband IS a bully. His posts this morning on his thread are nothing but a bunch of arguments and justification for his bad behavior.

**edit**

Controlling behavior? What I see is a man who wants his wife's attention, and isn't getting it. Grace, my H used to rarely answer my calls. I brought him to Steve Harley, who told him, emphatically, "Answer the phone! Nothing you are doing should be more important than your wife." My H asked him, "If YOUR wife called you right now [we were on the phone w/Steve], would you take her call?"

Steve said, again emphatically, "Yes." Explained that my H was NOT more important than his wife, and here was the thing: Steve's wife knew that he would take her call, anytime, anywhere, for whatever reason. She KNEW her importance, and therefore did not TEST it by calling just to check to see if she could get his attention. Hill is doing the same thing I used to do, reaching out to ask, "Am I more important than anything else?"

And your non-response for HOURS says, emphatically, "NO!"

Is that the message you want to send your husband?

Realizing that HTW has already said she didn't...

a. why is it disgusting, and why is it disrespectful to be open about abusive behaviour?

b. is the notionc of exposure only for affairs? if so, why? Why is the notion of social accountability as an effective tool for proper marital boundaries being so narrowly construed

I really don't see the place for a concern about "airing dirty laundry in public" when one of the most powerful weapons in the case of an affair is broad-based exposure.

It seems especially cruel that HTW can only talk about terrible things that she experiences, with the person inflicting that damage onto her!

A reminder to help this poster with Marriage Builders concepts. If you can help in that regard, please feel free to post. If not, then we ask that you refrain from posting.

Any questions, send me an email. Thank you

Is there no room for any context here? HTW was subject to a digusting attack on her very femininity the night before. Is she allowed no space at all to process that?

The standards proposed here seem super-human...which means they ultimately are unattainable and will only lead to guilt and resentment.

ETA: How would the notion of a boundary come into play? Is she not allowed to draw a boundary that she needs some time to process what has happened so that she can interact with him in a productive manner.

Nowhere does Dr Harley advocate trash talking your spouse to your friends. In fact, he strongly advises against it. What is happening here is very different from adultery, we are talking about garden variety lovebusters, which are defined as "abusive strategies." Complaining about your spouse to a bunch of hens is a huge lovebuster and is entirely different from the exposure advocated in adultery. Exposure in adultery is used to bust up the FOG from the affair. That is not the situation with routine conflicts.

I see this thread going the way of other couples who have come here in conflict and I predict this is going to end badly for the very reasons that the Harleys do not counsel couples in conflict together. Board members take sides and ESCALATE the conflict which only makes the conflict MUCH WORSE. As we can see, the problem is getting WORSE, not better because reading each others threads only serves to keep them enraged. It is a lovebuster.

grace and hilltopper, if you value your marriage, you will STOP posting and reading here and make an appointment with Steve or Jennifer. Your marriage can be saved, but it will only be harmed by posting together when you are in a state of conflict. The Harleys would NEVER counsel you together under these conditions.

She can pick up the phone or answer the text with, "I'm still hurt/angry/processing and do not want to talk now. I'll be ready to talk this evening. I'll let you know if that changes."

Silent treatment is abuse, too.

Perhaps this is a generational issue, but IMO there's a big difference between refusing to answer a phone call, and taking some time to respond to a text.

Phone calls are for immediate contact. A text says that the message is not urgent. At least that's how I see it.

Texts can get lost in cyberspace or missed by the receiver. If Hilltopper needed an immediate response he should have called.

I suspect that different people have hugely different expectations about how long it should take to respond to missed phone calls, texts, and emails. Hilltopper and Grace should POJA the time factor.

Kirby:

Grace and Hilltopper, instead of spinning your wheels discussing a SPECIFIC conflict on this board, which is a distraction from learning the skills to resolve conflict on your own, please take the time instead to read this article by Dr Harley:

How to Create Your Own Plan to Resolve Conflicts and Restore Love to Your Marriage

This is a creative use of language with the intent of saying that disrespecting your spouse to your friends or others outside your marriage should be "acceptable."

It's not. Was the comment abusive? Yes, thus the giant storm of gyno-fury. Woohoo!

Is it something she needs to stomp around at work with, or with her friends, and complain about what a jerk he is, while they go "Girlfriend, you should just leave him!"

No.

This isn't seeking support for abuse, that's a weak excuse. It's seeking support in an argument, in a war.

Make no mistake, these two are at war with each other.


Again, clever use of language and contexts. But, no, socially shaming your spouse isn't a good idea.

However, if you want to shame your spouse publicly, by all means, go ahead. Come back and tell us how well it works for you when you continuously embarrass your spouse.

And, sorry, the "it's not me, it's their behavior" argument won't work here.




Oh. Ok, I get it now. So now broad-based exposure can be used as a weapon to, oh... get your husband to do the dishes?

Great, now we are shooting at ants with bazookas.

Let me know how that works.



No, she has the board. And nice choice, though it still reads "unfair."

No fair. No fair no fair no fair!

Wow so much to digest.

So my husband was obviously upset and asked if I could defend him on my post. I said "no" you can deal with your own thread or stop reading it. The only thing I will say is that he is not a bully or abuser, just incredibly impatient.

So the texting issue bothered hilltoper because some of you say he is being ignored. This morning I just told him simple "Now I will text you back immediately and make you a priority or call." Problem solved let's move on. He thanked me and we are both happy. I honestly am busy sometimes and yesterday I fully admit I just didn't want to respond to him because I wanted time to figure out what the hell happened. I also told him I can also understand some of his paranoia. Part of me said this because its true to his feelings and I made him feel that way. Part of me also said it to make him feel better.

I also did not want to really interact with him last night. He walked through the door and we barely spoke. I admit I should have told him I wanted him to initiate a discussion, but I sat there waiting to see what would be said. Nothing. So of course there was silence for a long time. I later went upstairs and told him I was going to relax and shower. I later came down to get the baby's blanket and fed her downstairs. Once the baby was asleep there is still built with tension and silence. I finally ask him if he would like to watch Survivor and sit with me. We had a glass of wine, watched the show and went to bed.

This morning I fully admitted that I was waiting for him to start the conversation when he got home. He told me I could have done the same, true. We weren't getting anywhere so I told him how I'd like him to handle himself in the future.

What drove me crazy is he said "I always have to initiate things"
What??? Didn't I ask you to sit next to me on the couch last night and try to improve our situation. I could tell he was upset and tried to help the hurt puppy dog look last night. He also said I always try to do nice things for you and you don't notice so I don't do them. What? Meaning he left me a nice card in my car and asked me how I was feeling yesterday. I told him the card really didn't help because of the circumstances of the prior night, but on any other day I would love his cards and messages of how are you doing.

Am I not getting something.
Really I am so trying to move past things and I feel like my husband is so stuck on all the little things. I am acknowledging his feelings and I'm trying to rise above all and his comments and move forward. Not too sure how the sex thing will work in the future, but we will address that later I'm sure.The fact that his first comment this morning was regarding how he got blasted on his post rather than saying can we have a good day and move forward together.

In order for us to get a change in scene from our house, I asked him if he would like to go over to our friends house for a BBQ. He said yes and as of now that is the plan. We all love hanging out together and I'm hoping it will help lift the mood.

And that's where we are ....

Hey, to be fair, there are a teeny tiny handfull of us that aren't taking sides.

For instance, I think they are both a-holes and need to knock it off.

Who is driving you crazy, grace? Read those three statements from your post, isolated like that, and tell me: who is driving you crazy?

You were using the silent treatment to try to pick a fight.

My wife used to do this to me.

She used to get SO MAD... because I never bought into it.

So, in essence; you held him at arm's length all day, told him you wanted to "talk when we get home." And then when you both got home, you gave him the silent treatment.


How did that work for you?

Read and print Mel's linke, please.

You guys can't help but to fight and be jerks to each other, and it needs to stop.

grace, you are on the right track. You are GETTING IT. The key is to listen to each other and make changes in order to make each other happy. That is what you did here and I applaud you. I hope you will take your conflicts OFF BOARD and focus entirely on learning new skills, especially as outlined in the book Lovebusters and the article I posted about how to restore love to your marriage.

It is a tar pit to bring conflicts to this board when you are both posting here. As you can see, conflicts simply escalate because posters take sides and anger ensues. Spouses are called "bullies" or "abusers" and the conflict escalates even more.

Please avoid all that, and keep the conflicts off the board and focus on the lessons.

Grace, UA is going to serve you better now than distractions of other people's company.

I agree some are not taking sides. It is the ones who ARE that are causing the problems. This is ALWAYS what happens when a couple in conflict comes here, though. A bad situation turns into a disaster. This is exactly WHY the Harley's never counsel couples in conflict together.