I'm not sure that he has reached ULTIMATE honesty for himself. But thank you so much for helping him understand what that is exactly. He has a roadmap of WHY but it is missing the location of CHOICE in the process. He says that it is not CONSCIOUS CHOICE. This is the thinking that makes me so afraid of future pain.

Rant away..... It's good for the soul!

He only gets to use that "get out of jail free card" once, and it's already been played.

When we are unaware of how our choices affect our spouse, we can use this excuse.

BUT.......

Once our spouse tells us how thoughtless our behavior is, it's no longer a sub-conscious choice after that. We have been made aware and can no longer claim ignorance.

When a wayward claims ignorance after all of this awareness, then the plea of ignorance is a con game.
100% Con!

There is a thread about reverse babble, it may help you to read it. I think it's in one of the notable threads somewhere.


Link - read all these when time permits.

Link- and Peperbands thread is another - read all of them too.

This is going to be hard.

I wish I had a easier way, but The Marriage Builders Program isn't easy.

You've got to make a decision;

Are you willing to give the Program 100%

Or

Are you going to give him a swift kick out the door.


I vote for the swift kick out the door, but my vote doesn't count...

I guess I have always believed in him. That in his heart, when he knows better and "gets it" that he will do better. I admired that he accomplished great things with no little help or training from his family. He even married me. Now isn't that proof of his "getting it?"

I have seen recent evidence of changes. He actually told me last night that he didn't want to hurt me anymore. He was willing to follow one of my EPs that was VERY disappointing to him, and he tried not to give me a hard time about it, since he knows that it would be a trigger for me. I asked him why he seemed to care about not hurting me and he said that it was something that ML had said. So, that made me feel good. He is doing actions, hoping to fill my LB, but I feel like he's put ME on trial, because WW mentality on the part of one spouse, creates insecurity in the other. It is unfairly balanced. Like in Renter with Buyer, the Buyer will be powerless, same with WW with FaithfulSpouse, FS is powerless as long as they are committed. I guess I don't give myself a right to be mentally wayward. To me, it is mental infidelity, and wrong, and can only cause me more dissatisfaction, eliminating any possibility of feeling RL. If I were to think that way, I know that he wouldn't stand a chance. But if I compare his good traits to others' bad ones, he has lots of great qualities that I can appreciate and admire.

So you have engaged me in conversation....you might just regret it.

Of course I believe in the MB Program. It saved my marriage.

The program is simple, just not easy.....

Why do I vote the swift kick? My comment was tongue-in-cheek. But, we both know, a swift kick out the door is what your H deserved. We don't always get what we deserve though.

Myself, I deserved and received the swift kick out the door over five years ago. I am sad to say it, but I created more damage than I care to mention. I just pray the damage your H has created comes to a quick and swift halt! Otherwise, you will be in an endless cycle of wash, rinse, repeat.....

Please share any EP details here (like the one you eluded to in an earlier post) and encourage your H to post on his thread as one of his EP's. He is not use to people challenging him about his thinking and he needs that. Sadly, there is very little challenging at SA, AA & NA Meetings now-a-days.

This is good. He will need some targeted admiration from you.

I'm betting his top two EN's are SF and Admiration.

The following post is very rushed and redundant. I apologize in advance.

Several months ago, we made a list of some of the ways I felt betrayed and WH said he was in JA to "make it right". But recently he has refused to follow through his agreement to set the record straight with those people he had been dishonest with. I say "refused" because he waits for me to nag and admits that he doesn't really want to. He had discussed our marital problems with his sister, my brother, and 2 men at work. Up until now, he has been RH with his mother and my brother. He has not been RH with his sister, even though he told her that he had shared inappropriately and done porn.

He has not called either one of the 2 male coworkers. When pressed, he said that he doesn't want to. He told me that tonight he is going to finally make the call to the main one who he considered a close friend. Here are some details...

Coworker1: Ex-Manager,Mentor and trusted adviser, married 2 or 3 times, divorced. Out of state, and no longer work together, but have several work friends in common.

Coworker2: Coworker who was originally family friend through church, and KNOWS me. Recently divorced his wife, was unfaithful, and has little contact with his children. Suggested my WH go to Match.com to "See what's out there" when my WH told him that he was considering divorce because of my horrible issues.

Here are some more specifics of the background and what he told them. He was planning to divorce me, and wanted their advice as he they had recent experience. He told them he wanted to divorce me because of my appearance and anger with him, but never admitted his part in a marital lifetime of ridiculing me & my repeated requests EN meeting, specifically UA/Affection, SF Rejection from the beginning, while meeting his own needs through P&M, deceit, disrespect, stonewalling, and refusal to negotiate under most circumstances. WH tries to rationalize what he said because he says that he "didn't realize" that he was being abusive, he felt justified in rejecting me and punishing me for my erroneous ways. WH agrees that he painted himself as the Nice Guy and me as the Ugly Witch. He told coworker that he was going to divorce me and wanted advice etc. WH also participated with Coworkers in conversations/humor which are very distasteful and which are inconsistent with the Christian image that WH put on for our kids, our families, and even to other coworkers and managers. During this time, he would criticize others who acted that way, obviously in an attempt to throw me off the track. I felt EXTREMELY betrayed that he would tell them how he felt about me, and my appearance, when he had NEVER told me. Also, he knew that I would be EXTREMELY opposed to his discussing marital issues outside our marriage, especially that he had plans to divorce. He took all of their opinions as support for divorce and was expecting to exit the marriage without exposing his infidelity and other bad behaviors, while gaslighting me and maintaining his good guy image to keep the support from his family etc.

As part of J/C, he agreed to call each of these people and own his bad behavior.



Questions:
1. Am I being reasonable to expect this? Is this just making a bigger mess out of things? Should I take the hit and let sleeping dogs lie?

2. What should be ENOUGH? How much detail is appropriate?
I feel like it reasonable for him to repair as much damage to my reputation as is possible. But it will be at the expense of his own reputation.

I would really appreciate advice of HPB and others, including men who know how this would feel.

What do you think? Any suggestions for me or him?

I tend to appreciate what Dr. just told another poster about exposing details of an affair;


Read it here

HPB-
Thank you for your response to my question. For many reasons, I have not had sufficient time to post. I appreciate all you have done to support us and other posters too. I am able to read much more than post, due to technical issues, but I can assure you that I have been following your posts to others in recovery and it is very helpful. I also spent several days reading your wife's thread. It was very insightful and by the end, I felt lots of gratitude that you were posting to 1HG.

The reason I had wanted him to call these past friends (bad influences) and set the story straight was not so much to save my image, but to help him learn accountability and empathy. Even though he had attended two recovery programs & counseling several yrs. prior, he was not RH about the full extent of his habits, was not accountable, and never completed the workbooks etc. He continued his SSL. So around August I asked him to make a spreadsheet of hurtful actions, why it was wrong, what he "should have done" and how he could fix it. His MO was to sweep things under the rug, not face them, blame & use me, depending on me to protected his secrets. The concept of restitution or compensation was foreign to him. So I guess this aligns with one of the 12 steps, not sure which one, but is not really an EP. It would be JC, right?

When he saw this, he couldn't figure out why you got an attitude with him when he tried to sign off...I told him that I would only explain if he was willing to listen and trust. He agreed. I said something like this...
"Imagine if someone came to your 12 step group and he would call you for help often, and ask you questions, and you would take the time to check in on him daily. Then, a very qualified psychologist offered to help him, so he said that he was done talking with you because he didn't need your help anymore. How would you feel? I told him that it made me want to cry since I had felt so grateful that you had cared for our family enough to help him, and be a type of friend. He finally saw it, and said that he had never considered that someone else even would care about him at all.

Thank you for the time you have invested in helping us do it the "right way."

HPB: I just pray the damage your H has created comes to a quick and swift halt!

I am here to report that since Thursday, December 21, 1HG has stopped creating damage. Change takes time, but I can see a huge difference in his attitude. He is applying what you have taught him. He is sincerely trying. My Christmas was the best in 20 yrs. 1HG was loving, supportive, non-argumentative and cherishing. See, I knew he was capable. So did you.

This was monumental for me, since previous holiday memories are not pleasant. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was thinking of quitting on Jan 1st. I did not tell him this date. But he turned it all around. He started internalizing all resources combined and LISTENING to me.

It seems like the board is inundated lately with the topic of anger and abuse. Then, this morning, my oldest son started being disrespectful to me, and of course,I know where he learned it! He sure doesn�t like it when we bring up Dr. Harley, and everything we are learning, but I feel like it�s my responsibility to admit where we went wrong and show him a more respectful way to communicate. I�m blessed that my husband is on board with me, and that we are making progress.

But, it does remind me of a time in the not too distant past where things were hopeless. I remember being there, in that angry place. After a year of discussing it, I have much more understanding of what was going on in my husband�s mind. He didn't used to tell me what he was honestly thinking.

Most of my complaints over the years had fallen on deaf ears. My "Ouches" in his view, were a sign of my spoiled, illogical thinking or craziness, and were deserving of more bullying and disrespectful judgments. I was constantly hurt to the core, diminished, and stonewalled, because his perspective was correct and logical. Mine wasn�t. It was a subconscious thought that I should have naturally seen his intelligence and wisdom, and deferred to his judgment like all good wives do. When I made things more difficult on him by having my own perspective, He would taunt me and rile me up, and then point the finger at me when I blew. That cemented his belief that I was crazy, unreasonable, bipolar, hormonal, etc. (Maybe sometimes I was.)

I could never figure out why he couldn�t have consideration for my perspective, when I had appreciation for his. Over the years, his unwillingness to negotiate away from his correct solution and his inability to accept my perspective as VALID, drove me nuts. Withdrawing, walking away, doing IBs like being deceptive, going behind his back, giving up, seemed manipulative and wrong to me. So instead of making independent decisions, I continued to come to the unpleasant negotiating table. Our inability to make decisions together left us sailing through constantly choppy waters. I felt like our ship was constantly on the verge of capsizing. Our functioning ability was severely impacted. It killed me to think that my sons they were learning how to treat their future wives.


After about 10 years of getting punished for saying �OUCH�, I started defending myself from his meanness and bullying, by yelling at him, and being disrespectful back. By yelling at him, I found that I could get his attention, and at the same time, show him what the hurt felt like. I was trying to, as Dr. Harley says, �Even the Score�. I hated losing my temper, because that happened in my FOO, and I never wanted to act like that. But I also saw no other solution because eliminating the anger would not solve the problem of how my husband treated me.

So after dealing with an angry wife for many more years, my husband was preparing to divorce me. He was rightfully concerned about how I was treating him, and what the kids were seeing modeled. But if you asked him why I was mad, he would have said, for NO REASON. I had ALWAYS told him specifically and directly why I was frustrated. He DIDN�T DEEM my complaints as REASONABLE.


Reading Dr. Harley�s book, Love Busters, was such an eye opening experience. With each section, I saw clearly how our abusive habits had created a nightmare marriage for us. Dr. Harley says, paraphrased, �If your spouse says that it is a (DJ, AO, fill in the blank), then it should be treated as such�. He is brilliant because he bypasses the need for empathy and moves us to problem-solving with respect.

My husband will admit that he still does not feel empathy for me most of the time. When I say �OUCH�, he now accepts, that even though he doesn�t see it or feel it, there must be some valid reason why it hurts and that I am not being UNREASONABLE. He accepts that he is causing me true pain. I now have to do reality checks when he acknowledges me and apologizes for something he did which caused me hurt. Hurt that he doesn�t feel under similar circumstances. How amazing is that? And does that mean that he is less of a man? I see him now as more of a man who is shielding my sensitivities and providing me security.

I am learning to have more empathy for him as well, and to stop yelling. I still slip up occasionally when I feel scared. It is not easy, but over time, I am changing my reactions, and new neural pathways are being developed. We are seeing this happen for both of us. We are learning to brainstorm and come up with ways of communicating which feel better for both of us. I am so glad that my softer side is back. How refreshing it is to leave the hopelessness and struggle behind, and to feel truly cared for.

Yelling is necessary during a life & limb real emergency.
"GET UP. THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE !!"
"COME HERE NOW. I SLICED MY HAND OPEN AND I NEED HELP."

Any other non-threatening situation, yelling is counter-productive.
Yelling at your spouse in anger is a lovebuster. !00% of the time.

If yelling produced positive results, Dr Harley would recommend yelling.

New neuro-pathways is a great way to phrase this!