I need suggestions on things to do to occupy my time.

It would be a huge mistake for you to move to Texas. It is not a move that would make you happy, it is a move that would destroy your life. Creating a "happy" marriage with a freeloader is impossible. All that would happen is that your bad marriage will fall apart down in Texas, and you will have lost your job and alienated your children.

Your husband is not even willing to work on the marriage, rhl, so I don't understand wht you are thinking you will gain. Your marriage was a disaster in your current state and it will be a disaster in Texas.

What do you enjoy doing?

I understand you are in withdrawal from your husband becaucse he has just left. But the solution is not to follow him to Texas, it is to ride this out until you are through withdrawal.

It is much like quitting smoking. At first your emotions are frantically telling you to get some cigarettes, but as each day goes by you miss them less and less. Pretty soon you are not thinking about it at all and are actually feeling good about not smoking.

If you will just allow yourself to go through withdrawal for a few months, your judgment won't be so impaired and influenced by your attachment to your husband. You will be able to make decisions based on good judgment instead of panicked emotions.

I don't even know what I enjoy doing anymore. When my deceased husband was alive my life was wrapped around him and taking care of him when he was so sick. I pretty much stayed in my bedroom for 6 months after he died, I came out when my kids came home from school...cooked, cleaned, did the things that I had to do to survive. I had this emptiness in my heart and my life, not knowing how to fill my day.

And now, it is almost the same situation. My husband has been so much a part of my life that I feel an empty void in my day. I am going to a birthday party today, I don't want to...I feel so teary eyed that I am almost afraid to. My son is talking about going to see Godzilla today, he thinks it might take my mind off what is happening for a short while. Everything I do reminds me of something that I did as a couple with my husband.

What about starting an exercise program? When my husband left me I threw myself into exercise and it was a great relief. It also helped me get into the best shape of my life.

What about your house? How about a nice spring cleaning project? What about buying some furniture or getting a room painted?

When you are down, it is important to make yourself get out. The old adage of "feelings follow actions" applies very much here!

You are going to do what you want to do. You are high on love and are not thinking clearly. You husband hates you independence and want full dependance and control of you. You are beginning to sound like the woman explaining how she caused her husband to abuse her (and put her in the hospital). You are too much in a fog to see that. The pain that you husband implementing on you right now and in his words 'to control' you is abuse and you are defending him.


You may lose your daughters in the process not because they don't want you to be happy but because they can't bear seeing you get horribly hurt. He is very clear he does not what to change anything and hasn�t and he is annoyed that he can�t just shut you up about it, so he is taking back control even if it reck both of your lives in the process.

I'd recommend vigorous exercise somewhere away from home.
Can you go for a run? A bicycle ride?

Is it really wrong for your husband to have the leadership role. He had that when we were in the truck but I took that away from him when he moved in here. I don't mind him being the leader, but I had to be the leader in my family when my husband was so sick and died. It was very much a relief to me and quite enjoyable when I was in the truck with husband, I liked being his helpmate and him making decisions. Now don't get me wrong, he did not make all the decisions but there were some things that he felt strongly about and they were always legitimate things.

It's ok for him to lead as long as he makes sure you are enthusiastic about his decision. And it's great to be a helper as long as he takes your help. The fact that he decided to move to TX despite your displeasure shows a lack of (at less Godly) leadership and an unwilling heart to get help from you. He wants control not leadership.

That sounds more like control, which is not good for marriage. Arrangements like that lead to incompatibility and resentment because one spouse always ends up making sacrifices. However, when there is a partnership where decisions are made that both are enthusiastic about, then compatibility is created.

RHL, the best marriages are ones where both spouses have input in every decision. The basis of policy of joint agreement dictates that no decisions should be made without the enthusiastic agreement of both spouses.

Just giving him "leadership" rights does not take your feelings into account when decisions are made. So if those unilateral decisions have bad outcomes, then you resent HIM. When you make decisions together, you avoid that outcome.

Have you ordered Dr. Harley's book Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders?

Here's a thread to get you going. Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders

The Policy of Joint Agreement does not contradict the Bible. I could send you a lot of scriptures on Husbands and wives roles according to the Bible but I�ll use Ephesians 5:22-33 to give you a clear view on what the bible says about the roles of husbands and wives. So let�s go through this scripture.

Ephesians 5:22-24
22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church � he himself being the savior of the body. 24 But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

This is addressed to wives not to husbands. It doesn't here or in any other scripture tell the husband that they are to teach or to help their wives submit. It doesn't say the husbands are to lord this scripture over their wives. In fact there is no scripture that tells husbands to lead, teach, or control their wives. It tells wives they are to be subject to their own husband. And when it says head it does not mean brain of the family because when it was written the brain was not understood because no one until a little over a hundred years would agree the brain had any control over the body.

Now since for the most part husbands are the once that usually object to the Policy of Joint Agreement let us look at the instructions to husbands.

Ephesians 5:25-33
25 Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word, 27 so that he may present the church to himself as glorious � not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one has ever hated his own body but he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ also does the church, 30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is great � but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his own wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

It should be clear that a husband�s job is to love his wife as Christ loves us. He is to take care of her as his own body. They are to become one. He is to love her as he loves himself. In John 10:10 Jesus says, �The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.", since Jesus desires to give us an abundant life then husbands should have the same attitude towards their wives.


So how can a husband force his wife into a win lose situation (where he wins and she loses) and still follow the command to love as he loves and cares for himself. And how can a wife do the same and still submit to her husband. Even though God didn't call it the Policy of Joint Agreement, he setup the contract to make that the case. The only way to follow this scripture is to follow the policy of Joint Agreement.

Leadership doesn't mean a man should make demands of his wife or tell her what to do. Doing so will usually make his wife miserable, which is the exact opposite of good leadership. Married people have promised to love and protect each other above all else, and that means putting their husband or wife's feelings over all other desires, no matter how much those desires are felt to be "legitimate." I may be convinced my opinion is correct, but I always, always, always benefit from bringing my wife's wisdom and perspective in, and if she does not feel that my conclusion is correct, we don't go that direction. This means we may sometimes take awhile before we make a move but when we do finally move the direction we are going is a much better idea, has been much more considered, and is much more pleasing to us both.

You didn't take anything away from him, he decided to freeload which meant he chose not to make decisions. Freeloaders don't make helpful decisions, nor care much about making their mark because they view the whole situation as temporary.

If he wanted to make his mark, he would have got off his tush, stopped playing video games and changed things.

When he wasn't working he got a free ride - so now that he is, he's raised his price. If he's going to support you at all he wants a submissive wife that has no say. I'm convinced this Texas thing is little more than a test to see how much he can make you sacrifice and how slavish you are willing to be.

I'm the kind of woman who adores a man taking the lead, but his decisions should put me first on his priority list and consider my feelings. You are not even in the top ten, you come after his parents, children job, place of residence - everything. He's moving state specifically to make you lose the things that make you feel most safe and secure.

A husband who decided where I was living without even considering my feelings would have me researching divorce lawyers. It's just a promise that more of these types of inconsiderate decisions are to come.

I understand what everybody is saying but he is old fashioned in his beliefs and that is one of the reasons that I fell in love with him. I thought that marriage builders was about keeping marriages together but it seems like most if not all feel like we should separate.

I think he has been miserable for a long time and I just didn't see it. He has also talked about eventually moving back to Texas (ever since his first winter here) because he hates the cold in Indiana. I just thought that I would have more advance notice than this.

MB strives to save a marriage where others would toss it away.

However, it seems you are seeking justification for staying in a marriage where your needs will never be met. It is not marriage at all costs.

Red, you don't have to take any of this advice if you don't want to.

Go to Texas, give up your family and your job and let him control you from now on if you are so dead set on doing that.

Just don't expect it to be a happy experience or even a long lasting one.

When you are really unhappy and have lost everything you might be more motivated to sort out your own life instead of having a death grip on a man out of fear.

You never established yourself on your own two feet after your husband's death and you still don't want to. That's what this all boils down to.

But every woman has to do that at some point. I did it when my XH had an affair although I had never been alone. I learned how to be independent and ensure I was capable and happy before I dated again.

Even my grandmother, who was happily married to a most manly and old fashioned leader of a man for sixty years had to learn this because she was widowed in old age, as most women are.

You just can't afford to be this weak and survive life. I don't think you ARE naturally weak either, I just think your H caught you at a weak time and is hell bent on keeping that weakness alive and himself dominant.

RHL

I'm sorry you feel that way about Marriage Builders. I understand some people have to go through it to know it is not good and it sound like you are one of those people. I which that was not the case.

I do want to make it clear we do not want to separate you, he does. All we can tell you is what works. As the man of my house I would never have my wife through what he is having you go through, because I love and care for her too much. And even if I didn't God commands love and care for her.

I hope after you go through this very painful time in you life and are able to get back online you can help others not go through what you are about to go through. My prays go with you.

my wife left a few times...she wanted to move and did move for a few months out of state and came back a few months later.
She did it without me and had the attitude that I should follow her. My attitude was that I had a job and didnt want to quit on a dime.
She made these decisions in like a week and just wanted to abandon the house, belongings etc.

In a marriage both should make decisions.

You are contemplating allowing him to dictate decisions. Can you have a marriage like that? Yes, many do. Are they happy?

I've had relatives like this and as they get older, the resentment becomes so massive that they just shoot disrespectful judgements and name calling back and forth all day long, even in the presence of others.