Hi Stillwed,
I read one of your posts with an excerpt from the book "Mothers, Sons and Lovers". The man in the quote sounds exactly like my husband and his relationship with his mother. I picked up the book this weekend and I'm going through it.

It sounds like you have had some experience with this and some success recovering. My question for you is, how did your husband come to realize this was his problem and decide to work towards recovery? Did you introduce him to the book or did he come to this realization on his own?

My husband has done no introspection, reading or research to see why he does the things he does and I don't know if he would be open to the suggestion.

Any insight into your story and what worked for you would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

bump for stillwed

Dear Troubled1,

Hi there. I read your other thread and it sounds like things aren't going so well for you. I'm so sorry!

My H actually owned the book. He had bought it at some point because he knew that many of his issues were directly related to his relationship to his mother. What he didn't realize is that he had placed me in her role from the time I was 16 when I met him. His affairs were partly about him still acting out like an adolescent and rebelling against his mother.

I'm not sure what kind of reaction you'll get from your H if you present this to him yourself, but maybe it's time to speak up. What will you gain by keeping this to yourself?

On D-day, I told my H that I still loved him in spite of what he had done. This really freaked him out because he had told himself for the past 13 years that I would leave him if he told me. He didn't know what to do with this change of plans! Then I told him that we needed to stay together and see each other's wounds healed before we made any decisions about our future. I told him that if I let him go right then, all that would be accomplished was to give him enough rope to hang himself basically. I told him that I knew he'd walk this earth a miserable soul until he dealt with the underlying issues. He would realize at some point that he'd given up his family for a fantasy. He had never had anyone love him like that before. He stayed.

So, here we are and it hasn't been easy, but we are truly recovering from our very cores. If your H is a reader, I'd give him the book. Also, check out the website for my H's men's group in my signature line.

Is he in any kind of counseling? I would find him an IC who deals with childhood wounds. Find someone who will really get to the core issues. One of our agreements on d-day was that my H would go to IC until I felt comfortable with him quitting. It's going to be awhile!

Stillwed

P.S. The real key is getting your H to understand that he has a shadow side that he needs to face. You might check out the book Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life by Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf. We just bought it but haven't read it yet. There are other more basic books on shadow work or an introduction to the shadow. Do a search on amazon.com.

<small>[ September 08, 2003, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: stillwed ]</small>