We're all under one roof now, although not as I planned.

My husband visited for Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving Day my mother threw a temper tantrum and started screaming at my husband. Not about anything in particular, mind you, just about the grudge she's been holding against him for over 10 years. My husband stayed calm until she started screaming at and gaslighting me, at which point my husband called her on it and yes he raised his voice but only to get over the din of her screaming. So we left to give her time to calm down. We went sight-seeing with the kids, then went to Cracker Barrell for our Thanksgiving dinner, then drove around to see the Christmas lights.

We finally went back thinking she must have calmed down by then. But no, my dad demanded an apology from both of us or else we had to leave because Bill yelled at my mom. Never mind the fact that they were rude to him the whole time he was there and kept us up at night screaming at each other. I thought after the horrible way they treated him before we got married that they would want to make a good impression this time but they were just awful.

Anyway, if they had just demanded an apology from me, I would have faked one long enough to get through the next month. After all, I've been doing that all my life just to avoid being yelled at. But after the horrible way they've treated him over these past 10 years and mom faking a 24-hour illness so that she didn't even come to my wedding it was just too much. Plus, I could tell it was an orchestrated manipulation to get me to choose my parents over my husband. The whole time I was there my husband says something innocuous that my mom deliberately misinterprets, then she goes running to me complaining and yelling about it instead of working things out like an adult. I understood it as a ploy to drive a wedge between my husband and me so I told her I didn't want to hear it, that she treated him badly at the start of our relationship so she needs to try harder to get along. She didn't listen, of course.

If you all think I'm being disrespectful to my parents you have to understand that my dad beat us and my mom used to scream and throw dishes at random intervals. I spent much of my childhood hiding under my bed because I was afraid of my parents. My sister ran away from home as a teenager to go live with her grandparents. Social services said our family was dysfunctional and that my mom had a habit of putting my sister in a "double-bind" which I think is like a catch-22 - sort of like what she was doing to me Thanksgiving morning when Bill called her on it.

I appreciate that they were able to help me when I got very sick, but I didn't appreciate the contant criticism and attempts to undermine me as a parent to my children. They kept saying since mom raised five kids I should take her advice (read: "or else"). But one of her kids was raised by a grandparent and two of them never left home AND have no plans to leave home. One of my sisters is a high school drop out and welfare queen who doesn't work and has been supposedly studying for her GED for 20 years. Now don't get me wrong...I'm not opposed to welfare if someone is sick, very pregnant, caring for an infant, disabled or is working and still having trouble making ends meet. But she is able bodied. She could clean houses or something but that's too good for her. It galls me that she is teaching her daughter by example that ignorance and laziness pay off in life yet I should take her parenting advice. (Oh yeah, and she parrots everything my mother says. She literally has no opinions of her own, so when I get yelled at, I get yelled at in stereo.) So anyway, I don't see why I should take mom's parenting advice just because she didn't know how to use birth control. Because obviously five kids was more than she could handle.

Oh and when they were leaving they accused my husband of having an abrasive personality, being a controlling wife beater and child abuser and threatened to call social services and said I was deluded and should divorce my husband.

My husband has never laid a hand on me. When the kids were younger they got spanked a handful of times and I don't approve of that so I talked my husband into finding a better way, which we did. He's very calm and serene and never criticizing me or yells at me. Well, maybe a handful of times we've yelled during fights. But usually we're respectful and never call each other names or let the argument get volatile. His ability to stay calm and mellow is one of things that attracted me to him.

My parents, on the other hand, who are constantly criticizing my husband and my marriage, fight loudly about 3 times a week. And of course everytime they fought during the day my mom would tell me what a selfish b**&%$d my father is, or else my dad would tell me what a bi*&^ my mom is. So respect and discretion are not even in their vocabularies. They don't even sleep in the same bed anymore, but they think they're qualified to tell me whom I should marry.

I thought they had mellowed out somewhat because my dad had anger management counseling and stoped hitting. But they are both just as hypercritical and controlling as when I was a kid. I will NEVER EVER ask anything from them again because their help always comes with a steep price.

Anyway, to get to the point, we packed up all our clothes in the car and left. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to rent a truck to take our other things, so I'm going to have to go back during the winter break with a truck (by myself) to pick it all up.

Unfortunately, the toys I bought for my son's birthday this Sunday were up in my parents bedroom (my mom likes to wrap gifts) so we didn't take them, and my dad says there's no way to ship them in time. But that's only true if they send parcel post instead of flat-rate priority. I told my dad via email and text to use the rolls of quarters and dimes I left there to pay for the shipping but I don't know if he'll cooperate. As it is, they are refusing to return my daughter's library books to her school.

The good news is that the kids and I are reunited in our new place with my husband and we're under our own roof with our own rules. I get my privacy, sanity, independence and self-respect back again. I feel so sad for the brother and sister still living at home because they don't understand how different the world looks when you have the experience of living elsewhere. I don't think it's really possible to think for yourself when you're totally dependent on your parents. I suspect this might even be true for normal families but I don't know much about normal families.

My husband and I are getting along wonderfully and only need improvement in one area - sex - and right now that's mostly my fault. I just can't get into it very well after a year of being without and with all the recent stress, too. Don't get me wrong...it's pleasant - just not very exciting because I can't orgasm. I think we just need to make time to have an extra-long session with lots of warm-up time when we're both not too tired. We've changed time zones, however, so our sleep schedules are out of whack right now. So I think this is just a temporary problem.

BTW, on the car ride on the way home, I told my husband he was being a good husband by sticking up for me and that he really couldn't have handled the situation any better than he did. I also said that his in-laws are really obnoxious. He got a laugh out of that.

you did well.

ditch your parents for good.

they should never darken your lives again.

Are you taking anti-d's...could be the reason for the anorgasms, it's a side-effect.

medc, thanks!

StillHereMakingIt,

No, no anti-depressants just anti-biotics for the last remnants of Lyme disease. I did recently stop taking a muscle relaxer. Is it possible that suddenly stopping one can have that effect? I was getting horrible tension headaches where my scalp muscles just tighted up terribly but they suddenly stopped after leaving my parents' house. I couldn't believe it - it was like magic.

ITA.

What a bunch of emotional vampires.

I am glad you found "contentment."

There's nothing like it in the whole, wide world - it is so precious and good.

Wow!

Aph,

""My husband visited for Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving Day my mother threw a temper tantrum and started screaming at my husband.""

Isn't Thanksgiving a wonderful holiday?

I have heard about more dysfunction happening on Thanksgiving than any other holiday for some reason. I think alcohol has a lot to do with it, plus most people having Friday off too, and then the weekend.

Good for you guys for leaving the "emotional vampires" in their dust.

kirk

PS - you made the right choice !

thanks, everyone!

Krusht,

Yeah my other sister - the one who left home at 15 - said Thanksgiving is my mother's holiday for being a drama queen. I guess a holiday that emphasized family togetherness is bound for failure when the family in question is dysfunctional.

But alcohol is not a factor in my family. We have enough natural insanity without it being drug induced.

Hey Aph - good to see you!

hey, bk..you too!

Okay, sex life seems to have gotten better. Having some advance notice makes a big difference.

Aph,

I haven't been around as much lately as I once was, but I am so happy to hear this latest update.

I take it you two are finally together under one roof...

I was sorry to see the drama that took place over Thanksgiving, but I am glad to see that you two stuck together.

And I know you don't place much stock in prayer, but I have been praying for you...

Marriage is really hard work. Don't stop working at it.

Mark

Aphaeresis,

Haven't heard from you for a while. How are things going?

Mark

Hi all,

I know it's been a while. We're doing well except for one thing - I did develop a crush on someone but I also told my husband about it today. AND my husband is the only one who knows (well, except you guys now).

Since I didn't do anything about it, our friend doesn't know and I have no idea how he'd react if he did know. "No contact" isn't practical but also not necessary since nothing happened and we're never alone anyway. I'm working on less frequent contact, though.

My husband said he wasn't mad, but he was disappointed and worried about this being a bad sign for our marriage - worried about how often it might happen and what if I don't tell him in time next time. But he's also glad I told him instead of doing something stupid, which is why he didn't want to get mad at me. But I honestly believe that things should get easier as I get older and "slow down" a bit. (I'm 38 now.) And I suggested that spending more time together (which we've already started doing anyway) should help make things easier.

I felt really anxious and guilty telling him, but now I feel very relieved because I was kinda getting scared that I might do/say something stupid.

I don't remember alot about your story, but I believe you are the FWW, right?

Something is still strangely wrong if this has happened. Your EPs are not in place for this to have happened AGAIN.

And even if it DID start happening, what took you so long to figure it out???? This didn't happen overnight, you ALLOWED it to continue...and cultivate...and grow.

I'm sorry, but I have no patience for this, and I don't think your H should either.

Did you learn NOTHING the first time around???

Aph:

The important part is that YOU DID know you where having a "crush". AND that you DID tell your husband about it.

That's a BIG Change.

I think it would be appropriate for your Husband to have a conversation with this guy, however.

You state "No Contact" is required, because, well, he didn't know. If I was your husband, I would have the conversation.

And whatever the "less Frequent" attempts at no contact are, I would ramp them up.

And why the "crush"? What did this guy have that caused you to "crush" for him?

LG

lousygolfer,

He feels strongly that he doesn't want to know who the guy is, especially since the guy doesn't know. I mean, for all we know I'm not even his type and this guy is totally innocent.

Why the crush? It's not that my husband is doing anything wrong. I mean, my friend is interested in a lot more things that my husband used to be more interested in doing but that's not my husband's fault - he's been sick so he can't be quite as active as he used to be until he gets better. His energy and enthusiasm for causes I care about is impressive, though, same with his imagination. They are both very intelligent men. I like his sense of humor, but then my husband also has a good sense of humor. He has an incredibly sexy foreign accent (definitely have to reduce, maybe eliminate phone time) but you know, it's not like you can ask your spouse to put on an accent for you. The only other reason I can think of is that I'm always going to have some unmet sexual needs because my husband's list of sexual likes is significantly shorter than my list.

MF,

Nothing "cultivated" except in my own head - there was no affair, EA or otherwise. My husband agrees with me that married people have crushes. I know that he has had crushes and admits this, but for him it's no big deal, "just a part of being a man" he says and he says he knows to "keep a certain distance" if it's someone he runs into all the time, like at work for example. I just haven't had enough practice dealing with it the right way as opposed to the wrong way.

Aph:

I didn't ask you WHY he wasn't your H. I asked why you were attracted to him, and you proceeded to list all his good qualities and contrasted them against your H.

Please, do not do that.

I understand about "crushs" Gosh, I have had many. Not since Dday. I can't allow myself. I purposefully AVOID certain people to make sure that I do not get tempted. I have to use the phone alot. And I will avoid that if I have to.

I asked WHY you were attracted to him so that maybe you would become aware if this "tug" earlier in the relationship with anyone new. If that little attraction meter started to move, you could disengage earlier.

And you refer to him as "your friend" How did you meet?

And why didn't Mr Aph know about this meeting?

LG

lousygolfer,



Oh, well it was a combination of things but I could have told my husband sooner. I almost did several weeks back but I'm embarrassed to say I chickened out.



He's a friend of my husband's (yes, I know how horrible that sounds). I had known of him and talked to him over an email list we're all on but hadn't met him until my husband and I went to a party he threw in late December. We're all involved in multiple organizations and travel in the same social circles. There are some events that my husband and I both go to with the kids, and some events in which one of us goes alone. They're all group events, though.

I would eliminate all contact, via phone or in person unless your husband is by your side and even that might need to change in the future.

It is the innocent contact while getting some EN met that leads to falling for someone. You don't even have to knowingly participate in flirting and sexual banter for it to get to a point where stopping is hard, too hard when our own spouse is not meeting some specific EN for us.

And we don't even have to have a reason in our mind that would justify it to begin with, we just have to recognize it and run from it.

There are going to be people from time to time that come into our lives that we just simply hit it off with as if there was some magic in the moment. It might be a strong physical reaction/attraction or just a feeling of "this person is really cool." In almost every one of these cases nothing will come of the attraction and we just move on with our life. But if we linger in the moment, if we begin to think of "what if" in regard to this person, we need to recognize that at once and move away quickly.

If we are getting something from this person in the way of ENs of any kind whether attraction or conversation or honesty, it can become quite easy to start to justify continuing down the road we know we are on. An attraction becomes a crush becomes an obsession becomes an affair with no real concept of how we got there.

There was a thread a while ago about the ten second rule. In the early stages of any relationship we make conscious decisions to move one direction or another in the relationship. When something is leading us in the wrong direction, we have about ten seconds to make up our minds. We either back away from the inappropriate behavior or we engage in it and once that road is in front of us, it becomes harder with each step to turn around and run.

So when my cute 20 something coworker suggests I join her for a drink after work, it is at THAT instant in time I need to decide to remain faithful to my wife. It isn't that I necessarily want to have an affair with her but simply going out for drinks with a women that could lead to a problem. Or when that new girl in the office touches my arm as she hands me a cup of coffee fixed just the way I like it, that is the moment when I decide if I am going to remain faithful or if I am willing to flirt not with her, but with disaster for my marriage.

It isn't the first ten seconds in the relationship that count but the first ten seconds in which we know there could be something more than the innocent act before us. That is when we have to see it as dangerous and step away.

My wife seldom travels for work, but it does come up sometimes. But if she were to suddenly have to begin traveling with one of the men she works with, it would be a huge problem for me. It isn't even a matter of trusting her, but that I could identify a man and woman travelling together, spending hours together in a car, eating together, sharing strategies for business together etc as being a huge potential for a lowering of boundaries. Her affair in 05/06 was not with someone she would normally be attracted to. The only thing they had in common was talking about idle chit-chat at the mailbox or over the back fence. I could see the trouble ahead but she couldn't and she ended up ready to divorce and leave me for a guy she can't even speak the name of today without gagging. She let her boundaries down because it was all innocent behavior and it nearly led to disaster.

Ultimately it is having boundaries that prevent us from heading toward a problem more than a line we will not cross that will prevent us from doing what we know we should not and had no intention of doing when we began. It isn't our bodies nor our hearts we have to stop, but our minds...

Affairs happen not so much when we act, but when we don't.

Mark

Mark,

Thanks. I think I understand boundaries a lot better now and that I don't necessarily have to be doing or saying something wrong in order to go down a wrong path.

And at first I couldn't figure out what EN of mine he could have been meeting until you said it - conversation. Not that my husband doesn't talk to me, it's just that all his online game playing has given us less to talk about, that is until fairly recently as he's starting to become more involved in some of what I like to do. So that's improving now anyway.

Aph,

That's the thing about ENs. It doesn't matter which of our ENs is being met, even what might be number 2 or 3 or even number 10. As long as we are letting someone meet them for us, that person is making Love Bank deposits.

If my # 1 EN is Recreational Companionship and my favorite activity is fishing, I just simply can't let myself go fishing with a woman who enjoys it as much as I do unless that woman is my wife. I have a friend who enjoys fishing but has little time to go. His wife enjoys it as much or more than he does. I have been fishing with him and once with both of them, but I would never consider going fishing with her even if he and my wife both said it was an OK thing to do since we are "just friends." It would be asking for trouble.

For some the activity might be dancing to live music. That would be trouble for my wife. She just can't go out dancing alone or even with a group of women unless it is agreed ahead of time that they will turn down any and all offers from any men that might ask them to dance. (And they DO get offers) Even that is asking for trouble as well IMO because she also gets a big lift from the attention (less of a problem now than when she was a size 4 and looked 20 years younger than she really is) and once she's had a few drinks she might not be so willing to say “No” to an offer to dance...The dancing isn't the problem; the filling her LB$ is the problem and that happens when she gets to dance and has praise heaped on her for the way she dances and looks.

So the solution is to not engage in anything that fills our LB$ and the real trick is to identify what fills our LB$ the quickest and avoid repeatedly allowing someone to fill that EN so that they can never build a LB$ balance that exceeds the romantic threshold.


If conversation is your number one EN and a close second is O&H, then open and honest communication with the same guy for more than but a few minutes has to be something to avoid. It's like hypothermia. The first sign that you are too cold to function properly is when your teeth begin to chatter and then your body temperature has already dropped. You have to get to some place warm because your body is already restricting the blood supply to your brain and so your brain is not working to full capacity. Your decisions are already impaired. If you don't take action to warm up, you will eventually not be able to take action and then you will not make it unless someone else comes along to drag you to safety.

And you don't have to be in minus 30 temperatures to get hypothermia either. 75 degree water will kill you just as surely as 35 degree water. 75 degree water feels pretty nice on a hot summer day but if we were to spend the entire night floating in it with the sun gone, the temperature dropping and having to circulate more blood to our arms and legs to stay afloat and so speed up the cooling process, our body cools even faster. The 35 degree water will just kill you quicker.

So even minor ENs met over and over again by the same person tend to accumulate until the person has established a tidy sum in our LB$ and THEN we don’t want to do without it and it is too late. This is why an affair is thought of as an addiction. Once that barrier has been crossed, our brains just aren’t working rationally any more and it takes someone else pulling us out of harm's way to save us from ourselves. We have to disengage early enough to avoid allowing the person from making that big of a deposit, even with a lot of small ones.

It's really hard when you already like someone. But THAT is a sign that they ARE meeting some EN because we don't like people that don't meet some EN that we have. Couple it with a physical attraction and it is deadly to our marriage. It's easier when the person acts like a jerk every once in a while, but if we forgive them for being a jerk too easily we're already in trouble.

The problem isn't where you are but where you're headed...

I know you know this. Just a reminder for all of us.


Mark

Mark,

May I copy this post immediately above into the Memorable Posts thread? I think it's a keeper.

L4,

Just bookmark it or something. I think Pep is the keeper of the notable posts thread if that is what you are thinking about.

I trust her judgment.

I have been so honored before...

Mark

Been a while since we heard from you. How goes it?

Mark

Hi Mark, everyone.

Actually, we have a serious problem, which is why I came back here. Maybe you can recommend another place to post this where more people will see it. But my husband has lost both his sex drive and ability to orgasm. This is true even when I'm not there. (He no longer masturbates - not worth the trouble and doesn't feel like it anyway.) He's been to two doctors who say his hormone levels are fine, that there is nothing medically wrong and that there is no medical treatment. He insists that everything else with us is fine and that it must be medical. I'm completely stumped. Anybody got any ideas?

Contact this doctor at www.goodhormonehealth.com and see what he says. I have a serious endocrine problem and he is by far the best endo, probably in the country.

He's phenomenal. Really, truly.

Have you considered it could be depression?

Pepperband,

His mood is not affected, though. He's in a good mood most of the time. No signs of depression.

What ARE his testo levels?

My BIL was told recently that his are normal, although at the low end of normal. He insisted he wanted testosterone and HIS LIFE IS TOTALLY CHANGED!!!!!

Aph,

Not my area of expertise so I'm afraid I won't be of much help.

What's the doctor got to say about the little blue pill?

Good to see ya around, BTW, even if it's for help with a problem.

Mark

MarriedForever,

That particular doctor is very far from us, but it does give me an idea to try a local endocrinologist. The doctors he saw before were urologists and I think the only hormone they tested for was testosterone, so maybe we can try this. Thanks so much!

Aph:

I'd like to echo other posters - if he can see an endo and/or a specialist in male sexual dysfunction (not "just" a urologist), he's likely to get a more thorough evaluation. My first husband went through this and testosterone numbers don't always tell the story. Hormonal balance is a pretty delicate state of affairs. You want a physician with alot of background and experience in the area.

Good luck!

-Miriam

Sorry, guys...I meant to reply long ago but haven't been at the boards. Also, last time I came the boards were down!

Anyway, it turns out that although my husband's testosterone levels were normal according to one test, the testosterone was binding to some other stuff and causing it to leave his system too quickly! So he got some drugs and they WORK! Took a few weeks to work but everything is just fine now. What a relief!

We've moved into a bigger place since then and want to try to have another baby. Unfortunately, every time I take an ovulation home test it's negative. I'm hoping I've just been missing the right day or something so I'm doing every day this cycle and if I don't catch it, I guess I'm going to the doctor. I didn't expect to have this much trouble as I'm only 39. I guess the good thing is that I've already got 2 great kids so if it doesn't happen it's not a disaster. But maybe I'm worrying for nothing. I'll keep you posted.

Apharesis,

What a great update!

Another baby at 39? 40 by the time he or she is born? You guys nuts?

JK in case you had any doubts...

So beyond the SF part, how's the rest of the marriage doing these days?

Good to hear from you. Keep us updated.

Mark

Mark,

It's going great. I wish we could go out alone together more often, but my work hours have been cut down to almost nothing so no money for babysitting. I'd look for another job, but there's a chance he could get promoted which would mean moving out of state again - and I have no idea where, when or even if. On the plus side, he works at home a couple days a week so once in a while we go out to lunch together. Can't complain

So I take it being together is paying off, huh?

HAPPY BABYDANCING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Kimmy

Yes, nothing beats being together

Thanks

Hi Aph - so glad to read your update.

Hey Aph,

It's great to hear you guys are together and doing well.

Ace

Thanks bigkahuna and Ace! Nice to hear from you again.

Everyone, I now have a thread on the "other topics" forum called "How to deal with dysfunctional extended family?"

So if anyone's bored and wants to read a long post...

Everything in my marriage is going great. So that much is good.

We want to have another baby, though, and I'm not sure it's going to happen. I've been using those ovulation test kits for a few months and thought I just kept missing the right day. But this cycle I tested for every day that I could and still every single test was negative. But I'm not showing any signs of early menopause so I don't know what's going on. I'll have to set up a doctor's appointment and see. I have to say I wasn't expecting this. I'm only 39 and I know there are woman much older than me who have gotten pregnant and given birth. Well I guess there's no point worrying about it until I see the doctor. I'll keep you all posted.

Merry Christmas Aph.

bigkahuna,

Merry Christmas to you, too. And Merry Christmas/Happy Solstice/Happy Holidays to all!

Whew! No biggie. Doc says home ovulation kits don't always work, so there might not be anything wrong with me after all. So plan is to stop testing, keep trying and get some blood drawn for a more accurate (but after-the-fact) ovulation test just to be sure.