Marriage Builders
Posted By: justinie97 patience is a virtue? - 04/01/04 02:29 PM
Hello...I am hoping for more advice on keeping quiet, even tho my suspicions are making it very hard. I feel that my H is having an affair, maybe EA, I do not know. After reading some of the postings on this site, I am even more sure of it.
I have already learned that confronting him on everything I find, is not the answer. But, I need some more help with coping in the meantime. I feel that if I give him enough space, he will eventually use it up, and the real cause of our current problems will come to light.
He started a new job last April, that is a total change from anything he has done before. He sells timeshares for a large resort. HE loves his job, and is good at it, but it seems to have created an atmosphere that is not at all good for a healthy marriage.
Too much time away from family, toom much unaccounted for time, and opportunities for socializing that he did not rally have with his previous job. This job has also caused major financial problems, since he is on commision only. Sometimes, he gets a really good paycheck, and sometimes there isn't one at all.
As a result, our house was in forclosure ( his parents got him out of that immediate danger). Our finances have always been separate, which I did not find to be a problem before this happened( the house payment was his responsibility, and we have other bills etc. divided) NOe, I know it is a problem. He has kept many money secrets from me, some of which were small loans that he took out to cover his lack of a paycheck when there were no sales. Also, rather large and lengthly cellphone bills. I had to ask him for his password to access this bill. It contained many,many calls to female coworkers, 2 in particularly. One of them married, the other not.
Of course, he says they were business realated, hardly so, at the hours some of these were made.
Also, he lied to me when I had reason to believe that he went to a gambling casino. I kept searching for more cluses, and found that he had indeed been there. Of course, when confronted with the new evidence, he said he went alon, nad only one time.
Also, there have been evenings when he has come home smelling very much of alcohol. Never [a problem till now. He denies that he has had any drinks, until it becomes obvious that he can deny no more, and then he says he only had one. Hardly does one beer leave on odor on someone after they have left the room and gone down the hall...does it?
I am looking for more clues to help me out here. He has gone to a psychologist for depression, at the request of our doctor, and is taking an anti-depressant. Sometimes he takes it like he should, and sometimes he doesn't. This all came about as a reslult of the foreclosure scare in Nov.
I have never been in such a situation in my life, and it is soooo hard to know what in the world I should do. But, I have already seen that he is in no way rational, and I can not reason with him.
So, I am trying to kkep quiet about the new things I have found that keep this mystery in high gear.
Just wanted to get some advice from anyone who can relate, and give me some good patience boosters.
me 46
H 47
d (stepdaughter) 16
d (ours) 6
M 9 yrs in May
Posted By: pain and faith Re: patience is a virtue? - 04/17/04 08:50 PM
I think what you need is communication before patience. Clearly there are issues in your marriage. Lies just lead to more lies. My h started with the lies and ended in an affair that almost cost him his job. One of the things I learned after my h left was that I was too controlling, always trying to find out what he was doing, always suspicious and that just pushed him further away. We are now in recovery and our communication is so much better. You need to have a heart to heart with your h and tell him that you feel like your marriage needs some improvement and see if he'll do the EN questionnaire. Also, make sure you look within yourself to see if there are things that you are not doing or doing that may be pushing your h away. When a spouse lies and wants to be out of the house a lot it's because they are trying to run away maybe feeling trapped and needs are not being met. You guys need to get to be honest with each other about your marriage, is it important, can it be better and if so - how can we make it better.
Posted By: justinie97 Re: patience is a virtue? - 04/18/04 04:51 PM
thanks so much for the input....I have tried to get him to have heart to heart...but he says that he doesn't feel anything...and does not know what to say to me. He says that he still loves me, but is confused about "things", but can not tell me what things. I have also looked inside of myself, and realized that there were areas of improvement to be made on my part. I apologized for these and told him I wanted to do better. I have a bad temper, that he has unfortunatly seen too often. I even went to counseling for this a year ago. I am doing better with that.
So...what to do when the H does not want to talk???? I have stopped snooping, because it really did not seem to get me anywhere. His job is still getting us into grave financial problems, but he will not give it up. What to do now?????? I have no idea.....getting worse all of the time it seems.
Posted By: believer Re: patience is a virtue? - 04/19/04 05:12 AM
Start in Plan A. You can read all about it here. It does sound like your H is having an affair. Also check out the 180's.
Michelle Weiner Davis's divorce busting 180 degree list:

1. Do not pursue, reason, chase, beg, plead or
implore.
2. No frequent phone calls.
3. Do not point out good points in marriage.
4. Do not follow her around the house.
5. Do not encourage talk about the future.
6. Do not ask for help from family members.
7. Do not ask for reassurances.
8. Do not buy gifts.
9. Do not schedule dates together.
10. Do not spy on spouse.
11. Do not say "I Love You".
12. Act as if you are moving on with your life.
13. Be cheerful, strong, outgoing and attractive.
14. Don't sit around waiting on your spouse - get busy, do things, go to church, go out with friends, etc.
15. When home with your spouse, (if you usually start the conversation) be scarce or short on words.
16. If you are in the habit of asking your spouse her whereabouts, ASK NOTHING.
17. You need to make your partner think that you have had an awakening and, as far as you are concerned, you are going to move on with your life, with or without your spouse.
18. Do not be nasty, angry or even cold - just pull back and wait to see if spouse notices and, more important, realize what she will be missing
19. No matter what you are feeling TODAY, only show your spouse happiness and contentment. Show her someone she would want to be around.
20. All questions about marriage should be put on
hold, until your spouse wants to talk about it (which may be a while).
21. Never lose your cool.
22. Don't be overly enthusiiastic.
23. Do not argue about how she feels (it only makes their feelings stronger).
24. Be patient
25. Listen carefully to what your spouse is really saying to you.
26. Learn to back off, shut up and walk away when you want to speak out.
27. Take care of yourself (exercise, sleep, laugh & focus on all the other parts of your life that are not in turmoil).
28. Be strong and confident and learn to speak softly.
29. Know that if you can do 180, your smallest
CONSISTENT actions will be noticed much more than any words you can say or write.
30. Do not be openly desperate or needy even when you are hurting more than ever and are desperate and needy.
31. Do not focus on yourself when communicating with your spouse.
32. Do not believe any of what you hear and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives because she is hurting and scared.
33. Do not give up no matter how dark it is or how bad you feel.
34. Do not backslide from your hardearned changes.
Posted By: pain and faith Re: patience is a virtue? - 04/19/04 09:11 PM
I agree with believer. Start off by making a copy of the EN questionnaire and ask him to make you happy and just fill out the questionnaire so that you can be sure that you are fulfilling his most important needs. It can't hurt. If he doesn't even want to do this then I would truly questions what's going with him. Maybe he doesn't want to talk because he's just trying to figure this out himself because maybe there is an affair going on. Plan A and lots of prayer - that's what did it for me.
Posted By: justinie97 Re: patience is a virtue? - 04/23/04 10:46 PM
I will try plan A as best I can, and also try to stickm by the divorce busters list....but this is all sooooo hard. Not that you all do not know that. I only hope that I can be as patient and wise in my efforts. Thank you all so much for the support and feedback. IT really helps.
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