Jo, I'd suggest you tap eyes and geneva's thoughts on your last exchange with your H. The children's behavior are not surprising. Their world is in turmoil. I'm going through it with my D15 and it hurts. Regarding your H, I see some troubling signs: 1. I rang him and asked what time he would be arriving - set down the rule if he doesn't arrive by stay home unless he calls and explains.He's "controlling" 2. he has already arranged a babysitter 3 nights this week (he goes out a lot in the evenings).He's still "controling" 3. 'We'll have to arrange that date.'more control 4. Boots - it's none of his business and if he chooses to be a vegatarian that's his choice. He's controlling and trying to get you to be a pleaser / victim jo, you're doing a lot better than me in improving you but I fear he still sees you as his. Lay down some visit rules and cut off the sex. This may come across as harsh but I'm feeding you everything I've regrefully practiced and hope like me you can learn from it. You may still salvage your M. I'm afraid mine is lost.
1. In the past if I've tried to set down rules, he ignores me. I could ask him to call me if he's going to be late and see how he responds.
Incidently, he behaves like this with everyone, not just me. He's late for all his friends, his mother etc and is only on time if he has to be, i.e, if it's a class for the kids or a job. Ex-OW used to moan about the same thing. I admit, he needs to get better at this though, as it's disrespectful to me.
2. He won't bend his life to fit me into it atm, i.e, all these activities and no time for anything else, including no time for my R with the kids, which I hate. I agree he is controlling with that as there is no good reason why I can't go to their home ed meetings. I am hoping he will let me into their lives more as this progresses. If not, I will leave him.
3 - I agree, it's on his terms again. Very frustrating, it feels like he's keeping my interest without committing to anything. I am in two minds what to do. One part of me wants to ring him and tell him when we are going out and tell him to cancel one of his evenings so we can get a babysitter, the other part of me wants to ignore it completely so then he gets the message we won't go out unless he is more acomodating.
4 - I agree, he wants me to agree with everything he says, very dominating. Didn't use to be so bad but has got worse since the split and everything his way since the court battle. Not sure what to do except smile sweetly and do what I want anyway. He knows he does it as he said he does it and doesn't want the R to be all him and that he 'worries about it' (his words) but nonetheless, doesn't do anything about it.
Yes I know he still sees me as his. I'm not sure about the sex as he said ILY for the first time in 3 years during sex so it obviously has some benefit. Maybe we should have a poll.
HOW MANY PEOPLE ON HERE THINK I SHOULD STILL BE SLEEPING WITH HIM?
I have thought of maybe limiting it or showing less physical interest in him. He currently sleeps with me anything from once a week to once a fortnight.
Quote: Yes I know he still sees me as his. I'm not sure about the sex as he said ILY for the first time in 3 years during sex so it obviously has some benefit. Maybe we should have a poll.
HOW MANY PEOPLE ON HERE THINK I SHOULD STILL BE SLEEPING WITH HIM?
I have thought of maybe limiting it or showing less physical interest in him. He currently sleeps with me anything from once a week to once a fortnight.
I wonder why you are still sleeping with him. It sounds as if it is at his whim, another control mechanism. I understand that everyone has physical needs, and you might be concerned that denying him would drive him away, but it just seems degrading to continue to put up with the domination and control and still be available for him physically.
Jo, Your are an inspiration to many of us and we love you. So it is with great trepidation that I tell you that having sex with a controller is not something you put up for a vote. Jo, JRB and I have been there. We've been controllers and it's a terrible pathology. Our spouses gave us a wake-up call and we sought help. You are too precious to fall prey to a controller again. You've exorcised many demons but there's one left, that of a pleaser "Women who try too Hard" Dr. Kevin Leman. I know this will come across as tough love but we here at DB love you and don't want to see you hurt. You decide what to do and pray along with all of us that our decisions will, whatever the outcome, serve us and our loved ones well.
Well, I get conflicting messages on sex, both from myself and others. On the one hand sex is supposed to make a man feel closer to a woman and all the men on here in the sex drives forums are all raving about how women are LD so they want to have an affair, so I think to myself I must be right to sleep with H.
Then of course, it probably reassures him too much so he's starting to take liberties (he used to call more in the beginning to say if he'd be late etc) and I am on this rollercoaster of total joy followed by being upset.
Also, just recently he did tell me he loves me for the first time in 3 years so I think to myself do I really put a stop to it all now?
When it happened the first two ocassions it was spontaneous and I was a bit shocked as we were just D but after that it just carried on. I don't make the first move but he can tell I like it so I don't know if it is truly all his 'whim' - but certainly he's controlling the rest of the R which I hate.
In tears again this evening when I am further along than a lot of you. Everyone must think I am selfish...
You're not further along than me. I'm in Johannesburg. You're not selfish but It's my opinion for what its worth that you've mastered most everything about DB except dealing with a controller. Sex is how controllers control. At the last 3 hour session where my W launched an all out frontal assault I listened saw her pain and realized how I've caused that pain. I validated her feelings and at the end I was moved by my heart to say "You know what I'm thinking when I see you in so much pain?" She replied "you want to have sex!" She and all the books relate controllers wanting sex as controlling. by the way I wasn't thinking about sex I was thinking about how she was hurt, how she attacked, and for the first time how I didn't defend my past or argue how she was wrong but rather loved her. My reply was "No, I was thinking of how much I've hurt you and how I love you." And with that we are selling the house. Go figure? It just goes to show that even if your heart is in the right place and you practice DB you still lose when your spouse heart turns cold. good night
He wasn't always a controller though, some of the reason why he became more like that is because of me. I wasn't always the perfect wife, and remember, he left me - men don't leave for no reason. Some of it is because of his father.
I'll give you some background. H's mother is a matron at a hospital in charge of a whole department. She is that way with her life and not just her job. When me and H were little she used to talk down to both of us like her patients (I knew her from age 10, H was 13, I was there in person so can tell you this from my eyes too).
She was great as long as everyone agreed with her, otherwise all hell broke lose - a bit like my mother but without the allegations. Anyway, H's dad broke under the pressure of being constantly shouted at/put down so he started drinking and became an alcoholic. He started hitting H's mother and spending all the family wages on booze and most of his time in the pub. He'd throw plates at them. H and his mother used to hide behind the sofa
H's father would threaten to leave so H went out and slashed the tyres on his car so he couldn't leave.
There is other stuff worse I won't put because this is H's private life and I don't want to upset him should he ever read this.
H's dad got that personality disorder where you hear voices (can't spell it) so he was put in a hospital for a year. H was forced to visit there.
H never had any control over anything, not the domestic violence, not the alcoholism, not his parents M and not his own freedom. She let him have parties - that was about it.
Then he fell in love with me and he gave me everything for years. Bent over backwards to do anything I wanted. He asked before he bought anything, asked before he invited his friends to our place, took me on holidays wherever I wanted to go - basically nothing was too much trouble.
But then there were certain things which went wrong. I had a traumatic birth experience with dd1 and blamed him overtly for it ('you should have protected me. Why didn't you do something?') - he had to watch the woman he loves go through that agony while feeling totally powerless to help, only to have me turn on him afterwards. I had PND for a year and he had to juggle university with our baby because of this and I was getting panic attacks etc about the birth and my injuries so I didn't want him to go out anywhere in the evenings and he started feeling hemmed in.
This was solved when DD2 was born as I needed another birth experience to heal me from previous one.
I also had other medical health problems which meant I was in pain most of the time and would not go out to parties etc so I told him to go on his own. He wouldn't because he said it wasn't fair to leave me by myself and it was selfish of me so he ended up sacrificing his social life for a number of years while I was getting diagnosis and treatment.
(Now 95% cured apart from when I have a cold, then the symptoms come back).
Then he met this woman at work whom I mistook for an EA but it wasn't - he talked about her a lot, used to give her a lift back from work, invited her round to meet me maybe twice but the rest of the times just saw her privately at work and when driving.
I started getting insecure because his shift didn't finish till 10pm and he was driving her ack at that time, they were talking on the phone etc. I eventually accused him of an affair, which he denied. We had a row, I told him I didn't love him and loads of other really nasty stuff I didn't mean (bearing in mind I was 21 when this took place and stupid) - well, he started crying and wouldn't speak to me.
We made up but I felt he was never as willing to see my side after that. He was always helping me with my business, going to work himself, then there was all that stuff with my mother where he'd sit on the fence and not do anything. He felt sandwiched in between the two of us, and the poor thing still did romantic stuff too, like taking me to Paris for my 21st.
(I did stuff too, valentine's meals, wrote him love poems etc).
3 kids later he set up shop and got so into that he wouldn't come home till 10pm, not call me to let me know etc, people know the rest and I went into nag mode.
I know by the time he walked out he must have thought I have given my life to this woman and all she does is nag me and blame me for stuff He had total burn out and although I tried to give back at the time, now I look back I know I didn't do enough and I judged him too much and that is why now he won't give over an ounce of control.
He's terrified that my family will put on him, he's terrified I'll put on him, he's terrified one of my illnesses will re-surface and then it'll be him that has to sit and watch me in pain - but he wants all the good bits, the picnics, the poetry, the messing about in boats (yes he even rowed a boat for me once).
I have no doubt in my mind that this man loves me, he just doesn't want to be hurt, and I don't either. That is why I have always been willing to keep going.
I just wish he could realise I have grown a lot since then and I'm not that person anymore and my health is a lot better and it would be different. All I want is a normal R, I don't want to trap him.
It's making him see that, as now everything is his say and I feel as if I am to blame.
Sorry - I am in a bad frame of mind, blame it on the period.
Jo wrote --------- I have thought of maybe limiting it or showing less physical interest in him. --------- Jo. You decide if you want to have a SL with your H. The only thing I would advise is to make him do more for you or with you. Put it into something like you are having some difficulty keeping your feelings high for him when he is late and does not call, or when he does not include you in the home ed activities, you wonder if he is only half commited the ILY statement or only horney? You might say you get horney too but you want something more then to be friends with benefits. (F/shagg buddies)
One of the things I saw in your post about his living arangements is he has little motivation to move back home with you. He has child care providers so he can go out when ever he wants, he has a cleaning service, and maybe food preperation service too.
Because he is not married to anyone in his house there is no reason to be on time. His arrangement is sort of like living with relatives, close friends but no formal commitments to anyone. Close friend that fill in the gaps like a communal living cooperative.
I hope the XOW and her bf get their new house or flat sooner rather than later, then H will have to do something that might involve you and the kids more.
Jo I dont see you as a greedy person wanting something unreasonabble. I probally want similar things you want. A stable relationship, to be friends, to be able to count on each other, intimate and sexual pleasures exchanged fairly, financial security, to raise kids in a loving environment and so on.
Look how far you have come and grown. Look at the mistakes you made and how you overcame those behaviors. Look at where you want to be in a year or too. Ask H where he wants to be in a year or two, about where he sees the R without asking about marriage if that is going to scare him away.
RE; Leather goods. Would he go for you buying used leather goods? You could say it was ashamed the animal had to die but wasting it's resources seems like a double crime. By using the leather you are honoring the animals life by putting it's products to good use. I don't expect many vegitarians to buy that, but that is how I feel sometimes.
Ethical choices. During WWI, the German military subjected many people to several degrees of cold to determine how long people lived with different equipment on. The data was saved. So is it better to throw away the data because crimes were commited when collecting the data for those cold experiments, or would using the data also be a way of honoring the victims of the cold experiments?
Jo, Gee, I kind of think that everyone is giving you a hard time here...
How do YOU feel when you have sex with your xh? Connected? or cheap? Do you feel good? Or used? I think you can decide what those feelings are.
I don't think using sex as a weapon is a good thing... ie withholding it. That is what doomed my R with my xh. I know that if he wanted to have sex, it would be his way of saying "I am willing to feel close to you or I am willing to allow myself to be connected with you." Sex was always a huge deal with my xh. When he was at home and having his A, which I did not know about at the time, he still had sex with me... One night he stopped and I knew it was over.
Ask yourself what DB says... will it bring you closer or further away from your goal? I am thinking it will put distance between you, especially if your xh's LL is physical touch. Stop asking everyone, only you can decide.
Now, a question for you... after you were D did your xh start being nice to you?
Relax. Appreciate. Be calm. Laugh. Enjoy. Be secure. Be loving. Be loved. Don't personalize. Don't ASSume. Accept. Be grateful.
I hope you are feeling better. I agree with Holding On - ML being a positive or not depends on you (and H). Your posts give the impression that it is mutually pleasant, that you don't feel used, and that the 2 of you feel closer following ML. If true, this sounds like a wonderful way to connect while you continue to work on other layers or dimensions of trust.
In my sitch, I've finally learned. Its not about the MIL/FIL, its about me and about WAW. The rest are merely background for our story.
You are doing excellent DB work. I enjoy reading your posts and learn so much from them.
