Is he a good father? You can't base it off of his A because that's an issue between you and him. Is he a good father to your children?
What marital issues were there in your M? Not saying that his A is justified, but there's usually some condition in the M that might have planted the seeds for it.
Have you read DB or DR? If not, that is an absolute must if you want to continue here and understand the process.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Thanks so much for your interest? He has been a great father in most respects and would do most anything for his children. however as a serious, self confessed conflict avoider, he left most of the difficult issues to do with the kids up to me and I let him. They learned from a young age to come to me with their concerns and issues usually asking me not to tell their father (but I usually did and got no real help). The children know that he loves them but also know his moods over the years and learned when to avoid him. When I said 'acts like a good father' it was really in relation to his most recent visit home, before his trip he asked me what holidays our youngest had from school so he could possibly arrange a trip to suit - I told him her holidays were end of May but he said that didnt suit work, I said to come anyway he would see her lots after school. When he did come home he went out fishing everyday and to the bar at night - he spent no time with our daughter and she noticed. I have told him my concerns about her self esteem, her self harming and asked him to talk to her, he said he would but didn't and never asks me about it. Lots of marital issues, I was young (25) and had an instant family with his then 5 year old, wonderful, son. He was always emotionally distant and did not touch me or hug me as much as I would have liked (I think because of the trauma he went through with his son's mother dying from cancer at the age of 30), I was emotionally immature and tried various stupid ways of getting him to open up to me. If I had known then what I know now, I would have communicated better and in a way that might have helped. He always drank a bit too much and I used to start fights about this which got us nowhere as he simply denied the obvious. I know so much more about him and his issues now that I did during the first 20 years of our marriage as well as about myself. When I couldn't get through to him or get him to really talk to me I withdrew and we led somewhat separate lives but he told me that he thought we talked alot?? I listened alot but gave up trying to tell him how I felt. We told each other that we loved each other alot. His work was always more important to him than anything else, he worked excessively and being successful (which he was up until 2010) was critical to his self esteem. Work did stress him often and he would come home and tell me about it, but never asked about my day (I work full time for myself). I knew he needed for me to listen and I did. He would always do the supermarket shopping and make our meals, he loves cooking. I know I never nagged and had no problem with him doing things to de-stress, play golf every sunday, play indoor football two evenings a week, fishing. We moved house in 1998 for his work, this involved moving away from my family but I had no problem with this. I stopped looking after myself following this move, put on weight and eventually stopped going to the bar with him - someone had to stay in with the children at the weekend and he was going out with or without me. I have since lost all the weight (due to this crisis) and he told me recently that I have never looked better. So, i think our biggest issue in our M was lack of real communcication, his inability to talk about himself, his feelings and my giving up on trying to get him to open up as well as my emotional immaturity, which has improved so much since all this happened. He always seemed so strong, so resiliant, so capable, so honourable, so full of integrity and now he is the opposite, it is shocking to me and to him! I do honestly believe that this could be the best thing that ever happened to us, if he will ever talk to me about it about it all, that we will both have grown so much in so many ways. But, the way he is living his life now is hard to take and not telling anyone about it because he doesnt want me to yet (until he knows 'what he wants')seems wrong. What is DB and DR - have not read them but will - how do I get a hold of them?
Forgot to say, he had opened up emotionally once or twice since this happened, more than he ever has in 25 years of marriage, he has cried and told me how awful he felt, how he has no feelings for anything, how he doesn't know what love is, doesn't know what he wants, that we are not enough for him. I listened and validated and cried with him and told him that I loved him and would stand by him and also told him that this does not justify an A. Also, our son has his own difficulties with his father. Everything he knows about his birth mother has come from me (things my H told me over the years - not much) and his father's sisters / brothers. His father has never had a conversation with him about his mother, what she was like - nothing. This has upset him over the years and I always encouraged him to talk to his father but he father has a way of putting you off talking about emotional issues (with all of us). When he was 18 he asked his father to go for a drink with him to talk about his mother - this was difficult for my son and he was nervous, when he eventually got the courage to bring up the subject, his father said 'what do you want to know', this was difficult for our son, he had just wanted his father to talk about her. They came back from the pub and our son told me that he got the impression that his father didn't want to be there and didn't want the conversation and he was never going to bring up the subject again as he felt like a fool. Our son is 31 now and they still have not had the conversation. Also, I have read so much on this site and it has been a godsend, I lurked for months before getting the courage to tell my story and I'm not sure if I am telling it well enough yet!!!
Get out do activities and find new things to do that you have not done before. New hobbies or some other 180.
As far as telling your story one thing you can do is hit carriage return a little more often and ask questions. (Another words big huge blocks of type are hard to read and some of us, me included, would rather skip them an read something easier on the eyes.)
Also post on other peoples threads and then they will find yours and post to you.
Your husband sounds depressed.
You cant FIX that.
What have you done through out the years to enable it? Maybe those are some 180's that you can make.
"however as a serious, self confessed conflict avoider, he left most of the difficult issues to do with the kids up to me and I let him. "
That's probably not true. He probably thought (and rightfully so) that as the mom you were better at dealing with the issue at hand or that he felt uncomfortable about talking about those things. Most men are like that.
The fact that you "let" him doesn't make you benevolent or anything. You made a decision to just take care of the issues yourself. You could have just as easily not have dealt with them. Don't put the blame on him.
Much of the story that you detailed has alot of your opinions in their about how he feels/felt, how your M was, etc. Can you give us more FACTS about your M and if there were problems? How did the two of you resolve conflict? Be objective and not what you "think".
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Really appreciate your response Cadet, have looked up all the abbreviations - beginning to get the hang of this!
Apologies for the 'blocks of type' - I guess it was a stream of consciousness and I was so anxious to get it all out I forgot that others would have to negotiate it all. Will remember in future!!
I didn't understand the posting on other peoples threads thing but I get it now so thanks for mentioning that too - i think it will help.
Yes, my husband is depressed and with good reason, the last few years have been a nightmare for us. We bought some land with a cottage at a high price about 5 years ago when the economy was booming, our house was put on the market which would have reduced our debt to a manageable level if it had sold.
The economy collapsed. My husband's company went into liquidation. We moved into the cottage but our house has not sold. My H looked everywhere for work while working with me (my business couldn't really sustain two salaries)but always felt his age went against. We used all our savings to keep paying two huge mortgages etc. over 3 years. We could no longer pay the mortgages when he got the offer of the job abroad. He sees no way out of this and feels that he has to live away from us for up to 10 years.
I know I can't fix his depression and the 180 i have done is to be more aware of it, to try to understand it and just to be there if and when he needs me. This is a 180 because before i wouldnt have tried to understand him i would just have either ignored his poor behaviour or fought with him.
You seem to think I have enabled his depression, does this have to be the case?? Trying to be honest here, i don't think i enabled it but i don't think i helped either because i didnt put a label on it and carried on hoping his 'mood' would improve.
While I understand he is depressed i don't believe it is acceptable that he had an affair, that he continues to have 'shallow relationships' with young girls, that he lies continually, uses porn and online dating sites and drinks excessively.
My original question was 'do I tell him all I know?' and i am still desperately seeking some advice on this. I know what he is doing from 'snooping' but I have not told him directly. I think that he believes that because he lives abroad he can try out this new way of living and that no one will be hurt because no one will know.
But the way he is treating me, and these other woman is so disrespectful and so harmful to him and to us, maybe he needs me to hold a mirror up to his behavior??
"You seem to think I have enabled his depression, does this have to be the case?? "
No one is suggesting this. What we are suggesting is that maybe there were other factors that lead up to the A's. Just trying to get a clearer picture. If there is another cause, then it doesn't matter if you expose this A or not. There will be someone else he will be going after.
What is something that you haven't done? In the past, have you done things to try and improve your M?
"While I understand he is depressed i don't believe it is acceptable that he had an affair, that he continues to have 'shallow relationships' with young girls, that he lies continually, uses porn and online dating sites and drinks excessively."
Of course it's not acceptable. He's got a problem. No doubt about it. But there's only so much you can do. If you are going to expose, or to have an intervention, you can't be the one to do it. Someone else close to you two has to. If you do it on your own, he will start blaming you for everything and how you're trying to ruin his happiness.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Hi MrBond, I think you have seriously misunderstood me and that is probably my fault for not explaining coherently!
He often told me that he had learned to say to nothing as a kid, his mother had a temper and used to argue with her children (all 5 of them) and as the youngest he learned not to annoy her and that not responding was the best policy when she was in a bad mood. He told me that he hated conflict and rows of any sort. He is a gentle man.
Not sure what you think is 'not true'.
Anyway, I wasn't complaining about his leaving me to deal with the difficult issues with the kids - it was my choice to make - I was just trying to give some background to how we were as a family.
Also, when I said I 'let' him, this was me being self critical as I always felt that I should have involved him more in their issues because he never objected to discussing them with me on our own but i usually didn't bother which I now think was wrong of me.
Not really sure what I am doing wrong in telling my M story. For most of our M I didn't think we had problems, we both had our interests but enjoyed each other's company and drew on each other's strengths. I loved his sense of his humour and he loved to make me laugh. When we moved to a different part of the country to more rural area in 1998 M problems started to arise. He had a ready made set of aquaintances through his job. I knew no one, I had left the office I had worked in for 10 years. We had four young children, 15, 9, 4 and 3 months.
I didn't have a job as such but started doing some work at home because of difficulties with child minding and the need to ferry them to school etc. (no public transport here!). I felt a bit isolated but didn't mind too much as I was so busy.
My H used to go out to the local bar a few times a week, to de-stress from work and I used to go with him one night of the weekend. He got to know some of the locals and there was always someone for him to meet any night when he wanted to go out. Initially I didn't have a problem with this.
After some years i got fed up with going to the bar and stopped going with him. He gave up asking me to go and went by himself.
We would go on family holidays but a few times work would get in the way for him and he would not join us. I started to notice that work and going to the bar seemed to take priority over our family and I resented it.
I would try to talk to him about it but he would get defensive and deny everything which made me angry and I would shout at him, which upset him and he would shout back and then walk away.
How did we resolve conflict?? well we wouldn't speak to each other for a while, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day and eventually we would start talking and either not mention the argument again or we would both apologise to each other - thinking back it wasn't really conflict resolution - things didn't really change - it was more like we ignored the issues until the next time!!
i would always let issues build up in my head and my heart rather than try to resolve them and then they would explode.
I know that alot of things i did and said annoyed him too but he would never tell me what they were.
Are the above the 'facts' you were asking about?? If not, let me know and I will try again!!
