This is the part I hate most of all with our sitch right now and what H is modeling to his boys: I feel I have to do damage control the best I can and it pisses me off that H isn't man enough to do the right job himself! I think about my brother - my uncle - my father: all GREAT men who would never dream of doing these things to their families... It's just a da*n shame I married someone so unlike these other great men in my life.
Bring a relative in to take teh boys out... If H asks tell him that the boys need a positive male role model and walk away
This is the part I hate most of all with our sitch right now and what H is modeling to his boys: I feel I have to do damage control the best I can and it pisses me off that H isn't man enough to do the right job himself! I think about my brother - my uncle - my father: all GREAT men who would never dream of doing these things to their families... It's just a da*n shame I married someone so unlike these other great men in my life.
Bring a relative in to take teh boys out... If H asks tell him that the boys need a positive male role model and walk away
Unfortunately, my dad and brother are both thousands of miles away and my uncle passed away from cancer a few months ago.
If you want to have kids some day you need to evaluate your H in the context of fatherhood.. what kind of father would this man make?
sometimes i'm glad we didn't have children. maybe it was a sign.
we tried for 3 yrs and nothing. both healthy. well, i know i was.
i always felt that having kids with him would meaning being a single mom. i couldn't rely on him.
it's like he could burn toast and say i burnt it because i didn't have my morning coffee yet. to me, you don't make excuses. i wake up and i have to be on the ball all the time because he's just never on the ball.
There is a 3rd option: it's called DBing and Tough Love! The problem is, it's harder than the other 2 options and you have to have a lot of patience. Not fun!
is this the option you're choosing, sunnyd?
i just don't know. i'm having fun with my life but i'm not trying to act like a 4 yr old. i have to learn how to deal with adult problems. i'm working steadily, trying to build a house, buying the right appliances for the home, thinking from an investment standpoint on what would make a house attractive, etc. in other words .. work hard and play hard. without my h, i have been able to do that.
y'know what's weird? everyone who has asked about my sitch ends up saying "you married a child."
Yes....I've been working the 3rd option as hard as I can! Some days I'm more successful than others.
I know what you mean about the whole child deal. I am so ticked right now that my H is not planning on even going to take our D to college this weekend because he doesn't see the need. Hello - she's going off to live on her own for the first time and he can't go and "be a dad"?!!! I sit here and think I really would be better off with someone who was as adult as I am. BUT... obviously I want to save my marriage or I wouldn't be here. :-(
that's just not right. this is one of those milestones in your D's life that doesn't get a second chance. it's like a baby taking his/her first step. there's only one first step! man up and be a father for once.
i'm working on the third option too. sometimes the longest/toughest way is the better way.
i trolled the forums for the longest time and read a lot of advice. and i kept thinking to myself, this wouldn't work in my sitch. i couldn't pinpoint why. and it took this long .. and ended up in the infidelity forum to figure out that my h is just a child who wasn't raised properly. that's why a lot of these tactics wouldn't work on him.
i am still working on me but the odds of me saving my m are pretty low. his parents are in constant contact with him.
i had to stop snooping in my intel resources because it was destroying me. i never find anything but the anxiety ate away at me. when i am not snooping, i'm actually at peace.
i applaude you for wanting to save your m. i do too .. even if it is with a man-child. during our 9 yr relationship, there were hints of an adult.
i look at all the other guys around me and then i look at him. and if he had just grown up, and became a real man .. he would be perfect.
Just stumbled on this thread and saw it was linked back to my thread.
This statement... exactly how I feel. H is a very good man in many ways. There are a lot of things about him that I'd be hard pressed to find in another man. But, the fact that he's a man-child and not treating our marriage like a marriage is way too big and too hurtful to overlook. I keep trying -- I'm realizing now I've been trying to overlook his lack of emotional development for many, many years. And now it's coming back to bite me. I want to believe he can and will "grow up". He keeps saying he wants to. But I don't know what I can believe anymore, or even if I should. Or even if he can.
I read this whole thread and also wanted to throw out there that my IL sitch sounds eerily similar. H and his older brother were overly coddled as children, and their parents used their sons to prop up their broken marriage (and still do). When their sons became adults, the IL's couldn't let go (and still wont to this day), but they trained their boys well to also not let go. BIL (who is 5 years older) has finally started figuring it out over the last few years and trying to cut the apron strings (which hasn't been pretty). My H is still a long way off (although he recently had a talk with his brother which turned on some lightbulbs for him).
I could seriously go on for days about the IL's. The guilt trips. The anxiety disorders. The co-dependency. The "us vs. them" mentality (meaning, in the IL's minds: IL's and sons VS everyone else). The emotionally weak/whiny/fragile mother and the domineering/stubborn/overly-paternal father. The IL's very strange/deficient social skills (and the fact they have almost no friends and attempt to revolve their "social" life around their sons). Their habit of dealing with problems through avoidance and/or passive-aggressive talking behind people's back. Their "need" to meddle or give input in every major decision in their son's lives. Their poorly veiled hostility towards every woman their sons date/marry. Even so far as telling H that his affair wasn't so bad (because it was "only" an EA) and that "all he did" was lie to me, and that they thought it was wrong that I said he couldn't still be friends with OW.... These people are effed up big time, and they've effed up their sons along the way. It's a shame, because if it wasn't for all the psychological issues and screwed up boundaries and all of that, they'd both be really great people who had raised two really great boys! But instead they've have psychologically battered their sons into remaining little boys so that THEY can feel like they still have their protective little family unit that props up them and their sham of a marriage.
So I feel you, and am so sorry we're not alone in this.
Me: 29 Him: 30 Married: 2 years Together: 13 years No kids Bomb: 6/4/10 Started MC: 7/16/10
I read this whole thread and also wanted to throw out there that my IL sitch sounds eerily similar.
i'm glad you found this thread now while the page count is still relatively low. my main thread in 'separated' is around 56 pages long. way too much to read.
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I'm realizing now I've been trying to overlook his lack of emotional development for many, many years. And now it's coming back to bite me. I want to believe he can and will "grow up". He keeps saying he wants to. But I don't know what I can believe anymore, or even if I should. Or even if he can.
i couldn't agree with you more. i'm guilty of overlooking the lack of emotional development - i chalked it up to him being a guy. there are glimpses of an adult inside my h that wants to come out. he has vented a few times to me about his parents but he's rarely confronts them about the issues he has with them. he has a good head on his shoulders. he has tried to stand up to his parents but i think the delivery needs polishing. and it will only get polished with practise. but when his mother cries, it discourages him from trying again because it might take 5 or even 10 tries to get it right.
i understand there is also a lot of fear in my h. my ILs constantly talk about how they will die. so can you imagine if h finally tried to confront his parents about something, and then they die. he will be left with a lot of guilt for the rest of his life. his last memory with mom or dad will be negative and maybe my confrontation put him/her over the edge. i would feel the exact same way. and i totally understand that. maybe it's the lesson in compassion that i am learning .. i'm not justifying his behaviour. but i understand where he is coming from. i can't change the past. his parents have already raised him. i can only look forward and deal with the present and future.
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I could seriously go on for days about the IL's. The guilt trips. The anxiety disorders. The co-dependency. The "us vs. them" mentality (meaning, in the IL's minds: IL's and sons VS everyone else). The emotionally weak/whiny/fragile mother and the domineering/stubborn/overly-paternal father.
i made a promise not to talk about my ILs at length. it's not healthy for me. and it's looking back and not forward. i am on strict rules to not focus on them and only on me. it is the only way to heal me. it works and i can't undo all of the work that i did for me.
all i can say is, you are not alone. i have not seen any posts of yours in newcomers. i will be trolling your thread to see what allen a has to say. i know it applies to me too.
my big question is .. how do you get your h to put on his big boy pants if you cannot control his behavior? i can't force my h to go ft. just like you can't make an alcoholic go to rehab if they don't think they have a problem.
for years, i've tried to model a good relationship with parents. my mom and i have a pretty good relationship. she is not afraid to let me fall down or make mistakes. she knows i have the skills to get back on my feet. i know my mom is hurting a great deal. the one thing she has yet to teach me is how to take care of a child. you can't really do it when you don't have a child of your own. she tells me that she wants to live long enough to see me have children. even though she has eight grandchildren already but she would love to see me have a child. i get teary talking like this. must stop.
i couldn't agree with you more. i'm guilty of overlooking the lack of emotional development - i chalked it up to him being a guy. there are glimpses of an adult inside my h that wants to come out. he has vented a few times to me about his parents but he's rarely confronts them about the issues he has with them. he has a good head on his shoulders. he has tried to stand up to his parents but i think the delivery needs polishing. and it will only get polished with practise. but when his mother cries, it discourages him from trying again because it might take 5 or even 10 tries to get it right.
Ditto all of this. Except that his mother doesn't cry -- she mopes.
My H is much better today about confronting/standing up to his parents than he was when we first got together. But he still has a long way to go. His parents still treat him like a child. And I think he struggles with completely stopping that out of fear that they won't be able to handle it. Instead, he literally acts like a little boy around them.
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all i can say is, you are not alone. i have not seen any posts of yours in newcomers. i will be trolling your thread to see what allen a has to say. i know it applies to me too.
I haven't posted over there. Just my one thread in Infidelity. I wasn't quite sure where I supposed to post when I first signed up.
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my big question is .. how do you get your h to put on his big boy pants if you cannot control his behavior? i can't force my h to go ft. just like you can't make an alcoholic go to rehab if they don't think they have a problem.
Same here. And even if you try to guide them and give the resources and teach them... it's like that old saying "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". I get to this point, and then sometimes find myself wondering "Is any of this worth it? What am I doing to myself?"
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for years, i've tried to model a good relationship with parents. my mom and i have a pretty good relationship. she is not afraid to let me fall down or make mistakes. she knows i have the skills to get back on my feet. i know my mom is hurting a great deal. the one thing she has yet to teach me is how to take care of a child. you can't really do it when you don't have a child of your own. she tells me that she wants to live long enough to see me have children. even though she has eight grandchildren already but she would love to see me have a child. i get teary talking like this. must stop.
Same thing with me. I had issues with my mother as a child. It'd take too long to get into, but suffice it to say my mom had always been very controlling and over-protective with me. She was also super harsh in punishing me. But when I hit 20 years old, I had decided I was ready to be an adult. I was very afraid of this (I couldn't tell you why, today). But I did it. And to my surprise, my mom immediately accepted and embraced it. It was like she was waiting for me to take that step. And our relationship really blossomed and went from parent/child to adult/adult from that point forward.
My mom has two grandkids (and another on the way). But, like your mom, she really wants a grandchild from me. Her other grandchildren all come with complicated situations. And as my mom's only daughter (and oldest child), she has told me she has been most looking forward to me being a mom. It's really hard for me to think that, one way or another, that is now being delayed for who-knows-how-long because of H's immaturity and irresponsibility. I either have to wait for him to grow up, or try to find another, truly worthy man to start a family with. There's no easy choice.
I've tried to be an example to H too. Some things he has picked up on. He learned, from me, how to stand up to his parents a little more. He learned how to follow through on decisions that he had carefully thought through but that his parents were strongly discouraging (like his choice of career, which is a great career and has been his dream since he was a child -- but his parents tried to talk him out of it for very selfish reasons). But, like your H, my H fears the day his parents die. Not because they directly beat it into his head, though. He says it's mostly because he lost 3 of his 4 grandparents while he was a child, and he's afraid his parents could die young too (even though they don't have any serious health problems). So he feels like he needs to connect with them as much as possible while they're still around. Even if it's unhealthy, and only perpetuates their lack of a life outside of their sons.
Makes me think that if I ever do end up in the dating pool again, I'm going be carefully scrutinizing the parents of any possibly marriage partners, and their relationship with their parents. Clearly these kind of parent/child dynamics create some predictable (and destructive) patterns!
Me: 29 Him: 30 Married: 2 years Together: 13 years No kids Bomb: 6/4/10 Started MC: 7/16/10
I can totally relate! Now, the difference with my H is that he now has NO relationship with his parents whatsoever. They are divorced. Doesn't talk to his dad and his mom is not even interested in her grandkids. It's sad. It's like, once H became "no use" to her daily life (living so far away) she just didn't have any interest.
But, I can relate with both of you. My H thinks as long as he is a good provider that he is being responsible and "adult" and it just isn't so. Emotionally, he's a child and doesn't even see it! It's like with the college thing: he's "doing his job" by paying for it but doesn't see the need to move his daughter in to her first apartment! Don't get it.
