Need support! Conflicted H

[Mimi00]

Thanks for your kind words about my threads.

You said your H has no income and only you cover the bills...I see you're wanting to sell the car...are there any other things that you can do with out (such as cable?) .... I am asking this because I'm wondering if there are things you can't cut to lighten the load for your self so you won't need to seek out your H to cover part. Money can be a big stressor....I know.

Since you've called him about the financials and he hasn't answered I'd say to stop contact for now. Hopefully he will return your call in time...

You dont always have to answer his calls or respond to his texts....but do what works best for your sitch. If your H texts you about a basketball game there's nothing wrong with responding and having a friendly conversations...letting him know you were listening when he originally told you about them team and saying something positive. Use interaction time as times to speak his love language or simply be a friend.

Sometimes when I text someone and they wait hours to respond, I am no longer interested in having the conversation anymore ...so balance appropriately according to you sitch with how you want to respond if at all.

[Junsui]

Thank you, Mimi. I wish there was a way to lighten the load without involving H! We've never had cable, and the only bills we have are cell phone, car insurance, and car loan. Because the cell phone is under contract, I can't cancel our data plans or anything without incurring early termination fees. Everything else has been going on credit card (groceries, etc.), and since the credit card is in my name and H doesn't budget (eating out instead of eating in, buying video games, going to movies with friends and buying them tickets) I felt that I had no choice but to cut off his access to the credit card since I can barely afford the phone and car payments. My graduate student job is ending next month, so if H can't help with bills, then the car will have to be sold... I'd rather sell it than it get repossessed! I am applying for jobs, but I'm not sure how long it will take to find one since this time of year hiring is slow in my field. In the meantime, my parents are helping me out, but I don't feel comfortable asking them to cover my and H's bills without asking H first since money is also tight for them.

About the texts, I responded to the basketball one the minute he sent it, asking if he thought this meant they wouldn't make playoffs again or if he thought they could still pull it out. Since he didn't reply, it made me feel like it might have been a test. However, I acknowledge that's probably mind reading!

[Accuray]

Junsui,

Definitely do what you need to do to protect yourself financially. IMO he is taking advantage of you, and if you are now separated you should not be paying for any of his expenses.

WRT the texting, this is a VERY common thing to happen with a WAS -- you will respond to their texts/emails right away, and they will never respond to yours. There are two things you can do: (1) just expect that they will never respond to your texts, so don't use text for anything that requires an answer -- do it in person or on the phone via a conversation. (2) set a boundary and tell H that if you text, you expect a response within 24 hours. If he does not respond, then you will cease to text with him at all, because you will not be disrespected.

It does sound like you have a major issue with "negative sentiment override", and say that H has characterized you as abusive. Regardless of how true or untrue that may be, what is his perspective on it?

What happened to create this negative sentiment override?

There are several schools of thought about maintaining a happy marriage. The Gottman Institute says that in a "happy" marriage, positive interactions outnumber negative interactions by a ratio of 20:1. In a "maintainable" marriage where neither party is overly happy but willing to sustain the marriage, the ratio of positive interaction to negative interaction is 5:1. If the ratio is below 5:1, their research indicates that the marriage is doomed to dissolve. Negative interactions are defined as complaints, criticisms, condemnation, belittling, ridicule, ignoring and stonewalling, etc. Positive interactions would be encouragement, nurturing, speaking primary love languages, mutually enjoyable activities, etc.

Others use the model of a "love bank" or "love tank" and set up a system of deposits and withdrawals. If your withdrawals eventually outweigh your deposits, the bank will empty and your spouse will no longer feel loving attachment to you. The counter side to this is the notion of a "resentment tank". Once the love tank is empty, the resentment tank starts to fill.

When the resentment tank overflows, it can take a very long time to draw that down, and as long as there is a balance there, it's impossible to start filling up the love tank again. Your efforts are, in effect, blocked.

This seems to describe your H's mindset, how did that happen? This could be directly because of you and your behaviors, it could be the result of major defining events in your marriage, it could be the accumulation of many small hurts, or it may have nothing to do with you -- your H could have his own issues that you just become a lighting rod for -- in effect, you had no way to win from the start.

What is your take on that? How did this large resentment balance accumulate?

Acc

[Mimi00]

Ok i see, I am the same as you...I wish there were other bills I could cut but everything is a necessity.

I agree w/ Accuray to protect your self since he is being irresponsible with spending on that card. That's not acceptable...he should no longer have that freedom.

[3boymom]

Accuray - I have heard about the Gottman Institute. Are there any books that you can recommend to expand upon the information you provided above. I would like to learn more

[Junsui]

Accuray - I have heard about the Gottman Institute. Are there any books that you can recommend to expand upon the information you provided above. I would like to learn more

I have two of Gottman's books: "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" and "The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships". I don't know which of those Accuray would recommend more or if he'd recommend another one of Gottman's books.

[Junsui]

Accuray, since you mentioned Gottman, I'm going to chat about some stuff from his book.

1) Criticism: My H views me as being very critical. It feels to me at this point he has felt that way about me forever, although he must have liked me at some point. Under this horseman in "7 Principles" Gottman says there's a difference between a complaint and a criticism. "A complaint only addresses the specific action at which your spouse failed. A criticism ... adds on some negative word's about your mate's character or personality." One of the problems in my M is that my H seems to hear complaints as criticisms, and this includes complaints about other things in my life. If I complain about the graphic designer at work not responding to my emails, so my project is not progressing on schedule and I'm frustrated about that, H hears that I'm frustrated at H.
2) H then goes on the defensive (another of the Horseman). I try to repair by saying that's not what I meant, but he just escalates, and eventually I end up escalating as well.
3) When I escalate, H floods and stonewalls (another Horseman). Rewind back before any conversation about anything R, and I will try to soft start-up. I will ask H when would be a good time for me to talk to him about something. But even if he says that it is a good time, he immediately is already tense. He can't make eye contact with me in conversations. He has to sit far away or get up and move. He becomes very agitated. I feel like the conversation is a failure before I've even gotten to what I wanted to talk about. It's like walking on eggshells.
4) My main contribution is that when H floods, I never learned to let him take a time out. He's checked out of the conversation, and I just get more and more frustrated because he's stopped responding. If H and I can ever get past this, that is something I want to do differently.

If we turn to the love bank/resentment tank model, considering H's main love languages are Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation, the diminishing of our sex life pretty much signed the death knell of my ability to fill his love bank. His Words of Affirmation dialect has more to do with not hearing anything negative than hearing positives, so since he hears most of what I say as negatives about him, that is another major drain on the love bank. I'm pretty positive that there are a couple of events that were responsible for filling his resentment bank, and ever since then, as you noted, my efforts to fill love bank are blocked. The first event would be working at that job he hated when we first got married. He resented me for that because he wouldn't have had to work that job except I needed health insurance. The second event is that I briefly convinced him almost 3 years ago that we needed to move out of his parents house for the sake of our M, but he was so resentful about that I eventually caved and we moved back to his parents house as soon as our apartment lease was up (this is when he started doing poorly at school and failed classes). I think he's blamed me for his depression too. Early in our marriage he used to talk about how he felt like life was worthless, and he was going to be stuck at a job he hated forever. Since then it's transformed to life is worthless because he is married to me and my critical, abusive behavior is a drain. If he could get away from me, his life would go back to being happy. I suspect that's why he felt the need to say that everyone has noticed how much happier he is now that we're separated.

On my side of things, I haven't really been feeling the love either. My love languages are Quality Time (particularly the dialect of Quality Conversation) and Words of Affirmation (hearing positives). H's ability to say positive things about me is minimal, and when I try to have conversations with him about topics like my opinion on some political issue it stresses him out. For years I've been asking about trying MC so we could work on our communication, but he's been resistant about the idea (apparently operating under the mistaken idea that my goal was simply to make him change, when really my goal was for us to learn how to communicate, and I know I have my share of things to work on with that too!).

Anyway, I wish I'd read DR sooner! The only time in my M I've felt like I've had a breakthrough with H was when I was accidentally DBing, only because I didn't know that's what I was doing I didn't do anything to make sure the positive changes continued. I'm trying to maintain hope that if it happened once it can happen again.

[Accuray]

Well I may step off the DB bandwagon here, so I invite anyone to disagree with me. I know that Michelle believes that divorce is never a good answer (unless there is abuse), and that relationships can be restored with effort and the right tools.

Most of the people here are 40-60 years old, married for over 10 years and have kids and significant shared assets. The cost of divorce in that scenario, both financially and emotionally is extremely high, which is why I do believe it's worth doing everything you can do to save the marriage instead of abandoning it.

That said, I do believe that people can be incompatible. Gottman talks about "soothers, avoiders, and attackers", and that if you have an avoider/attacker pairing, it's going to be hard forever. There are many dimensions upon which people may be incompatible -- religious, parenting, financial, values, etc. Often when you "fall in love" these incompatibilities are overshadowed, and if "the good" is strong enough, they can be accommodated longer term and "managed".

The effort it requires to manage incompatibility, however, will vary. If you are mildly incompatible or differ on issues neither of you care about that much, it may be an ongoing source of annoyance, but it's not that significant. If you fundamentally grind gears on issues that are near and dear to both of you, the effort required to manage the compatibility long term may be *very* high. This is exacerbated by poor communication habits, such as attacking or criticizing.

For instance, everyone like a different balance of intimacy and personal space. A person without much need or desire for intimacy may be perfectly happy seeing their spouse a few days a week, having a date night once per month and discussing only topical issues. A person with a high need for intimacy may enjoy spending all their free time with their spouse and engaging in frequent intimate conversations. Obviously if your "intimacy desire" is equally matched, you're going to have a more comfortable relationship than if you are at different ends of the spectrum.

For most people, your intimacy desire fluctuates. If 10 is "highly intimate" and 0 is "no intimacy", one person may vary between "4 - 6" and the other person between "5 - 7". When then are both at 5 or 6, they'll be happy but when one is at 4 or 7, there will be tension. Once again, high overlap = an easier overall relationship.

Looking at your situation, you've been married for 4 years, have no kids, no significant shared assets, a single income (yours), and not much shared debt since it's virtually all in your name already. If there was ever a marriage that was easy to walk away from with a clean break, it's yours.

So why is this worth saving? Those initial years of marriage before kids are usually a high point. If your dynamics are bad now, chances are things will become much much more challenging later, not easier. It doesn't sound like you've been getting your needs met for well over a year, and instead are treated rather poorly.

From my perspective you have two paths forward:

(1) You can DB the heck out of this marriage and try to save it. Unless your H wants you back *very badly* and perceives there will be some challenge involved to get you back, its very unlikely he will do any hard work on himself or addressing his issues, so "success" may look like going right back to what you had, with you doing all the accommodating and fixing, and really not getting your own needs met.

(2) You can end this marriage, and figure out why you chose a man who was emotionally inaccessible to you to begin with. People tend to seek a spouse who will abuse them in a manner they are accustomed to being abused. If you are ignored as a child and have to work to get your parent's attention, you learn to cope with that and how to operate within that context, it becomes "comfortable" for you. When you seek a spouse, someone who ignores you and makes you work for their attention will feel like comfortable abuse, but being someone's spouse is a much different dynamic than being someone's child. Figuring yourself out in this regard and being able to couple with someone who will be more compatible with you represents a great personal challenge.

When I read about the critical issues that angered your H, in each case it seems like your position was perfectly reasonable and his response was irrational / immature.

You're in for a lot of work on either path. If you achieve excellent emotional health, do you want to be married to someone who doesn't seem to value you very much and treats you poorly?

Why is this the one to save versus the one to learn from?

Acc

[Junsui]

My hesitation to end the marriage has mostly stemmed from three things:
1) The religion H and I belong to is very against D. There is a bit of a stigma about D people... I thought M was forever, and so in terms of forever I wanted to be very sure there's no way to save it before I let go.
2) H talked me into taking out loans to support lifestyle. As I mentioned, they're all in my name. I want him to take half the debt since he wanted the loans in the first place. However, I know this is my bad, and maybe I will just have to eat it and learn from it as you say.
3) Even still, I genuinely care about H.

However, I know that it's pretty much crossed over into an unhealthy situation for me. At this stage, I'm mostly DBing to get myself in a better state of emotional/mental health. I really want to understand what I did that contributed to the M failing so that next time I am more aware. Since I can't really afford to file anyway until I get a job, that's sort of become my "deadline" for seeing if H makes any progress in a positive direction at all.

[Accuray]

My hesitation to end the marriage has mostly stemmed from three things:

1) The religion H and I belong to is very against D. There is a bit of a stigma about D people... I thought M was forever, and so in terms of forever I wanted to be very sure there's no way to save it before I let go.

Is being temporarily chastised or stigmatized by intolerant members of your religion worth signing up for 60 years of a one-sided unfulfilling marriage?

One of my best female friends from high school was Catholic. She married a guy in her early 20's who was great while dating but after getting married, started drinking heavily, was dismissive, would humiliate her and verbally abuse her. At one point she couldn't take it anymore and moved home with her parents. Her parents shamed her and criticized her for not being a good Catholic or a good wife, and sent her back to live with her husband. A week later she was in the hospital with a broken arm and two broken ribs from being thrown down the basement stairs. After that she did divorce. Her parents wouldn't speak to her for months. She is now very happily remarried for 12 years and has 3 wonderful kids. Sorry but no sympathy here on the religion thing.

2) H talked me into taking out loans to support lifestyle. As I mentioned, they're all in my name. I want him to take half the debt since he wanted the loans in the first place. However, I know this is my bad, and maybe I will just have to eat it and learn from it as you say.

I'm not saying that, you should engage a lawyer and pursue having him take on half your debt. If you can't afford a lawyer, most cities provide assistance programs where you can get some free legal consultation. Most divorce attorneys also offer a free consult. Obviously you don't want to be taking out loans for "lifestyle" reasons, because you really have no hope of paying them back if you plan to maintain a lifestyle you're supporting with debt unless you suddenly start earning a lot more money, or you adopt a severe austerity program.

3) Even still, I genuinely care about H.

Of course you do! Dig into the "why" on that however. Was he nurturing and supportive? Did he make you feel good about yourself? Reading through your story it looks like it was a constant battle to appease him and you were getting your marital satisfaction from finally wrestling little bits of what you needed from an unyielding source. That's a cancer of "fixers", connecting with emotionally unavailable people and then fighting tooth and nail for scraps. When you get the scraps it feels great because it was such an accomplishment, but that is no way to live, it's a cycle of emotional torment.

There are many reasons you might want H back, but in most situations like yours, #1 is to get the immediate pain to stop, #2 is to feel attractive and worthy again, #3 is to regain security and not have to deal with uncertainty about the future. In that context, it's really not about H at all, you're just seeing him as the vehicle to accomplish 1, 2, and 3. I'm telling you that even if he comes back today, you will not get 1, 2, or 3. Those have to come from the passage of time, and from within you. So if you take those things off the table, you take religion off the table, why do you want him back? Why is he a good life partner for you?

Acc