Think first..give your S the benefit of doubt

[cat03]

I meant to post this a while ago, and since it is part of my response to another board member in the infidelity board I thought I'd post it here too.

It is my staple advice to all pieceing. ALWAYS give your H the benefit of the doubt. Trust takes a long time to build, and a first step is giving your H the benefit of the doubt. To not jump to conclusions, not to over react even if you think you are 100% sure of something. Men specially shut down if you jump at their throughts and demand the truth.

Even though my reaction was understandable (when I found out about A and other details) the way I reacted showed my H that in now way was I able to learn the truth and deal with it without "punishing" him. I think that's why he hid so many things, thinking I'd hit the roof if I learned, just like I did when I uncovered a few other things.

It has been hard for me to learn to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I am pushing myself to do it, and it paid off recently. Example, I found somethings that H was supposed to get rid off, among them a pict of halloween in which ow and him had gone in matching "wizard of oz" customes". At the same time, mcDonalds was releasing W of Oz dolls and one day I find a handfull of them in his car, and I thought they were for my daughter.

Few days later we clean his car to load some furniture and the dolls aren't there. I ask him about it and he says "don't know". My mind starts racing because last week was ow's bday, I'm thinking "he gather those dolls to send to her". That sat. he stays sleep while I take kids to church. At some point I'm practically in a frenzy, foaming at the mouth from anger that he's done such thing, I'm dead sure he's done it. I go home, look through his stuff trying to find "evidence". Nothing is found, I go back to church (I had sneaked out during kids' classes).

I was going to tear him a new one, I pictured myself telling him he might as well pack up and go with that slut...etc etc, the whole 9 yards. Thank heavens I'm in church, I calm down a bit, and I pray hard to calm down and have the wisdom to bring this up without raising hell and screaming. I get home and check his call log online, there is a call not yet specified at 6:30am, I'm sure he called ow to wish her happy bday. H is half awake and asks me what's going on.
I sat down, and calmly say:"I want to trust you but I'm not sure you are telling me the truth and are hiding stuff from me, did you send her something?", and we go from there. H tells me that the dolls are somewhere in the house; that he kept the picts to remind him not to ever go there again, that the grass wasn't greener on the other side and to remember if ever thinks of doing that again that it was a terrible idea. No yelling, no screaming.
I ask to see his tmessages, he shows me. Then I ask to see his log call, at this point he says 'this is ridiculous, i'm not showing you anything because you are going too far'. In the past I would've kept on going and gotten madder and madder. But this time I know that all I'll accomplish by forcing the issue is to shut him down. I tell himI think he prob is hiding something that's why he won't show me. I quietly get up and go downstairs to watch tv w/kids.
A few min later he comes down, sits next to me and shows me his log (as he is doing so I'm sure he's erased the ow call). And lo and behold, there it is, the 6:30am call to his coworker...

Two other things happened this week, I could've been mad and rammed into him about it, but I chose to conmiserate, and to realize he already felt bad about it and shut my mouth before I started with "why didnt' you.." or "I can't believe you..."

In the long run, our attitude towards their mistakes might teach them that we are safe ground. There is nothing else we can do to encourage them to make better choices. I have to revise my "Power of a praying wife" to remind me that we can not make our Hs make good choices, we can only pray for them.

Things are going very well for us, his new job is demanding and stressful, we are learning to deal w/the schedule, but we are happy, he is his good self again

Yesterday I was peaking at "mars and venus in the bedroom" and I saw myself in the part where it says if the woman pursues too much the man tends to back off a bit (I was doing that a lot, or expecting more from him). It said how men like assertive women to a point, but if you are always expecting him to perfom whenever you want to, you are putting pressure on him and will get the opposite reaction.

Anyways, I'll go back to lurk land now, I had to pry myself from this boards, I was almost addicted to them, he he, but I will still keep an eye out for you all, and am praying for the healing of your M. Take good care all)))))))

[hes_my_man2]

Cat -

Girl - you have NO idea how you might have just helped save me from myself!

I won't go into the gory details...but we are in our relationship where most would give their private parts to be at with their spouse and I keep doing one of the two following things:

1) Jumping off the deep end at an ASSumption

2) Saying/doing something with an expected response (my expectations NOT his) and then loosing it when he doesn't respond with MY pre-scripted scenario. How dare he?

I am going to read and re-read this today.

Again, thank you.

[runningoutoftime]

Hey Cat,

Great advice!!! We always have to catch ourselves before we get to these places. My husband has been out of town these last two weeks (but was home over the weekend). Because he's not too far from where OW is I did ask him if he might be running into her. I did try to be nice about it telling him, "I know you don't want to see her, that would probably be very uncomfortable for both of you... but you do work for the same company and it's probably inevitable that you'll have to run into her some time..."

Even through I didn't get mad or angry, he was soooo defensive. I just wish he could talk to me about this. I think your husband was really patient with you.

Unfortunately, maybe I've jumped off the deepend too often in the past, assumed things, got ridiculously angry and maybe now he worries about that? The over reaction.... I think by being calm and reasonable we're probably much better off because they can feel comfortable enough to talk and confide in us....

Of course, when there's a history of the husband lying (like mine...who is amazingly good at it) and then a wife (like me!) overreacting.... well.... that's not an easy piece of advice to follow.

P.s. Cat, I'm glad to see things going well for you. I always enjoy seeing your posts here and reading about positive things going on in your marriage (or challenges worked through!) since we both went through similar emotions and experiences at around the same time.

[RedHeadWife]

Thanks, Cat! That's exactly what I've been trying to do. H is now gone for a year deployment, left 2 days ago, but thankfully all is well in our M. The night before he left I truly saw the love shining in his eyes for ME.

I'm not so worried about him having an A while he's over there, as deployments is where he has done it before, but I sometimes worry that he will still be "talking" either on the phone or email w/ OW/EA from over here.

But, that being said, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt and our M as well. I set the stage since he dropped the D bomb and then began piecing that, when he left for this deployment, he would know how good he truly has it. Therefore, hopefully I have also set the stage for him to make good "choices" while he's there.

That's all I can do and, in order to keep myself sane, giving him the benefit of the doubt and learning to completely trust him again, is all I can do now.

I am also handling things differently this deployment as well. I have learned a lot through this whole D process. I have already sent cards that should have arrived before he even got there. I will do nothing but be supportive b/c I now understand how hard it is for HIM to be away from home. I can't burden him w/ how hard it is for ME to be here at home and taking care of 3 small boys, etc.

[runningoutoftime]

Wow Cadesmom!!! Good for you! I like that positive behavior. One nice thing about the deployment, maybe this could be an opportunity for you to create a very strong romantic bond with your husband through letters and messages? Sometimes it's easier to express feelings through correspondence.

I know when my husband's out of town, I'll send him funny, romanic, silly, or just nice messages once in awhile. I didn't always used to do this in the past. But now I've noticed It seems to keep us connected and closer when we're apart.

[RedHeadWife]

That's what I've been doing. Like I said, I've already sent cards that he should get right away. Also, I already sent our Anniversary card that says on the outside "don't open until May 14." I'm hoping that this will give him (a lot) of time to reflect -- we never really talked in depth about what happened w/ the D bomb, etc. We had a few conversations that made me finally feel comfortable about things -- such as his EA "friend" "has been taken care of." And he did say yes, we are going to be ok. I did say the night before he left that I was happy we had everything worked out before he left & he said he was too. I so saw the love shining in his eyes for me that night. I'm not expecting a "thank you" or any sort of apology, but I hope he either has thought about or at some point will think about what I've "put up w/" and all the effort I have put into making our M wonderful again. I certainly don't dwell on this, and if I never hear anything about it, I will just be happy that all is well and make sure that it continues that way even when he gets back. I don't ever want to forget the lessons I've learned!!

[cat03]

hes_my_man2,
It is a tough road, but with lots of PMA you can leave behind your fear. A good book about handling emotions and changing thinking/solving patterns is "why can't you read my mind. Give it a try, hang in there!

runningoutoftime ,
Yes, we'be been through the worse of piecing together, and here we are! stronger and able to give feedback to those in pain, I see your posts around, it is so sad when people come to these boards all broken and desperate, I pray for them all.

Cadesmom34,
I'm very happy that he left on a good note w/you, know that he and all of our troops are in my prayers every night. I'm very happy to hear you have decided to take the high road and be supportive and positive instead of wallowing in distrust and fear, kudos hon!!

[cat03]

I just have to post tid bits of this awesome book I'm reading, hope it helps

From: "The secrets of happily married men" (which by the way, I read it on my own, because handing a R book to a husband is like handing a diet book to a wife: "what? you think I'm fat??"... you get my drift right?)
============+++++++=======
The Amygdala
This section of the brain hadles aggression and the emotional connection to events. Interesting studies of the amygdala have found that when men and women are exposed to pictures of sad or frightened people and asked to imagine what they are thinking, their amygdalas light up. But then the researchers not that the men’s amygdalas shut down in a few minutes, and higher cortical functions light up; men simply dont' hold on to emotional responses very long before searching for a rational response to process the emotion. The female brain lingers longer on the negative feeligns.
Lets say for example, that your Aunt Jo dies unexpectedly. You (husband) and your wife will both feel the emotions typically associated with grief, but *you* may be quicker to move to the practical side of things: "When will the wake and funeral be? I have an important meeting on Tuesday." Your wife will probably say hateful things about your insensitivity and wonder how you can be so cold. But the fact is, after processing the feeligns of grief, your brain shifted your thoughts into the rational realm. That's not wrong -- it is just different from teh way your wife will deal with the death.

The Hippocampus
When an emotional event passes, females tend to hold on to the memory, whereas males tend to let it go. That particular difference can be traces to the brains' hippocampus (the memory center). It is larger in women and has more neural pathways from it to emotive centers. That's why women remember emotional events more than men.
....A man will remember less of his emotional experiences than a woman will.

...Although the amygdala is larger in men than in women, this is a case where bigger isn't necessarily better. The amygdala scans the signals that enter the brain and stands sentry, ready to light up in recognition of a friendly smile, or send out an alarm if it perceives any threats. When triggered, the amygdala relases a flood of stress hormones into the bloodstream. This flloding shurts down the "thinking" part of the brain, freezes teh body to prepare for assault, and prepares the memory centers to retain any necessary infromation for future reference.

...Another reason is that even when our emotional reactions are equally strong, men tend to be better able to shurt down their amygdala and redirect their brain activity back to the cortex--the palce where logical thought takes over. This may seem like emotional coldness to women, but to men it may be a way of making sure our emotions dont' get int he way of getting the job done.

That is not to say that men can't, or don't, experience negative emotions. In fact, studies show his amygdala is much more responsive to sadness than his wife's. But unlike women, men will shurt down the amygdala to keep the cortex in thus appear ever confident and emotional stable.
============

[runningoutoftime]

Great stuff Cat! You are a wise woman. Thanks for sharing the info you come across and your encouraging words.

[Phoenix_spark]

Yes, developing the trust thing is a must, even though it feels impossible. I guess I told myself I was not going to live my life like that, so I do my best to avoid mis-trusting every action. Especially in a sitch where things seem to be moving forward and S is starting to make improvements in their life, you've got to keep a good atmoshpere in the R. But as all of us know here, this is a work in progress.