Can I save my marriage?

[Lll54]

Well Trent, as far as moving back in, I have no hope. Like I said he is really only here to see the boys while they are sick. Tonight is night two. It will be interesting. I think a lot of it is the fact that he has had no affection in the past month he's been away, and just being in our home makes him want it. Which really sucks, cause its not me, its just the feeling of affection that he craves. I believe that. Do you advise me to stay away from the house as much as possible? I feel like if I'm here he expects me to bend over backwards for him, cook him lunch, get him a drink if he's on the couch...etc. Then I fall into the habit of our old ways and do it. I think then come sunday when he leaves that I will be faced with the heartbreak I experienced 3 weeks ago when he walked out? Also do you think I should talk to him about the mixed signals (backrub offer, sleeping in my bed offer)? Or just leave it..? Cause today as I was gettting ready to go for lunch with a friend, he continued to talk about next week and the week after childcare discussions, and how we will go about things. I hate this! As soon as he asked me to sleep in our bed and offered me that backrub my tummy fluttered and I had the best feeling I've had in 3 weeks! I finally started to believe that this is his way of reaching out. But I know my husband, and I know the affection he craves and it sucks cause I have to deal with the meaningless comments. My mind is ready to explode! I have no plans tonight and cannot find anything to do. He and the kids will be here. Do you advise me maybe to be here too, and show him some change I've made? Maybe it will give me a chance aside from our 2 second drop off with our children? Ugh! I over analyze everything! Need to work on that...

[TrentC]

Well Trent, as far as moving back in, I have no hope. Like I said he is really only here to see the boys while they are sick. Tonight is night two. It will be interesting.

You'd be surprised what can happen, but definitely do not get your hopes up. I'll be interested in a post-game analysis tomorrow.

I think a lot of it is the fact that he has had no affection in the past month he's been away, and just being in our home makes him want it. Which really sucks, cause its not me, its just the feeling of affection that he craves. I believe that.

And that is why you should have clear boundaries while he's in the house. If you believe he's just lonely, there's no reason to give him what he wants.

As for staying away from the house? I don't think that's necessary as long as he understands the ground rules. You need to be there for your kids -- as several people have commented in other situations with kids, your children nees to know that they have one parent who is 100% committed to their well-being, and you can't count on it to be him.

I feel like if I'm here he expects me to bend over backwards for him, cook him lunch, get him a drink if he's on the couch...etc. Then I fall into the habit of our old ways and do it.

And that's a perfect reason not to do it -- a textbook example of a 180, in fact -- the same way you didn't need to let him back into your bed because he couldn't find a blanket for the couch. He needs to respect you if you're going to work it out, and there's no reason for him to do that when he gets all of the perks of your relationship with no effort or investment on his part.

You're not "punishing" him if you explain clearly why he doesn't get to enjoy the privileges he's had. Again, it comes back to him dealing with the consequences of his decisions.

Also do you think I should talk to him about the mixed signals (backrub offer, sleeping in my bed offer)? Or just leave it..?

You will ultimately be the best judge of it, but there's no reason to indulge his mixed signals. If he's seriously having second thoughts about leaving, he needs to tell you. Until then, keep politely turning him down.

Cause today as I was gettting ready to go for lunch with a friend, he continued to talk about next week and the week after childcare discussions, and how we will go about things. I hate this!

If you have somewhere you need to be, he needs to respect that. You can tell him that you'll talk about it when you get back.

As soon as he asked me to sleep in our bed and offered me that backrub my tummy fluttered and I had the best feeling I've had in 3 weeks!

Oh, I know those feelings all too well. It's been 6 weeks to the day since my last romantic encounter with my wife -- to be honest, it's been 6 weeks since any such physical gratification -- and it was murder when she came to bed in my favorite PJ top and underwear last night. I feel like I'm 16 all over again!

But I have my rules; given the our last encounter, I have made it clear that she has to initiate sex next time.

I have no plans tonight and cannot find anything to do. He and the kids will be here. Do you advise me maybe to be here too, and show him some change I've made?

Well, there are two ways to handle it.

1) Stay at home, take care of the kids, and be polite but detached from your husband. If you want to show off some changes, buy something nice for yourself -- a new outfit, new perfume, a new set of undies, etc. -- but it's tricky to "show off" changes because it can come across as manipulative.

2) Spend some time online looking for something to do before he gets home. Are there any dance studios with free or cheap introductory lessons? Many art galleries and/or museums have a "First Thursday" showing, with free or inexpensive entry fees.

Good luck to you tonight!

[TrentC]

Heh. I just realized that by the time you read my response, it may already be "tonight". Not everyone lives on the west coast...

In any event, don't sweat it; this is a long, bumpy road you're on and you'll make a mistake from time to time. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes. Figure out why something did or did not work, and adjust accordingly.

[Lll54]

Well. The night backfired...:(
I stayed out all day, had lunch plans then coffee plans, then shopping plans. So on my way home at 8:00, he texts me that the boys are feeling better and he is going back to his sis's. So I talk to my oldest on the phone and he complains of a tummy ache! Ya sure they sound wonderful! I told him I disagree and the boys need to be home to completely get over there sicknesses and not around other people, so he gets mad and tells me he is on his way back. So he comes home and puts the boys to bed and tells me he's leaving to go eat cause he's starving. I told him I have plans later(which I didn't), because I don't think its fair that two nights in a row he's gotten to go out and I'm home with the boys when its his turn to be home. Just cause they are staying at our house doesn't mean he can just go when I'm there. That's not fair and once again he is using me! So anyways, I told him If I go, which I wasn't sure of yet, that it wouldn't be till later so he had time to go get some food. He got pissed off and took off. So now what? I try and do a 180 and leave for the day and make plans which is the opposite of me. He used to get so annoyed when he was working and I stayed home all day with the boys cause I used to complain about it a bit. How I was always so bored and he would forever tell me to go do stuff! So finally I did all day, and it backfired. I didn't tell him where I was going or when I was going to be home and he got soooo mad! Now I feel like crap. I hate when he is mad at me...I know it obviously bothered me that I was gone all day and he didn't know where I was or what I was doing, but this is my husband in a nutshell. He gets mad at me for something that I don't feel was even wrong! Its his turn to be with the boys I should be allowed to come and go as I please! Now I'm paying for it. I was looking foward to maybe spending a nice night at home with him. Having some good conversation, watching t.v. But now its all ruined. Guaranteed he is going come home and go straight downstairs and not even talk to me. Last night before he left to go get food he offered to bring me back something. But tonight he just stormed out...I'm so puzzled. Nothing seems to be working. The pit in the bottom of my stomach was gone all day today because I felt like I had some of the power after turning him down last night and now its completely 100% back in action. This sucks.

[TrentC]

Well, like I said, this process isn't easy and isn't going to be guaranteed to work perfectly. The trick is going to be figuring out why he reacts the way he does, and figure out if there's a way to short-circuit it.

It sucks that he didn't stick around for the kids, but a better way to handle it would have been to just let him go back to his sister's. He's still making bad choices, and at some point they'll catch up to him. As I said last time, your kids need to know that one parent will be there for them 100%.

As for him being mad at you? Shrug it off. He's going to be pushing your buttons to get what he wants. As you said, you got a little power back in your life and he figured out how to take it back. This is where detachment comes into play; if he's going to act like a spoiled child, then he should get treated like one and sent to bed with no dessert. Remember, you can't trust anything he says right now, and only trust half of what he does.

You should probably be in bed when he comes home. If he tries to ask you about coming to bed (!), he can take his place on the couch again.

It's too bad the site doesn't allow for PMs; you might be able to use a little help figuring out what to do next. Can you view a user's homepage? There's an alt means of contact there.

[TrentC]

Heh. You want to see a good example of how I need to practice what I preach, Puppy and robx are giving me a good once-over with some 2x4s in my thread.

[Puppy Dog Tails]

And rightfully so!!

Hey, it's ALWAYS harder when it's our own sitch! I SUKK at giving myself advice.

Puppy

[robx]

Well. The night backfired...:(
I stayed out all day, had lunch plans then coffee plans, then shopping plans. So on my way home at 8:00, he texts me that the boys are feeling better and he is going back to his sis's. So I talk to my oldest on the phone and he complains of a tummy ache! Ya sure they sound wonderful! I told him I disagree and the boys need to be home to completely get over there sicknesses and not around other people, so he gets mad and tells me he is on his way back. So he comes home and puts the boys to bed and tells me he's leaving to go eat cause he's starving. I told him I have plans later(which I didn't), because I don't think its fair that two nights in a row he's gotten to go out and I'm home with the boys when its his turn to be home. Just cause they are staying at our house doesn't mean he can just go when I'm there. That's not fair and once again he is using me! So anyways, I told him If I go, which I wasn't sure of yet, that it wouldn't be till later so he had time to go get some food. He got pissed off and took off. So now what? I try and do a 180 and leave for the day and make plans which is the opposite of me. He used to get so annoyed when he was working and I stayed home all day with the boys cause I used to complain about it a bit. How I was always so bored and he would forever tell me to go do stuff! So finally I did all day, and it backfired. I didn't tell him where I was going or when I was going to be home and he got soooo mad! Now I feel like crap. I hate when he is mad at me...I know it obviously bothered me that I was gone all day and he didn't know where I was or what I was doing, but this is my husband in a nutshell. He gets mad at me for something that I don't feel was even wrong! Its his turn to be with the boys I should be allowed to come and go as I please! Now I'm paying for it. I was looking foward to maybe spending a nice night at home with him. Having some good conversation, watching t.v. But now its all ruined. Guaranteed he is going come home and go straight downstairs and not even talk to me. Last night before he left to go get food he offered to bring me back something. But tonight he just stormed out...I'm so puzzled. Nothing seems to be working. The pit in the bottom of my stomach was gone all day today because I felt like I had some of the power after turning him down last night and now its completely 100% back in action. This sucks.

So you're trying to get him back by disagreeing with him? Am I reading that correctly.

He was out with the kids, told you he was taking the kids with him to his sisters and then you speak to your kids, one of them complains that they have a tummy ache and you tell him he has to bring the kids home.

Are you giving him a chance to be a parent or are you taking that away from him? Is he allowed to make mistakes and learn from them or are you always going to be reminding him of everything he does wrong? Maybe i'm reading too much into this but from that description above, and the way he reacted, it seems like this is regular expected behavior.

If the kids have a tummy ache, are you going to ever allow him to be a parent and deal with it? If not, how is he ever going to learn? And him leaving the home because he's "starving", yeah maybe so but he's also probably leaving to get away from a certain person. Just speaking from personal experience, after a while of this same old routine, a person's skin can start to itch something fierce.

I think your plan backfired because you told him what he had to do several times, bring the kids home, they're not feeling well, you can't go out just because I'm home, ok now you can go out because I'm not going out till later. Bit of a pattern here, you seem to be telling him what to do regularly and human nature dictates that we don't like to be around people that control us or tell us what to do.

If it was his turn to take care of the boys, you need to step back and let him do just that without intervening and he got worked up because you put your 0.02 cents about what he had to do with them. Let him learn what's required on his own, if he needs help, he'll call you and if he doesn't call you, it means he didn't need help.

If my wife had told me that I had to bring my kids back home because one of them was complaining about a tummy ache, I would have told her that I will take care of it myself and if I have to bring the kids back because it's what you want, you might as well take care of the kids since you don't trust me enough to do the job myself.

You closed off your conversation by saying you wanted to spend some time with him but it sounded like you were doing some pushing away with him, didn't sound inviting, at least not to me.

As for "not putting out" if I read that correctly,
alot of men tie physical intimacy closely together with love since they don't usually express that emotion in many other ways. I'm not saying you have to "put out" but take into account rejection is never fun either - look at it from his point of view or at least try to. Rejection sucks and you do it enough times, he's going to stop pursuing and he going to start rejecting you actively, it's not a question of if, it will happen, I guarantee it.

And the "power" that you referred to, great you controlled the sex, you controlled that he should bring the kids home, you controlled that he couldn't go out to eat and then later you controlled he could grab a bit because you weren't going till later - after all of that nonsense, I would be like "keep your sex, keep your demands, keep everything you want, just give me space from you" ie. the "basement".

You want stability & security in your life, start giving some otherwise don't expect any at all.

[june72]

britt54,
What a social life? Just join meetup.com. I floored my hubby when I told he I would be going out to a restaurant for a social club event. He was stunned, since I always had been a homebody. I kept it up and it definitely helped to GAL instead of think about things too much.
Boy, your hubby sounds pretty self-involved at the moment. I am surprised that Puppy hasn't questioned if another person is in the picture. Maybe a crush he has on someone? Who knows, I am certainly not an expert by any means....

[TrentC]

Boy, your hubby sounds pretty self-involved at the moment. I am surprised that Puppy hasn't questioned if another person is in the picture. Maybe a crush he has on someone? Who knows, I am certainly not an expert by any means...

I was wondering if there could be another person as well.

It sucks to suggest it, but I didn't think that my wife could be involved in an emotional affair either...