Well, for work, you just tell your husband NOT to call you as it is a business line and he can get you FIRED... if he doens't at LEAST respect your need for a JOB, particularly right NOW because of his antics, he's quite pathetic.
Some phone systems allow rerouting of specific calling numbers and such as well... you could look into that.
But if you ARE at work and he calls, you have a perfect excuse to cut him off immediately :
I am in the middle of work, send an email if its an emergency... if its NOT an emergency... DON"T CONTACT ME
I think he needs to see this in writing to get it... men do a lot better when they SEE a message than when they hear it.
For the PC, you have a lot more control unlike the phone... but if self control is an issue with the PC as well then shut it DOWN...
There are systems such as giving a freind your email account credentials and such to monitor to make sure you aren't emailing anyone or getting any emails...
same idea s phone, you give THEM the account creds, they change the password, and they control your account... YOU get an alternate one that you do NOT give out...your friend forwards anything that is safe to your safe account.
i am more in favour of a controlled system than just asking someone to rely on will power... its your call which way you go... just be BRUTALLY honest with yourself.
So I told him that our M won’t work as long as he doesn’t believe it will and that he doesn’t care enough about me and the kids to stop his relationship with OW. I told him that this relationship was hurting me and the kids and him. He got defensive and wanted to know how it was hurting the kids. I told him it was affecting his ability to make good decisions. He didn’t agree. I told him that as long as he was seeing her and talking to her it won’t work. He said he wasn’t seeing her, and I said that I knew they were talking a lot. He got mad that I was still checking his phone records. After that, it went back to the talk about his sister, and finally I said I had to go.
I took a careful read of this again... he called you, then got upset with YOU and HUNG UP on YOU... and made YOU call him THREE TIMES before HE picked up?
1. If it WAS an emergency... then why did he make you call three times? - He's playing games with you... its basic math here
2. He thinks the example he is setting for his children is NOT a bad one? He's deluded - don't waste your time trying to REASON with somoene like this...
3. When you tell him about his phone records and HE gets defensive... that means he's hiding something.
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You are TRYING to implicitly REASON with him.
1. You CANNOT reason with an ADDICT 2. You CANNOT negotiate with an ADDICT 3. You CANNOT expose yourself or your children to an ADDICT
ADDICTS are always in self-destruct mode. If you keep this up, he will just take YOU AND your CHILDREN DOWN WITH HIM.
You really need to look at what he's doing here and be honest wtih yourself.. its right here in these posts of yours...
1. You need to stop enabling him by calling him or picking up the phone 2. You need to be a DIFFERENT person for your CHILDREN's sake.. he is NOT good for them right now... 3. HIS behaviuor twoards YOU, affects your CHILDREN... HE is HURTING YOUR CHILDREN when he hurts you.
These are NOT subjects of DEBATE... they are facts.
I re-read these and each time the truth becomes more apparent... YOU are becoming a danger to your children when you let him into your life... if YOU love YOUR children you will keep him AWAY from YOU.
Your children's life is an extension of yours. If YOU live a dramatic life, THEY will live one indirectly by their exposure to you.
Good parents expose THEMSELVES to healthy lifestyles for the sake of their children... YOu need to start doing that... this begins by doing something about the PHONE...
I am about 90% confident at this point that "willpower" is not giong to get you through this compulsion to contact him and to accept contact.
I honeslty do think you need an intermediary to take your calls and your phone... a SAFETY ZONE is not a safety zone if you are carrying a telephone with you he calls you on... its like bringing a land mine into a bomb shelter.. it completey defeats the purpose and your children PAY for it.
You are a good mom, its time to protect your children.
I have been doing more research tonight. I have a bit from Penny again for you :
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Saving your marriage is not about being nice – being nice is easy. Saving your marriage is about standing firm against the onslaught of addiction which threatens to suck you in chew you up and spit you out. Even and especially when to do so takes you far outside your own comfort zone. Staying in your comfort zone helped you get to this place: if you want out you’ll need to stretch those boundaries. Painful? Yes, very. But what’s the alternative?
Things your spouse will say as part of the addiction and which you need to disregard:
* It’s over. There is no hope of saving the marriage. * I never loved you. I only married you because… * It’s not about <affair partner> it’s about wanting out. * Even if he or she was not part of the picture there would be no hope. * You made me do this, it’s your fault. * Nothing you can do can change my mind. * I could never feel anything for you again. * She/he is my soulmate.
Other myths – these are dangerous to believe:
* The children will be fine, they get over these things. * I’ll give you everything if you agree to a quick divorce * I’ll take everything and you’ll be destitute if you don’t give me a quick divorce * The affair is over and we’re just friends. * The affair is over and we can still work together
--------------------- More to come on addiction...
Protection phase in detail : --------------------- When an affair is discovered, there is usually a rush of energy and determination to do whatever it takes to ride it out and mend the marriage once it ends. But as the weeks turn to months, that energy is rapidly depleted by the sheer terror and pain of seeing your spouse in love with someone else. Your determination rapidly begins to wane and you become the greater threat to the marriage. As your emotions are bombarded day after day with the cruelty and thoughtlessness inherent in an addiction you begin to lose your love for your spouse. Worse, you find that you have moments of pure hatred when you see how he or she puts the lover ahead of the well being of your children and is willing to throw away your financial security for this interloper. The day will come, all too soon, when you decide that you’re done and that even if your spouse came to you begging for reconciliation you have lost all respect for him or her and would not consider the possibility. In the interest of your marriage, your children and yes, yourself, you need to be protected from getting to this place.
Unlike the Intervention Phase, it’s pretty straightforward, but people fight it kicking and screaming. Intervention Phase is just this: Separate entirely from your spouse. Have no contact between the two of you. None.
Yes, I know this is very difficult if you have children. One of the things we do for people at SYMC is to provide them with email intermediaries to handle emergencies along with the essential flow of information regarding children and their schedules.
When you initiate this separation you need to make an explicit statement about your commitment to the marriage and hope for reconciliation. You also need to spell out that you are not willing to continue in a relationship under these conditions but would be happy to discuss the future as soon as the affair is over.
When do you do this? As soon as you first start to feel overwhelmed with the pain of the affair. This is no time for heroics. Living too long with the pain will set into motion the conditions which will make you the threat to the marriage. For women this can be as soon as one week. Certainly not longer than 12 weeks. For men up to 6 months.
...
The affair will most likely end, just like 90 to 95% of all affairs do. If you did the right things in the Intervention Phase, it will end sooner. When that happens, you need to be strong and healthy if you are going to be able to work through the Reconciliation and Recovery Phases.
Romantic Love vs. Marriage: A Psychoanalytic Approach Keelin Lord
To illustrate why Americans feel the need to end a stabilized, less exotic partnership for a revived passionate one, the psychologists’ account that romantic love is an addiction that needs to be addressed.
The reason psychologists view this euphoric passion as an addiction is because of the effects shown on one’s body and mind. Romance causes such things as emotional and physical dependence, obsession, craving, personality change and loss of self control.
In a study done by scientists, Bartels and Zeki, brain scans of subjects in love were compared to subjects who had injected cocaine and narcotics containing opium.
The results determined that the same reward system, or caudate region of the brain, became active in both sets of individuals as well as heightened levels of dopamine (Fisher 182).
Furthermore, those who are love stricken show the same symptoms as drug addicts, such as tolerance while the need to see their beloved increases, withdrawal when the relationship ends, and relapse as memories are triggered long after the romance is over (Fisher 183).
You might see some signs in an addicted person but not others. These are signs which occur across many (but not necessarily all) addictions:
* Extreme mood changes – happy, sad, excited, anxious, etc * Sleeping a lot more or less than usual, or at different times of day or night * Changes in energy – unexpectedly and extremely tired or energetic * Weight loss or weight gain * Unexpected and persistent coughs or sniffles * Seeming unwell at certain times, and better at other times * Pupils of the eyes seeming smaller or larger than usual * Secretiveness * Lying * Stealing * Financially unpredictable, perhaps having large amounts of cash at times but no money at all at other times * Changes in social groups, new and unusual friends, odd cell-phone conversations * Repeated unexplained outings, often with a sense of urgency
These addictions are real, in that they follow the same pattern as substance-based addictions and they result in problems in many areas of the individual's life. They have similar effects on relationships, which are often neglected in favor of the addictive behavior, undermining trust and putting pressure on partners and other family members to cover up and make up for difficulties arising from the addiction.
There is increasing evidence that addiction to these behaviors involves similar brain mechanisms to substance-based addictions, although more research is needed to confirm and clarify how this happens.
A healthy relationship is an interdependent one, a partnership, an alliance - no healthy parntership can take place if trust is violated. If one partner is lying and betraying the other there is no way that can be a healthy or functional relationship (it might be functional in a have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too kind of way in the short run for the betrayer partner, as long as the other partner tries to pretend it is not happening - but in the long run it is not functional for either because any betrayal is ultimately a betrayal of Self - which will be paid for sometime, somehow.)
In order to violate trust in an emotionally intimate relationship it is necessary for the betrayer to be emotionally dishonest with themselves, to have little self-respect or True self-esteem, have a capacity to lie, rationalize, and blame (that is redundant since rationalization and blame are lies - the betrayer always blames the person betrayed because the only way to live with themself is to convince themself that it is the other person's fault.) A person makes a very sad statement about themselves when they do such a thing - they are Truly a lost and wounded soul.
