See, this is where I'm getting into trouble. I'm thinking it through too much, and screwing up.
I waited for him to come home. My mom invited him to dinner, so we were all going together to drop off DSD. He didn't come home right after 5, wasn't home until 6:30. I saw the fb posting, thought about consequences, thought of packing his bags, imagined that he'd go stay with his friend, who would tell him to D immediately, he'd come back on Monday and file. So, that's how I get into trouble. Instead I decided to leave and go to mom's w/o H, but he pulled in just as I was about to get into the car. DSD needed her passport out of the safe and remembered last minute, so while she waited in car, I went in to get it and H was in with me. Now we're in the kitchen together, when I had intended not to be there. I stood and looked at him, and he instantly said "I know what you're thinking, you're so smart. You think we were chatting on fb." I said, no, never even thought of that. He said "you're mad that I posted." I said, yes, you promised, and he said (of course) that's not contact.
I said, I want NO contact and I want you to remove her from your profile. He said he'd think about it. I asked "what is there to think about, remove her, there is NO reason to have her on there, it's only there to tempt him. He said he wants to make it his decision not mine."
I'm just done. I left it alone, didn't want to turn it into an argument, I'm going to reapproach at the end of the weekend. I just didn't want an argument, and his saying it first took me off guard and I felt it took the power away from me. I want to approach this from a position of strength, not anger.
You guys keep saying I have all these options, but I just feel like if I give him a consequence, he'll just let it roll off his back. He just doesn't care about me or the M or anything enough to care. I'll give it a try, and will be pleasantly surprised if he is affected by it, but I doubt he will be.
I'm with Saffie. This is just way too much reprecussions for an adult commenting on a facebook page. He's not 6. You can't choose his friends for him. is this really how you show him that you are not controlling?
Your husband's testing you. He's testing you like a spoilt angry child.
Consequences are reality Pass. The more reality you bring into his life, the more he has to think long term.
When you expose, he has to think about what he's doing. It was a first step. When you bring his parents into things to confront him, he has to think again. Each time you bring someone in to support YOU and HE has to think more it puts the squeeze on him. He will rant and squirm. you let him. Do not have lunch with him and play around like life is all fun... you put the squeeze on him until he makes an adult commitment and apologizes.
Eventually it will be all the people that care about him on one side with you, and him alone on the other. THEN the choice for him is as PAINFUL as possible.. he has no where else to run. He has to grow up and make an adult choice for once in his life.
If you don't press him he's 'just going to keep testing you. Tonight he learned he can do as he pleases and the consequence is you giving him a cold stare privately in his kitchen - not particularly scary enough to give him cause to think a second time.
And Lotus, we have NO IDEA if its just a facebook page, he's going out at night til 4 AM and NOT ACCOUNTABLE for his whereabouts. If you ignore it, he's just going to push even HARDER to see what ELSE he can get away with. Eventually he will be mounting OW right in front of Passenger to push her buttons.
Put a stop to it now.
The thing is, him leaving to go to a friend's place must be HIS choice. Do NOT throw him out. He will just tell everyone YOU threw HIM out and that HE has license to do what he wants.
I say pack the suitcase, invite him to make an honest commitment WITH HIS KIDS THERE IN FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE AFFAIR. All three of you put the suitcase there on the floor and ask him to recommit to no contact and family therapy. Tell him his current behaviour is unwelcome in your home, but you would love to have your husband and father to come in the door tonight. ALL THREE OF YOU CONFRONT HIM THIS TIME.
Yes, he may let it roll of his back. If it does, he's testing you still. SOmetimes it takes time to come to one's senses.
If a child misbehaves and you send them to their room, they aren't gonig to to apologize any time soon. They ARE going to stew for a while.
You just keep putting the squeeze on him with more exposure. And do NOT go for romantic walks on the beach with him until he commits, you are just giving him a free pass. I don't expect him to cave immediately. He needs to come to realize how alone he will be if he leaves you. If his buddies are just gonna take him out for drinks when he's cheating on you, you need to talk to his buddies or something.
And for the record no, you don't have "all these options." And the ones' he is leaving you with are not pleasant.
Having to humiliate yourself and expose to his parents couldn't have been easy for you. Having to talk to his friends could not have been easy for you.
Having to bring consequences down on his head at all is going to be painful. And the more he tests you, the more you have to bring down on him to show him you mean business.
I would also call OWh if she's tempting him at all on facebook. You KNOW she doens't like that and he doens't either. That is consequence too.
Or as suggested earlier by someone. Get his two kids and drive to OWH's house and have a chat with him right in front of the kids. Let OW be there, who cares. Talk like she aint even there.
I am leery of this one cause I can't see the facebook post to gauge if she's inviting him to post or not. But to my mind she should be REMOVING him from her account if she's working on her marriage and I would tell her so.
This is all painful I know. Having to discipline a spouse who is overtly testing your tolerance for an open marriage is very hard... we've been there. This is the saddest thing about all of this is that all the choices he's leaving you with... none of them are pleasant, they are all varying degrees of things you don't want to have to do.
Do you think people want to have to cut internet access? Bug their phones and computers? Tell in laws their spouse is having an affair? Sleep alone every night?
No one wants to be publicly humiliated or have to monitor their spouse like a child, but infidelity is addictive. It's not a game that is fun in any way. This is why some of us on this forum bear down so HARD on infidelity is BECAUSE it is SO PAINFUL we advise to hit it HARD and FAST to minimize the TIME you will BE IN PAIN.
If you go softball the fight could last a LOT longer, which means a LOT more discomfort for you.
Yes, tossing a hand grenade into a garage to get rid of one mouse may at first look like overkill, but if you spend months trying to trap that mouse gracefully he could end up BREEDING MORE MICE and getting into your HOUSE...
THEN, after its TOO LATE to use a hand grenade, when your garage AND YOUR HOUSE is overrun with mice, that hand grenade idea from months back doesn't look like it was such a bad idea...
I know you are scared of what might happen if you try to implement consequences. I completely understand and empathise with that. To be honest, until you reach that either 'done' feeling, or get to the point where you know you will be ok without your H, I don't think you will implement anything that has any great affect on your H.
He is baiting you with the FB thing - that's obvious as it was the first thing you say he came in and talked about. You rose to the bait. FB causes all sorts of misunderstandings and people also use it childishly to hurt one another - just don't go there. It doesn't give you the sort of intel you need, but I feel it does stop you thinking clearly; it gets your H putting you on the defensive and unsettled - and look at all the strong responses that little titbit of information has created on your thread!!!
You don't know the full state of things at the moment and so I feel you would be stupid to implement anything much without knowing more facts - not stupid FB stuff - proper facts.
I have slept on this before I replied to make sure I felt the same about your H's behaviour today as yesterday.
Sex with you was when you said he had been drinking. Since then he has removed himself from the bed, (to avoid drunken temptation and make sure he doesn't give off the wrong signals OR to wind you up, you just don't know). he does not eat your food or let you do stuff for him - sounds to me like it is getting more like an exit A. I therefore think that offering him his bags will see him walk. That's not the end of the road - some M's need a bit of a break, but based on your H's past history that might not be good.
Also,IMO don't involve the children; ultimately they are his responsibility and his blood tie. They might not like what is happening , but I would bet good money they side with him eventually.
I don't think you can do more without knowing what is going on, and it is only worth finding out IF you are willing to deal with the fact that he might well leave.
For the moment I would be nice to him, whilst still be clear about expecting NO contact with OW and see what happens until you can find out more OR decide what you want and what is best for you.
Would you rather shorten the pain but possibly have no H at the end of it, or live with it longer and maybe have your H - or still maybe not. My gut is telling me now that you don't have enough info to take the short road at the moment anyway.
I took the short road and it worked out. Speaking honestly though, I didn't think it through, it was just either get rid of OW or we are done - I KNEW that was how I felt. I don't think you are clear at all what you are doing and it is stopping anything you do being effective. You are sending out mixed messages which then allows your h to continue to be an A$$.
When dealing with difficult children you choose a course of action and then stick with it - this is no different. An analogy would be a child that mithers on wanting a treat for hours. If at the end of say two hours you are so tired you give in and give the child the treat they have learnt that mithering gets them something and so they will continue to act that way in the future and you just end up getting grief all the time. Instead you either decide to give them the treat straight away and be done with it or you don't give it at all and they learn mithering doesn't work. BE CONSISTENT
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
I wanted just to say as well that I think you are overthinking the whole thing. From the way this thread has gone - the speed at which it has moved and the size of it - you can see that at no point are you getting any down time from it. Sometimes you need that to let your subconscious come to the for and direct you a bit IMO.
Saffie me 46 H 46 M in 1986 D20,D18,S16,D13 H's A 01/05 to 07/06 H recommitted to M 07/06 renewed vows 09/06 Going from strength to strength
I think last night would have gone beautifully if I hadn't passed along mom's invite to H. He was emailing me, showing he was curious where I was going for the weekend, earlier he had told me I looked nice and looked lost and lonely when I kicked him out of my car after our talk. He was "missing me" in a way.
Instead of going away and letting him think about me while in that mood, I invited him to mom's for dinner. We had dinner, played games, he had a few drinks, and became cold again. Driving home, he sighed several times, I asked if he was OK, he said no, he was "thinking" like always.
In other words, I gave up an opportunity for him to miss me and think about me. It's 6 am and I'm about to leave. I may be able to salvage those feelings he had, but it's unlikely. Being away from me seems to make him miss me, and being with me makes him remember why he doesn't want to be with me. Or at least gives him fuel for thinking he doesn't want to be with me.
I agree about fb not being enough intel, I need more intel. I have a plan for that - not sure if it will work, but I'm going to try. Once I have good intel, I will institute consequences. I don't want to push him out the door for a fb post. I'm scared. I need to detach. I know I do, but it's gone so fast and so far, I'm just terrified of losing him. I will admit that.
Saffie is right about his kids siding with him. They would not confront him with me, only D would, and that's not enough of a consequence for him. I don't have anything other than packing his bags and I believe that would be the end of us. Entirely and completely, he would be gone. I want to be tough and stand up and take my self esteem as a priority, but I can't see how to do it and still keep H.
He is such a child, when he wanted to put the dog into the bedroom last night, he knocked on the door. He does that to show me that we're separate or whatever. I just ignore it. It's dumb, it's his bedroom and he's never knocked before. He needs more time away from me, I think. He needs to see me looking good, having a good time, and wonder where I am. It seems to work.
I hear what everyone is saying about confronting and consequences, but this is the real world and he is trying to push me out the door. He is trying to create a rift in our R where I either push him out or leave myself. What will be accomplished if I fall for it and do just that? He'll either get the house and move her right on in, or else he'll leave and D me and then come back for the kids...
Instead, I have to draw him towards me, make him miss me. I just don't see any other way. I feel this is an exit A, or as Saffie is saying, it's becoming that way, but I don't have intel to know for sure. I don't have any bargaining chips. The only thing I have is me, and I have to make him remember why he loves me so much. I know he still has feelings for me, but times like last night where being with me pushed him away are helping bury his feelings for me. When I'm not around, his feelings come to the surface more and he wants to be with me, he's drawn to me. At lunch, it was very, very clear that he wanted to stay with me. He thought I looked pretty, things he hasn't been thinking/saying for some time. I think I'd be in a very different place if I had gone away yesterday.
Trust me. This is the real world to all of us too.
He knew you were mad and were going to be mad about the FB post but he did it anyway. It's like a child when you tell them not to do something but they do it anyway to get a reaction from you. He wanted to see how far he could push it.
You are letting your fear dictate your actions.
If you are unsure of what to do or want to change strategy, then do what it says in DR. Pick a path or plan and then do it. If you don't see any results after a couple of weeks, then change strategy.
Right now it sounds like he needs a little bit of both the hard edge and the soft. Your job is to figure out what the balance is between the two. You'll find it's like tightrope walking where too much on either side will send you tumbling over the edge.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
