Children that aren't parented end up like your H... and Sunny's H and everyone else's husband
He needs boundaries and education... a FT can provide that...
And no you aren't supposed to sit around in panic ... you should feel emotionally and physically safe in your marriage and your home.
The boundaries are there to protect that.
Honesty and transparency solidify those boundaries... Otherwise they are just hollow words with no force behind them.
Parents do thsi with children. There's no reason why adults shouldn't do this with each other.. YOU need boundaries too... make it something you both setup and agree to follow that will keep your H from getting defensive
We keep having these circular discussions about boundaries. I say I want to talk about them. He asks me what I "need from him". I tell him what my expectations are (and have even shown him the list in Glass's book and Penny's Fidelity Health Check). But then he starts struggling with certain "rules". He thinks they're too extreme in today's modern world (and it doesn't matter matter how many times I try to point out that he is in no place to judge what "appropriate" boundaries are given his actions, or how many times I point out that maybe so many divorces and affairs happen in today's society because people have become too lax and selfish and fail to set solid boundaries to protect their marriages). I can't get him to actually HEAR and AGREE to the boundaries I'm trying to set. We just end up having the same fight we've been having for years.
Making things worse, I tried to bring up boundary setting in a prior therapy session. The therapist asked what "boundaries" meant to me. I pulled out print-outs of the list, saying that they precisely defined what I needed. Then, instead of asking what the lists said, she turned that into a discussion about how my confronting DH with things like lists, article, books, facts, statistics, etc. was making DH feel controlled and talked down to, and actually pushes him away and makes him feel like he isn't an equal participant or something because I'm setting the terms on my own. (This happened in our second to last session, and thus was the last we had before she had the deeper parent/child dynamic discussion with us).
So I don't know how else to approach the discussion with him. Particularly in a way that gets him on board and engaged. I feel like the only way to get him truly on board and engaged is to make him feel like he has actual input on the boundaries -- like we're discussing and deciding on them together. But when his ideas of appropriate boundaries are clearly screwed up (or else he wouldn't have cheated), I don't feel good about letting him think this is a negotiation. And if I just tell him "these are non-negotiable" then he seems unable to truly accept them.
Plus... our conversation with the therapist last night has me thinking that I'm REALLY SICK of having to act like a parent to him (especially when the therapist said that given the way things currently are, and the way DH currently is, I have been "forced" into the parent role, and there's no other role I can be in). I want him to grow up already and start pulling his weight. I'm getting tired of always being the one to carry our relationship.
Me: 29 Him: 30 Married: 2 years Together: 13 years No kids Bomb: 6/4/10 Started MC: 7/16/10
