who are you?

[sgctxok]

Marmie, if you don't have a plan this cannot have a good outcome. What are you hoping to achieve?

[dbmod]

Are you ok?

[25yearsmlc]

Marmie,

you are getting some great advice here, esp about getting the help of a professional. I must tell you to avoid advice that comes off as angry or punitive, usually under the guise of "teaching a lesson" or "showing consequences". It's not our job to teach our spouse a lesson. Life does that. The calmer approaches are almost always the wiser ones, and have a greater chance of being effective than emotional reactions do.

I had a wonderful DB coach tell me that and it helped me, as did a great T.

Also, this is not a contest. No one is supposed to "win" arguments, b/c we are a support group for people trying to save their marriages or get thru a painful divorce which they did not want.

We should be here to help YOU without projecting or diagnosing. Beware of advice that boldly labels people based on woefully inadequate information, and advocates a punitive approach for your h (which is what much of it was to me). It's Not geared toward a happy ending, but was about their version of "winning" or being proved "right". Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

More importantly, You say your m was good and that the sex life was too, all until pretty recently. If that is true, then you & your h need some seriously more in depth talking. I'm worried he's physically sick if this is a total 180 for him. I mean, my late bil started acting childish and goofy & was repetitive for a few months, really turning my sister off. It turned out he had a brain tumor. Took months for it to warrant an exam and only did b/c he had a seizure. (Yes he passed away at the age of 42). There are other physical things that could be triggering such odd behavior of your h, IF this really is as you describe, which is that it's totally out of the blue. I would want HIM to get the physical tests. In sickness and in health...

Like many MLCers or WASs, My h did lousy things to me and our children that were deeply painful. He definitely did not mean to hurt us. And he's trying to do better now and I see a lot of the man I once knew returning. But he honestly seems to not recall some of the things he said or did that I recall vividly. It's odd for me to view those actions in light of the rest of our marriage. Like a 3 year "Wacky" time out.

Get some real help. Work on letting go of the anger. Forgiveness is about you not being consumed by anger, fear or shame. FORGIVENESS IS Not condoning behavior you find unacceptable!! There are many LBSers who want to stay angry and they do. at their expense, or their children's, or their careers, or their marriages. They somehow believe if they let go of the anger, that their spouse is off the hook, and that's "unfair". But THE ANGRY LBSers are on their own hook of misery, and most of the time their attempt to get "fairness" by Not forgiving, is like lighting yourself on fire to get smoke in their eyes.
I did not feel my h "deserved" forgiveness but I realized in time, that my anger was consuming MY life and I was not fully present for my children b/c I was so preoccupied with how badly hurt I was, and how h could do this to me/us, why he was doing/acting that way, etc. I wish I had instead immediately focussed on ME and my kids' needs. It's all I could control anyhow.

But if your m was the way you described it and suddenly out of the blue your h shuts you out this way, then that's new and strange enough to stop and slow this escalation down til you know what's really going on. And earlier you said you wanted to divorce to stop the pain. One thing I'm sure of is that a divorce will NOT STOP your pain. Maybe he's having big time gender issues. Is it impossible for you to envision a scenario in which you remain married to him? IF so, cross that bridge when you get to it, but you are not there yet, imo.

If you read the DB books you'll recall that you must always always know your goal BEFORE you react or speak. Your approaches have only heightened tensions. So, it's not effective. Don't keep doing what does not work. What is your goal? How can you get there? How can getting professional help be a bad idea?


FWIW, I have some fantasies I do NOT want to actually act out or act upon. But there are things I look at that appeal to me for somewhat embarrassing reasons. Not all of them "make sense" and I've only shared some of them with my h. Why share it with him when He's not Latin, for one thing? I'm not making light of your sitch but am saying that I would be definitely interested in what it means for him to be looking at the sites you mention--- but I'm not qualfied or familiar enough w/it to assess all of the implications. There are people who are qualified and familiar enough to do so, however...).

good luck, take a breath...turn your pain & anger over to God, and leave the results up to Him too.

(( ))

[marmie]

i've been away dealing with this so sorry for the delay. did not have a good outcome or maybe it was.
my friend from church helped me form a plan and came with me to talk to h and he was still really mad but different, icey stares and mostly quieter because my friend was there. my friend steered me into the kitchen and said he will gaurd me while i get some more small stuff and get me safely away from any more abuse.
i took everything i could think of that is important to me besides any big stuff like furniture. i don't know if i will bother i can get new furniture.
more icey stares from h while i do this but he didn't dare make a move toward me with friend by my side. he is a lot taller than h. i avoided most of the eye contact but friend told me that if h's looks could kill.
h had bad body language real tense when i grabbed our smaller macbook and both of my ipods but i don't care. he would not have let me take them otherwise probably. we were there maybe 1/2 hour and left.
this friend had told me that this was handled bad from the start and i should have called the cops when h hit me and i should have. my shoulder still hurts and the bruise is still kind of visible and dr says there is possible some kind of nerve damage now. it still aches all the time. dr also told me my std test was clear so that's good.
so i stayed with mom over the holidays and refused the few calls and lots of text from h too, such as "i thought *** was my friend too, what do you guys think your doing" and i just ignored them all thought he would get the hint or get tired of trying to reach me but it seems to make it worse. he started to call my mom to try to get me to talk but she nicely told him no not right now can she take a message. no message.
if he won't stop mom said she will see about a restraining order to make him stop. this is something else my friend said should have been done immediatly. he told me to save the text just in case because i wanted to delete them they were getting so mean.
my friend calls me a few times every day to see how i'm doing and he is very encouraging me to confide in him and i trust him so i do. he takes me to the dr and to physcal therapy too. he took me to one of his friends house for a small dinner party on new years eve and it was nice of him. my h always wanted to stay home on new years and it wasn't so much fun after while i wanted to celebrate by going out one of those years. maybe a party and stay over at the raddisson, but no. he never wanted to.
my friend goes and sits with me to church too and h has been staying away from there now but the other parishioners have been very supportive too.
my friend has been really good about telling me how much information i should share with them right now and it helps a lot. he also gave me a list of lawyers to call when im ready.
a domestic violence forum i read pretty much shows that abusers never stop hitting you it just gets worse and isn't it interesting that they control themselves enough not to hit anyone else but their w. and that is true because h was really mad i could tell but he didn't try to hit my friend.
is any poster here struggling with violence? i would welcome advise here on it. thank you.
sorry this was so long.

[Cyrena]

Hi Marmie,

I'm glad you're taking care of yourself. I'm a little confused, though--you talk about your husband's violence, abuse, hitting you, etc--does this refer to incidents other than the time that he gave you a long, steady push out the door?

I hope you have female friends, brothers, etc, who can support you as well as your one male friend.

[marmie]

yes. i wrote about that he hit me on the shoulder before. i didn't get a bad bruised from being just shoved.
i am getting support from my family like i wrote before. i am at my mom's.

[MrBond]

So he shoved you that one time and now you have nerve damage?

When are you going to file?

[marmie]

i got myslf tested and then talked to my priest. he suggested that i have understanding and forgivness for h and to go home to him with an open heart and see if he would come to church with me to talk to our priest together.
when i got home, i asked my h to talk about what is bothering him so much and that i am trying to understand so we can be close again like we were.
he said that he doesn't want to talk to anyone about anything right now and i said that maybe he could talk with our priest by himself then. that our priest is very calm and understanding.
h started yelling at me for going behind his back to get spiritual guidence and then he really did shove me and he hit me on my shoulder as i turned to go out the door.
i am back at the rddisson with some ice on the bruise and i feel such shame.
im trying to reach my priest for the next avalable appointment but its so busy with all the holiday services and i know he's really busy.
i am beside myself he has never laid a finger on me and maybe hes sick in the head or having a midlife crises.
i have been crying and praying so hard and our priest heard my confession and prayed with me too.
my h is so alien and a stranger to me now. how can somone change like a snap like that?
my heart is in a milion pieces and i feel so alone.

he shoved me and hit me. i know i should file sooner than later.

[MrBond]

So you have a choice. Either you can forgive and understand him or you can file. No one changes "overnight". But its up to you to decide if you are going to stand by him or leave. Simple as that.

[25yearsmlc]

So to recap, your description or your h's behavior has now shifted completely from his
"repulsive deviant behavior" to your new label of "domestic abuser" but it doesn't exactly fit a typical abuser. He never did this before in your years long marriage, but you report that he will definitely do it again. Interesting analysis. Guess I wish you'd avoid the labels you toss around, and that you let your new male friend use (as well as his "helpful convenient" list of divorce lawyers). You see nothing odd about this. Is it possible, just possible, that some major rationalizing is going on here? I wasn't there okay, so I'm only going by YOUR words, which have shifted.
And it's worth asking.

Last but not least, why come to a divorce BUSTING site now? I mean, apparently You don't want to save the marriage. So what do you want from us? If you want a legal strategy, leave that to a lawyer.

I don't mean to sound too tough on you, but every time someone points out a single possible item in explanation for your h, ( or the possibility of his being physically or mentally ill-which you totally ignored) OR If anyone tries to empathize with him or understand him, or God forbid take his side on an issue, or even question you about your role in any of this, they get their head bitten off by others. Plus, you ignore the issues raised and then you usually reiterate a modified, and ever worsening description of your h's behavior so that the ONLY "answer" to your problems is divorce. So again, I sincerely ask, what do you really want from this site? How can we help you? And have you given ANY thought to what I said earlier? You claim that before all this happened, your marriage was a good solid one and that all this behavior is out of the blue and totally new. And you are already looking into when to divorce him. Wow...