Questions without answers...will the hurt stop?

[25yearsmlc]

I'd go with "Steel is forged in heat so it can withstand battles" a bit more. But what we are really saying is, we can choose to become stronger and discover a lot about ourselves during these ordeals.

you have been enduring this now for something like 5 years, right? What is it about your approach you feel is working?

I only ask b/c anyone here for five years, with a spouse who still has OW, (or whatever he calls her) well...just seems to be a cycle that repeats. I did read most of your thread and started with your first.

I guess I'd have to know about boundary enforcement. You set some boundaries. But he won't let her go, and still more or less comes as he pleases.
Is that correct?

So, this means that all of your d's teen years were filled with her wacky depressed in/out dad....a depressed dad who won't get treatment...and that's what SHE got for her fun teen years from her home life? Seems unfair to her.

Have you considered going to Al Anon?

I think there are many similarities about your situation and a wife married to an alcoholic, b/c the mood of your h greatly affects the mood of the house.

And no one controls it but him, and he does not control HIS emotions or actions. He blames "external" factors or says he's so "messed up" that in effect, he cannot/will not change....and so he is still drinking (using the metaphor). Unless you do an intervention, he'll continue.

Ever wonder if all the "Insights" he has about "not being worthy" is just a ruse he uses to try and apply a layer of feigned shame/guilt , to cover the fact that he likes pretending he's 22 y/o..?

I mean, he sure gets away with a lot by blaming a depression A CONDITION for which he won't seek treatment... a lot like an active alcoholic.

His depression and behavior is not that rare, unfortunately. I have seen it here before.



I like that, steel it is! But, I worry that the way I am already thinking I may become to cold and solid to allow anything to penetrate.

After five years of this nonsense, I'd be surprised if you didn't develop some protective armor.

I just worry you are mostly waiting to see what happens with him "This day/this week/this month" to determine the course of your life.

But the real question, and I mean it sincerely, given what you have already alllowed, is there anything HE can do, that would get you to file for divorce?

I am not asking you to file. I am simply asking if there really is a line beyond which he cannot go. And if so, then what?


Still working on trying to not let what h does ruin me! I'm working on that other side everyday!

Wow...five YEARS of this^^?? I worry what your kids have learned.

What would happen to you financially if you left this "marriage"?

What kind of long term plan do you have? I mean, I don't see him vastly changing.

Just mood changing and navel gazing under the guise of "processing" his past. Where does all that lead?

The reason most Marriage counselors don't help, is that they focus on the past and then, couples end up rehashing their old fights. They do not change their present day behaviors, or find solutions.

So when I see a man with a LONG history of depression and what appears to be self loathing, I see a man living in the past and not taking on THIS day. Also, the appearance of self loathing is not a good sign. it's either an excuse for reprehensible behavior that he can just surrender to "i am a bad person I have failed...so don't expect ANYTHING of me"...

or it's real, and that much less healthy. Either way, it's not a hopeful sign.

This site is solution based. You cannot FIX your h. So how will YOU move forward, and when?

I think it helps to have an internal deadline. Since you got your kids thru high school, what is holding YOU back now?

Why not move forward? IF IF IF there is a chance your h could truly awaken (which means changing his behavior AND absolutely seeking professional help)

it'd be by you really doing something different. As is drop the rope. Move on in your life.

Let him fear losing you and when I say fear it I mean b/c it's true. That he is losing you and that you are moving forward without him.

HE'll know what he needs to do to get you back. The question is whether he's up for that. But why not find out now?

Better sooner than later.

My h began to awaken when I began making plans for life without him AND i mean life with him living elsewhere.

I realized I'd be fine without him. I loved him but could not keep tolerating the leaving and coming and going. So I accepted our marriage was over and began to act accordingly.

I also began to see the upsides of his absence. Just little things at first, but certainly less tension and weirdness when he was gone.

Getting my older d thru high school was my goal. I kept that to myself but knew I"d file if things were not resolved by then, I'd file and downsize. My son was out of the house by then and then, d1 would go off to college so I'd only need a two BR place...

but sure enough, h noticed I was upbeat and making plans for MY life, a job transfer overseas to live in Italy for a year. The pay was not great but with half the marital assets coming my way, I'd be alright financially.

H began to realize he was losing me. In truth, he already had.

So when he probed and then pursued, it took me a year to believe his changes were real...and when we began pieceing, we did well at first. But his mom got cancer, and we began to have too much back & forth and began to backslide.

Well, I was NOT going to be complacent.

I had so little reserves left that I was about out the door.

Then H suggested we attend Retrovaille ( We had NOT gained new tools for reconciling when we began to piece. I had worked on myself and GAL x 2222225, but I knew we needed new tools.)

We had been to a powerful, life changing workshop years earlier, but it is only a few times a year on the east coast. IT's well worth it, but we needed help sooner.

Retrovaille is for couples in crisis and it's a weekend deal WITH a follow up program I highly recommend...don't just think one weekend will solve everything. But it can awaken someone enough, to get them to do the program. it gives hope.

The day I said "I'm out the door for good if we don't figure this out", h found that Retrovaille was coming to our home city, two weeks later, and

ON our anniversary...(sometimes the universe IS clear).

Retrovaille helped us to the point that I can honestly say we'd have split up for sure, then and there, without it. NOTE we were ripe for the tool getting and problem solving.

With him mom's sickness, we knew life had thrown a curve ball that would challenge us greatly. And that we only had a little time.

There's just no way to repair a marriage without tools. You can't fix a leaking roof without tools AND without filling the holes in the roof.

Your h is not working to repair the leaking roof. You are going from hole to hole to put a bucket under each hole trying to catch all the water.

But you know you have to drop the rope for real.

What is there to say? His choice is clear. Making no choice IS a choice.

It's very adoloscent for a person to stand in a doorway between two rooms never choosing one to enter, but never leaving either. One foot in each room.

Adults make a choice. They give up something when they choose something else. They enter one room and to do that, they leave the other room.


While I know he's struggled with depression, there is a lot of self indulgence to his depression.
NOT getting treatment for it
WHILE seeing the damage done to others
BUT expecting so very little of himself,
while seeing himself as the victim of "unfair life events"

is a scenario that underscores the likelihood that he'll never get real help.


And no offense, okay, b/c I know it's very hard to see clearly right now. But there's a TON of enabling from you. A ton.

I strongly recommend YOU attend Al Anon to learn about living with a drunk, b/c a man who's moods and behaviors vary so greatly from day to day is a lot like what we call a "dry drunk".

And the family dynamics are the same. HIS mood determines how everyone feels. There is also mega co dependency going on. No boundaries for him.

Why are your adult kids living at home now and is there a plan for getting them out? Or are they paying enough rent to make up for it?

Do you see any possible co dependency tendencies being passed on?

Did you read "Co Dependent No More"? I have heard many people swear by it.

What did you think about the sections in the DB/DR books about a spouse with depression and mental illness?

Also, I would not hold so tightly to the MLC label.

I did not agree with Mirage's take on the MLC b/c I have rarely seen someone get thru an MLC and become a better person.

Most are changed, they never go back to who they were. SOMETIMES, on occastion they are improved. But the times I have seen that were MLCs that did not last so many years,

and did not have such distorted views of the world and in every case of an MLC improving as a person, it took professional help.

I think your h is not a "dramatically different man over night" (More like an MLC)

than a chronically depressed man, who is lowering the bar on his self expectations and in almost every way, getting worse, not better.

I don't mean to ignore his brief changes or improvements. But over all, the trend is not an upward one in my eyes.

I think he's going to consistently push your buttons and boundaries b/c he has not seen any enforced, has he? I mean, what have you DONE when he cheats on you?

Take him back? Okay so what about when he is without work and playing video games for tens of hours?

I want to help you but you are enabling him big time and you don't seem to see the damage to the kids. But it's there.

What if INSTEAD of what they have witnessed for years now,

what if they saw you move forward in life? What if they saw you detach from this drowning man (who might finally learn to swim on his own)

and saw you content without him? Without "fixing" him or working on him?""

For all your comments about NOT fixing him and NOT taking on his issues, the reality is that the man comes and goes as he sees fit or how he "feels" and if he's on the couch all day, you walk around him, right?

I mean, am I missing something? I read parts of every thread. And I don't see much movement from last summer to this one.

So please tell me where the changes are, that I am not seeing. I don't really count him opening up about his childhood as a change. It's just him rationalizing outrageously self absorbed behavior.

I'm also curious about your own help. What are you doing in that arena?

I wish you well and hope you'll find your way out of this mess.

YOU have to get yourself out of this, which I hope you can see.