Respecting my H so that he gives Love in Return

[trustinginHim]

My H survived the placement of his stent. He is at the urologist right now for a check of the stent and we get to do the lithotripsy tomorrow.

My H has been interesting to watch through all this. He has had a vast amount of time to contemplate his future as it relates to his health and his turning 50 later this year. I believe I am seeing the last of the MLC stages--acceptance--as it plays itself out. H has made many promises to me in the past few days about our future and marriage. I intend to keep my expectations at zero though, so that anything that he follows through on will be a pleasant surprise.

We had the hotmail chat. He initiated the convo and informed me that the "secret" account was, in his words, a "spam filter," an email address he uses when he must give one over the internet that he knows will simply generate loads of spam.

I, myself, have been doing a lot of reading and self-focus to pass the time during my H's medical crisis. In particular I have spent a lot of time with the book that the title of this thread came from--"Love and Respect," by Emerson Eggerichs. The following is a passage that caused me to do some soul-searching:

Granted, deferring to your husband isn't always easy, especially if you feel he doesn't deserve your respect. One woman wrote to tell me (Dr. Eggerichs) that she acted very disrespectfully in order to send a message to her H that she felt unloved. She thought that this would motivate him to love her and appreciate her, but all the while she was unsupportive of his endeavors, belittling his abilities, undermining his decisions, resistant to his counsel, unfriendly, and disinterested in physical intimacy. She said that she thought if she did all of the above her H would get the message that she was hurting, frustrated and angry and that he'd move toward her with understanding and love. But she wept as she realized she had so wounded him that he wouldn't even have sex with her. It took years for him to reopen emotionally to her.

Well, people, here is my public confession. The woman in this passage could have been me. The only difference is that I didn't behave knowingly in the way described to purposefully send a message. It was simply how I behaved in the past toward my H because I didn't know any better and it took becoming a Christian and trusting in Jesus to help me recognize and change my behavior. Oh, and of course, an understanding and the practicing of DBing principles. Fortunately, I am no longer as ignorant as I was--thank You, Lord.

LG--doing a lot of pondering these days

[trustinginHim]

The lithotripsy was postponed for a week as the doc felt that the kidney with the stent was still too swollen and bruised. It appears that my H will have to undergo this procedure at least twice, once for each kidney, at two different times. Both kidneys are not done at the same time as H and I thought. And if one of the treatments doesn't break the stones up sufficiently the first time, as soon as the kidney is healed, back we go again for more.

This week, H has been struggling with pain related to his non-stented kidney. There are two stones in it that are even larger than the 8 millimeter one in his stented kidney, and H's fear is that they will try to move down the ureter before he gets them lithotripsied, thus demanding that his other kidney receive a stent also.

Our medical costs are skyrocketing. My H initiated another talk with me about his internet business and BMOW and how glad he was that he did not invest any more money, as we now need it for his medical bills. He also reiterated for me that he definitely just wants the business dissolved. I asked why, as I could take it over and he had worked so hard on it and poured so much money and time into it. His response? It reminds him of an awful period in his life when he was a failure to me and he wants to start other new things with just him and me!!

The other reason for dissolving the business would be because of BMOW. He believes that she would fight us to the bitter end for the business if they simply removed her and gave the business to me. He says that would be the ultimate insult to her and instigation to start a fight. He doesn't want us to have to go through that when it would be simpler to end this business and start new things up that she has no knowledge or part of. He feels she will just go away somewhat more quietly if the business just closes and is dissolved. She will have less to fight for this way.

H also passed on to me that one of the business partners mentioned in passing to him that BMOW had officially divorced her H. Hey SC--This means that her fiance can now officially be recognized as her fiance! My H just shook his head when he told me. He said, "I ended my personal relationship with her on April 5 of last year, and less than nine months later, she has divorced her H and is engaged to someone she has known less than six months." I just nodded my head, but was thinking to myself that her actions really spoke volumes about the kind of person she is. I will continue to be a prayer warrior for her.

After sharing the above tidbit of info with me, my H went on to vent about his past relationship with her. He had absolutely nothing good to say about her this time. I think his head is clearing finally. The Lord continues to work on him.

Speaking of the Lord, my H made a couple of interesting remarks to me this week regarding divine intervention, plus we had a good talk one morning that he initiated. It just shows me that he has God on his mind and is processing things. I like that.

The other talk we had this week that H initiated too involved our sex life. He mentioned that his biopsy site is healed, but now he has his stent and kidney problems and didn't want to risk any pain. I responded that perhaps it just isn't time yet and that we will have to continue to be patient. Then H said, "But you know I love you, right? I realize that I still have lots to prove to you, but you do know that I love you, right?" Lots of positives this week.

On the Love and Respect front, and a very good reason I did not directly ask my H about his secret hotmail account: I read in the book that wives confront their H's for connection and reassurance, but husbands view this as control and a disagreement usually ensues. Unless a husband understands about the connecting process, a wife's confrontation to connect will fail. My H absolutely would have seen my directly asking him about his secret hotmail account as a confrontation to control and the discussion would have gone downhill from there. I am pleased with the way it all turned out though. I didn't have to confront him and he brought it up. Regardless of what he may really be using the secret hotmail account for, I think that in time, his guilt will dictate that he close it, and that will be the end of that.

LG--loving the Lord for His work in her life

[trustinginHim]

Whew! Thank goodness for out-of-pocket maximums on insurance. We are $200 away from reaching ours for the year already and tomorrow's lithotripsy (first of several) on my H will put us there.

H and I have had several good talks yesterday and today about many, many things. He is reconsidering his thoughts about completely dissolving his and BMOW's internet business and is now thinking about redesigning it and moving the whole business to another URL that he owns to turn over to me! To show his honest intentions, he minimized a link to the business on one of his websites. It was a flashy eye-catcher that directed the majority of traffic to the business. He decided to minimize it first instead of eliminating it completely to test the type of response from BMOW about minimizing it. When the response from BMOW blows over, if one occurs at all, he will remove the link completely! Of course the response may not come until he removes the link completely, but we shall see.

LG--doing pretty good today

[2Timothy_2_23]

Your patience and peace dealing with H's internet business flip-flopping is encouraging.

I'm wondering if H or his BPs should plant the "we might shut down" seed with BMOW? People are most defensive and reactive when they feel manipulated and that they don't have a choice. If H was direct with BMOW and simply said, "We haven't made a decision yet, but we are considering shutting this thing down, it might be in your best interest to find another man - I mean job..... "

If you shut down without telling her, she's surprised and upset. If you tell her first and then shut down, at least she isn't surprised, and may feel a little more control in the situation since she was given "warning".

plk

[trustinginHim]

Hi plk,

I really don't know what to tell you. There is still SO much to H's and BMOW's affair relationship that I don't know or understand. The fear (dread?) he has of her capacity to seek revenge when she feels slighted practically immobilizes him. I suppose what could also immobilize him is his guilt regarding the whole matter and not wanting to rehash it all with her again. But, your suggestion seems very plausible to me, in fact, it was the method he used to end their relationship.

BMOW had H's passwords to two of his email accounts when they were together so that she could simply deal directly with any business mail that he received. H also used these accounts for personal communication with me and his family and I had no idea she had access nor did I know that she was reading all his email. Looking back now, she read quite a few doozies from me to him about her/them. But on the flip side, she also read some doozies from him to me about our reconciliation. Little did I know that he was writing the reconciliation emails to me knowing full well that she was reading them, but this was how he gave her a heads up that they were over. And their resulting break-up was still incredibly painful and emotionally charged, and I understand quite a show for the entire neighborhood, even though both knew it was coming.

As for him following that same method to end their business relationship, well, I think he is trying to do that, but with the hope of avoiding a final outcome with similar guilt, pain and emotion. Minimizing the link, then ultimately removing it is the beginning of a series of subtle "heads up" for her. He has slowly extracted himself from the business over the past six months. And I kind of think she has too in her own way, believe it or not. I would imagine that the business has just as many bad memories for her as it does my H. It represents a period of failure in his life as well as it does for her.

My H told me yesterday during one of our good talks that BMOW is again not responding to any email from the business partners. Instead, the partners are being forced to deal with her fiance, the apparently self-appointed Sales & Marketing director. No one is quite sure what they are facing with him in the mix now. If he has any stock in the company, it would be only because BMOW gave him some of hers, and she only had 25% anyway. It's not like she or her fiance has any controlling interest in the company, but I view him as capable of winding BMOW up for a good fight, which is what everyone wants to avoid. The fiance in all this is the unknown. No one knows what he is capable of, so H and the business partners are discussing seeking legal counsel at this juncture.

----------------------------------------

H made it through his first lithotripsy successfully yesterday. He has at least two more to go through. The next one is not for another two weeks though, so we have some breathing room.

When I got him home yesterday from the hospital, we had several really good talks between naps he took. He expressed to me that he was really feeling loved and cared for and it was really having a positive effect on him. I thought about this for awhile and I am starting to believe that his true unmasked love language that fills his tank is acts of service. In the past, I had thought it was physical touch due to his highly sexual nature, followed by quality time, but I think that because he self-medicated his untreated depression with sexual acts, it masked his true primary love language. Or perhaps the love languages can shift positions as one moves through life. Lots more to think about.

LG

[trustinginHim]

My goodness! It's already February! I, for one, am glad that time is flying. The faster and further this horrible period of my life gets behind me, the better I feel.

H has struggled with his first post-lithotripsy recovery. While the surgery itself was successful, he has not felt well. One of his doctors called him yesterday to check on him and after talking, the doctor decided that he wanted my H to come in to the office for a quick check tomorrow. H has gotten a little concerned with a lingering cough that produces green gunk and has some associated chest pain. I hope that he hasn't developed pneumonia or some other hard to remedy respiratory infection because that will put his future surgeries on hold until it clears up. On the positive side, his blood sugars are back down and have stabilized.

In other news, yesterday we received some interesting business information that came via snail mail to the house. It appears that BMOW did not file a very important end of year report on the status of the internet business and it is now quite delinquent. The letter my H received states that if the report is not received by Feb. 15, the business will be reported as delinquent to appropriate authorities. Then if the situation is not corrected by April 15, the business itself will be automatically dissolved by the appropriate authorities.

H has not read this letter yet, but he is aware something came in the mail addressed to him for the business. He set it aside. I could simply "misfile" the letter, and the business has the potential to dissolve all on it's own with a bit of help from me. However, I think H and the business partners should have a choice in the method the business takes to dissolve. For all I know, H may decide to ignore the letter himself as this may be in his opinion the simplest way to let the business die!

So, I have left the letter with his papers for him to deal with on his own in his own time. I will remind him of the letter's existance in the next few days if he doesn't take it upon himself to deal with it shortly.

LG

[trustinginHim]

Thought I would journal before I forgot a few things.

First, I have started to have dreams in the past few weeks that involve the boyfriend that I had before I got involved with my H almost 15 years ago. I had another dream last night which is prompting me to post this now. Essentially, in my dreams, the boyfriend and I are back together just hanging out doing things like we did in the past. I have no thoughts regarding the existence of H in these dreams. Well, last night's dream was the weirdest so far. In my dream, I caught my old boyfriend in mid-kiss with some strange female and immediately I realized he was cheating on me. I accepted it pretty well in the dream and proceeded to get on with my life. But the rest of the dream was spent with me avoiding the boyfriend as he wanted to get back together with me because he realized his mistake. Like I said, it was weird.

Later on this morning, H and I were having a pretty good chat, so I reminded him of the business letter and what it was about. He told me that he was also aware that BMOW was delinquent in filing the last tax report too, so he is not surprised about the delinquency of the report described in this letter also. Then he said, "Oh well, it is her problem. She is listed as the financial officer of the business. If she chooses to be delinquent on financial reports, then she can deal with the consequences herself."

H also said that he will be making a move to start the demise of the business this weekend. We'll see.

LG

[2Timothy_2_23]

LG,

Must be nice to know H has no formal interest in the internet business anymore. I'm surprised the BPs that do still own stock aren't more concerned to take over. If BMOW is listed as Financial Officer, I would make extra sure these notices are sent / forwarded to an address she should receive them so full responsiblity lies on her for action.

I suppose it makes sense they came to H, but I'd get documentation they were forwarded to your financial officer (BMOW), so she doesn't have the opportunity to shift blame. I'm sure H's BPs will get appropriate legal advice, but keep as much of this off H as possible. The last thing you need is H and BMOW being forced together to defend themselves in court.

plk

[trustinginHim]

Hi plk,

Just had a loooong talk with H about the end of the business. He is off watching a movie and I thought I would journal the convo while it was still fresh in my mind.

I started the talk by asking just how possible it might be to end up in court over all this, either against BMOW or fighting on the same side with her against some other entities. H responded by saying that he feels that the only possible thing that could land us in court opposite BMOW is if she started a smear campaign against him in an effort to get to me. I asked him to elaborate and he said that because she hates me so much, the only way he knew that she could hurt him for leaving her and now the business would be to drag him to court and charge him with abandoning her and the company. He went on to ask me just how possible I thought that was, and I said I figured anything was possible with her and a father who has very deep pockets and a lot of disposable pocket change.

He asked me rather rhetorically how it would make her look to testify that they had an affair while developing this business, but he then chose to leave her and the business to return to his wife? He went on to say that it couldn't possibly wash in court. He believes a judge would see it as a waste of time and resources and throw the case out because we are not talking about a million dollar company here.

As far as him being called to stand together with her to defend themselves or the business in court, he is going to try to prevent that in the following manner:

His first step toward the eventual goal of dissolving the company as it exists today will be to send a certified letter to her with carbons to all the business partners saying that he was officially and formally resigning from the business in all capacities and the letter is to serve as a statement that he will not be held liable for any of the company's debts, etc, if there are any.

Then following the letter, the link to the business website will be completely removed, and the business partner providing the free internet space for the website will no longer provide it and will pull out also. That will leave one business partner holding 75% of the stock in the company and BMOW/fiance with 25%. They can decide what to do with the company there on out, but H will no longer be associated with it in any capacity. If the delinquent reports are not rectified and filed by April 15, then what is left of the company will be automatically dissolved by the appropriate authorities regardless of what else happens.

There was a third scenario that he said might happen also. Upon receiving H's resignation letter, BMOW might simply say that she doesn't want anything else to do with the company either and then she resigns and relinquishes all her responsibility for debt, etc. If that happens, then we keep the company and re-organize it and take over, file the necessary reports, etc, and bring the company up-to-date.

But, just in case H is overlooking something, he will seek legal counsel first. He is going to draft the resignation letter this weekend and then we will visit the lawyer next week to get his opinion and input and proceed from there.

I don't know how right or wrong any of this all is, but I am going to respect how my H wants to handle it and deal with the fallout as it occurs. I would appreciate you mentioning any red flags/flaws that you might see in his reasoning so that I might point them out to H. I need to also mention that H has discussed all this with the business partners and they support him and his methods for dealing with all this.

I will of course keep everyone posted on the proceedings.

LG

[2ndChances5]

Hi LG, just checking in on your thread. Good news, about taking the steps to extricate remaining ties from BMOW and the biz.... and very smart to consult a lawyer. I have no legal background, but am wondering if you can simply write a letter and really be absolved of liability. I know you can do that with a spouse/family member by publishing it in the newspaper, but a lawyer can advise as to whether this is totally possible.

It seems so odd that your H feels that BMOW feels so strongly about you.... of course, he knows her and I don't, but it just does not make sense that she would care that strongly. I hope that he is being overly cautious, since if he is accuarate in his assessment of her, she is sort of dangerous.

Sounds like things are mostly smooth, and lots of good communication going on-- good deal!