I have found "The Dance of Anger" and Harriet Lerner's "The Dance of ..." books to be useful in understanding relationship cycles. I have an h in MLC and like you, the lying is what gets to me the most. Actions do speak a lot louder than words.
Quote: He follows me around wanting to have a R talk
Eeeeeeewwwww. #2 used to follow me everywhere, piglet. Is H not respecting your need to let the R discussions rest for a month? Maybe you're scaring him with your newfound resilience.
Don't accept responsibility for his suicidal ideation. My H yelled at me during an argument, "if I commit suicide it will be all your fault." I told him his actions were his responsibility. IMO, those types of comments are manipulation through guilt, not suicide threats.
Muddy - love your music!
married 6 years, mom of 2 struggling to make a strong family
No, he isn't respecting my need to put off R talks, and most likely won't. Because, as you said, my resilience scares him.
PM, and Sikan,
What's working for you guys? I'm having a hard time setting goals and it's confusing me. To be honest, H's lying is getting better. He's no longer lying about finances, and he tells me where he is every second of the day. Can you tell I've been reading DB again? We've made so much progress. I want to use the time-out to figure out what my more of the same behavior is, and break this cycle. I'm also a fixer, and DB says if we're fixers, to stop fixing things.
When I confront H on his lying he comes up with a long list of excuses as to why he's acted the way he has, and why on this or that occasion, he's reverted back to old habits. I'm doing the same thing.. reverting back to old habits. And Michele says to ask what we were doing when things were going well, and our S were more loving. Except.. does that more loving feeling lead to behavior that's good for the R. Like if he is feeling more loving towards me, he'll be more likely to share the truth with me?
Any expert Db-ers are you out there? When your H lies to you, or has lied to you - do you mentally tell yourself that one lie doesn't mean everything he's told you is a lie? And just tell them that you'd wish they'd told you the truth and you're disapointed? In our sitch.. if H tells me a lie, it calls everything into question and we're back to square one. Is most of the problem because I'm screwed up in how I'm looking at this? Like, if we have one bad day in two weeks.. I say the whole two weeks have been bad? One lie means that it's all a lie. Then my mind gets going and I tell myself that he can't really love me if he's lying to me. He must be here because I'm second choice. He must be here because he can't afford to get his own place. His actions don't support what my mind tells me. But, knowing the past, I'm so unsure. He lived with me for two years not feeling love for me.. pretending to be part of a happy family. Trying to get his feelings back he said..and now I'm so afraid that he's just pretending again, and I'm too stupid to notice. If he can pretend well enough for me to be clueless for two years, how will I ever know if he's heading down that road again?
I was getting to a pretty good place. I sent the book and letter to OW. Didnt question whether she got it and didn't call the person who gave it to her to confirm that H was telling the truth. I patiently waited for OW to respond as to whether she wanted to talk with us. BTW, H doesnt want to do this much, and I don't really, but the MC says it's important. In a way I think it will help, but when it comes to OW, I know closure is something I'll choose, and not get from H and OW. When I get angry, I think he should DO something to make this right, but he can't turn back time and how he's acted. Anyhow, OW said that she was thinking about it, but didn't really want to talk with us. Understandable. Then H decided and told me and the MC that he's just write a letter of his own to put this behind us. That was a couple of weeks ago, and he hasn't. So, I just have looked at this like he doesn't want to have that closure and shut that door completely. He won't go through with the MC advice, hasnt found another job. It all equals that he doesnt want to totally be out of contact with her. In my mind anyway. Then I started doubting whether she got the letter I wrote. Which leads to me questioning him, and led to me really wanting him out of that job, now.
When I act positively, H meets me there. When I act suspicious, he gets defensive. When I ask him to do something he doesnt want to do, or if he's struggling to do it, he lies to make me happy and shut me up. His lies always involve avoiding conflict, or painting a sitch to make it seem more positive than it is. He lies to hid his mistakes, and short comings.
If I stop asking him to leave his job and write that letter then he wont have to lie about it. If I stop questioning him in general, he won't have to supply me with a lie. If I look at his actions and dont listen to his words to determine where we are in our R, then I won't be disappointed when I find out the words were painting a better picture than what is reality. And, if I stop responding to every time I know he's manipulating me with words instead of actions, he won't have incentive to do that. H has said a lot of times that he did things to help himself to feel a certain way about me and our R. He has been using the act as if technique for years. If I don't dig up the untruths in his act as if, would the feelings follow the actions? Am I keeping him from benefiting from his actions by pointing out that they arent sincere? If that makes sense..lol. Like, if he isn't feeling particulary loving or close to me, he might initiating ML to get that closeness between us. If I find out that he did that, then I'm insulted because it wasn't genuine. Then I know he's capable of misleading me about his feelings and I don't like that. I'd rather not ML, than for it to be pretend.
Today he's at work and I'm not worried at all if he's talking to her. Not a bit.. I really don't worry about that much anymore, but still I want him to have a new job. I keep asking myself if it's just my way of trying to punish him for his R with her. If I'm not afraid he's talking to her most of the time.. if there are no signs that he is.. if the phone bills are clean and he comes straight home for work, then what's my prob? When things were better between us, I didn't push the issue of the job or mention OW at all, or the MC telling H that he has to apologize to her and get closure. I just left the issue alone. When I pick up the prob and try to force a resolution, H lies about where he is in the process and I get angry.
I really need this time out with H. I'm so confused and by acting out of confusion, I'm screwing things up majorly. I have a feeling that some of our probs revolve around me not letting go. My lack of trust is causing me to question everything. H is trying to reassure me, without much luck. My expectations are probably a boulder on his shoulders right now.
Same goals, detach and give it some time. I need time to heal because H can't heal my heart until I let him. I'm sure the days of peace with a big blow up every couple of weeks is scaring and confusing him. We think we're getting to a better place and zap.. something triggers me to take us back to the beginning and start all over.
As always, long and rambling for me. I have some serious work to do on myself mentally. If I'm capable of letting go and moving on for two weeks at a time, I have to find a way to make that permanent. I have to find a way to stop my thoughts from taking us back to square one every time there's a backslide. I have to find a way to control my fear that nothing will ever change and accept what does change, a little at a time, as progress in the right direction. I think I've been creating a self fullfilling profecy (sp?) here. It keeps me in a place where I can imagine being the WAW and then life will be better. I can just leave and my life will be perfect. We'll never get anywhere as long as I can imagine that.
Still stepping back and looking for progress and detaching. Detaching because what I'm doing is being my own worst enemy and letting my emotions and fears control our R. Stop fixing and be happy for awhile.
Piglet, you are doing so well. I love reading your posts. I think you have sort of a gift for focusing on what you need to do. Nobody knows better than I how hard it is to actually make your actions match your intentions all the time. There are deep running instincts and fears that try to sabotage the good work we believe we need to do. But to keep coming back to the focus and evaluating everything calmly, and especially to be able to fall off the horse and jump back on without being overly self-critical, seems like the biggest key to this whole deal. You've really got that right now and it's inspirational to see.
As for the lying, I think dealing with one lie is bad enough. You don't need to expand it to being two whole weeks worth of lies. But I don't think your issue is really with the lies on an individual basis; you want the pattern of lying to stop. That's completely understandable. I don't have any great advice for you there. You need to have a boundary that he understands and that you can calmly enforce.
Good luck, you're doing great!
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
BB, Thanks so much for stopping by and encouraging me! You are one of my DB heros.. you are handling yourself so well. I hope I can someday maintain the focus that you do on a day to day basis and not let my chain get yanked so much.
I wish I could come up with a good way to deflect H's comments and reactions. When I'm doing a good job detaching and DB-ing, Im faced with him constantly asking if I'm all right, what's wrong?? If I quit approaching him to talk, I'm being distant. If I just shut up and act as if.. I'm stewing. If we aren't in a constant state of me expressing how I feel, what needs to be done, etc, he follows me around like a puppy..grrrr!
S19 came home from college for the weekend. He marched in the game Sat, so he came in yest AM. Had a great time with him and his GF.. me and H managed to get through the day without any major discussions. Although he did make a show of getting on the computer and drafting a letter to OW - just to make me happy. Ticked me off because he knew he was putting me on the spot, but I said, "do whatever you feel is right, I'm fine and really don't feel a need to tell you how to get closure with her anymore, it's just causing probs between us, so you handle it, OK"
Before bed he said he'd try to get off work early to spend some time with S19 before he leaves, and I told him that would be nice. I had planned to get all the kids together and go over to the natural bridge to take some black and white photos. We have some from when S19 and D11 were little and they are precious. I'd also bought stuff so we could grill out for dinner after H got off work. Anyway, H called this morning and said he'd be home by 11:30. I decided to not do the pics.. it's a long way out there, and S19's GF wanted us to come for BBQ at 2:OO anyway. So, H would be home in time for us to grill some stuff to take and we'd just do that instead of the pics and cooking here. Then H called at 11:30 and said, he was just leaving work. Ugh.. an hour home, not really time to cook, and I would've had plenty of time to get the pics with the kids if I hadn't waited on him. I said OK. Got to thinking about it and then thought "why do I let everyone else's plans change mine at a minute's notice?" So I switched gears. S19 really wanted the pics too, so I told him that we'd just do the pics in the park 5 mins from here, we'd be done in time for him to go to his GF's and the boys could nap before we grilled at home. Called H back and told him the new plans. He said he'd call me back. He did, and when I got on the phone he said "why are you mad at me?!" I said "excuse me, did I say Im mad?, because I'm not really" "I just really want to take pics while all the kids are here, decided not to because you were going to be home and we'd be gone taking pics.. then I re-thought it and realized that we can go closer, you can go to, and we'll just cook here as planned" Went to pick up film.. H questioned me all the way through about what's wrong with me today. I think he was waiting for me to say something because he didnt come home the time he was expected. I didn't. I just said "You know what H? I'm not mad. I don't know where we're going right now. You have some work to do.. I have some work to do. You're not doing what the MC says right now, not doing your homework, not really doing much towards us getting out of this cycle and I've decided to take a break too. There's no point in me trying to work on us, if you don't feel like doing it right now. So, you figure it out.. let me know and we'll go from there. Until I actually see you taking action to follow through on what we work on in MC, or your actions back up your words, I'm not even going to complain about it. I can only do my part to help our M, and I can't force you to do yours, or do it for you. Meanwhile, I really just want to work on myself and get along until we can re-build our M. For now, it's just on hold until you decide what you want. When your actions tell me you want a M, we'll work on it, but I'm tired of beating my head against a wall. Of course, he answered with a bunch of promises.. but I let them bounce off and resisted the urge to tell him how he can say that, but doesn't do it.
He just came in and asked me where I put his MC book..lol. It's been so long since he's looked at it, he can't remember where he put it.
Think I'll just chill out and bake S19 some cookies to take back to school and listen to some tunes while H grills.
I"M NOT GETTING INTO AN R DISCUSSION TONIGHT WITH HIM BEFORE BEDTIME!!! No way. Not today. I'm gonna ask him to schedule a conference table (which is what we're supposed to do.. we're not supposed to be randomly discussing our probs the way we do) In fact, Im going to stick to that rule.. no R discussions unless it's a previously made appt for a conference table as we agreed on in MC. If I can keep him from dragging me into the discussions, I can stay on track with my DBing I think.
Hi Piglet... I love reading your posts and really get a lot out of them - you seem to be doing so well. I'm curious about your H following you around like a puppy to have R talks... was this always the dynamic? Has he always been more eager to talk than you ? Or has this changed? I'd love H to be interested enough to follow me around, and am wondering if this is a change, than what you attribute the change to?
And I can see why it would be incredibly irritating.
I know what you mean about being afraid to fall back into old patterns. I'm also struggling with the lying issue. Does my not addressing it help to move things forward or keep things where they are now, forever?
I had a pretty big realization today while at work. Check out my thread for the details. It's still kind of overwhelming to me but I'm hoping that it will give me the patience to work on myself and my sitch at a much slower pace than I had been taking.
I think that while it may seem like our worst enemy, time is our ally in all of our sitches. This is going to take time. I have to constantly remind myself that.
I had a good weekend with H, while we were out of town but I felt a surge of paranoia as I watched H check out a woman on the beach. Pretty harmless but it confirmed for me that these current problems I have with H will become permanent ones if I don't work on the core issues and not just fixate on the surface details. My H's lying about OW does not mean that H and she will run off and have a life together, therefore I can't expend much energy on obsessing about her or trying to control each time my H lies. It does mean that I will need to address the issue of lying in our sitch.
I get concerned, like you, that H isn't doing his fair share. I'm not sure how to handle that myself.
Hi Anna.. I've gotten a lot from your posts too.. thanks! Hmm... H follows me around for an R talk because he is afraid. He absolutely hates for me to be upset, or angry at him, and if I ever say that I'm not sure about us.. or if Im not reassuring him of my love, he feels insecure. It's probably the biggest reason for his dishonesty - he is afraid right now, very soon after the bomb, that I'm going to give up on him. He said one of the biggest reasons for the EA and one night stand was because he was pretrified of spending the rest of his life alone.
He hasn't always been this way. He used to HATE R talks. Maybe it's because Im having doubts about us and his reaction is typical of a LBS. He sees me slipping away and is telling me how good things will be, how much he loves me, pleading, etc so that I won't reject him.
Sorry if that doesnt help much. When I was DB-ing and he was not at home, the number one thing I did to get him to pursue, was to have a friend ring my cell when I was with him. I'd hit ignore and he'd ask who it was.. I'd say "oh, it's nothing important" Then as he or I left, I made sure to get right on that phone while I was still in view to supposedly call back the person who wasnt important. I also stopped acting like I cared if he came back. Made him think.
It's still kind of overwhelming to me but I'm hoping that it will give me the patience to work on myself and my sitch at a much slower pace than I had been taking.
Aha! Thanks for this sentence!
I had a good weekend with H, while we were out of town but I felt a surge of paranoia as I watched H check out a woman on the beach. Pretty harmless but it confirmed for me that these current problems I have with H will become permanent ones if I don't work on the core issues and not just fixate on the surface details. My H's lying about OW does not mean that H and she will run off and have a life together, therefore I can't expend much energy on obsessing about her or trying to control each time my H lies. It does mean that I will need to address the issue of lying in our sitch.
How to address the lying? I had a moment Sat at D11s game when I saw H checking out another W. And then I checked him to see if he was checking other W. Ughhh! I hated that feeling.. that suspicion as if he was going to walk over and proposition on of them on the spot. But more just that I let his interest in how someone else looks impact my day like that and the enjoyment of watching my D cheer. It sucks. I let it happen. It's gotta stop.
I get concerned, like you, that H isn't doing his fair share. I'm not sure how to handle that myself.
My H doesn't do his fair share. Why would he? When I've got things so under control for him..ha!
We had a long talk yesterday about a time out. A calm talk for a change. And he admitted that he was trying to get me to make a decision about his job so that he wouldnt have to take the "blame" for still working with OW. I expressed how the past has been and how I think it would have played out. he would have worked there.. and in six months when he had to quit, would have sworn that he told me the 30 mile/min rule and about re-locating. Then even that, would be my decision and my responsibility. He agreed that is pretty much what would have happened. I asked him why he would do that to me? And he said, "because I hate to make you unhappy, and I feel so much pressure to find another job. Pressure from you, but mostly pressure from myself because I just want us to move on and we can't as long as I work with her"
He went to the library for me and picked up "The Dance of Anger", and "Co-Dependent No More". He asked why I needed the co-dependency book and said it didn't sound like me from the description on the back of the book. I read a few chapters last night before going to bed (H on the couch ) I was stunned. It just confirms what I already know. That I'm letting my H's irresponsibility control my life. I'm trying to control him. I resent that.. I'm angry, and Im tired. I feel much more at peace today knowing and admitting that I have a problem, and that it's solvable. That I'm not nuts and that our relationship is unbalanced and unhealthy.
I've told H that I don't know what I want. That I love him and I care for him and that I'd like to work out our problems, but that I can't do his part of the work. I told him that I cannot and will not be with someone who is constantly dishonest with me, and who wont/cant take responsibility for their life. I've been living his life and mine for 18 years.. covering all the bases, and now I just wonder what my life would be like if I had put all that time and energy into me.. my kids.. into something that I could actually see bear fruit. So, right now, we are just working on ourselves.. or rather, Im working on myself and I'm hoping H will work on his issues too. I've asked him, if we can't at least make some progress by January, would he leave and let me go if I ask him too (when we've been separated he drives me NUTS calling me, and contacting me... basically controlling from afar) He agreed, and asked that we talk and try to work some stuff out between now and then.. that we're not giving up until Jan, and then just calling it quits. I said, OK, but right now, I need a little space to think.
Now, for myself, Im working on thought stopping...worrying, wondering about him during the day. My goal is to not ask about OW, and to not snoop the phone records, or email to see what he's up to. To stop worrying what he's doing and stop being anxious if I have a trigger that concerns me. I'm also not going to mention another job to him, or him getting closure with a letter or any other way with OW. This is his decision, and either way, the outcome won't change what's happened in the past. Basically, OW is off limits to me, and I'm refusing to go there again..she's his problem or not.. his choice.
Im going to let myself feel how I really feel about things without apologizing or making excuses, or venting those feelings on anyone else. Im tired.. I need rest. I need a hot bath. I want to laugh and play with my kids (the thought of just enjoying them when I havent had a peaceful moment in months makes me cry a little). I was thinking about my S2 and how sweet and innocent, precious he is and how I just want to surround myself with his beauty for an hour without thinking of the crap H has brought into my life the last year. me and my children deserve that. That is OUR reality. That is the life we choose.. the life we've built.. the life H abandoned. I hope he chooses to find his way back on his own and be the husband and father we need. If not, I know that I'll choose that life for me and as much as it will hurt my kids.. he has to choose what kind of father he'll be. I should not participate in his self destruction.. I take full responsibility for that, and that I CAN stop... until he feels the full effect of his actions, he'll never be truly responsible for them. Im tired of being a safety net.. hell, Im tired of jumping out of the plane AND being the net to break the fall. Im not saying I'm such a great person and he isn't.. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be him and to feel like he doesn't have control of his life. That he can't make me happy.. etc. But, it's his choice too if he really needs someone to be responsible for him, he'll move on and find someone to do it.. if not, he'll step up to the plate. I guess we'll find out!
Thanks for this sentence!
) I was stunned. It just confirms what I already know. That I'm letting my H's irresponsibility control my life. I'm trying to control him. I resent that.. I'm angry, and Im tired. I feel much more at peace today knowing and admitting that I have a problem, and that it's solvable. That I'm not nuts and that our relationship is unbalanced and unhealthy.