Just had sorta a revelation. I've been feeling bad this morning for not helping H and instead being critical of him. Well, I shouldnt be critical of him like that, but maybe yesterday wasn't so bad. I did do something.. I sat back and did nothing. Allowed H to have his moods and didnt confront him about how snippy he was with us.. I just kept up the positive communication and helped get us out of the house and to church as smoothly as possible. Then I allowed him to figure out what we needed last night to change the dynamics of our day. Instead of initiating an R discussion about how hard he makes the afternoons, I came in here and vented. Obviously that quiet time allowed him to re-group enough to decide he'd do something about how stressed we were. My passive H did something for our R without me asking him or telling him to do it! Yay H!!!! So, I just told him how much I appreciated that he was there for me last night and helped me to relax and get rid of my headache. I also asked if there's anything that I can do in the afternoons when he's stressing to relieve his burden. He said "no".. the boys were wild and Brooke was acting snotty. And you did help because you let me be close to you last night. Then he said.. it's only going to get better. The boys are getting older and wont be such handfulls forever. Dangit.. I don't have to fix everything. What am I gonna do with all this time on my hands?
I finally got to read your posts. Great job at dropping the rope with your H and letting him have his mood. I'm trying to be better at that and like you am starting to reach a point where I don't fear losing my R with H. If it happens, it happens. I can't spend all of my time fixing others and letting my own life fall apart.
Work has been absolutely horrible. I cannot deny the fact that I need to leave this place. I've been holding off for so long but I realized yesterday that I am not able to fully focus on changing my life for the better while I am in this situation.
I hope to have some time journalling this on my thread.
How is your weekend looking? I'm at a zen retreat for most of the weekend and then attending that wedding Saturday night. I saw OW walking downtown during lunch time. Thankfully she didn't see me. It was like a little mental preparation for me for this weekend.
My H just called and asked what times were my retreat this weekend. I automatically assumed that it is so he can hang out with OW. Obviously I don't know for sure and since I've stopped looking at her page, I won't. I too ahve to drop the rope and it sucks having to do it on something like this. Please remind me this is for the best! That I am doing this to reach larger, more important goals!
God, what a week!
Sounds like you are doing ok. I hope that is the case. Talk to you soon!
I did do something.. I sat back and did nothing. Allowed H to have his moods and didnt confront him about how snippy he was with us.. I just kept up the positive communication and helped get us out of the house and to church as smoothly as possible. Then I allowed him to figure out what we needed last night to change the dynamics of our day.
I really wanted to quote your entire post but that seemed to kind of defeat the purpose. And I mainly just wanted an opportunity to say Sheila, you rule like a big, slobberin' dawg.
Now that's pretty much the highest superlative I've got in my repertoire. There's only one more that can even compete with it. So if you and H continue to do this well I'm gonna have to just start making stuff up!
BTW I didn't get around to telling you at the time, but in my thread I loved how you described W and OM as having a "playmate relationship". That really crystallized it for me. Thanks.
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
And I mainly just wanted an opportunity to say Sheila, you rule like a big, slobberin' dawg. Awwww BB, you're such a sweet talker.. thanks!!!
BTW I didn't get around to telling you at the time, but in my thread I loved how you described W and OM as having a "playmate relationship". That really crystallized it for me. Thanks. If you find anything useful in my ramblings, then you're definately welcome! Every time I think of your sitch.. I just can't imagine your W being serious about the R with OM at all... more like he's an escape or an excuse. And I was gonna post a reply on your thread, but wanted to think it through first.. does it seem like she's comparing her R with OM to the R with you at all? Got the impression from the last post, but havent had time to go back and re-read. If she is.. oh boy.. wonder if she's at the "lesser of two evils" comparison. If she is.. you might make more progress, faster than you even want to. Almost like she knows being alone isnt an option, has taken advantage of your patience long enough, and getting sick of the battle anyway. Maybe her psyche is getting eager for life to return to normal? Speculation as usual from me. BUT, I did go through something like this when H and I divorced, and you got it - he was the lesser of two evils.. I knew I wouldnt be alone, but knew he had hung out there waiting long enough. It forced me to choose between the new life I was building (gosh that life seemed so exciting until I started living it!) and him. Sped up my willingness to work things through with him by months I'd say... the ending to the other R. Even though I ended it, I still wasnt ready to live on my own and raise my kids alone. That and I do love H.. I was fighting it with everything I had.
Thanks for visiting Stay tuned for the latest storm after the calm.. ugh
Well, I'm p*ssed off at H! Have calmed down some, but basically, I'm mad at him and not sure how to handle the sitch. A sitch we've been through a hundred times, and it's always the same. Here's the deal:
H has a checking account that his pay goes into. I have a separate account that mine goes into. We pay the bills out of my checking. Have tried to let H do this in the past, but it doesnt work well (late bills, etc). When H gets paid, he takes a set amount of money and deposits it into my checking account. Now, in the past (near past), H has gotten into trouble with his checking account. Writing checks, cashing them, depositing the money back into his account, etc.. floating checks between paydays. Major major problems with keeping this straight for him. When I asked him to leave in Mar, it was because he wrote a check (nice sum of $) on my account to cover some bounced checks on his. I was livid.. had been through this before. He didn't come to me and ask me for help, he just wrote the check and let me find out when it cleared the bank.... giving no thought to what bills I had paid, my balance, etc. He assumes I can cover it I think, but then the check register for my account is on the computer and what I spend is public knowledge between me and H. Not the other way around though. As a result of all of this, he now has to pay the local police department money every month as restitution to a place that he bounced a couple K of checks to. Dont ask me what he spends it on.
I've put that expense as a household bill so it gets paid. (even though I think he should have to work a partime job to pay it!). Anyway, now he's taking his whole check and depositing it into my accoung and he's helping pay the bills. I've asked him to not write out my checks for his spending money, sign my name to my checks.. especially to the place that he bounced all those checks he wrote for cash. I've asked him to either leave enough in his account (he decides the amount) to cover his expenses and manage it, or use my ATM card so that I can see daily what he's doing and not have a bunch of checks out there that I don't know about. He has a prob with this because the ATM at his work isnt on my bank and there are ATM charges when he withdraws. I dont like this and asked him to go to my bank and withdraw money if he has to.. go the night before he needs it, ask me to do it, whatever, but I dont like paying $22.50 to get $20.00 out of the bank.
Well, he wrote a check a few weeks ago and I wasn't happy. I nicely explained to him again how I feel about him cashing my checks and asked him not to do it. Again I asked him to keep enough in his account for his expenses, but DONT write my checks. Use the card at my bank so I can keep current but dont write my checks. I consider it a violation of my rights when he does that. I HATE IT!!!
What do you know.. today, three checks he wrote cleared on my account. Now, it's not that I think he's spending un-necessarily.. I dont know. But it is that he's violated a personal boundary that I clearly set. Now I'm not sure what to do. Put that boundary in place before I decided what I'd do if it wasnt respected. I have half a mind to do things the opposite. Let him get checks on his account, pay all the bills out of it, and then keep just my spending money back and tear up all of my checks so he can't write them. Dump the whole thing in his lap. But am not sure. I'm afraid he's screw the finances up so bad that I'd regret that decision.
Any suggestions? This prob has been around forever between us. It's driving me nuts. He says he'll never do it again, but I know he will. Talking about it hasnt helped.. being angry hasnt helped.. I dont know what to do.. I can't make him change this behavior, but I don't know how to deal with it either. Why wont he keep his spending money in his account? Probably because he always overspends and he knows there's enough in mine to cover it. In the past he's also taken my checks and written them when he overspent his account. He did that when he wasnt living with us and wasnt giving me a penny of support for the kids. I was supporting us, and he was taking from his own kids. sad
Anyway, I've let him walk all over me like this and it's time to stop and make some changes. How can I enforce my boundary.. what's a reasonable response to the sitch?
...today, three checks he wrote cleared on my account.
Is there a reasonable way you can prevent him from having access to your checks? And thereby remove the temptation?
Barring that, since your problem is less with the money being spent and more about being surprised by it, would he agree (and follow through) with the idea of leaving a sticky note by your computer listing the check amounts on the day he writes them?
Now for the more complicated and speculative part...
Obviously he'd rather face your anger over his writing of the checks than whatever consequence he'd get for not writing the checks in the first place. Maybe it's only because he's getting what he wants with the check now and he doesn't have to deal with your anger until later. Maybe he categorizes your anger as unjustified and he can easily dismiss it. Perhaps not a whole lot you can do in the short term if either of those are the case.
But if he's writing the checks to cover his butt financially then maybe he's scared of looking like a man who can't handle money. He'd rather deal with that perception in private with you than publicly. If that's the case can you get into a discussion with him about it and validate his feelings until he comes up with his own solution?
BTW, I don't blame you a bit for being p*ssed off!
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
Is there a reasonable way you can prevent him from having access to your checks? And thereby remove the temptation? I started hiding them again last year when he went on his binge of irresponsibility. He came into the house on a few occasions when he wasn't living here and took them right out of my purse when he couldn't find them elsewhere! I finally had to call the place that was cashing them and tell them not to accept them anymore. So, that worked until he found somewhere else that will cash them. The same place that he bounced MUCHO $ worth of checks on his personal account. They know my checks are good, so they take them. I had them hidden even after he stopped the irrational check writing and moved back home, but it wasn't practical. If he had to take the kids to the Dr, or something it meant writing a check, so I eased up on that.
leaving a sticky note by your computer listing the check amounts on the day he writes them? This is one of the things that ticks me off so much. He's been helping balance the account on the computer for the last month. It's my account, but it's our household account. So, why not put them in when he's doing that? Because like you said, he can deal with my anger later. He's actually said that. We seriously need a joint account where we both put money for household bills and each of us keeps our own money separate. For me, that would be heaven... for him, it would mean being responsible for his personal expenses. He'd rather put it in my account, because if he runs over, he can just use my spending money.. no big deal. And, if I pull my money out, it's my fault if a check isnt covered because my name is on the account.
Maybe he categorizes your anger as unjustified and he can easily dismiss it. Perhaps not a whole lot you can do in the short term if either of those are the case. Oh yeah, you got it. He uses the word "just" a lot when he's explaining way my feelings about this issue. "I JUST wrote a check instead of using the ATM card. I know you don't like it, but at least I'm not out there writing checks for hundreds of dollars like I used to!" And, for my part of the problem, this is a hot topic anyway. Just this one issue opens up a whole can of worms with me. Not fair is it? And, it's something that I would imagine would be hard for a man to take. When we were first married, I worked so that he could go to school and get his degree in nursing. We moved here to his hometown after he got out of the Army, and my job with the Govt moved with me. Made sense at the time. Then, the plan was for me to return work part time and get my degree. He didn't follow through with that (and was cheating on me and not going to class!). Then he went from dead end job to dead end job. Me quitting was never an option because my job was our security for years. Going to school at night wasn't an option for me because H worked nights most of the time, and I didn't want to be away from our son. Then he got into a career that was stable and he moved up. I moved up.. have a good career that I enjoy now and too much invested to do anything else. I guess I resent that I never had the chance to do something different. I feel like I let him corner me into my career because the only other option was to not provide for our kids. So here's the can of worms. I'm ALWAYS the responsible one. I don't even spend over $50 out of MY account without discussing it with him first because he contributes money towards it. By and far, I've always made more money. I've struggled worrying that I might be trying to control it as MY money, but really, I dont think I do that. He gets to decide how much he contributes to our household expenses and I've always made ends meet with it. Most of the time that means he has more to blow than me and the kids. Even after his financial disaster this spring, I helped him pay off the debts he accumulated. Gosh, I'm turning myself into a victim/rescuer here. I just don't know what the process is to stop that. Close my account? Open one that he can't have access too? Make our contributions 50/50 no matter what we make and adjust our expenses to live within that? I'm so entangled in this that I don't even know what is reasonable for me to do and what would be unreasonable. Everything I suggest brings resistence from him.. he wants to maintain the way it is. I'd think he'd want to be free of me b*tching about this... but the payoff must be worth it.
he's scared of looking like a man who can't handle money We've determined that this is the case. He really can't handle money.. well, at least up until today There's always hope.
He said we need to sit down and discuss finances and find a solution (we were supposed to do a conference table on the subject yesterday, but didnt). He said we need a joint account that we both contribute to.. I've suggested this, and it wasn't an option then, but maybe it could work now. Not sure if that is a solution, or just his way of getting me to hush about it until it happens again.
BTW, I don't blame you a bit for being p*ssed off! Thanks for the support Bud. It helps to know I'm not completely out there with this. He has an easy time convincing me that I'm being unreasonable. But I'd NEVER touch H's account without his permission. Me and S19 have access to each other's bank accounts and have never had a problem. It's a matter of mutual respect. If it was just a matter of "hey, I needed this and wrote a check", I'd understand. But it isn't. It's sneaky. And if he's in a bind, he doesn't mention it. Ego maybe.. but it's not a secret that he has a hard time with money. It's a known. It was known when we reconciled after the D. I accepted that about him and didn't bring it up. For those few years, he didn't write checks on my account, or if he did, he was up front about it. It becomes such a big deal when he hides it.. lies about it..brushes it off and doesnt give me the respect of knowing what's going on in my account.
Thanks for listening.. as always.. you're a prince! Now I guess I wait to see if we open the joint account, or if I have to proceed differently.
Guess it's time to start that DBing holiday! If I get on here for the next two weeks (barring a major bomb), my goal is for it to be to journal what I'm doing for myself. What I'm accomplishing towards taking control of MY life back, and dropping the rope..detaching from allowing H to drag my life off course. I'll be kind, loving, caring and respectful to him. If I feel like spending couple time with him - I will. If I feel like ML with him - I will. I'm going to do what I feel like doing.. the things that take my life the direction I want it to go, without intentionally doing things that will step on his toes. I might be saying that I'm going to genuinely DB and quit worrying about H and our R for two weeks. See how that works.. stop focusing on fixing the probs and fix me. I HAVE made myself a victim in this R. I deny myself things that I truly enjoy in order to spend my time focusing on "us". Us has had plenty of time in the last 18 years. For two weeks Im going to give Sheila some attention. Gonna spend the money to get my nails done professionally and not worry about what expense of H's I should be covering instead. Gonna stop on the way home from work and run errands and let him be with the kids instead of jamming my Sat morning full so that I'm free for him every evening. Gonna spend some time with friends I've neglected because my M is so much more important right now. I'm going to the gym at lunch and if I miss his calls, so be it. If I feel like packing his lunch and making his coffee so that he doesnt have too, I will. If I don't have time because Im engrossed in a book or catching up on TV that I never watch, well, too bad H. I'm going to stop this self sacrifice that leaves me feeling resentful and victimized.. and hopefully, I'll be able to detach enough to determine what I'm willing to give because I WANT to, not because I HAVE to for fear of the consequences, because of guilt.. because I want credit.. because I need to feel like the responsible one. Being responsible for me and my kids is enough of a burden for awhile! and hopefully, I'll be able to look at H every day as a dear, precious person, and not that something that is sucking the life out of me every day. If I can accomplish that and still hear that sucking sound.. then I'm going to keep trying until at least I realize that everyone should have boundaries and not even my spouse should have unrestricted permission to control me in such a way that I stop living my life for me, and live my life as a mere reaction to what he's doing.
AHHHHH.. feels good. Let's see if I can actually do it!
Okay, I've really gotta beg your indulgence for this one. I'm not usually much of one to worry a whole lot about thread hijacking, except to mildly chastise those who apologize for it on my thread. But this is gonna be way over the line. I'm gonna do it anyway because:
I feel very whiny and self-pitying about it and I'm sure the poor folks who follow my thread already feel more sorry for me than they need to.
I sorta feel like I'm revealing information told to me in confidence. But I feel compelled to get this out there. And if W comes checking up on me at some future date on this website she'll find my thread without much difficulty, but it would take a great deal of patience to follow me around through everybody else's threads. So I should be a little safer here.
You have a unique perspective that might be pretty valuable in looking at this (at least some of it).
Your post left the door a little open. I'm pretty sure you'll see the error of your ways so this will be my only shot!
All right, here goes. You read my post yesterday when I talked about how the Om wasn't nearly as squared away as I originally thought. Here's some details. I'll skip as much as I can. This all came out yesterday. Om is in the Army. He has some secret job that is apparently dangerous and involves killing people directly (i.e. not with a tank). He's also supposedly getting out next month. But something went wrong on his last mission. At some point afterwards he knocked back a few cold ones then went and told off some "prima donnas". Of which at least one was somewhere above him in his chain of command because he's now lost his security clearance and isn't allowed in the building where he works.
Remember her two peas in a pod comment? She was saying that the two of them both like to create their own dramas.
And <sigh> this from today. She's downstairs picking up her stuff and putting things away. She brings up a couple of Exacto knives and a pack of extra blades. She asks me to put them away. I take them and don't think anything of it because I'm not too bright. Then she says with half a smile, "Put them where I don't know where they are."
Now I get the whole neglected-wife-in-a-loveless-marriage-falls-for-noble-warrior-high-school-flame thing. But (not a rhetorical question here) is there any way this R is anything other than a train wreck? Is there any way she comes out of this better than when she went in? Seriously...if you can think of a way I'd love to know. Because I'm finding myself getting sucked back into "have to be there for her when she falls so nothing really bad happens" mode. And I think it was better when I was in "not responsible for her health" mode.
You asked if I thought she was comparing Rs. I'm 95% confident she isn't. She still sees us as completely done. But as I was typing this she started talking about her childhood abuse issues and talking about how she needs to figure out how to work through all her anger, etc. She had spilled watermelon juice on her pj pants. So she's up here in a TShirt and underwear. She was pretty bold about it at first but eventually apologized for it and put a blanket on her lap. The point I'm trying to make is she seems awfully comfortable with me for as much as she holds against me. I don't get it. Maybe I'm not supposed to?
Okay, I feel better just having typed it. So if you don't have much to say I don't blame you and it's alright. But if you do have any input, no matter how speculative, I'm interested in hearing it. I hate the phrase "sorry for the hijack" but it's definitely appropriate here.
(Forgot to say this the first time...) I really felt the need to get this out there so I could move past it and be positive. So thanks!
Last edited by Burgbud; 09/24/0502:50 AM.
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
Stay tuned for the latest storm after the calm.. ugh
sad
There's always hope.