If he texts me tonight to ask if he can come home and it is late, how can I nicely say no and make him curious?? "Its late, maybe tomorrow would be better"......
Or, "Its late, we have plans in the morning so its prob best if you dont".....
What I hate the absolute most is as soon as I tell him no about something, he turns it all about the baby. And he will IMMEDIATELY say things like "Okay then I want her tomorrow".........Like all of a sudden its a custody thing or something and I cannot handle that. It makes me EXTREMELY upset, and I have told him this, and he promises to not do it, and then ALWAYS does. And then he starts talking about divorce and all this stuff. Its like the MINUTE I say what he doesnt want to hear, he goes for the jugular, which in my case is our daughter, and he will say he wants her for the day or whatever, as if me not letting him come home at 2am is me keeping her from him. Its very unfair. And I could just not answer his text, but last time I did that, bc I was ASLEEP, he didnt come home at all and then came home at 8:30 the next morning and was like "well you didnt answer my text so I figured I shouldnt come and the dog bark and all that".
I feel so lost bc I dont want to do things that make him angry bc I want him to think of me in a positive way right now, I want to be able to be upbeat like the 37 rules from Sandi, and in order to stick to that I have to kind of let him do whatever the hell he wants to do right now without letting him know it pisses me off.
I have read so much on here, success stories, etc and the women usually say that they never told their husband to leave, they told him if he wanted to he could, and a lot of the times he doesnt. I dont want to force him to leave and be the reason we lose touch with "us". We did separate where he lived out of the house for about a month or 2, and then he said he wanted to start staying the night occasionally to help with the baby, and then it slowly turned into him staying. Then I kicked him out again, then he came back, then again, then back, it has been a cycle. This is the first time I have felt like im actually changing the game, but then this past week he has just been at the bar every single day and im wondering if im being tested or if im being walked all over and he is seeing someone else. I am letting him go, I am letting him have his life, I am letting the small amount of time we do see eachother be upbeat, airy, no pressure, I leave the room first and go to bed, I am sparse with words, I am not doing things for him but I am being considerate of him. I am trying VERY VERY hard to do the 180 for myself and also show him consistency in who I am and that im continuing to live my life. IM hoping to give that time and see where it goes and if in a few weeks he is continuing to live this way, I will have no choice but to ask him to get his own place and we will discuss a schedule for the baby. And I know in doing that I risk so much, but I cant live like this forever thats for sure.
When he had the affair and decided he didnt love me anymore, it seemed like he was blaming me for a lot of things. And then he would feel really guilty about that and become a mess. For a while he was TRULY an absolute mess, and I didnt know why because I didnt know about the affair. I just knew he told me he didnt love me anymore and then a month later he came home hysterically crying that he was scared he was making a mistake and he didnt want to give up yet bc he didnt know, and he was just such a mess. And then 2 months later I found out about OW, and you guys know the rest. I feel like in his mind, he has painted me as the bad guy in a way. And I dont even know if he realizes he has done that, but his perception of me changed drastically overnight, and all of a sudden I couldnt even BELIEVE the things he was saying to me. It was shocking. And even still sometimes if we argue I cannot believe the audacity he has to say certain things to me, after he had a complete affair while I was pregnant and then after I had our child. I mean, he has some nerve with a lot of the things he has said, and its like hes just in a total fog of what has occurred. But he has put so much blame on me for things I think he is battling inside of him, one being a guilty conscious.
So right now in my mind I keep thinking if I can stay consistent in this, not try to control ANYTHING he does. Let him live EXACTLY how he wants to live right now, do whatever he wants, wont he eventually have to face the fact that im not the cause of the problems he has been feeling? Wont he see me GAL and continuing to "be ok" (fake it till I make it) and see that he is going to lose me, when here I am being a woman no man would want to lose? I want to let the OW be the stressor for once, let me be the good guy, the cool one, the one who isnt on his ass and is just letting him live.
And im def not saying this is forever, bc of course it couldnt be, Like I said before, I will have to grow a pair and eventually say to him, nicely, hey listen, it will prob be best for both of us at this point if you get your own place. The way you are living isnt really what I want in a H and as much as I want our M, I am not willing to live like this anymore. So we will need to make a schedule for you to see the baby and go from there............I do know that will come if he doesnt start to show any changes, and I dread it so much. But for now I just want to see possibly where this goes. I am HOPING that he will see im not the cause of his issues, he has to take responsibility. Even in work he would be all stressed out and tell me about it and be like "ya theres just a lot going on at home, and at work, I can only take so much", and feel bad for himself. Well, now the home issues are no longer being played out every single day with tension and fighting. For once theres no tension between us. And I just hope he can see that clearly and maybe start to take responsibility for his actions.
but then again if he has met OW then his needs will continue being met elsewhere and ill continue being disrespected. This is very hard
Kech, take a step back and just try to digest every thing you've been reading today. I know you're in a big hurry here as we all were in it sitches. But take a moment to breathe.
One of the things we've tried to tell you is that you're dealing with a wayward husband here, not just a walkaway. AS and I both told you that your sitch calls for a tough love. I can tell you're hesitant to do that. You are using words like "nicely". You are saying thinks like "I don't want to kick him out and have him forget about us." "I don't want to make him angry."
In the meantime he is living it up and doing whatever he wants.
You can't nice him back. It's a common mistake those that are dealing with waywards make. Waywards are the epitome of selfishness. They will take and take. And as long as you keep giving they will take.
You can stay on the path you're in until he solidifies his plan A. Or you can refuse to sit around and wait and be his plan B. That's what your are right now, his fallback. His safety net.
Time to remove the safety net.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Thanks for that feedback. I just dont want to assume there is OW without knowing, and then make decisions based on that assumption, when he could be feeling right now a little better about us and is testing me by going out so much, or is that absolutely ridiculous to even think?
He came home at 11:30 last night. I am sure tonight he will stay out later. I really havent been TOO bothered by all the going out because im praying it is some sort of a phase he is going through. Asking him to leave is just going to start this cylce over again and weve been there so many times. The OW he was originally seeing lived out of town, and he would conveniently have to work out of town pretty frequently in recent months, so I always assumed he was seeing her. But now he hasnt left to go out of town in a month, which makes me think he is no longer speaking to her.
That in no way means he hasnt met someone else, I just dont know. I think I feel highly emotional this week and I dont want to let my emotions get the best of me and make a rash decision of telling him to leave when I dont know if thats the route I want to take right now. Im going to marinate over it for about a week and see how I feel a week from now. In the meantime, any suggestions on things I can do in the coming week to show I am GAL. Any detachment suggestions? things I can do to try to make myself feel better? I have been SO focused on him the last week, it is driving me absolutely insane.
I know people want what they cant have, I want him to know right now he cannot have me when he is choosing to live his life this way. But I cant show him he cant have me if he isnt even trying to spend time with me. How do you show someone youre making changes, getting a life, moving on without them, when theyre rarely around to see and never ask you anything?
I went out today and bought myself new bedding for the bedroom, I also decided on a whim to paint the bathroom vanity and redo the bathroom. These are things I always used to do and have always loved doing but havent really been in the mindset to do in the last year with all of this happening and having a baby.
Having projects helps me feel excited, gives me motivation to do things. He was supposed to help me pick up porch furniture last weekend and he didnt. He brought it up during the week saying "I totally forgot about the porch furniture, I need to do that for you", and I didnt make it a big deal. But I think im just going to handle it myself. Borrow my brothers truck and pick it up myself. He will come home and see it here and realize I did it on my own.
When he moved out the first time, I started mowing our lawn because he wasnt around to do it. He completely left everything for me to handle, and he couldnt have cared less. When he became a mess one time he told me he was sorry for not handling the house things and would do it all from now on. Its funny to see how quickly everything goes in and out the window based on how hes feeling. I know he wants to help and he wants to be the man of the house for me and our daughter, but it isnt a priority clearly. So maybe by me just starting to do it for myself, over time he will start to take notice.
One of his original complaints was that he felt like I didnt need him, so over the last year I have really worked on myself to make him feel needed and really appreciate all the things he has always done for the house and for us. Yet now hes not really doing much of anything and I am still allowing him to feel like he is. I have a lot to work on, I just dont know how to exercise it all. I know tough love has to happen but im also SOO over him turning me into the bad guy. I want to TRULY be indifferent to his actions, I hope I can get there
You can't nice him back. It's a common mistake those that are dealing with waywards make. Waywards are the epitome of selfishness. They will take and take. And as long as you keep giving they will take.
You can stay on the path you're in until he solidifies his plan A. Or you can refuse to sit around and wait and be his plan B. That's what your are right now, his fallback. His safety net.
Time to remove the safety net.
Steve85,
How do I remove the safety net in a productive way so that he knows I am serious? Everytime I make a move, he turns it somehow and makes me the bad guy. He makes things about the baby, he turns everything around and everything becomes so unpleasant. I dont want that. I want to successfully remove his safety net but in a calm way so that he can really see he is losing me. And honestly at this point, I am beginning to think he does not care.
He came home at 11pm last night, I was asleep. We spent some time this morning together with the baby and I said very little. I walked away and went into my bedroom and started to cry to myself, bc I feel so upset with this. I knew he was getting ready to go to work, he never works on Sundays. I cant believe how much of an effort he is making to be away from the house all of a sudden. It is SO upsetting. He saw me crying and I tried to hide my face, but he said nothing and said "i gotta go" and left and I havent heard from him since.
Im shocked at how little he cares about me anymore. It feels like in just the last week alone he has detached so much from me, stopped texting, stopped trying to communicate at all. Its very strange.
Him making you the "bad guy" is about him feeling better. If you're the bad guy then it's not his fault. So what does this mean for you? Well, one you're still not detached yet. And two, remember:
"Believe nothing they say and only half of what they do".
You can't control him becoming unpleasant, so you don't worry about that and instead become productive somewhere in your life.
If he doesn't care that he is losing you, there is nothing you can do about that.
Him making an effort to get out of the house is him detaching. You even noted later in your post that he is detaching from you. Keep chasing and he will keep running. You worrying about it is unproductive because you can't control him. I know it hurts too. My WW is gone 6 or 7 nights a week. I don't even pay attention anymore. It's more peaceful here without her.
Don't let him see you cry, let him see you happy and GAL and being the best you. That will be your best chance for any future R with him.
H 34 W 29 BD 3/12/18 Divorce Busted Spring 19
It is not things that bother us, but the stories we tell ourselves about things.
kech, Have you ever heard of NGS (Nice Guy Syndrome)? You may want to look into it. While it is mostly a guy thing, I am hearing of more and more women also suffering from it. Your "not wanting to be the bad guy" thing is what raised the red flag.
Let's delve into that shall we?
So if I go back and read your sitch, I read a lot of stuff that makes your H seem like a pretty rotten person. Bailed on you at 5 months old. Manipulates you anytime start to put your foot down. Continues to run back to OW. Not to mention being pretty apathetic to how this is all affecting you and your family.
Yet you feel like the bad guy?! Really? Do you see how backwards that is?
Kicking him out. Setting boundaries. Standing up for yourself and your family. NONE OF THAT MAKES YOU A BAD GUY. And if he tries to make you feel that way remember the above and who the REAL bad guy is.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
