Taking it Too Far with More Issues?
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| Wed, 11-17-2004 - 2:54pm |
DH is going to individual counseling now for the "abuse". He used to admit all the time he had a problem and knew it, but now he is behaving as he's only doing this bc its the only way to keep me. It seems that out of nowhere his attitude changed severely. He went from admitting, confronting and willing to address. Now he skips the first two and is only "addressing". make sense?
I dont know what to make of it. He is really trying but comments are sending me clues that he should focus not only on his anger/mood problems... but his ATTITUDE as well, which comes with several sub-categories.
Attitude mainly being his view/perception about women and relationships. I have a feeling that his frustration comes from the attitude which clashes with my ideals. things like:
If he doesnt get HIS way it means I'm forcing him to change, when in fact- I call it marital compromise. So if i have an opinion different from his or want to disagree on something- he gets mad and insists im making him change "who he is". ie; he likes to read FHM and Blender etc and I think those mags are infiltrated with horrible pictures and views of women. We agreed he'd keep them out of my sight. Good compromise. But to him... he was forced to change.
He knows how i feel about strip clubs but I trusted him anyway. However he proved to me at his bachelor party that he canNOT be trusted so he promised to never step foot in a strip club again. Which made me feel slightly better... but he calls that a "change".
I have celiac and crohn's disease which requires STRICT diet and likelihood of me passing it on to my child is 80%. I can deal with all his cookies and pastas and pizzas around the house now bc I am an adult and have trained myself to steer from those cravings. However, DH gets excited and mad at the thought of our home being COMPLETELY Celiac and Crohn's freindly bc i dont want to have to raise a child with the disease saying "no you cant eat that, thats bad for you" as he watches his Daddy scarf down a pizza... possibly leading him to "cheat" at school and become very ill. DH knows and understands the severity and seriousness but gets soooooo raving mad when i say we have to agree on that BEFORE we have kids, bc i will NOT allow Daddy to shove it in my childs face all the goodies and yummy-smelling foods he can eat but they cant and put them at risk for illness when they try it outside of the home. but DH calls it "forced change" and makes excuses as to why he SHOULD be able to eat what he wants. seriously... i live on frozen veggies, plain meat and skinless fruit, water and grape juice. Its hard enough for ME to smell pizzas and pastas and Jumbalaya etc etc, cant imagnie what my child would go through. DH can eat whatever he wants OUTSIDE of the home or away from our children. why is that such a horrible request? i have to give him credit though... he DOES take so much time in preparing MY meals and making sure I'm eating well and what I should so i have no doubt he'd do the same for our kids... but i just dont want him fixing our child and SCD meal and sitting down with him to eat HIS milk and cookies.
Since he is kind of a control freak and has a distorted view of how roles are played in marraiges i am concerned about the following in which he feels are NOT wrong:
caught him cyber-sexing another woman a year ago, to my knowl. it hasnt happened since, he watches porn about three times a week and I've found some of them disturbing etc and when confronted his excuse was that when you dowload porn for free you put in key words but could get something bad w/o knowing it, but he still WATCHED them anyway so i dunno. Then his exgf was sending him naughty emails saying she was going to kick my a$$ and talking about tying him up and getting rough, talking about her erotica novel and appearance in FHM and reminding him of her nude photos , THEN his bachelor party.... he got private dances and then dry humped these two women, touched them and let them talk dirty to him. I felt completely betrayed and he excused it off course as "all men do that, most do worse" and "i was drunk" and "you only have a problem with it bc you were raped 8 yrs ago and your ex faincee cheated on you with a stripper". etc the only things he does now is watch porn and ive accepted that i can get over it, no big deal, but asked him to just erase the history or document once he views so that I dont have to constantly be aware of it. I thought that was a compromise too but apparently its forcing him to change. whatever.
now- since he is going to counseling for his anger I'm wondering if the attitude should be addressed as well... or do those go hand-in-hand and the counselor will know that??
I'm wondering if/how i should approach DH about the porn. Normally I dont care and understand fantasy vs reality with men etc... but now im recognizing a controlling/poor attitude thing in women coming from him...especially towards me and I'm wondering if the porn will deflict his counseling/therapy? do you think the porn and what it depicts of women could be part of the problem if he continues to watch it? i know that since ive usually been okay with it, now is a sore time to ask him NOT to watch it bc it will only causae ANOTHER argument and he'll say "jesus christ what ELSE do you want me to change!!!".
i dunno. any comments? should i keep it to myself for now since we are at peace and doing well and just wait to discuss it with the counselor?

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I guess I have good news. Feels like it atleast.
Last night I got home before DH did. I got on the computer to check my yahoo account, click internet explorer and a side bar on the page popped up labeling a few folders "Tuesday"
Hi Sarah. I strictly lurk on this board, although I participated regularly about a year ago. I was in this wierd stage where I knew there was a problem with my H's behavior, wasn't sure if it was abuse or what. I did alot of poking around and for a while did believe he was abusive. I no longer do. I believe he has some issues that don't involve me personally. But that's besides the point.
I wanted to jump in here because some/most of my H's issues involved sex and porn. First, I wanted to direct to you the Families Damaged by Pornography message board on ivillage where you can share some of this stuff. I had the same experience with these wierd pop-ups on my computer that were traffic from the website he did visit, so I do understand that not all of the porn in your computer history is stuff that your H went out and looked for. Some of it shows up uninvited.
That being said, I had an intense objection to my H viewing porn whereas you don't. That eliminates one of the big problems. The issue my H and I had to get with was his respect for my feelings about pornography. He too used to read FHM and Maxim, and had them delivered to our house. I freaked out about this because 1) I'm an intelligent professional woman and I get sick to my stomach when faced with the level some women still feel its appropriate to present themselves, and 2) we have young children. I demanded that he stop these subscriptions and it was done. We've never had another of these magazines arrive at our house. He also hasn't visited a porn website in almost a year.
My H has had some minor anger issues, never directed at me or my children.
With all that as background, I'll share what I've learned: my H and I are reconciled today and very happy. HOWEVER, that would not have been possible had he not had IC once a week for more than 2 years now. His commitment to continuing therapy has proven to me that if it's important to me, it's important to him. Largely, he does therapy because he wants to be a good father and husband and resolve these annoying issues from his childhood because AHA! that's when most of them developed.
I've also concluded that my H has mild narcissistic tendencies. Narcissism is a personality disorder so unfortunately there's medication or therapy that will relieve it. However, with all this individual counseling he has taken responsibility for his actions and doesn't act out very often on his self-centered childishness. His first thought was always, "but what about me????" Now I don't know whether that's still his first thought or not, but even if it is, he doesn't say it or act on it.
I still lurk on this board because after spending so much time here trying to figure out what the heck my H's problems were I got to know people and their stories and my heart breaks for women who are victims of domestic violence. For the time that I believed my H was abusing me, I felt sick and ashamed most of the time. I don't post here at all any more because I do believe - and my therapist believes - that my H falls into a different category because he has never, ever intended to hurt me, he takes full responsibility for any pain he's caused me in the past with his porn viewing or self-centeredness, and I've seen him change over the course of the last 2 years. What's important to me is truly important to him. That said, I would never offer even a glimmer of hope to most of the posters on this board who truly are in abusive situations and need to get out to save their sanity or even their lives.
Sarah, I'm not sure where this is going, except to give you some further insight into what your H's problems MIGHT be, and let you know that at least one other person identifies with your inability to determine exactly what the heck is going on in your marriage. Love and best wishes, Mo.
This is the board for families dealing with porn.
Thanks Hope. I really appreciate you taking the opportunity to "stick up" in my situation...although I know Tracy has some good points as well and I can see where she would ask me a question like that.
"Why are you with someone who discounts your feelings?"
Simple answer. Same answer ANY woman in my situation would give. We are inlove with eachother. If we werent, this would be easy.
I think my H hit a major breakthrough a couple nights ago with the conversation we had. I was so afraid that confronting him would cause him to get angry again, make him frustrated, and once again he'd make an excuse for EVERYTHING and disappoint me. But I was wrong and truly felt my using a different appraoch helped him feel comfortable talking to me. He admitted that his real feelings should only be counted when he's not upset. I asked him about several of the things he said to me while we had our big argument a couple weeks ago... bc here he was singing a different tune, being understanding, taking ALL the blame, apologizing and and trying so hard over and over to convince me that he sincerely knew how he has effected me... very different from a couple weeks ago as you might remember... so I was confused... could i trust that he means it? can i trust he's being sincere? and he said that his whole problem is insecurity, which makes him get angry and he says too many things he doesnt mean when he is angry only to make himself feel secure. He said it was selfish, he knows, but he really doesnt try and make himself believe that all these things we are doing are "changes" bc he KNOWS they are compromises. And he VOLUNTARILY decided to not watch porn at all... ever again . I consider what he did as a MAJOR breakthrough and even spoke to his counselor on the phone yesterday. He is seeing her tomorrow.
as for discounting my feelings? sure.. i think he does that ...95% of the time he DOES do it is when he's angry or we are arguing... the other 5% i'd say is just him being a selfish man
we both work fulltime and i have to keep in mind that the majority of the time he IS counting my feelings... thinking about my illnesses or that i get tired easily, cooks all my food, does about 90% of household chores and repairs and yardwork, makes sure the bills are paid on time, does all the vacation planning, helps his mother twice a week or so , and always makes sure I'm eating according to my disease's diet and I also have balimia.
I have to say he "counts" me alot. Most of the time. But when issues like we have arise, its hard to remember all of that, think about the good in him and the happy times and what he does for me.
he's a good guy. deep down and even on the outside you can see it. he's just a good guy ... with a serious problem.
Let's get real here.
no offense Tracy, but thank you for the "uplifting" words. Believe me, this is no honeymoon phase we're in. These arent empty promises he makes to get me happy or "off his back". we continue knowing there is a problem, and that problem is anger. I am only on this board bc he fits into just a FEW catergories of a abuse. But in reality... his anger and guilt from his mother are the major key factors here.
but i also come here for support. for others in a similar situation to be there for me and also the CHEER me on when things are looking up. im not here to be assured that the only cure is divorce. i am in a marraige. a committment. we are deeply inlove. so my voice is not the only to be heard. he has a voice as well... and he is using it in counseling, and ENJOYING it. he volunteered to do most of this and has no problem with it.
if i were diagnosed with Lymphoma, I wouldnt be saying "well Im giving up. No use in treatment bc only 5% survice this cancer".
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