Feeling spiteful, BAD MORNING
Member
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Texas
Posts: 782
When I found text messages to a woman, a call history showing late night calls, and his disappearing one night while his car remained in the driveway, I decided to confront him. Because he didn't know that I had called the number to find out her name, he tried to lie about who he was with (said Don...turned out to be Donna). Once he realized I knew that, he told me about how she was a client of his, but that the only reason he didn't tell me was because I would have been mad. And then I caught him lying about being at dinner with his mom when he was at her house. Would you believe that I wanted to believe his story? And even though I found "evidence," and even though I caught him lying, he still played it so he was innocent, only doing the things he did to keep me from being upset. My point is that confronting him probably won't give you the answers and clarity you are seeking. I would bet almost anything that he will deny, tell you it didn't happen that way, and try to make it go away. And then you will be stuck driving yourself crazy with did he or didn't he? The biggest question of all is, do you want to be in a situation where you have to be questioning the person you are married to?
((()))
((()))
Member
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Posts: 240
Long story short, my husband went "missing" and I checked his online cell phone records to try and track him down out of shear panic and worry - I thought he might be staying at a hotel. The same number comes up over and over again, I call the number...and get "Tracey".
I confronted her. Then I confronted him. And then I threw him and his crap right out of my house. Bottom line, even if nothing physical happened between my husband and this chickie, he souldn't be calling her repeatedly and then LYING about it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, FOR ME, infidelity is an absolute deal breaker.
I confronted her. Then I confronted him. And then I threw him and his crap right out of my house. Bottom line, even if nothing physical happened between my husband and this chickie, he souldn't be calling her repeatedly and then LYING about it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, FOR ME, infidelity is an absolute deal breaker.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Small Town
Posts: 46
Texas Girl, No I don't want to be stuck in the situation of always questioning, and that is what I am so tired of, I just want to punch him right in the face when I see him today, he is so much of a con-man. He acts as if he was just fishing, telling me the stories of his night with the guys, being wet, cold, catching two BIG fish, everything but what happened during the times when he was phoning the girl to get her to come to their fishing hole, or meet up with her or whatever. He also came home in different clothes, which he said his friend let him borrow. But his friend is about 10 sizes bigger than he, and these particular shorts fit him. He is a liar and lives a lie on a constant basis. I am so mad, I still can't speak to him today unless spoken to. Then it is in yes or no answers. I can't even look him in the eye. RIght now I am afraid for his safety, because I get a chunk out of my heart each time this happens, and I am about left with no heart for him, because of his actions. You can't repair damage like that, can you.
Member
Join Date: May 2007
Location: FREEDOM
Posts: 665
(((((flwrchld)))))) I know what it feels like to want to PUNCH HIS LIGHT OUT!! LOL
And I'm a peace lovin hippie
There's something WRONG with that picture
What stopped me, was stooping down to his level. I finally got it through my THICK head, that arguing to the point of rage was "feeding" him. My A lived on manipulation and deceit. Oh and lets not forget "twisting" every damn thing I said anyway to what HE wanted it to be. I thought I was losing my mind!!!!
For me, detachment was the only way
there's lots of good advice on here on how to detach and keep your sanity. Developing and working a "program" that 'fits" you is the first BIG step in taking care of YOU. I'm a newbie, so a work in progress, but I will say, since I have been taking care of me, the A does not get me to the point of rage anymore, and I get to live my days in,,,,
Peace
And I'm a peace lovin hippie
There's something WRONG with that picture
What stopped me, was stooping down to his level. I finally got it through my THICK head, that arguing to the point of rage was "feeding" him. My A lived on manipulation and deceit. Oh and lets not forget "twisting" every damn thing I said anyway to what HE wanted it to be. I thought I was losing my mind!!!!
For me, detachment was the only way
there's lots of good advice on here on how to detach and keep your sanity. Developing and working a "program" that 'fits" you is the first BIG step in taking care of YOU. I'm a newbie, so a work in progress, but I will say, since I have been taking care of me, the A does not get me to the point of rage anymore, and I get to live my days in,,,,
Peace
Member
Join Date: May 2004
Location: England
Posts: 3,410
What's your dealbreaker, flwrchld? Once I knew what mine were, my decisions came a lot easier.
Healthy people don't create situations where the seeds of doubt are sown. Nor do healthy people allow those seeds to flourish.
Healthy people don't create situations where the seeds of doubt are sown. Nor do healthy people allow those seeds to flourish.
Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Ohio
Posts: 2,579
Not meaning to encourage game-playing,etc.; I was reminded about something yesterday. Asked exAH a question (in email about our son) if he had gone to a golf tournament in the city where our son lives (I knew he had a ticket) and he didn't respond, nor had he answered something I needed to know about somethiing else. A little later on I sent another email about the info I still needed and decided to do a little "experiment", and sure enough I got the info I needed and not only answer about the golf tourney but details about it,too. And immediately! How; you ask? Basically mentioned to "forget about golf thing;not important (which is true)"....hahaha Usually when I tell him I DON"T care about what he did,where he went,with whom,etc.etc......I get more info than I asked. Some of this is about control and power;that's human nature,too.
Focusing on me and not him makes him uncomfortable and changes the "old rules". Besides that;it's healthier for me! (and him,too)
Just an observation .
Focusing on me and not him makes him uncomfortable and changes the "old rules". Besides that;it's healthier for me! (and him,too)
Just an observation .
Fool To Do Your Dirty Work
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Greenflower Street
Posts: 362
(((FLWR)))) I think you already know what you have to do - you just need to muster up the courage to do it. No one deserves to live a life of insanity and uncertainty. You are right to calm down, think clearly..thinking of you...
I'm no angel!
Join Date: May 2005
Location: tampa, fl
Posts: 6,728
To be honest I don't know what to post back to you anymore. So, I'll just post something I had posted on F&F of Subtance abusers:
How Women Become Fools Over Men
Something to ponder:
How Women Become Fools Over Men
By Annie Kaszina
Ok, so the title sounds a little harsh. By a fool, I mean a woman who sticks around too long in a relationship that is deteriorating progressively, a relationship which becomes increasingly unhappy most of the time. And I'd be the first to admit that I've been there, done that and sported the T-shirt for way too long, until said T-shirt was falling apart and I finally got it: banging your head against a brick wall is not a bright long-term strategy - or, indeed, a short-term one.
We become fixated on our partner's potential, and, of course he has potential, whatever we mean by that word. If he hadn't had potential why on earth would we have bothered in the first place? Few of us have a robust enough sense of self, or are that crazy that we choose to have a relationship with someone we feel has less to recommend him than the average roach.
Still, despite the unhappiness, there are flashes of light, moments when you catch sight of the man you fell in love with. Those moments, of course, make up for the neglect, the criticisms, the carelessness with your feelings, the abuse?
Do they really?
No, of course they don't. But once you start down the slippery path of hoping, excusing and believing, you lose sight of the simple truth that a relationship should bring you joy. If your relationship is generating misery, if the partner you are with leaves you feeling sad, desperate or rejected, then it is a bad relationship.
Nature, we are often told, abhors a vacuum. Hanging on by your teeth and nails to a bad relationship leaves no space for a good relationship to unfold elsewhere in your life.
None of this is news to me nor, probably, is it news to you. Still, it was brought home to me very poignantly this week in the course of a conversation with a young friend.
This friend is in a relationship with a man who is not abusive at this point; the relationship is still quite new. However, he is damaged, fragmented and inconsistent. He can be wonderful, and he can be absent so that, even when he is with her, he is simply not there.
How bad is this really?
Suffice it to say that she has begun obsessing about him, his feelings for her, whether the relationship has a future. She can feel profoundly unhappy about him for days and then, when he changes again and shows his potential, her spirits rise.
How familiar does that sound?
There are days when she thinks the relationship is hardly worth the misery and days when she feels so intimately connected that she is not prepared to let go.
This week this friend reached the stage of deciding that she would end the relationship, albeit in a few weeks rather than days. Then she saw him again and he was at the top of his game; charming, communicative, fun, loving.
She decided to go on with it. She's not prepared to leave a relationship with so much potential yet.
I expressed my concern and she replied: I've listened to so many other women who have been through it, I won't let it happen to me. If I have to get out, I will.
Little does she know how difficult it is to get out when you let yourself be sucked ever deeper into a relationship by the alternating joys and misery.
My reply, I'll admit, was less than gracious. What I heard was a young, naïve woman saying: I'll tread water and keep treading water as I am swept further out to sea and if I need to, then I'll swim back to shore. What I said to her was this:
The women she had listened to were not born fools. They, we, were feisty, intelligent, loving, naively trusting women. We became fools inch by inch . We lost our vision, our sense of self, our clarity about what we would and would not tolerate inch by inch. That is how it goes.
Sure, there are some women who will settle for table scraps from Day 1, but that is simply not true of a great number of women who end up being abused. First we fall in love and then we honour that love by compromising.
Sometimes the compromises are small at the start. Sometimes they are not so small. Either way, when you put them in the balance and set love on the other scale, they seem small.
Maybe we are visionaries. We see our partner's potential, we are prepared to believe in it for them until they can do so for themselves and we are prepared to sacrifice at the altar of this potential. Because one day?
We are foolishly, perhaps insanely, drawn to the myth, or miracle of the happy ending. The worse the lead-up has been, the more miraculous, the more earned that happy ending would be. Yes, we would love our own personal miracle. Who wouldn't?
But here's the thing: there is room in everybody's life for a lot of miracles. The miracle of a bad relationship turning into a good one is probably the least likely one to materialize.
I believe that miracles turn up frequently in all our lives. The only thing is they may not be quite the miracles we were expecting, nor may the timing quite match our time scale. But suppose you were obsessing about one particular thing; how easy would it be not to notice the miracle that was taking place on, or beyond, the periphery of your vision? How easy would it be to let it pass utterly unnoticed? How easy would it be not to claim the miracle that had your name writ large on it?
Persistence, it is often said, is a virtue. Persistence leads people to great results. I would not argue with that. But persistence means keeping a goal in mind and using as many different strategies as necessary to achieve that goal. It does not mean doing exactly the same thing every time in the hope of getting a different result. Yet that is what we do in bad relationships. We keep on hammering away with the same blunt tools and are amazed when we fail to create a thing of beauty and value.
That is when women become fools. We become fools when we progressively divest ourselves of the resources of our energy, our strength, our sense of self, our independence. We all know what happens then.
**********
Annie Kaszina Ph D, is a coach and writer who has helped hundreds of women to regain their clear-sightedness, rebuild their confidence and their self-worth. Annie is the author of "The Woman You Want To Be" and "But If I Say "No" They Won't Like Me"
How Women Become Fools Over Men
Something to ponder:
How Women Become Fools Over Men
By Annie Kaszina
Ok, so the title sounds a little harsh. By a fool, I mean a woman who sticks around too long in a relationship that is deteriorating progressively, a relationship which becomes increasingly unhappy most of the time. And I'd be the first to admit that I've been there, done that and sported the T-shirt for way too long, until said T-shirt was falling apart and I finally got it: banging your head against a brick wall is not a bright long-term strategy - or, indeed, a short-term one.
We become fixated on our partner's potential, and, of course he has potential, whatever we mean by that word. If he hadn't had potential why on earth would we have bothered in the first place? Few of us have a robust enough sense of self, or are that crazy that we choose to have a relationship with someone we feel has less to recommend him than the average roach.
Still, despite the unhappiness, there are flashes of light, moments when you catch sight of the man you fell in love with. Those moments, of course, make up for the neglect, the criticisms, the carelessness with your feelings, the abuse?
Do they really?
No, of course they don't. But once you start down the slippery path of hoping, excusing and believing, you lose sight of the simple truth that a relationship should bring you joy. If your relationship is generating misery, if the partner you are with leaves you feeling sad, desperate or rejected, then it is a bad relationship.
Nature, we are often told, abhors a vacuum. Hanging on by your teeth and nails to a bad relationship leaves no space for a good relationship to unfold elsewhere in your life.
None of this is news to me nor, probably, is it news to you. Still, it was brought home to me very poignantly this week in the course of a conversation with a young friend.
This friend is in a relationship with a man who is not abusive at this point; the relationship is still quite new. However, he is damaged, fragmented and inconsistent. He can be wonderful, and he can be absent so that, even when he is with her, he is simply not there.
How bad is this really?
Suffice it to say that she has begun obsessing about him, his feelings for her, whether the relationship has a future. She can feel profoundly unhappy about him for days and then, when he changes again and shows his potential, her spirits rise.
How familiar does that sound?
There are days when she thinks the relationship is hardly worth the misery and days when she feels so intimately connected that she is not prepared to let go.
This week this friend reached the stage of deciding that she would end the relationship, albeit in a few weeks rather than days. Then she saw him again and he was at the top of his game; charming, communicative, fun, loving.
She decided to go on with it. She's not prepared to leave a relationship with so much potential yet.
I expressed my concern and she replied: I've listened to so many other women who have been through it, I won't let it happen to me. If I have to get out, I will.
Little does she know how difficult it is to get out when you let yourself be sucked ever deeper into a relationship by the alternating joys and misery.
My reply, I'll admit, was less than gracious. What I heard was a young, naïve woman saying: I'll tread water and keep treading water as I am swept further out to sea and if I need to, then I'll swim back to shore. What I said to her was this:
The women she had listened to were not born fools. They, we, were feisty, intelligent, loving, naively trusting women. We became fools inch by inch . We lost our vision, our sense of self, our clarity about what we would and would not tolerate inch by inch. That is how it goes.
Sure, there are some women who will settle for table scraps from Day 1, but that is simply not true of a great number of women who end up being abused. First we fall in love and then we honour that love by compromising.
Sometimes the compromises are small at the start. Sometimes they are not so small. Either way, when you put them in the balance and set love on the other scale, they seem small.
Maybe we are visionaries. We see our partner's potential, we are prepared to believe in it for them until they can do so for themselves and we are prepared to sacrifice at the altar of this potential. Because one day?
We are foolishly, perhaps insanely, drawn to the myth, or miracle of the happy ending. The worse the lead-up has been, the more miraculous, the more earned that happy ending would be. Yes, we would love our own personal miracle. Who wouldn't?
But here's the thing: there is room in everybody's life for a lot of miracles. The miracle of a bad relationship turning into a good one is probably the least likely one to materialize.
I believe that miracles turn up frequently in all our lives. The only thing is they may not be quite the miracles we were expecting, nor may the timing quite match our time scale. But suppose you were obsessing about one particular thing; how easy would it be not to notice the miracle that was taking place on, or beyond, the periphery of your vision? How easy would it be to let it pass utterly unnoticed? How easy would it be not to claim the miracle that had your name writ large on it?
Persistence, it is often said, is a virtue. Persistence leads people to great results. I would not argue with that. But persistence means keeping a goal in mind and using as many different strategies as necessary to achieve that goal. It does not mean doing exactly the same thing every time in the hope of getting a different result. Yet that is what we do in bad relationships. We keep on hammering away with the same blunt tools and are amazed when we fail to create a thing of beauty and value.
That is when women become fools. We become fools when we progressively divest ourselves of the resources of our energy, our strength, our sense of self, our independence. We all know what happens then.
**********
Annie Kaszina Ph D, is a coach and writer who has helped hundreds of women to regain their clear-sightedness, rebuild their confidence and their self-worth. Annie is the author of "The Woman You Want To Be" and "But If I Say "No" They Won't Like Me"
Member
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: where the streets have no name
Posts: 1,078
Before I understood how alcohol takes control of the person I too was upset when my aw would get "dolled up" at home before leaving for her rendezvous with her drinking women and MEN. Then to add insult to injury she'd ask me for the car keys.
The bottom line is alcohol is in control and addiction and promiscuity go hand in hand as any addiction counselor can tell you. If you confront him he will simply do what addicts do, LIE, twist,get resentful and angry, etc etc. The boundaries thing is best as is letting him feel the full impact of the consequences of drinking.
Unless my aw decides to sober up and recover I am perfectly at peace with myself living apart because living with her was HELL. I cannot live with the person alcohol is steering. What alcohol did to her believe me let some other guy deal with. Most likely she has an alcoholic/addict boyfriend but "they can keep each other" I do not and will not live that way anymore.
If you cannot detach enough and/or accept what alcohol does to a person you may wish to start documenting his conduct for potential use in court.
The bottom line is alcohol is in control and addiction and promiscuity go hand in hand as any addiction counselor can tell you. If you confront him he will simply do what addicts do, LIE, twist,get resentful and angry, etc etc. The boundaries thing is best as is letting him feel the full impact of the consequences of drinking.
Unless my aw decides to sober up and recover I am perfectly at peace with myself living apart because living with her was HELL. I cannot live with the person alcohol is steering. What alcohol did to her believe me let some other guy deal with. Most likely she has an alcoholic/addict boyfriend but "they can keep each other" I do not and will not live that way anymore.
If you cannot detach enough and/or accept what alcohol does to a person you may wish to start documenting his conduct for potential use in court.
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Small Town
Posts: 46
Thanks all for your posts, they have helped me to think over the weekend, here it is Monday, I am back to work and can't get my mind off of everything. Still can't concentrate for very long, am trying my hardest to hold myself together. I read more text messages and a girl said she had his socks and handkerchief at her house, he text her back that he would come get them later. I did not ask him about the texts messages or even let him know that I snooped, I just simply asked him if he had anything he wanted to share with me. The defensive flags flew up, and he said I was blowing his fishing expedition way out of sorts. after that every day he went back out to check the bait lines he was back at the house soon after, and home in bed every night. He was very secretive with his buddy and told me that his buddy has been sleeping with this girl. My husband came home in different shorts on thursday morning, and he told me that they were his buddies shorts. His stories aren't adding up. He isn't adding up. He is totally grumpy and quick to jump anyones butt this morning at the office.
He planned a fishing trip for Father and Son with one of his friends and our son (Who is 17), does not want to go, and even offered to pay his dad back the 500.00 it took to pay for it if he did not have to go. My husband is alway hateful and always putting our son down, and this friend of his is not much better, they are drunk, and dope smokers, and think that no one else knows. I think I will intervene on this trip and request to my husband that our son not go if he doesn't want to. The only problem with this is that my husband will take away his truck, computer, any rights he has if he does not go. He doesn't understand that all the years of his mistreatment to our son has paid off, Our son can't stand to be around him. Especially for a whole 3 days. I have a BIG headache, and it has my husbands name on it....life is not much better today, this Monday....
He planned a fishing trip for Father and Son with one of his friends and our son (Who is 17), does not want to go, and even offered to pay his dad back the 500.00 it took to pay for it if he did not have to go. My husband is alway hateful and always putting our son down, and this friend of his is not much better, they are drunk, and dope smokers, and think that no one else knows. I think I will intervene on this trip and request to my husband that our son not go if he doesn't want to. The only problem with this is that my husband will take away his truck, computer, any rights he has if he does not go. He doesn't understand that all the years of his mistreatment to our son has paid off, Our son can't stand to be around him. Especially for a whole 3 days. I have a BIG headache, and it has my husbands name on it....life is not much better today, this Monday....
Forum Leader
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Scottsdale, AZ, one big happy dysfunctional family!
Posts: 23,067
I'm an alcoholic but I'm familiar with the Al-Anon mantra of the three C's- Didn't cause it, can't control it, can't change it.
(((flwrchld)))) I'm sorry you're going through the pain of this. Life will get better, this will pass, trust and have faith that you're never given more than you can handle.
(((flwrchld)))) I'm sorry you're going through the pain of this. Life will get better, this will pass, trust and have faith that you're never given more than you can handle.
Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Fedup With This Vicious Cycle and Am Doing Something About It
Posts: 34
Hi Flwrchld.. I found your post and came back to check to see how you are doing. I am a recovering alcoholic but love to come to this section to hear all of your stories so I know what I can do better for my family.
Your story just breaks my heart and I am so terribly sorry you are dealing with this. I couldn't even tell you what I would do in your situation but am also curious what the whole outcome will be. I am trying to prepare myself if something like this would happen to me(have the gut feelings that something "fishy" is going on with my h).
Also, about your son going on the fishing trip... I would most definitely let him stay home if he doesn't want to go. What fun would it be for him to spend time with someone that is degrading?!
Best of luck to you hon and hang in there. (((((HUGS)))))
Your story just breaks my heart and I am so terribly sorry you are dealing with this. I couldn't even tell you what I would do in your situation but am also curious what the whole outcome will be. I am trying to prepare myself if something like this would happen to me(have the gut feelings that something "fishy" is going on with my h).
Also, about your son going on the fishing trip... I would most definitely let him stay home if he doesn't want to go. What fun would it be for him to spend time with someone that is degrading?!
Best of luck to you hon and hang in there. (((((HUGS)))))
Member
Join Date: May 2007
Location: FREEDOM
Posts: 665
(((((Flwrchld))))))
I am so sorry to hear, things aren't much better today.
It's so hard to come up with words to console. All I know, when I read your story, I remember the shear defeat I would feel. Trying to be the strong one and keep everything together caused me to panic.
I would go round and round till I was so twisted, I physically was ill.
Your handling a lot girl.
I always was the GOOD codie. Kept up my end of the bargain, no matter what. At my own expense if need be. Playing the "middle guy" to my A. In this case wanting the best for a child, but knowing my A's arrogance would make my decision AND life hell. I would stand and fight the battle however, bravely taking it on the chin. After all, I was what was keeping it all together wasn't I?
I got tired
I know how tired you are.
And then I had the "meltdown"
What used to be acceptable, became unacceptable
We get there in our own time
I wish you,,,,
Peace
I am so sorry to hear, things aren't much better today.
It's so hard to come up with words to console. All I know, when I read your story, I remember the shear defeat I would feel. Trying to be the strong one and keep everything together caused me to panic. I would go round and round till I was so twisted, I physically was ill.
Your handling a lot girl.
trying my hardest to hold myself together.
I got tired
I know how tired you are.
And then I had the "meltdown"
What used to be acceptable, became unacceptable
We get there in our own time
I wish you,,,,
Peace
CindeRella is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life!
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Spreading my wings
Posts: 7,163
Originally Posted by minnie 
What's your dealbreaker, flwrchld? Once I knew what mine were, my decisions came a lot easier.
Healthy people don't create situations where the seeds of doubt are sown. Nor do healthy people allow those seeds to flourish.
Healthy people don't create situations where the seeds of doubt are sown. Nor do healthy people allow those seeds to flourish.
I'm no angel!
Join Date: May 2005
Location: tampa, fl
Posts: 6,728
Ok, this is what you know:
He drinks
He drugs
He cheats
He abuses you and your children
He hangs out with teenagers(not in a positive manner)
He lies
He squanders money
These things you know, so, what is your plan? What are you going to do about it?
He drinks
He drugs
He cheats
He abuses you and your children
He hangs out with teenagers(not in a positive manner)
He lies
He squanders money
These things you know, so, what is your plan? What are you going to do about it?
Forum Leader
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Scottsdale, AZ, one big happy dysfunctional family!
Posts: 23,067
Sometimes I find my strength within, many times I find it in the support of friends in AA and here on SR. Have you been to an Al-Anon meeting for support lately?
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