My husband had talked about us needing separation in the past (though we have only been married 2.5 years) because we are taking each other for granted...not acting like friends...that sort of thing. We work together out of the home and have basically been together 24/7 since the day we MET. I think we are amazing for being as friendly with each other as we are...
Here's my situation...we have a 21 year old employee who I hired and trusted to work with my husband every day for the rest of our lives (or for the length of the company, anyway). She is smart and eager to learn. Well...a few weeks ago she went with us on a company trip but she and my husband started to bond more than I was comfortable with. He has always said he plans to have girlfriends and they may want to do things together that I don't care about doing...and that I will need to be comfortable with that. That always made me feel a little weird because in all of my past relationships my guys have never had to premise any of their normal friendships with anything like that. Maybe that should have been a warning sign. He ends up bonding with this employee of ours and, one night, instead of going to a work event as they had planned, they get alcohol and spend the night at the park together. They come home and she sleeps downstairs on our floor and he stays down there on a chair and won't come to bed with me. The next day he demands an immediate separation...one that I later find out has no rules...
From then on he is constantly going to lunch with her instead of me as he usually would...he goes to dinner with her...he took her to the Ritz hotel for two nights...and then he keeps her with him at a lodge when he leaves the house for the official separation. I was standing in our home one day, defending his ability to keep this girl as a friend and not get physical (although the emotional affair was already destroying me), when pictures that he took of her rear end (less than fully clothed) popped up in my phone (through google+ that was apparently signed into my phone because he had used my phone to check his email before). I gave him 6 days and opportunity to admit he'd been physical with her...the premise of our separation was to not have to tell each other what we are doing and learn to trust that each other is not messing around. Well he messed that up. Messing around is the last thing on my mind, by the way. I didn't want this stinking separation…at least not for sexual deviancies. Yuck! How can you be so intimate with one person (and married!) and feel no guilt when you see the wrong person's face there when you get intimate!? I really thought he was different than this.
Today I still have no proof that they have had physical contact (except the pictures seem like enough, to me…and they were staying together in a one bed hotel room) but the day I decided to leave the house (WAY TOO TOXIC there and I cannot stand that he was okay with letting her come to work there, in my face, with a SMILE ON HER FACE, everyday…except the day after the pictures were taken neither one of them could even look me in the face…it was ridiculous) I told her to get out of my house and he sent her home. He tried to follow her but I had told him I would do her work if he'd make her leave that day but I was NOT going to do it if he left, too. He ended up doing it all. Anyway...the day after I got home to my parents' house (across the country) I found out from an employee that he had brought her to our house...to stay in our master bedroom...the very evening I left.
Now here is the weird part...before I left he told me he doesn't want her...her body is not what he wants...she is a friend...I need to be okay with being her friend…I need to be friends with her...he loves me...he kissed me half on the mouth...la la la...and now that I am home he has said he loves me...he has asked my opinion on getting a puppy...and randomly today in an email conversation about football and cell phones he throws in a craigslist link to a little girl's cute owl bedroom set (we had been pregnant earlier this year but lost the baby pretty early on).
What the heck am I supposed to think!? I have a really hard time thinking I can go back to this. He is emotionally abusive (and I am a butthead and pushy in my own ways) and I was willing to work on a separation with him if this stuff with our employee hadn't mucked it up. I told him I will never accept this girl/employee again, as a friend…or as an employee...and she will never touch our children (this was when I was back at home and still considering we might stay together). I have lost all respect for her, for sure. Did he really think he and she would be okay with living/working alongside me until the end of time knowing what they had done behind my back...assuming he hadn't gotten caught? That just makes me sick!
I am stuck in this mental place now...doing the 180...and feeling patient...but don't really know what I am waiting for. I think his brain is off because of medicine, substances, possible mis-diagnosis of ADD, narcissism, or something. These facts, and a sympathy for this real emptiness I see inside of him, make me think that the person I love could still be there and be helped. BUT...in reality...it kind of seems like all that is going to happen is I'm going to wait...and if he decides he messed up and wants to come back I am just going to say...sorry...did you think that was going to be an option? Does that mean I am dragging this out and leading HIM on? He would have to get rid of this girl and really a lot more (like how about apologize and show an ounce of remorse) would need to get better before we could ever consider having kids. On top of all that he has this mystical sort of criteria for determining if I am TRYING or not, in our marriage. And he says he KNOWS if I am trying...and if I am not trying...he will know it isn't going to work...I mean I feel like I am dealing with a god who could just strike me down at any time...like I am being analyzed and critiqued and quizzed every day! I just want to be me…accepted as I am…willing to learn and grow…but still me…a me who, yes, will make mistakes, but I will not betray him.
Does the fact that he declared separation give me no reason to expect that he wouldn't have another woman in our home? I mean, he picked the wrong girl if he expects both of us to stay around forever…not going to happen.
Also…whenever I have brought up our wedding vows…he says we already don't follow them so why even bring them up. We have and do follow them but I know we haven't been treating each other like good friends but if we are lacking in one place could that really make him feel like he can just scrap it all? I have a feeling he just went over the edge. 28 years of his life to have fun before he married me and he can't even make it over 2.5 with me without seeking it elsewhere?! He is on a pursuit of his OWN happiness and says that nothing is going to keep him from getting that…even my happiness or unhappiness. I think he is going to have to look within himself for that anyway…not in another temporary fix. I could write a boatload more but I'll stop for now.
Thanks so much for any thoughts and advice.
Here's my situation...we have a 21 year old employee who I hired and trusted to work with my husband every day for the rest of our lives (or for the length of the company, anyway). She is smart and eager to learn. Well...a few weeks ago she went with us on a company trip but she and my husband started to bond more than I was comfortable with. He has always said he plans to have girlfriends and they may want to do things together that I don't care about doing...and that I will need to be comfortable with that. That always made me feel a little weird because in all of my past relationships my guys have never had to premise any of their normal friendships with anything like that. Maybe that should have been a warning sign. He ends up bonding with this employee of ours and, one night, instead of going to a work event as they had planned, they get alcohol and spend the night at the park together. They come home and she sleeps downstairs on our floor and he stays down there on a chair and won't come to bed with me. The next day he demands an immediate separation...one that I later find out has no rules...
From then on he is constantly going to lunch with her instead of me as he usually would...he goes to dinner with her...he took her to the Ritz hotel for two nights...and then he keeps her with him at a lodge when he leaves the house for the official separation. I was standing in our home one day, defending his ability to keep this girl as a friend and not get physical (although the emotional affair was already destroying me), when pictures that he took of her rear end (less than fully clothed) popped up in my phone (through google+ that was apparently signed into my phone because he had used my phone to check his email before). I gave him 6 days and opportunity to admit he'd been physical with her...the premise of our separation was to not have to tell each other what we are doing and learn to trust that each other is not messing around. Well he messed that up. Messing around is the last thing on my mind, by the way. I didn't want this stinking separation…at least not for sexual deviancies. Yuck! How can you be so intimate with one person (and married!) and feel no guilt when you see the wrong person's face there when you get intimate!? I really thought he was different than this.
Today I still have no proof that they have had physical contact (except the pictures seem like enough, to me…and they were staying together in a one bed hotel room) but the day I decided to leave the house (WAY TOO TOXIC there and I cannot stand that he was okay with letting her come to work there, in my face, with a SMILE ON HER FACE, everyday…except the day after the pictures were taken neither one of them could even look me in the face…it was ridiculous) I told her to get out of my house and he sent her home. He tried to follow her but I had told him I would do her work if he'd make her leave that day but I was NOT going to do it if he left, too. He ended up doing it all. Anyway...the day after I got home to my parents' house (across the country) I found out from an employee that he had brought her to our house...to stay in our master bedroom...the very evening I left.
Now here is the weird part...before I left he told me he doesn't want her...her body is not what he wants...she is a friend...I need to be okay with being her friend…I need to be friends with her...he loves me...he kissed me half on the mouth...la la la...and now that I am home he has said he loves me...he has asked my opinion on getting a puppy...and randomly today in an email conversation about football and cell phones he throws in a craigslist link to a little girl's cute owl bedroom set (we had been pregnant earlier this year but lost the baby pretty early on).
What the heck am I supposed to think!? I have a really hard time thinking I can go back to this. He is emotionally abusive (and I am a butthead and pushy in my own ways) and I was willing to work on a separation with him if this stuff with our employee hadn't mucked it up. I told him I will never accept this girl/employee again, as a friend…or as an employee...and she will never touch our children (this was when I was back at home and still considering we might stay together). I have lost all respect for her, for sure. Did he really think he and she would be okay with living/working alongside me until the end of time knowing what they had done behind my back...assuming he hadn't gotten caught? That just makes me sick!
I am stuck in this mental place now...doing the 180...and feeling patient...but don't really know what I am waiting for. I think his brain is off because of medicine, substances, possible mis-diagnosis of ADD, narcissism, or something. These facts, and a sympathy for this real emptiness I see inside of him, make me think that the person I love could still be there and be helped. BUT...in reality...it kind of seems like all that is going to happen is I'm going to wait...and if he decides he messed up and wants to come back I am just going to say...sorry...did you think that was going to be an option? Does that mean I am dragging this out and leading HIM on? He would have to get rid of this girl and really a lot more (like how about apologize and show an ounce of remorse) would need to get better before we could ever consider having kids. On top of all that he has this mystical sort of criteria for determining if I am TRYING or not, in our marriage. And he says he KNOWS if I am trying...and if I am not trying...he will know it isn't going to work...I mean I feel like I am dealing with a god who could just strike me down at any time...like I am being analyzed and critiqued and quizzed every day! I just want to be me…accepted as I am…willing to learn and grow…but still me…a me who, yes, will make mistakes, but I will not betray him.
Does the fact that he declared separation give me no reason to expect that he wouldn't have another woman in our home? I mean, he picked the wrong girl if he expects both of us to stay around forever…not going to happen.
Also…whenever I have brought up our wedding vows…he says we already don't follow them so why even bring them up. We have and do follow them but I know we haven't been treating each other like good friends but if we are lacking in one place could that really make him feel like he can just scrap it all? I have a feeling he just went over the edge. 28 years of his life to have fun before he married me and he can't even make it over 2.5 with me without seeking it elsewhere?! He is on a pursuit of his OWN happiness and says that nothing is going to keep him from getting that…even my happiness or unhappiness. I think he is going to have to look within himself for that anyway…not in another temporary fix. I could write a boatload more but I'll stop for now.
Thanks so much for any thoughts and advice.
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