My H's Ancillary Behaviors

[TooSensitive]

I have been journaling so much in private, and a little bit here, about my h’s “ancillary” (supplemental and aside from the usual a/o and lusting), undesirable and unsavory behaviors, not only those directed at me, but also, those directed at others, too. You know, all the negative behaviors typical for an addict, that Charly posted in another thread. I am trying to come to an understanding of just who this man, my h, is. But it is so hard to understand, when someone is so opposite of you. And it is hard to forgive, when they keep returning with a vengeance, no matter how many times you’ve pointed them out and talked about how they make you feel.

Sometimes it seems to be an intense need to feel in control. Sometimes it seems he may have an undiagnosed mental illness. Sometimes it seems to be an ongoing reaction to all his past traumas that began happening to him in childhood. Sometimes it seems to be his feelings of guilt, being undeserving, lack of belief in himself, lack of self-esteem, etc. Sometimes it seems he is just a plain old jerk, and the reasons become irrelevant, b/c his behaviors are so intense they become nearly unbearable. Sometimes I feel he is just skilled at the art of manipulation and sabotage. He is going to hurt others, before they have the chance to hurt him.

He is often very obnoxious to strangers. He doesn’t think twice about being disrespectful to those he views as beneath him, such as cashiers or gas station attendants or restaurant help. The only time the help escapes his wrath is if she is attractive to him. I remember being out with him one time and repeatedly cupping my hand over his mouth, b/c he was embarrassing me that much with his loud, rude comments about someone sitting close by. He has a very difficult time dealing with loud crowds. I prefer it quiet, but sometimes, you just can’t escape the noise, unless you are willing to leave. I have learned how to block it out most of the time, but my h just can’t seem to do this. The type of noise I am talking about isn’t so loud that you can’t hear the other person talk, or so loud you find you too have to shout to be heard. It’s just normal noise from a few other people that he’d rather not hear.

He used to exhibit road rage, always cutting people off on the road, even if he did not have the right of way. He would step on the gas and swerve in at the last minute, as if come hell or high water, he was going to get there first. He’s not as bad as he once was (due to multiple times too many to count when I would point out his behavior to him), but I still say to him on occasion, “You are an accident waiting to happen.” I’ve also told him I’d rather not find out what it feels like to get an airbag in the face.

I feel empathy for his 5 grown kids. He is totally estranged from both his daughters now. His relationship with his youngest son is strained. My h wouldn’t even call him before he went overseas a few weeks ago (he’s on active duty in the military). If something happens to him, my h is going to regret it. I got tired of asking him if he was going to call him before he left. I don’t know if his kids blame me for his lack of staying in touch with them, but it doesn’t matter, b/c I know what the truth is. I don’t keep him from them. It is me who encourages him to reach out to them, to call them, to make plans with them. It is him who doesn’t pick up, when he sees one of their numbers on his caller ID. I have never once intentionally not picked up when my son has phoned me. I am the one who has reached out to them to gather them together to celebrate my h’s birthday or one of the holidays. I’m pretty sure his one daughter blames me for the falling out they had after I was in my h’s life, but my h was already estranged from the other daughter before we met. I don’t think his sons blame me, b/c they’ve spent at least a little time around me, and I converse with them far more than my h ever did. They’ve witnessed my h treating me badly. They’ve witnessed me keeping my composure, while he’s behaving in an embarrassing way. I think they can see who’s who and what’s what. But if they can’t, as I said, it doesn’t really matter, b/c I know what the truth is.

He only talks to his other 2 sons every few months, and sometimes more months than that go by. The son with whom I’ll say he’s “closest” (they have the best rapport out of all of them), he (or we) only sees him and sometimes his wife two or three times a year. And they live just a few blocks away. When his other son, who’s also in the military, comes up for visits (he lives in Georgia with his wife and kids, b/c that’s where the military sent him), my h does not always make the effort to get together with him. He talks about it, yet when the time comes, he blows it off. I’ll never understand how anyone can ignore their own kids like that, and not make some kind of effort to regularly stay in touch and see them whenever possible.

But, my h and I are cut from 2 different pieces of cloth. We are polar opposites in many ways. I embrace life and he does not. He dulls himself to life and all it has to offer, b/c that way, no one can hurt him. I’ve been terribly hurt in my past, too, but I know that you have to get over it, so that you can keep yourself open to all the good life has to offer.

With my h, I haven’t been able to get over it, b/c he continues to exhibit hurtful behaviors. You can’t let it go if there is no end to it. But I no longer detach myself so much that I can’t still enjoy life in other ways (except those occasions when I get depressed).

My h was also infuriated this past Father’s Day, all b/c I invited his son who lives close by for a visit. I was relieved when he called back to say we would have to postpone for a few days, b/c he was stuck in traffic driving back from a trip. When I witnessed my h’s reaction, I knew he would just make everyone else feel inferior during the visit, just as he had done enough times before. What came out during our CSAT session was that my h felt “undeserving” of having his son visit him on Father’s Day, b/c he hasn’t been a good father. I wish he knew how to graciously accept such gestures and be appreciative of them, instead of going out of his way to try to make everyone else around him, me most of all, as miserable as he is.

I am the one who feels his wrath most of all, b/c I am the one who lives under the same roof with him. Long after the others have gone, he continues taking that wrath out upon me. He acts as if his feelings of being undeserving are my fault, b/c he wouldn’t have to feel them in that moment, if I hadn’t invited his kids, or if I hadn’t made any plans, which are what bring those feelings to the surface for him. Otherwise, he can ignore them, and he can bury them. It is me who places him in situations which then cause those feelings to rise up – those feelings which he can’t handle, obviously.

But, we are talking about all these behaviors when we are with our CSAT, and we are starting to talk about them in between our sessions, too. There has been no understanding yet as to the psychology behind much of it, but there have been a few insights along the way, and at least his behaviors are getting put on the table for discussion, and really getting out in the open, where my h has no choice but to become aware of them. I told my h last night I fear he has deep-rooted psychological issues that may never go away. He replied that he feels he can overcome anything. But he’s told me that enough times before. I need the lip service to stop; I need his behaviors, his actions, to start aligning with his words. Whether or not they do remains to be seen. Progress has been very slow in coming, and we’ve been at this since early 2009.

It’s odd, but this time around with the CSAT, what we’ve been focusing on has been all these ancillary behaviors, and not so much the sexual a/o, I guess b/c there hasn’t been too much of that that I can see. What I see more is that lack of patience, lack of interest, and isolating, even if that is only done in the emotional sense with me (b/c in the physical sense, we spend a lot of time together when he’s not at work). It makes me think that when I’m not around, he’s a/o. When I am around, he can’t, so what he does instead is behave inappropriately in all these other ways. Maybe it is his way of punishing me for not letting him have his cake and eat it too. Maybe he is just plain cranky as a result of not being able to freely a/o, like he can when I’m not around. My thoughts are that he still a/o behind my back, but since I’ve put a stop to it when I am around, these other behaviors have now moved into the forefront. If I’m not going to let him freely a/o, then this is the price I have to pay.


Anyone else here, please feel free to add your own accounts of your h's "ancillary" behaviors.

[TooSensitive]

I actually started this thread not as a place to focus on the negative, but instead, hopefully gauge the progress made toward the positive.

I need one place where I can document my h’s different behaviors. I am trying to gain an understanding of them and see how many of them connect to the other. I assume there are plenty of people who exhibit these behaviors who are addicted to something, as Charly mentioned in one of the other threads. Charly writing out all the behaviors made me start to think of my h’s behaviors again, though of course it wasn’t the first time I had given thought to those.

My h could see that I was beginning to struggle again Tuesday night. I could feel my depression returning. He encouraged me to talk, and though I hesitated at first, telling him “There’s too much”, I finally started spilling things. I went over, one by one – b/c he asked me for examples – of how cranky he had been over the weekend. I didn’t get into how I thought that his crankiness was due to his inability at handling his guilt over some things I had brought up the night before. I just brought up each incident and told him how his behavior made me feel, and why his behavior was so destructive, not only to me, but also, to my teenage son during the times he too was witness to it.

I have been able to recently get my h to feel empathy for my teenage son. I told my h what my son has been through doesn’t excuse his behavior at times, but I wish that some people would remember what my son has been through, and as a result, not only accept my parenting skills as they are, but also, have empathy and more understanding of the situation.

I don’t care for my one g/f’s comments, such as, “You just need to punish that boy more!”. It doesn’t work with kids who have ADHD and ODD (Oppositional Defiancy Disorder). My g/f doesn’t even have any kids of her own!

People forget that my son has been diagnosed with these disorders. People forget that my son’s father has never been a part of his life, and that I have done the best I could do under the circumstances, having to play the dual roles of both mother and father. People forget that my son’s grandparents were never really there in his life either. My father had passed away 9 years before my son was born. My mother now lives in an assisted living facility b/c she has late stage Alzheimer’s. Prior to that, she never embraced my son as she did her other grandchildren. He was automatically labeled a black sheep, all b/c his father and I were never married. It was obvious my mother was not going to accept him with open arms; she rejected my son in so many ways. His father’s mother passed away years ago. His father’s father and his father’s stepmother have both now passed away. Before they did, they really didn’t maintain any relationship with my son, as grandparents usually do. My son has never had the nurturing of a father, and my son has never had the nurturing of any grandparents, either. He has only had my nurturing, and I’ve given him all I’ve got. Most everyone else has rejected him. Considering all this, he’s turned out far better than anticipated, and as he matures, he is doing much better than he had been. Both his journey and my parenting skills with him have been far different than my oldest son’s journey and how I had to parent him. My oldest son always had his father in his life, as well as 4 grandparents (though he was almost 4 when my father passed away, but being the first grandchild and the only grandchild for 8 years, my mother always adored him).

I told my h, “When you think about all that, and then on top of all that, you are mistreating him too, don’t you think all of that is going to have a very negative cumulative effect upon him? How much rejection is the kid supposed to take?”. I reminded my h that through the years, my son really hasn’t had anyone other than me in his life. He does occasionally spend time with his big brother, but he has his own life too, and my teenage son is not his responsibility. Though of course their spending time together has helped.

My h has been making it a point to treat my son better than he had been. Not always, but there has been a lot more improvement I’ve recently noticed. He is kinder, more considerate, and more thoughtful. He is more open to inviting my son along for something, and he has been suggesting activities we can all do as a family. Though he wasn’t patient while we were out bike riding, he was patient last night while watching at least part of a “Spongebob” episode. Prior to our bike ride, he gave up on going to get bbq for dinner like we had decided and instead embraced my son’s idea to go somewhere else.

I find that when I point things out to my h, and when I paint the big picture for him, it does seem to help.

It helped me to talk the other night, and it helped that my h was encouraging me to talk, which is not the norm for him. I’m pretty sure he said that even though some of what I say is difficult and embarrassing for him to hear, it does help him out.

We have so much more talking to do…