Boundaries

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Comment by Mia on April 30, 2009 at 2:12pm

My husband doesn't talk, but what seemed like a curse in the beginning, seems like a blessing. He only talks when he really has something to say and he does it with respect. I have learned to 'pick my battles'. some things are not worth fighting ,'nagging' about. i learned to concentrate on his good points and see him through other people's eyes who think highly of him and God's eyes. that' really helped my outlook on and love for him who is a child of God as he is a believer. one of the best marriage books of hundreds is Seven Principles that Make Marriage Work, by John Gottman and Nan Silver.
i also did the 'go on strike' thing over the years and it does work. he shaped up and realized how blessed he is to have a wife he can count on for certain things.
if he is worth anything, a husband can be taught how to treat his wife. i think in a good marriage we can teach each other how to treat each other. but sometimes we have to set boundaries/limits. it took many times with threats of leaving for him to 'wake up' but fortunately it worked. i was ready to follow through. (he left me no choice, he refused to go to counseling and did not change his hurtful behavior.) i also amended everything with the fact that i know he's not a bad person, but he just had no example in his life growing up. he always stayed and listened. slowly, but surely his behavior got better over the years. if you have a good spouse, it's worth the work. someone said marriage is a lifelong classroom in teaching one another how to love each other with the love language of one anothers' 'country' and by the time you're 'there', we die- ha ha ha...... but in all seriousness, it took my parents' 40 years and now in their 50+years are happy and at peace and their marriage is looked up to and i think one of the happiest. (and growing up i wished they were divorced!) thru it all, they always had respect for each other.

sometimes, in 'negotiating' we can compromise. can we live with coming to bed twice a week at the same time for something we can do in exchange. it works. small steps. sometimes it's about control and sometimes it's about feeling overwhelmed. if we ask in small increments sometimes that helps. small steps are achievable. like losing weight, they say it's easier thinking a few pounds at a time than the whole thing because it's overwhelming, we give up before we start. for a man, alot of his self esteem is wrapped up with achievement and if he thinks he'll fail, he doesn't even begin to try because he knows he will 'fail' his wife- it seems no matter what he does she won't be happy. if he does succeed, he then fears she won't be 'satisfied' for long and have something elso to complain about. sometimes he's right. i think we have to be circumspect about our expectations also if we continue to try to 'change' him. we should limit ourselves also so as not to overwhelm him and stop him in his tracks of trying to please us. if he's trying, that's good. keep encouraging him with positive affirmations and 'thank you's' and perhaps hugs and caresses. that's the advice from the pro's.

another thing that worked for us is when he acted badly, i treated him exactly,the way he treated me - it showed him his bad behavior, it mirrored his behavior back to him which he did not like and he changed drastically. with a respectful person it works. i never felt disrespected- well for long- i felt disrespected when he acted a certain way but i knew he respected me. it's hard to explain. i could see past his bad behavior and separate his respect and love for me. in the beginning that was the problem. i couldn't separate the two- his behavior not necessarily dictating his love and respect for me. just bad learning from a bad marriage of his parents'. once i saw his behavior did not necessarily mean he did not respect or love me, i could love him, understand him and forgive him completely. but that's only because his behavior got better and better each time he 'committed' the 'crime'- such as ignoring me, shutting me out...when he was in a bad mood or he was upset with something whether i was the culprit or not.
sorry for the long comment. hope this helps a little. it worked/is working for us.
when i change a little, he changes alot. sometimes we can only change ourselves.

love and Blessings in Christ,
Mia

Comment by Megan on April 30, 2009 at 10:01am

I think workaholics are often actually afraid of intimacy and thus hide behind their work. My husband had a lot of the same obsession that you both talk about-an engineer who came from a home where the only thing that mattered was if you were organized and if the house was in perfect order. All of these thing take the emphasis off human relationships (and going to bed at the same time together). Throw in the confusion of acting like they want to work on things (ie talking about boundaries but lacing the talk with the insulting talk of stepping on his feet)and they have unconsciously or consciously achieved keeping you at a confused distance.

Comment by Kaye O. on April 29, 2009 at 11:09am

I'm so sorry about your situation and pray that God will work in our men's hearts to see that the work doesn't fill that empty hole they are trying to fill. My husband is afraid of conflict, so I rarely get a reaction about him about anything. I am thankful that he doesn't talk down to me or about me; it hurt to hear that yours does.

I know what you mean about the redoing things. The going on strike didn't work for me though, because that's exactly what he wants - the control of doing it himself. (I even quit cooking, because he can't do that himself. He seemed perfectly content bringing home carryout every night, and that was getting expensive.) And, it adds to his list of things to do, which doesn't help me any. He lived at home until he was 30 years old - and I'm a couple of years older than him. When I get upset about it, I tell him that I've been doing it (whatever chore) a lot longer than he has, and our end results are basically the same.

I have taught online for South University, and they are looking for full-time online positions. If you have a Master's degree, then you can probably teach lower-level courses like me. With a PhD, you should be able to teach most anything in your subject area. They are looking for Biology, Psychology, English, and Math. They have strict requirements about how many hours a day and how many days a week you spend online with the students. It's a big time committment, but in the best interest of student's success. Right now I teach online for the community college from which I "retired." The classes are still the traditional 16-week semester classes, which is a comfortable pace for me and for students having time to digest the material.

My husband is a good man too; he's really sweet when he's plugged in. I think he has some neurosis or something that the counselor wasn't able to dig deep enough to find. Most of the time I think it is just a sin condition...like you said...selfishness. He was raised in a works-based denomination; he's always believed he's a Christian, but has never had a conviction, repent, surrender to Christ experience...so I don't know. We all have our sins, and mine are "filthy rags" in God's eyes just like all sin. I just don't understand though...my requests seem so simple. I'm going to check into Susan's advice about the weekend to remember conferences; the Ohio weekend isn't too far from us. I've wanted to call in, but was afraid I'd end up on the air. : D

Comment by Spring on April 29, 2009 at 10:40am

Hi Darla - it sounds like your situation is very much like mine. My husband is also a workaholic. One of my primary requests has been to take some consistant time with me before bedtime. Five minutes a night would be good. He does now and then if he has leftover time but being a workaholic that doesn't happen regularly. He has time for other people, things, work, etc. He'll do something about it for a day or two if I make a stink over it but then he settles down again to his usual routine. I feel like a beggar and stop asking and just grow resentful inside.
His family has not been accepting of me either. Little wonder since he has run me down to them repeatedly.
My husband is also a perfectionist. Many things I do are not good enough and he redoes them so I stop trying. Then he says, you don't do anything. I am one heck of a hard worker and when he says, you don't do anything, I go on strike. I have probably been on strike 4 times. One time I stayed on strike for about 2 months before he started to change his attitude. The problem is once things get back to normal, his attitude begins to revert back again and it is wearing me out. I just want consistancy and respect without having to battle for it but that is not going to happen in my marriage.
I also have problems with sleep.
I also used to teach. I need to look into online teaching as I miss the classroom but do not want the stress of going back full time. Any advice on online teaching?
We went to the NL weekend. It was great and there have been changes but they have not been as dramatic or lasting for us as some couples. We were definitely the worst case in our group and we were in an intensive group. We have remained friends with one couple and call long distance almost weekly. They have been a huge support . My husband is a good man because he is willing to do things like read books i suggest, go to the weekend, go to counseling but he needs to mature and leave behind his selfish ways.
This morning he told me he needed to set boundaries. He said, "When you step on my foot I need to be able to say, GD it, get your fat ass off my foot." Yea, he really said that to me. He says things like that and then an hour or day or whatever later he wants to act like nothing happened. Unbelievable. When he says things like that, I am an emotional mess but at least i have enough self respect to pick up the phone and call a counselor even if it costs $125. If i don't take action, nothing will change, and i will not live the next 25 years like this.

Comment by Susan McLaurin on April 29, 2009 at 9:39am

Darla - please please take advantage of the 1800 New Life phone number and a counselor immediately answers and mention this - I hope that God can lead you to a New Life Weekend (one in Ohio coming and is it Denver?) anyway they will know how to place you - if that is too expensive there are "weekend to remember" marriage conferences and those can be - yes - life changing - even if you just tell your husband it's gonna be a fun weekend - the counselors can lead from New Life and they'll pray and lead; I will lift your situation up, that God will give you the wisdom how to move forward (my mom was an excessive cleaner and I have to sleep with total quiet too, by the way) - Susan

Comment by Kaye O. on April 29, 2009 at 1:20am

I need help and I don't know where to turn; I'm not sure this is even the most appropriate place on this site to be. I've been praying for over 10 years, but because little is changing, I'm losing my faith that it ever will. My husband and I have been in counseling for a year and a half to little avail. We quit a few weeks ago; I think the counselor was actually relieved. He said we were one of the toughest "cases" he's ever had to deal with. That in itself was actually validating; my husband revealed that night something I had worried about myself...that our problem was so petty compared to problems other people have.

A recent caller to New Life Live could have easily been me...her story was so similar. I felt very validated by the tongue-in-cheek jokes of...I believe Cloud and Townsend were on that day...about being married to engineers and accountants. My husband is an engineer...who was raised by a father that lived by the motto that "sleep is a waste of time" and a mother that is very manipulative, controlling, makes cleaning her house the number one priority in her life, and puts others down...well..for any flaw she sees...but mostly for them being dirty people. I know that she is very insecure and that's her way of building herself up.

All I have asked from my husband is for him to go to bed when I do and to make a little time in his schedule for me. He refuses to do either, even though he says he really wants to. I think people think I'm being petty, and maybe I am, but I believe that two of the priviledges of a Godly marriage is sexual intimacy and not having to sleep alone. Perhaps my strong beliefs there is why I have been unable to go to sleep until the house is dark and quiet, though I've always attributed it to the fact that until I got married, I went to sleep in a dark, quiet house.

He is a perfectionist and can't seem to go to bed until he's gotten x number of things accomplished, and admits that he never feels like he's done enough. He wants our yard to look like a golf course and our house to look like a magazine picture. We have practically no social life...a little more in the last few years since we found a church in this area...well...I'm probably getting into more details than are necessary. I tend to want to paint the whole picture for people so that they can make accurate assessments.

The advice for the recent call was, at least in part, to respect the husband and help build him up. I really want to do that, but have a very difficult time when he can't give me the only two things I ask for and when I have to constantly deal with, what I believe are, symptoms of his sleep debt.

We were surprised by a late-in-life pregnancy, our first...he is now 16 months old. It was a surprise for two reasons...we were not planning children, and the rare intimacy would decrease our chances. My husband was NOT HAPPY about it, but after the birth, fell in love. I compliment my husband on taking at least 30 minutes every day to devote attention to our son and helping out tremedously with his daily care. I quite my full-time teaching position to teach online part-time so that I could be at home, so the pressure of my own sleep debt is off somewhat, but my health is suffering because of our lifestyle.

I apologize for the long comment. Any advice is appreciated. I'd love to go to the NL weekend that will be near our area, but it is expensive for our now tight budget.

Comment by Kathy C on April 28, 2009 at 7:48pm

Susan, I too am reading Boundaries...GREAT BOOK!!! ...and AMEN!!!! I just have to say that this most recent journey that God has put me on is going to TRULY lead me to what HE wants me to be! He would not put anyone through this for fun! BOUNDARIES, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND LOVE! WITH God I CAN! and so can YOU!!

Comment by Susan McLaurin on April 28, 2009 at 5:20pm

Great Advice - I am new and glad to be a part of this wonderful group (I am currently reading the "Boundaries" book written by Cloud and Townsend from the radio station - I have a different perspective having gone to extensive counseling and learning "healthy boundaries" - wow is all I can say. Sometimes boundaries mean like you said well RJD, I am learing, is not disrespecting ourselves and trusting the Holy Spirit that lives inside when we let him (boy I am waaay behind on that one); the second, not being ashamed of enforcing accountability, which will help - okay - MEEE make good and better decisions. I am scared and hopeful this new journey I am on, which will in turn strengthen my relationship with my teenagers and give myself the respect and love God wants me too - whew took okay more than thirty years to get let's just say that..........can we get an AMEN? ha! As Steve Arterburn and many others say, "let's not forget to dance...." Chondra Pierce tapes will surely make you laugh if you need a good laugh!!

Comment by RJD on April 1, 2009 at 4:16pm

Run, spring, Run! As far away from him as you can get.

Comment by Spring on April 1, 2009 at 10:46am

Jennifer:
He is trying to get you to come closer emotionally at a time you need to distance yourself emotionally. Do not get pulled in by the excuses. I did. I caught my husband in one lie before we were married. It was a big one but I decided if he told me about it without my coming directly out and asking I would forgive him. All I said was repeatedly, "You need to tell me things." Knowing the relationship was on the rocks he confessed and I "forgave" him. Now we are married and I have found lie after lie. He is very good at hiding them but I am becoming a sluth. Trust your instincts if they are usually reliable. Mine are usually right on in hind site but I keep getting into this same mess. My first marriage was to a compulsive lier. No way can a marriage work without trust and here I go again. Try to keep your distance from this guy and put him to the test if you want to keep dating him. Lieing is a character flaw that is not often or easily fixed. Find support with healthy friends so that you will have the strength to dump him if you need to.

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