Relationship Any luck/tips getting your issues resolved with your so?

[Mytime]

I went through something like this myself. It could of ended my marriage. Thanks to marriage counseling and reading up on how different women and men think and deal with things.
When a man thinks of work, it’s just work. Theirs no emotional connection to it. So why would he think twice about deleting the text. Why keep a text when theirs no need to. If he felt you trusted him, why would he think to show you. It’s a text that means nothing to him so why keep it. Is it weird she texted him on a Sunday night. Hell YES! But it was her actions, not his. He can’t speak for her.

him telling me, "yeah, that was stupid and there's nothing going on with that woman,"

I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure he feels he owned it. Don’t get me wrong, I felt the same way as you. We as woman think with emotion and everything is connected. We think about work, home, relationships, ect. They all move together. Their always moving from one to the other. We can be at work and be thinking about a conversation we had with a friend. When men are at work, they think of work. If they feel their not meeting their goals at work, they have this other box.
In this box is nothing. Can you believe it!! A place of nothing. ( I have to say, I want this place. A place of black, no thoughts)

I can get suspicious due to my own

I do think you need to look here, just like I did. This part can be hard. You can’t change what we don’t acknowledge. Do you have reason not to trust him. Has he cheated on you before? Then you have some big trust issues to work on. If he hasn’t cheated on you then the answer is in you. You need to have a conversation with him about trust and secrets. Look within yourself and ask. What actions bring up these feelings. Example: when I feel like your ignoring me, it brings up old emotions of not being heard or seen.

Please don’t get me wrong. I have been where you are. I understand the circle your in.

did it to avoid unnecessary conflict about nothing.

Before this, did he do something to break your trust.?Or did someone else?
If someone else did, then he has no room for someone else’s issues. This could be why he feels he needs to hide
things. Because it’s not his issue.

I just wanted to give you a different point of view and share my experience. I pretty much felt the same way as you and want the same conversation.
I also wanted to share. When I was going through some of my stuff, my SO lost some trust in me. I hurt him with my issues.
I wish I had the answer. I do hope things get better for you. If I offended you in anyway I am sorry.

 

[Hojay]

@Mytime No worries, you didn't offend me at all. Not least because what you wrote is very much the perspective I am writing from.

First though, the situation didn't go down exactly as you described. He didn't delete the message because it was just work related and no big deal. We were going to look at something in his messages together. Before doing that, he pulled his phone away so I couldn't see it, which struck me as odd, so I craned my neck, and there he is...trying to delete that message before I could see it. So with all due respect, and my trust issues in mind, and all of them mulled over in years of therapy...that's just not trustworthy behavior.

The problem is really not "other women," it's secrecy, lying, and sneaking around. You asked if he's cheated. No, not that I know of. But we've had similar situations like these before where he tried to hide certain things from me, worried I would "get the wrong impression." And that was before he knew I had trust issues, mind you. The first time it happened, I had a good long talk with him that I don't accept sneaking, hiding, and lying. That is what triggers me and that is the one (1) issue I need him to work with me on. We "agreed" and he "understood." And now this.

I do have my own issues with trust, I know that and he knows it too. But what can be tricky about having trust issues is, in realizing that, we can be quick to chalk up any and all suspicion and bad feeling we have to our own warped compass. On the one hand, having had our trust broken in the past (in my case family and ex partners) makes us hypervigilant, on the other, it turns us blind, dumb, and all too ready to take responsibility for or excuse other people's actions by virtue of knowing we can quickly get the wrong idea. It's a real bind.

To conquer that, and get a grip on it, within a relationship, there needs to be communication.

The conversation you say we need to have:

You need to have a conversation with him about trust and secrets.

is exactly what this thread is about. How? We have a whole protocol in place for episodes, calming down, etc. all of which requires a lot of patience and understanding on my part, and all of which is catering to his needs. But what then? When he's balanced again, how do I get my issues addressed?

The good news is, he's agreed to now address my questions in writing over the next few days. I hope it happens. And I hope he doesn't try to talk to me about "not cheating" but about the fact that he thinks he should/needs to hide something like this in the first place. Makes me sick.

 

[Mytime]

I’m so glad you understood where I was going from. I get how your feeling, I really do. I felt the same way and see where your coming from. When we went to counseling and this came up, I was surprised what came out of this session. One thing I think you should think about is how you get the answers.
If you ask, why he’s keeping secrets or hiding things he may see it as an attack on this character. If you ask him for his
perspection you may get more of an answer. Your definition of secrets and hiding, ect. Could be totally different from his. Communicating both sides there is no right way or wrong. It understanding each other then coming to an agreement, being heard and understood.
I have to say, when I heard his perspective I thought “ what the f**k.
But we did work it out.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

The problem is... secrecy, lying, and sneaking around.

I've been married for 32 going on 33 years and have learned that sometimes and in some things there are secrets. I don't want to know nor should I demand to know every single thing about my husband's life. I'm the sufferer. Nor does he want to know every detail about mine. We tell each other the truth. We do not interrogate (question) each other to obtain personal details. Besides an interrogation-style questioning of anything I've done would trigger the f*ck out of me.

I am blunt and to the point and truthful 99.99% of the time. There are many things I hold secret or "close to the vest," mostly anything surrounding my abuse and personal issues I have because of the abuse. I don't consider that lying. So I am not 99.99% transparent in my marriage. I doubt anyone is that transparent especially regarding anything surrounding their abuse even to a therapist. And my therapist knows more about what happened to me than my husband, and I've only seen her for 6 months! My husband, the supporter, isn't 99.99% transparent with me.

In our marriage, we've found a happy medium between transparency and secrecy. I'd say it's mostly about trust. I didn't start off trusting him at all. I definitely had trust issues when I first got married. Actually they arose before I married my husband. I definitely have issues with trust because of my childhood abuse. Over time, not through counseling, I eventually learned to trust him. My husband married me because I was honest and blunt. He had trust issues as well because of a divorce. So two people who didn't trust have learned to trust each other. Pretty amazing.

One thing which helped me the most was learning my husband's love language. Once I figured that out on my own, my communication with him went from bad to excellent in a matter of weeks. He was understanding what I was saying to him, and I didn't have to go through mental gyrations to get to that place. I didn't have to ask him details about a situation either. I remember my T at the time told me that many couples never learn how to communicate with each other in this way. For us, it's different for everyone, it's kind of like a "how would you feel (or think) if I did such and such to you." Basically asking him to put my shoe on his foot or walk a mile in my shoes. He hears what I'm saying with this type of communication. It's a little more complicated than what I just wrote above, and it involves feelings/emotions. My T at the time told me that many man would not respond well to that type of love language. Apparently it works well with my husband and it is the language of his heart. In the end, we get how each other feels, get to know each other on a more intimate level, and finally, our trust for each other deepens.

 

[Hojay]

It’s really interesting what you say about love languages @Congruency! I have the book lying around here somewhere, should take another look at it. Could you say a bit more how that bridged the gap in your communication? I’m fairly sure my language runs along the lines of verbal affirmation. Is just not doing so well verbally right now ;)

 

[Never_falter2]

Since you asked... I think it would not be an issue for me... I think I am younger than most on this board. Maybe I am naive. Maybe my advice isn‘t good. My husband is away from home a lot because of his job and actually I am pretty sure I would not even notice if he had a courtesan. IF this is what he wanted to do.
I know his workmates hired an „exotic dancer“ and asked him if he wanted to join them see her perform. He told me he said „no“. If he had said „Yes“ instead would I have noticed? I don‘t think so. There would be no way for me to notice.

So how can I be sure there is nothing going on behind my back? Because I trust him. I know him and I know he is not like that. He is a honorable and upstanding man and this is not the kind of thing he would ever do.

I have no idea if your is cheating. I do not know him. I do not want to dish out bad advice... and as I said I think I am younger than most people here and might be naive.

 

[Hojay]

@Never_falter i don’t think you’re naive. Your input is greatly appreciated!

At the end of the day this thread isn’t really about cheating, or whether or not I should just trust my partner. It’s about tools for broaching subjects that I know I need discussed.

I made a mistake going into the nature of the issue I need discussed, and continuing to explain myself in that regard. I helped derail the discussion into an area I’m fairly firm about—we need to talk about secrecy and trust—and am still wondering just how to go about it.

Time, patience, and choosing my words wisely, that’s what I’ve been doing. It doesn’t seem to help all that much. He told me he’d like to address my questions in writing over the weekend. Saturday he said he’s working on it. Sunday night he made sure I knew he was in bad shape again (though stable for the last few days when talking to me,) until I finally mentioned what he’d promised to do. He apologized for not “being better,” but also got somewhat defensive and it didn’t take long until I was back to talking to him about how he’s feeling, what he needs, and what I’ve done in the past. All of which we’ve discussed before to a point I thought we’d moved past it.

I asked him what triggers him about the conversation we need to have. His response, having to go back to that place of doing something stupid and then having to go through two months of hell and flashbacks because of it.

Now, I’m having a hard time not reading that as if he’s saying the last two months were my fault, not somehow his unmanaged PTSD.

So, at the end of the day, a lot of talking about him, but still no conversation about me, and I’m at a bit of a loss at how to handle this.

 

[Sighs]

Sigh! :banghead:

It's like he almost gets there - and then bails on the conversation. I get that's he doesn't want to talk about it. It's a hard conversation for anyone. But I also get that you need to have the conversation. It's almost like the subject matter of the conversation no longer matters. The fact that he won't/ can't/ isn't well enough to have it is maybe a deal breaker for you.

Ah. This just sucks all round for both of you. Hugs if you accept them.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Could you say a bit more how that bridged the gap in your communication?

Certainly @Hojay !

Before I found my husband's love language I just couldn't get my point across no matter how important or insignificant it was to me or him, he never really heard me though he'd act as if he had. There's always an emotional connection with whatever I was attempting to communicate. I knew better by his actions and the words spewing forth from his mouth. And then one day he said something and I put my shoe on his foot and he walked in my shoes and felt what I felt.

Okay, @Hojay , I can see that I'm not talking about the same "love language" that's in that book by Dr. Gary Chapman. I looked it up online and there's five of them, right? What I'm talking about is something altogether different than that. Though his book is good don't get me wrong there. I've read it.

What I'm talking about is more on the lines of this book:
The three happy couple types (Conflict-Avoiding, Validating, and Volatile) come from Harold Raush’s landmark book Communication, Conflict, and Marriage. My husband and I are the Volatile type. I found this information on a site which discussed The 5 Types of Couples. There are two more types of couples which the site says aren't as happy; Hostile and Hostile-Detached. Though still those communication styles don't exactly explain how those people communicate.

These are not easy conversations between us. The subjects are extremely touchy for both. Contentious is more like it. Yet when I use this form of communication it seems to work for my husband because he truly gets what I'm saying. Interestingly, I never misunderstand what he's saying to me. Hm. For some reason though, he misunderstands my communication toward him especially if the topic is emotional in any way.

This is going to be a super touchy subject and well, I'm going to lay it out like I'd laid it out for my husband recently, and what do you know... HE GOT IT. Before he didn't get it. Frustrating to say the least. This was about the puppy we wanted to get. A few weeks before I discussed with him that I wasn't ready for a puppy. He was. My T even suggested I wait. She was right in some respects. However the discussion fell flat. I never got my point across. Then the breeder we were going to get the puppy from did something strange because she was working in a tight time frame. She gave our puppy to someone else and then sneakily backed out of the deal, later claiming we backed out. Not true.

So here we are in the middle of now not getting a puppy. My husband was feeling vulnerable and that's when I decided to speak to him in the communication style I know works with us. I found again and again I needed to speak to him when he's feeling vulnerable. That seems to be the only way he gets what I'm saying. And then of course I have to be pointed and not trying to write the conversation out in my head before I say it. I basically get to the emotional level of the conversation. It isn't pretty between us. Sometimes it's down right nasty going back and forth. The following conversation was less volatile to begin with than other ones we've had and was nearly what we said to each other. As you'll see it was succinct. And notice there was no preamble. I just started right with the subject. No prep. No slowly getting into what I wanted to say. No saying, "You may not like what I'm going to say" or something similar.

I said, "Remember when I told you about not being ready for a puppy?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "Well, how you feel right now is about how I felt about being pushed into getting a puppy. I felt as vulnerable and raw as I know you must feel right now. How would you like it right now if I told you that you shouldn't feel that way about not getting the puppy?"
He said, "I wouldn't like that at all."
I said, "Well, that's how I felt when you dissed what I said about not being ready to get a puppy."

I didn't need to say any more words to him after I said my piece. I simply stopped my end of the conversation at that moment because I knew he got it. The look on his face told me all. A few minutes later he apologized for pushing me into getting a puppy before I was ready and not listening to me. After that we started joking around and discussing our disappointment about that breeder. There were some heated times during all of this, yet we came out of it understanding each other.

A week later we came to the conclusion, nearly at the same time, that not getting a puppy from that breeder was the best thing which could've happened for us. We've moved on to looking for another puppy for later on in the year when I'll be ready.

choosing my words wisely... it doesn’t seem to help all that much.

Men don't like indirect communication. My husband wants me to just say what I mean and not spend time finding the right words. That's the worst thing I ever tried to do in our communication with each other.

I had two male Ts tell me that men don't want to hear "perfectly chosen words" they want to hear your truth in as little time and words as possible.

The key for my marriage was finding the manner and timing in which to communicate those words.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Here's another interesting website for Friendly Fighting in couples. I'd say except for talking softly, it gets a little rowdy around here, I'd agree with all 10 of these rules.

 

[scout86]

Men don't like indirect communication.

I'm not sure that's a gender thing. Maybe it is, but I much prefer to just have people say what they mean, directly, too. Trying to sort out something that's vague can be pretty stressful.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

@scout86 I'm the same way as well. Just say it.