The Lundy Book. So sad

[Abitwobblynow]

This book 'should I stay or should I go?' is just one of the saddest books I have read. Especially for a co dependent, whose life has depended on 'solving the problem'.

What I have discovered, is that after our lives have been rocked by infidelity, nothing has changed, and what is it that I am supposed to be working with?

If he had been shocked by himself (he was) to really face things, really work at looking at himself and make sure he never reverted to those strategies again (naaah, not worth it), then all of this would have been worth it.

But nothing has changed. I am sure I am batshitcrazy to want to talk about the affair, but he says that the few sparse sentences he gave me is enough, and I shouldn't be going on about it. So, for me, it is not going away.

Then, the Lundy book has opened my eyes to the complete futility of our non-transactions. Why is protecting and defending himself/his ego more important than anything else? It has always been this way!

What would happen if he acknowledged that I had a point? Would he blow up and die?

'(Meal) Take any plate you want. Oh no, not that one, I wanted it. [pointing out this is a double message requiring mind reading, rage, retreat. The new me insists on the point being made, conflict]

'You make it very hard for me to talk to you' [after I have erupted in hurt and frustration because he hasn't talked to me about something really important]

'No, it isn't' - instant flat response to everything.

[This one hurts] never touching me affectionately unless he wants sex. After sex the touching stops. I have raised this point several times over a 10 year period.

If I persist, turning the issue back onto me and my faults, issues he never brings up in his own time.

Has anyone read this book? What are your thoughts? Does anything I say echo in anyone's life, or am I batshitcrazy after all?

You are definitely not crazy, and you do deserve more. I lived as an expat for 8 years and know how difficult this can be - do you have any friends you can talk to locally, or even friends at home you could e-mail? I found this a big help at certain times.

I am in a foreign country, too Abit

Abit to want, crave, and need affection isn't something that we can - or should - suppress.
People do need loving connections and loving touch to have healthy, happy lives. Why shouldn't you have a happy life? Why shouldn't you have a life full of affection? You're not weird or 'needy' for wanting what everyone on earth wants and deserves.

The fact that your H exploits your needs enough to know you'll accept a cheap substitute for real affection from time to time just makes me respect him less, frankly.

I'm so sad you feel alone and far from friends. I hope you find lots of support here, and in real life soon.

You see, this is where the confusion comes in: he experiences me as abusive.

And I am abusive: I am angry, screaming, sullen, frustrated. I AM those things. I am fully prepared to hold my hands up to the things I do that are less than perfect, less than loving.

But what causes what!!

I have reported before that even when I am telling him a story from my day, and a story that is actually dramatic/interesting [not droning on about shopping* or whatever]

• he will be checking his iPad

*Actually, he like that about his OW: that she chattered on about what she bought shopping etc. In a relationship? She wouldn't be chattering after a year or so.

You're not abusive babe you're bloody angry. And you have every right to be.

There's no pain like the loneliness in a marriage. It poisons everything in your world; your material possessions, your interests, your other relationships all mock you when you are basically alone under a roof with someone who has not just chosen you but promised to love, honour and cherish you. It's like a case of the Midas touch.

What causes the expression of desperate anger is desperate anger. I remember practically screaming at exH "What do you want from me? What do you need me for?" At the time, I felt I might as well be the hired help, and he made it clear that he thought I was a failure as the hired help.

Hired help, yes! There is no doubt in my mind that the reason I wasn't divorced, was that he wanted to keep his family. Which meant keeping me on as housekeeper and nanny, whilst he focussed on his real needs...

Math, I do envy you your beautiful children!! I would have loved to have 5, awesome x

So is the lonliness of being on your own better?

It is not so much even loneliness as good, solid singleness and comfort in my own skin and in my own home, the feeling that I can now call my soul my own.

Life feels so much more straightforward now. I don't feel like half a person any more. I don't second guess myself. I am not constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall. I am not devoting head space to the question of what he thinks about me, what he feels about me or the children, and I am not putting any pressure on myself to try harder to make things work -- I was surprised at the feeling of sheer relief and freedom when it all finally ground to a halt.

I was also surprised at the feeling that I owned my own turf and I realised that I hadn't felt 'at home' in my own house when he was there. He had nit picked and criticised and nagged me for years and years and years about how I kept house, as if he was the employer and I had a job there and reported to him. It took a while to shake off my habitual 6 o'clock nervousness .

One thing I am struggling with - when I read the book, or talk to close friends, or write in my journal, or talk to my counsellor, I am so sure I am done with this relationship. I feel strong and determined. Yet when I am with DH at home and we are just doing normal everyday family things I start to doubt myself...it seems such a big step. It's as if all that certainty melts away. I don't know if it is fear, or what.

Yes. Its that 'am I making a fuss?' thing. And, 'what about the children?' And, shall I continue to detach/work on myself within the R?

He is away at the moment. 1. I don't miss him one bit, and 2. we have more fun.

Huh? Work on yourself within the relationship

I thought the relationship was over and he's leaving in June?

Yeah, I was wondering that, Hatty

Can't tell you what to do. abit - but sentences like that should loudly that this situation confuses you.
You say yourself that you're not in a relationship with him, that it's going to end in June/has ended- but you live like you are and you act like you are and then your subconscious 'slips' and reveals that you think, somewhere deep in yourself, that you are still in a relationship. Because you're living like you are.

I would find it totally impossible to live like you are living. It would be too fuzzy around the edges, and I would hate being stuck, unable to start getting over the ended marriage. I would get confused, like you are confused. I prize clarity of mind, it's so precious to me.... I would have to get the hell out.

The thing about working on yourself within the relationship is that you need to stop the drain to your energies that happens in a toxic relationship before you will get anywhere.

There will come a point when you ask yourself if it is a relationship or just a habit.

Yes, Math, I am still trying to futilely connect with him (power struggle, he wins) and the fact that he CAN'T can WON'T as you describe so chillingly is a hard concept to get one's head around. The inability to see another person's point of view, to experience being asked that as a personal attack is just so inhumane it takes some getting, really. I know it is MY projection to assume some default: he hasn't understood, I haven't been clear/calm enough, he is toxically shamed.... And, again, it is that confusion: he is not off the scale wierd (as Mr Math is)! Anyone who met him would just say he was shy. And, afterall, all he did was make the mistake of having an affair, which he really regrets (and has been damaged by. He says not a day goes by when he doesn't think of it and feel bad. He just doesn't ever tell me. Unless we are in a post-row trying to connect again. God I am so tired of that).

I think once I truly accept this, then what you describe will happen. And the drain is important. When I successfully detached for 9 weeks, I was accussed of being hostile and cold. You cannot win with someone like this!!

The other Lundy Bancroft Why does he do this? is not on kindle (I am in 3rd world country reember). Can anyone tell me more about it?

Hi Abitwobbly. The other book makes for very good reading. For suckers women like us, it is probably better; It dismantles all their excuses and basically says Get The F* Out!
How are things today? I am sitting here shit scared of black depression coming back. Dreading tomorrow's finalizing of the documents with FWH playing the part of the confused rubber wall.:(

hang in there, Arth. We have just had a long w/e free, and it was great! It really was.

Oh God, he's back from bus. trip and stress levels up hugely already.

I have already 'said something wrong*' and will be given the silent treatment for the rest of the day.

*that I was afraid DS would turn out like him - a bit abusive I suppose

have only read OP

But yes..... "You KNOW I don't like butter!" (I had just done an asda shop, 1 week post natal) and "I can't remember" (when questioned about where £680 of rent money had gone)

It's NOT batshitcrazy to want to tell him that his behavior isn't acceptable and that you are hurt, and don't let him tell you that it is. It's just TwatCode for "You're saying things that might make me re-evalute my opinion of myself as the awesome one in this relationship, and you as a nasty control freak, so SHUT UP!"

Hiya Wobbly. You asked me a question on another OP's thread and I don't feel it's fair to hijack hers but as you've got an active thread and the beliefs you've expressed on hers seem to be indicative of where you're at with your bargaining, I thought I'd reply here.

You expressed a view that having an affair was much worse than an emotionless encounter with a prostituted woman. Your reasoning for this appears to be that there is no emotional betrayal and no personal involvement when a man pays for sex. Along with other posters I've explained to you that I see your stance as illogical and inhumanitarian and I've personally said that I think anyone who can make bargains like this without viewing it through a wider lens of social responsibility, is someone who places far too much emphasis on her own needs within her personal relationship.

I think to make a bargain like this you have to dehumanise the prostituted woman and subjugate her to a 'non-person' status. You also have to convince yourself that it's better for a man to have absolutely no feelings for the woman he's having sex with, or to show her any care and compassion as he might in an affair involving equals.

You're not the only person I've come across who expresses this view and I've also heard hurt women say much the same after the discovery of what was billed by their husbands as a 'sex-only' affair i.e.

'at least he was only using the OW for sex and no feelings were involved'....

My challenge to you and those women is this:

Have you really thought about what you're saying? That as long as a man doesn't learn to care about the woman he's sleeping with, it's acceptable for him to use her as nothing more than a hole? Why is that in any way acceptable as a human behaviour in the person with whom you're partnered?

Having now read your posts from today on this thread, who is this delay until June really protecting? The children or you?

Hattytown, that was one of the (many) things that made me see exH as a pretty reprehensible person -- his insistence to me that his fling had not been with a prostitute (apart from the fact that the context and a lot else made me suspect he was lying no matter what). His revulsion at prostitutes and his ability to see them as different from other women who were available, and his assumption that I would make a distinction between a prostitute and another woman all made me think a lot less of him.

Hatty: "to make a bargain like this" - extrapolation. You cannot tell me what I think and don't think.

I asked you: how do you KNOW sleeping with a prostitute is worse than an affair? I still ask that question.

Regarding the rest of your comments: I agree with you 100%. Absolutely! As you climb back onto your chair, let me tell you why I agree with you.

There is that horrible joke (which hurts me so much):
Q: what do you call the skin around a vagina?
A: A woman.

What the issue boils down to for me, is that my needs and feelings don't count, and they never have. It took a long affair conducted with extreme disrespect for me to be shocked out of my oblivion and see, for the first time, that he is not this shy, sensitive, hurt person that I could 'love' and 'understand' to health (at which time I would eventually get what I had been patiently waiting for, natch, the love and intimacy I longed for). Yes, kids, you are talking to a trained-from-birth, total immersion co-dependent.
I saw with shock an devastation the selfishness, (he texted me once 'I am tired of having to look after everyone it's all about me now' the entitlement, the belief that the rules don't apply to him, the terrifying (I did find it terrifying) ability to split himself and to lie.

This was a time of absolute trauma and grief: that he wasn't who I thought he was, we didn't have what I thought we had, I didn't know him the way I thought I knew him (I used to scream at him 'WHO ARE YOU?'), my whole life was an unreal untruth. But at this stage I still had hope. He dumped OW in a heartbeat, in fact he briskly sacked her as his special friend (see your points and joke, above), expressed huge remorse, recommitted himself to his M and was already in IC. So, provided I dealt with my issues and swallowed a huge pile of humiliation, along with his commitment to facing himself and why he did what he did and becoming completely open and accountable, our love and bond would carry us through and we would rise above this.

Except, he didn't. He would faithfully let me know when he was coming home - but not when he interacted with OW. He didn't like the humiliation of explaining himself. He thought that a brief sentence 'she was a projection, it wasn't about her' was enough. He hasn't done the work. As I laughed with someone here, on my side of the bed are piles of 'help your relationship/understanding affairs' - and on his side, nothing. He has not read a single book, not one! I am now 'not getting over it', 'nothing is enough for you', and always, always 'poor me' (to live with a nut like you).

So endless futile power struggles (my trying to connect with him is instantly seen as a personal attack which must be defeated at all costs) with all my hard hard work has got me slowly to the place where I do really recognise that my needs and feelings do not count. That his desire for space is so huge it overwhelms everything else. That his withdrawal and silent treatment, that he hated receiving from his mother so much, really IS emotional abuse.

So we are in the endgame. I said to him this morning: I am going to make you one last request. This is the last thing I am ever going to ask you to do. I would like you to read (on the plane) Linda MacDonald's 'How to help your spouse heal from an affair'. (Premise: rebuilders 'get' the damage they have caused. They humbly dedicate themselves to the healing of their spouse's pain, by being open, accountable and facing their bad habits). If you don't, or you can't be bothered, or you don't think you need to, that will give me the definitive answer that what I think or need really doesn't count in your life.

Clear? I don't think I can get clearer than that.

Regarding June, children are writing CE, GCSE and A-levels. Their needs are important too. And do you know what? After 22 years, a few more months aren't going to make any difference. I am still working very hard on consolidating myself and taking my needs seriously, and overcome my terror of abandonment and being alone. If change was that easy, we would all change. It takes dedication to the truth, and hard work to move away from life habits.

So, I am comfortable with the programme. Him? Deciding that he is so hard done by, that he must end things in order to protect himself. Whatever, man :)

Sorry, I didn't come to Hatty's conclusion:

So Hatty I agree with you: if the person you marry and who bore you children doesn't count, and the OW doesn't count, and the prostitute doesn't count, then yes this is a man who has no care for the feelings of women, and who objectifies THEM ALL. For a man like this, we are all on a deep level, skins.

Don't assume that I don't identify with prostitutes or that I don't identify with 'my' OW! That assumption would be mistaken...

I'm sorry wobbly but I'm still struggling to ascertain whether you have therefore changed your mind since the weekend when you posted on another thread that sex with a prostituted woman was 'better' than an affair because it was an impersonal transaction? If you still hold that view for those reasons, I can't see how that's possible without sanctioning the use of another person and colluding in a man's dehumanisation of her. You see that as extrapolation. I see that as logic.

I 'know' that paying a prostituted woman is worse than an affair because of the power politics involved. There are a myriad of different affairs and although admittedly some are nearer to prostitution on the power scale (e.g. an older powerful man preying on a young subordinate) as a general rule, affairs don't follow the rule of market economics where the purchaser will always have more power than the supplier. The sexual politics are also reinforced in prostitution in a much starker and obvious way than in affairs. Proportionately more men are purchasers and more women are suppliers and that has never changed. Conversely in heterosexual affairs, the gap has narrowed between the numbers of attached men having affairs compared with attached women.

Like I said on the other thread, the dilemma for a person whose partner has had an affair is whether it was an act of a essentially good person who made a terrible but human mistake; someone who was probably always selfish and entitled to an extent but for whom those negative traits were magnified during the affair. There is a period of assessment to see whether that person can make lifelong changes.

Not so with a man who has paid for sex. His actions will always be those of an essentially bad person who thinks that women can be bought and discarded.

Men who have affairs unlike men who pay for sex, will not always be misogynists who regard women as inferior and worthy of male categorisation e.g. the sex class and the marrying class.

WRT your personal situation, it sounds as though your husband is not far removed from the worst examples of masculinity we have discussed in this post. Therefore without our emotional involvement, posters can see objectively that it will damage you and your children even more than you have all suffered already, to stay with him.

If you are still imploring him to read books, you are setting yourself up again for the control he will enforce on you. He still has the power to disappoint you, or convince you that he can change. In this interaction you are communicating that if he read that book, you might relent on your decision. I think it's a grave mistake to invest him with that much power again and it dilutes your decisions and weakens your position.

you posted on another thread that sex with a prostituted woman was 'better' than an affair because it was an impersonal transaction

I did say that. Remember the codicil: in terms of marriage reconciliation. Not gender politics, marriage reconciliation.

I am asking you my original question: how do YOU KNOW it is worse?

I understood it was in relation to marriage reconciliation. I still don't understand that bargain and cannot support it. To do so would involve making my partner's monogamous emotional attachment to me more important than his character as a man and a human being. For me personally, it is more important to be partnered with a good man with human flaws who treats people as human beings than it is to be with a bad man who treats women as disposable, but whose emotional (if not physical) fidelity is assured. I couldn't be partnered with and less still respect and love a man who treated another human being with such casual disdain - and who reduced their humanity by believing he was entitled to buy them like an inanimate product.

I don't know what else you want me to say in answer to your question about how do I know? I am certainly not going to reveal anything about my work or my life beyond brief anonymous details and you have no right to demand it or badger your respondents to reveal more about themselves than they would be either comfortable with or indeed wise to disclose on an internet forum.

As a general point, as a feminist I find it impossible to divorce my politics/personal values from my personal life or my take on interpersonal relationships in general. So for me it would be iniquitous to support callous behaviour towards others if it appeared to benefit me personally. This would not be entirely altruistic either because I think I'd have the wisdom and self-preservation to see that the 'benefit' was illusory and if someone permits casual cruelty to one person, they might one day permit the same to me.