Need advice for a friend, quick!

[Nothing But Net]

Originally posted by ladysycamore


B.E.F.O.R.E.

Rho, that would be a great name for an Aretha Franklin song.

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by staceyv
i sympathize with your friend and i don't think she is overreacting. if my husband hit on one of my friends and then i found out he was hanging out with another women and had her arm around his, i'd be very upset and rightfully so. some of the guys on here are saying that's innocent. oh, please.

Precisely. They can say that all they damn well want to, but let that shoe be on the other foot: let their woman be seen hanging all over some other man in a "more than friendly" way, having coffee AND the man is on her ICQ (read PRIVATE MESSAGE) list!?!? I don't think any man would be considered human if he didn't react to that, even in a mild way. He doesn't have to throw a jealous fit, but to be 100% cool with that...sorry, I don't believe that for a second.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by Undertoad
The urge here for everyone is to label one party or the other "good" or "bad" -- "at fault" or "not at fault" -- and then to assume that if one is one, then t'other is t'other.

Did we not learn from McCartney and Wonder?

There is good and bad in everyone.

We learn to live, we learn to give each other what we need to survive.

Together alive! Everybody now!

There are always good and bad in everyone, yes.

And regardless of WHO is good or bad, SHE is the one that is having problems with HIS behavior. You cannot change another person. We can't talk to him, so lets focus on what we can work with. Her.

If he is going to keep on doing these things (seeing this girl, bitching about the friends, not helping her around the house, going places without her all the time) then SHE needs to decide if she likes who she is living with right now, not if she likes the guy she married. Obviously, whatever has happened, whoever is at fault (and I guarantee both are), things are different now.

If she can live with his behavior as it is now, then she needs to shut up and live with it, and quit her bitchin.

If she can't live with it, she needs to be very clear. "I will not live with this behavior. I will leave and take our child with me. Now, we can sit down and discuss this or I will pack up our shit. How would you like to proceed?"

If they "discuss it", she needs to say, "You have agreed to do this, this, and this. If you do NOT do this, this, and this, there is no "talking about it," my child and I are gone. "

When she has had enough of his disrespect, it will come down this way, or similar to this way.

Here's the catch: if she delivers an ultimatum, she MUST be ready to follow through. It CANNOT be empty or idle threats. Have a place to go in the event he doesn't want to discuss things and it's over. Have a plan to get a job to support her and her child. Be ready to do this. Be ready for him to say, "You know what? You're right. I'm not happy, and I'm not going to change, so you know what? Get the fuck out."

If she isn't ready to make the change, she can't deliver the ultimatum. Don't ask the question if you aren't ready for the worst case scenario. If she can live with the WCS, she's good to go.

[Lady Sidhe]

Her main reason for asking me to post this was to see if she was overreacting, or if other people actually saw what she saw. She said that sometimes, when she's depressed, she overreacts, and she didn't want this to be one of those times, since she's trying not to be overly influenced by her depression in this. She wrote him a letter a couple of days ago, telling him how she feels and that she wants to work things out, and they're supposed to talk about it tonight when she gets home from work. We'll keep y'all posted, and she sincerely thanks everyone for their insights and advice. She says that at least now, she knows she's not just being paranoid, if other people see it too.

Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Reply to Hot Pastrami:

>>Everything is subjective. You are seeing most of this through your friend's eyes, an not her husband's. That doesn't mean you don't see what's happening, it just means that your perspective, like your friend's, is limited. For example, you say that your friend didn't nag her husband to get work when he was out of a job. Well, perhaps she asked him 1-2 times a day how the jubhunt was going... out of genuine curiosity, or just as conversation, trying to be supportive. But that kind of thing can be perceived as nagging, even if it's not intended to be... like asking someone on a diet how much weight they've lost so far. It frustrates the effort.


I'm sorry I missed this the first time...It's a lot of good advice. As far as the work, she made an effort to let him do it on his own, because she knows how men are about being the breadwinner. Every now and then she'd ask him about the jobhunt, but people in her family are naggy, and she didn't want to be that way, so she kept quiet. WE used to ask him if he'd found anything, but she rarely did. I think that's part of her problem: She's so scared of being seen as a nag that she doesn't push him to do anything. If she asks him to take out the trash and he doesn't, she does it herself. If she asks him to bathe the baby while she's at work, and he doesn't, she does it herself, that kind of thing, because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings.


>>Just remember that you only see what you see. Your friend will leave out details that seem trivial to her, but they could be huge to the husband. Like, maybe she said something innocently, and obliviously, that cut him to the bone, and this is his inappropriate, immature, but self-justified way of getting back at her. No matter what you think, you do not have all of the key information. Nobody does, not even the wife or the husband. And that is probably a big part of the problem here.


No doubt there is something that he perceives to be so aggravating that he's behaving like this. But he won't talk to her, so what can she do?



>>I'll wrap up by egotistically quoting myself from another thread:
[/b][/quote]


I agree completely with that sentiment. Matter of fact, most of those things she's already told him. She believes that a couple can be happy if they put the other first always. And I think that's actually caused her trouble, insofar as she never makes him take responsibility because she doesn't want to sound like a nag (and that's a direct quote from her), she doesn't want to make him feel like less of a man, and she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. If he'd reciprocate with that, I think there wouldn't be the problems there are now...She has the absolute love for him, believe me, and she had the absolute respect until he propositioned her best friend and started letting this girl hang all over him....

But I do think your advice is really good, and so does she. It reinforces the beliefs she already holds.

Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

To Radar and FnF:

With all due respect, you guys seem a little bitter. I'm trying to be as objective in reporting the facts as possible. I'm not taking her side because she's female, or because she's my friend. I'm taking her side because I agree with her assessment of the situation, because I know the history of both, and because I've heard it from both sides. I also think, that no matter what the husband's intent, the girl is after him, and I think it's wrong that he blows his wife's feelings off and continues to see this girl, when his wife is trying very hard to work things out. I'm not saying he's cheating. I'm just reporting the facts that he does not dispute. Therefore, my reporting, according to them both, is accurate.

Sidhe

[99 44/100% pure]

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
She hasn't gained any weight since they've been married. She's always weighed between 100-112 lbs.

Originally posted by Lady Sidhe
And btw, the wife's 5'8", so that makes her slender.

Yikes! 5'8" and 100-112 lbs isn't slender, it's anorexic. I have a 5'1" tall friend who is skinny at 100 lbs, and at 5'6" I look best at 135 lbs.

Sounds like your friend has a lot worse problems than whether her hubby is a hound dog. She's heading for a heart attack!

For the record, this couple needs professional counseling, not advice from friends or a message board. They're not going to solve anything by listening to their friends, as their world views and expectations are so out of sync.

[Lady Sidhe]

*grins* She's always been that thin...she eats anything she wants (pizza, sweets, you name it) and never gains weight. She just happens to be blessed with a metabolism that most people would kill for. Not to mention that she's always on the go...She doesn't starve herself or anything. I don't think she could gain a lot of weight if she TRIED.

Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

update on the letter she wrote him:

She gave it to him three days ago, and for three days he's been PROMISING to read it. He hasn't yet.

Sidhe

[hot_pastrami]

Ugh... The Letter. Writing a concerned letter to a loved one is akin to saying "I can't talk to you, so this is the only way to tell you how I feel." I'm not saying that it isn't appropriate, just that it sends a very specific message. Of course the message attached to failing to read the letter is that he doesn't want to hear her concerns, regardless of the medium.

Suffice it to say, if my wife wrote me a letter to address some issue she had with me, enormous red warning lights would be flashing. If I was in such a state that I refused to read it, I would be pretty sure that things were degraded to a point where repairs were unlikely.

Maybe she needs to sit him down, tell him to be silent and listen without interruption, open the letter, and read it aloud to him. It lets her share her carefully worded thoughts, and gives him a chance to respond.

Of course I'm slightly drunk at the moment (hence the slurring), so keep that in mind as you consider heeding my advice.

[Lady Sidhe]

To 99 1/4% pure:

Counseling costs money, which they don't have enough of to spend on anything but necessities and bills....I doubt he'd go to counseling if they had the money...he'd probably just say it was "pissing away money..." Besides, he's big on personal privacy, and so is she. She'd probably go...counseling doesn't scare her. She was in counseling about six years ago, which was how she found out she was clinically depressed and got put on Zoloft. However, I don't think he'd go, what with how private he is about his life, and how closely he keeps his feelings guarded. I doubt he'd talk to a stranger. I'm just referring to what I know of them both in the years we've been friends, though. I could be wrong.

Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Sorry...I meant 99 44/100% pure....*grins*

[Lady Sidhe]

To Hot Pastrami:

The reason she wrote him the letter (or email, rather) is because he rolls his eyes at her whenever she tries to talk to him, or he gives her this LOOK. He usually just tunes her out...she wanted to be able to get it all out without getting any of those reactions. If he has to read it, he can't tune it out. Also, she had a lot she wanted to say, and didn't want to get sidetracked in the middle of it. She figured if there was a particular point he wanted to address concerning what she said, he'd be able to refer to the letter, and they could stay on track that way. It was meant to be an aid to conversation, not a replacement for it.

Sidhe

[hot_pastrami]

Has she tried pointed questions? For instance:

Do you love me?

(Assuming he answers yes) Do you want me to be happy?

(Assuming he answers yes again) Then why do you continue to spend time with this girl when it so clearly makes me unhappy?

If his answer is something like "You're making a big deal out of nothing," she needs to ask the question again. Why does he do something to make his wife, who he loves, and who he wants to be happy, unhappy? It DOES matter.

It is OK for her to admit jealousy. It is OK for her to mention that he is her husband, and therefore ALL HERS. That's what he promised at the wedding. It won't be productive to accuse him of cheating, but it may make him more aware of her feelings if she tells him that she feels he's been being inconsiderate and disrespectful of his beloved wife.

I hope that she had the forethought to make her letter communicate her love and concern as much as her suspicions and worries.

Damn, I'm really drunk now, I'd better hit the sack. G'nite.

[Lady Sidhe]

I don't know...the more I look at it, the more it seems that the hitting on the best friend just screwed everything up, and things have been askew ever since. The fact that he never apologized (apologizing isn't the same thing as saying "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry" means "I feel bad about what I did." "I apologize" means "I acknowledge that what I did hurt you." He hasn't done either) engendered a hurt in her that never went away. I think it actually kick-started her depression up again. And now all this with this girl after he'd agreed to stop hanging around with her....

Basically what I see is that he hurt her, and she went into her shell, so he pulled away or whatever, which made her go deeper into her shell because she didn't feel that she could turn to him with her fears and things that made her upset....you have to be able to talk to the person who's supposed to love you more than anyone else, but she can't do that. Whenever she tries, she gets hurt more. I think that was the main reason for writing the email. She didn't want to get hurt again by seeing him roll his eyes or give her that look or tune her out...I understand that. Plus, lately, whenever she talks to him, he's begun to patronize her, which he never, ever did before, and that makes her feel bad, and she ends up getting emotional, and she doesn't want to get emotional when they talk. Getting emotional is contemptible as far as he's concerned. (For anyone who's into astrology, he's a Capricorn, she's a Taurus...that should explain a lot as far as how they view getting emotional.)

It's easy for all of us to take one side or the other....I've tried my best not to, tried to just "report the facts" so to speak. But when you're in that position, the position of feeling like you're losing the person you love more than anyone except your child, it's not that easy tso stay unbiased. All you know is that you're hurting and you don't know what to do to fix it. That's where she's coming from. She had a life she loved, and a man she loved, and when they had their child, it all came together....then the fiasco with the best friend, then the redhead happened, and she feels like her world is falling apart. It's very hard to deal on the one hand with depression, trying to come out of it, and on the other hand, a husband that is helping to fuel that depression, then using it as an excuse to 1.)ignore her (which is the worst thing he could do when she's depressed. She needs to know she can turn to him, not be afraid to turn to him) and 2.)spend time with another woman.

Her husband has NEVER been like this with her. He's always been good to her, for the most part making her happy....now, over the course of a year, he's just done a 180 emotionally, on her, and she's having a hard time figuring out how to handle it.

She's not anorexic. She's not a nag. She's not a shopaholic. She's not a bitch. I'm not saying she's an angel, but dammit, she spoiled that man rotten and treated him the way most men would LOVE to be treated, and he can't even be there for her when she needs him??


She's trying her damndest. He's not. That's one of the reasons I'm behind her. Because she's trying. She's not retaliating by hanging out with other guys to make him jealous. She's not bitching at him about it. She's trying to talk to him about how she feels.

Oh, btw, in reference to an earlier post. She was NOT snooping through his ICQ. She was sitting with her daughter at his computer at work where he said she could sit, while he was working on some other computers. she saw a flashing name she didn't recognize, and looked it up later, and it was this girl. This girl even has a message to him on her ICQ page. Now THAT'S inappropriate. She doesn't spy on him. She didn't even know about this girl until he started talking about it with one of her friends, the one who told her about it. Now considering that this friend was one of the ones that helped them get together, the information-passing was just a heads-up, not an "I'm going to stir up shit," because this friend knows his history, too.



Sidhe