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Well he is home and pissed at me yet again. My dad found him and they got his truck and came home. He isn't talking to me at all today.

I keep messing this up. I think I'm doing the right thing but it isn't. I'm not sure why, but it seems I just keep missing the mark on what he needs or wants. Maybe I am dense! Because I can't seem to figure out what I need to do to help him when he needs it.

So did you spend this entire day trying to find him?

BS here. Stop helping. Plain and simple. He doesn't even know what he needs or wants right now. You can't do this for him. Let go of trying to make it better, you can't. Start working on what you can control, YOU.

Let him find his own head space.

Honestly SoSorry , the secret is right here in this sentence

Because I can't seem to figure out what I need to do to help him when he needs it.

This says "I" and "I". This is still about you. I know you are scared to death of letting him go, but you have to let go of the outcome and not make this about you. What you need to do to help him is stop worrying about him and worry about yourself. If I were you, I would apologize to him next time you talk about making it about yourself all the time, even if your doing it now out of fear which previously it was done out of entitlement. Let him know that you are there for him and you will let him come to you in his time of need instead of you guessing at what his needs are. Right now his need is probably for you to leave him alone instead of trying and missing the mark. Let him know that you are there for him, but will let him come to you.

In the meantime, continue to work on yourself.

yop

So apparently that is what you did, even though there were people on here that told you to give him space, because this was not about you.

And yet you did not do that. You made it about you again, with how you were feeling about this. And your worry. At what point are you going to put what he needs first?

[This message edited by tired girl at 6:27 PM, May 24th (Saturday)]

I'm afraid to call the police because I don't want him to get in trouble at work.

I was going to respond to this earlier today, but I refrained because I'm losing hope that you can be helped. You remind me *so much* of myself, though, and people here didn't give up on me so I'll give it one more shot.

O.M.F.G. why would the thought of calling the police even enter your mind? SWAT is a big boy, he can take care of himself.

SoSorry17, for God's sake, you are blowing it! It is so sad, and frustrating, to watch you shoot yourself in the foot. Yes, you broke SWAT's fucking heart, burned down his house, embarrassed him in front of the entire town. He's hurting, he went out and got wasted to numb the pain. Best choice? Maybe not, but it was his to make. You cannot control him, and you have zero standing to tell him what he should or shouldn't do at this point. You fired him from the job of giving a rat's ass what you think is best for him, or the M.

You can, at least in theory, control yourself. I'm still, despite evidence to the contrary, optimistic that you will.

I keep messing this up. I think I'm doing the right thing but it isn't. I'm not sure why, but it seems I just keep missing the mark on what he needs or wants. Maybe I am dense! Because I can't seem to figure out what I need to do to help him when he needs it.

You do why and you can figure it out.

It's simple really, you're selfish and manipulative.

Everything you do is motivated by self gratification, how it makes you feel, how it affects you, how it influences peoples' opinion of you.

How do I know? BTDT.

What are you going to do about it?

Are you going to change for yourself or are you going to go down the same path?

You are at the fork in the road.

Which direction are you going to take?

Wishing you good fortune.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. It is going to take a lot of time to deal with all that is going on in your & SWAT's life and everything will not be better anytime soon. It would be more beneficial for SWAT if you were able to give him the right to be angry, have time to figure things out and not hover over him. He is struggling to stay above water right now. Try not to push him. It sounds as though you are struggling also. Keep working on yourself! That's the most important thing you can do right now! Take care.

Because I can't seem to figure out what I need to do to help him when he needs it.

Maybe you need to stop trying to figure out what it is he needs. Don't try to control the situation. Maybe before you act, or react actually, you should stop and look at what your motivations are. What is your driving force to react the way you are?

Pause for a minute and actually try to place yourself in his shoes and then decide how to proceed from there. Feel it from his perspective, not yours. I get the fact that you would have soaked up having someone run after you and find you because that's the sort of drama you feed on. Bug this isn't about you. It's about him. So the next time you feel the need to create drama stop yourself and ask what your motivation is. Ask yourself if your action is something that you would want or is it something that he would want.

Empathy. Is. Imperative.

But you can't find empathy until you stop making this about you. In order to empathize, you need to be able to see this through his eyes.

SoSorry,

What have you been doing to work on your own healing?

If you don't listen and apply what we are posting

You. are. going. to. lose. your. husband. period

You. are. going. to. lose. your. husband. period

I would take those wise, WISE words (really, examine them) seriously.

You will lose those that have taken the time to soothe you. I had to let a very dear friend of over 10 years go for about 2-3 years. Everything was about her. Tried to support her throughout multiple bad choices. The last woe is me phone call was the last. She wanted me and others to fix her yet she took no initiative to fix herself. That is when I said no more and moved on from her.

Two things:

1. This is really hard. Give yourself a break.

2. You have to understand that you cannot control him. I know you think you can help - that you can make a difference by telling him you love him and are sorry. And that matters. But you have to let him go - let him be himself. You are too afraid of your husband. He is not going to hurt himself, and he would never put his children at risk. He needs some space. It might be easier if you weren't there.

He needs time to grieve. Please give him time and space for that.

I think many of these comments are too harsh. I can understand how you would worry when SWAT disappears. But you have to have faith in who he is.

I am cheering for you.

I'm struggling to understand some of these responses to SS17.

This was the situation she presented :

When he called last night he said he wanted to say good night to the kids, but they were asleep and I told him that. That is when I realized he was very drunk. I asked him if he needed help getting home or needed anything else. That is when he hung up, I wasn't trying to pressure him or accuse him of anything. And I do not think he thought I was accussing him of anything. But he did not come home and there was no activity on the credit card or the bank account and he didn't stay with anyone in my family. I'm worried something else happened. I checked the hospitals and thankfully he isn't there. I'm not sure what else to do. I'm afraid to call the police because I don't want him to get in trouble at work.

What, exactly, is she supposed to do? They're living in the same house. They have kids. Unless they're raising kids that are unlike any others on the planet, the first question out of their mouths will be "Where's daddy?" when they get up in the morning.

Based on her summary, the last contact she had with their father was when he was out & drunk. That's fine. If he wants to stay out & drink for days right now while he's processing the fucked up world that SS17 created, he can. Hell, he's entitled to take as much time as he wants & deal with this however he wants.

BUT. There is a but here. He's not choosing to do this while they live in separate places. Since they are all living under the same roof, he has to inform them enough of his whereabouts so that they don't worry about his wellbeing. And that can be as simple as "I need to disappear for a week." At least then she would know he's acting with intent & likely behaving with some judgment even if he decides to spend the entire week plastered out of his damn mind.

It's an exceptionally unfair position to put the kids & BW in to hang up when your BW asks if you need a ride because you're drunk & then fall off the radar. I'd be calling hospitals, too. My anxiety would be palpable. And there's no doubt in my mind that her kids would pick up on that, too. Is she supposed to lie to the kids? Go with "I don't know where he is."? What is she supposed to do? What if he had gotten in the car & was lying in a ditch somewhere? Is she just supposed to assume he's fine when he's clearly not, and he is, quite possibly, behaving recklessly? They decided SS17 should move back into their home. They made that choice. That does have the consequence of at least communicating to the level of keeping the kids in the loop about your whereabouts.

I don't understand these responses either. If I got a call indicating my SO was drunk and he was out with the car and refusing a ride home, personally I'd dial 911, then have the locks changed and be done with it.

They have kids, they ARE married, and infidelity has nothing to do with any of this last soap opera.

If he can't figure out how to drink responsibly, he shouldn't drink. If he needs to move out, he needs to move out.

I'm surprised to see you two are not in MC as I think your marriage is well worth saving. You cannot keep gathering your advice off a message board and neither can he. At this point his thread has become a blog and I think you two need professional help. Your thread seems to be just beating yourself up to no end with no point. You need a therapist to help you. Your husband also needs to be accountable for some of his obvious passive aggressive bullshit which needs to stop.

split, I'm not in the "beat you over the head till you confess" camp, but you have no idea what it's like to live with a husband who knows you fucked another man, and lied to his face for months. Like SoSorry, you're putting your needs above your husband's. Pot, meet kettle, of course I did it too, so I get it. For R to be genuine, that selfishness needs to come to an end.

Is she just supposed to assume he's fine when he's clearly not, and he is, quite possibly, behaving recklessly?

Yes. Because this is an isolated incident. Unlike SoSorry, SWAT doesn't have a history of reckless behavior. SoSorry has every right to worry, but she's shown a pattern of engaging in histrionics to garner attention or pity. It's a maladaptive coping mechanism.

That, my wayward sister, is why I responded the way I did. If SWAT and SoSorry are both admitted to the ER, he has a fractured wrist (perhaps from punching OM in the face, not that he would) and she's bleeding profusely from a head wound, the one doctor on call treats her first. This is an emergent situation, and until SoSorry develops some emotional maturity and tackles her drama queen problem, she is not a safe partner. To SWAT or anyone.

Your husband also needs to be accountable for some of his obvious passive aggressive bullshit which needs to stop.

Absolut, to me, that reads like a cheap shot taken in retaliation for SWAT rejecting your advice in JFO. You employ the phrasing "you need" or "he needs" frequently. Only SoSorry and SWAT are qualified to say what they need, and either has the right to end the M if they choose.

I'm surprised to see you two are not in MC as I think your marriage is well worth saving.

Because they have kids, is what you've said. Would you give the same advice to a woman whose husband hit her? Then, after she forgave him and took him back, three months later he hit her again?

If SWAT and SoSorry are both admitted to the ER, he has a fractured wrist (perhaps from punching OM in the face, not that he would) and she's bleeding profusely from a head wound, the one doctor on call treats her first. This is an emergent situation, and until SoSorry develops some emotional maturity and tackles her drama queen problem, she is not a safe partner.

This is a great analogy. In the 5 minutes that I had to look at SI last night, I read both SWAT and SoSorry here. I had to choose who I was going to post to as I didn't have time. I posted to SoSorry as that's where the more critical situation was/is.

Still pulling for you and your family SoSorry. You can do this.

um no. I read what I read and what I see is pretty obvious. "my" advice, to get marital counseling, is so generic I would hardly take it personally that it be rejected. Anyway it hurts them, not me, to not seek out help.

All I see is nonstop beating up one person and nonstop cheering on another, and they are both in the same marriage.

Maybe try not taking a cheap shot at me. It's called the internet, people have differing views.

You. are. going. to. lose. your. husband. period

This is exactly what I came here to post. Posters gave you advice about backing off and seeing this through SWAT's eyes. They've given you their opinion about talking to SWAT about your anxiety attack with your family. You act as if you're making decisions from a place of love and concern but it's very easy to see right through that. SWAT is a LEO and he can take care of himself. He's managed it for years before you got together. You had contact with him despite not knowing where he was. You don't have much of a leg to stand on to suggest he was in immediate danger and needed you to call in everyone else to the scene. That's exactly what he doesn't want and if posters here could see that and tell you so, you don't have any excuse as to not knowing what to do for him. Take this mistake as an opportunity to give him the benefit of the doubt and to let him take care of himself. Take this experience as a clue to stop focusing on helping him at the expense of yourself. Take a huge step back from your M. Let him be the one to contact you first unless it's something urgent about the kids. DO NOT call your family in to "save the day" for you. It looks very much like you're stirring up more drama by involving other people in your M and that needs to stop or you're at high risk of losing SWAT. Talk to your IC about self soothing and anxiety. LISTEN to people here giving you advice. They've been in your shoes before and they know the situation better than you think. They've advised you very well and could have sparred you some of this trouble had their words been heard.

[This message edited by nekonamida at 10:30 AM, May 25th (Sunday)]

Tj for a minute

SoSorry,

the other day I brought up something and I thought I was helping BH, but what he said to me was the exact opposite.he said all though he appreciated what I was trying to do, but what I was doing was selfish and only thinking of myself and what I could do to move us further in R.He said there was nothing I could do to help him and I needed to back off and let him work through it in his head and if he had questions or needed to work through something then he would come to me and we could work through it. Also, the best thing I could do for him to help him was to work on me and fix my shit.

end of tj.

you have been given so much great advice and you have taken some, but the one thing you have not gottten yet is to give him space. Stop trying to control the outcome because you can't. The only outcome you can control is you and how you react to situations. I did a slight tj so maybe you would get it from my situation.

It takes time and I believe you can do it, but there is a lot of healing to do for both you and swat. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you continue to make progress.

[This message edited by remorsefulww at 10:07 AM, May 25th (Sunday)]