SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What do you do when your WH breaks one of the unconditional boundaries but it’s not A related?

As you may or may not know from my previous posts, my WH has always had trouble with the truth or at least the whole story when it comes to him getting what he wants and to avoid conflict and confrontation. An example was when he bought a TV for a spare bedroom and didn’t tell me about it even though I told him my friend saw him at the store the day he bought it. I just happened to see it the next time I cleaned that room.

So anyway after his A I told him and he agreed it was one of his big character flaws and why because he can do it so easily for small things found his affair very easy to hide, and then ask for forgiveness later. This was a non-negotiable for me for R. He broke it one time not long after his affair by going to a soccer game (stupid) and at that time it out our healing back to square one and he had more therapy sessions at that time.

After that he has seemed to be pretty good. Telling me the truth for little things that he would used to avoid. However this weekend just gone he blew it. His old job (where his AP still works) is closing down. He has already moved on but I had found out he went to visit his old mates and a co-worker from the other side of the country who is working on the shut down there the week before last even though she was there. I lost it and we had a big argument. He promised me he won’t return.

On the weekend he did. As the building is being torn down there was some free building materials his brother wanted so he went with his brother to collect them. He had told me he was helping his brother do this but failed to mention the location of the building products.

When he told me I remained calm and thought it over but have realised he has broken the non-negotiable! I have since told him as such and that I’m done with trying R. We can live together and appear normal and civil but there is not going to be any thing more. IE emotional or physical affection.

What do I do now though???? Am I over reacting??? I just don’t know when or if he will ever tell me the whole story or the truth about anything

I don’t think you are over reacting.

I think many would recommend the 180, which seems to be where you are headed at the moment. He has shown you that what he wants to do is still more important than how it makes you feel. If he can’t make you feel safe, he has left you with no recourse than to provide safety for yourself.

I do not think you can remain married like that forever, but taking your space right now is your only sane reaction in my point of view. Detaching from him and the situation will likely bring clarity.

Webbit, you are not over-reacting. I think this has to be either a firm boundary you set for your own sake, or else he will come to see your "boundaries" as just another test of who can outwit whom. And that is no way to live. I'll wager you a bet that he has been like this most of his life, and probably learned to do that growing up. In other words, it won't be simple for him to change.

This kind of behavior actually starts very early in life. Research has shown that in any study of young children, a certain percentage of them choose deceit to get what they want, disregarding or at least testing specific rules. For some of those children, it may prove to be a temporary phase in the development of conscience (morals) but for others, they never move beyond it. (I was amazed to learn about this in a child psychology class.) Perhaps you have seen it yourself.

And after Infidelity, the traumatic echoes caused by deceit and dishonesty are so loud that people who haven't experienced it, often don't believe how much of a setback it is to healing from betrayal. But I hear you!

I know it seems like you've given up because of something trivial, but I think it's the opposite of trivial - the lie is about something trivial, but the lie itself is a giant problem, IMO.

Your H seems to want to appease you rather than change himself from betrayer to good partner. In your place, I would fear - maybe 'expect' is better - to have my boundaries violated again and again over the next decades, and that's a pretty unsafe way to live.

Look at the Simplified 180 thread, and make use of the parts you can. See a good D lawyer or 3. Perhaps kick your WS out.

If he realizes that he's his biggest problem and starts to make real changes ... maybe you can consider restarting R. For right now, IMO you've made the right choice.

HO/Sisoon thank you. I have to read the modified 180 but from what I have read from people on this forum I believe it’s the path I need to take for now.
To me kicking him out is the same as separating for good, so I’m not sure if that is what I will do now.

Super- this is absolutely something he has done his whole life. I’ve seen him do it to me, family and at work. When we discuss this it is amazing to me how differently we view his behaviour. He just can’t seem to comprehend how it’s wrong. TBH I don’t know how he ever can. Clearly therapy hasn’t helped in this space so I don’t really know what to do.

We have a big overseas holiday booked for the end of the year because my eldest son is finishing high school. Until then I can’t go anywhere but I can live a modified life until then at least. I would love to see change but this is a weird one because if he hasn’t got anything to lie / with hold truth about about then I can’t really tell if he has changed or not. Up until this point I thought he was changing as he was telling me things that he would used to have kept to himself but then this weekend just gone proved otherwise.

I'm sorry Webbit it sounds like living a modified life is the next best step. After an A every bad trait becomes magnified and you can either live with it or not depending on how you feel about everything. It wasn't another A that ended my M but WHO my xWS was. Things I had never paid attention to became magnified and I couldn't unsee them. Couldn't even tolerate them. While I have known my xWS has had issues all along I didn't put 2 and 2 together until after the A and his therapist diagnosed him NPD. I know my situation is not even in comparison to yours (as my xWS is disordered) but if this issue of your WS cannot change are you willing to live with it?

Why does your WS think it is not wrong? A lie of omission is still a lie. Maybe he would understand better that after an A trust is a very important component and ANY lie would send a BS over the top. He is going to have to really face himself in therapy and dig into why this is so ingrained in him and how to start undoing it.

Just wondering whether you have his location at all times. Everyone does this differently so I wasn’t sure. But from your description of events it sounds like you may not.

I sent WH an email surmising all the points I just don’t think he seems to understand ie omission of information is lying, appeasing me is not helpful or a change for the better, he is not a changed person if he still lies no matter how trivial it seems.

He approached me to talk about it and I kept it brief - I told him that I can’t be in R with somebody who lies, period. I told him hr needed to work out if he truly wants to change that character flaw because if he doesn’t there is no room for him in my life as a husband ( I use that term loosely).

He also mentioned how he will try to make the marriage better but I shut that down immediately and told him at this point there is no longer a marriage to work on. I will watch his actions over the next however many months and see if this marriage is even worth saving. But these changes are about him and him alone. I know I stuffed up after D-Day trying to work on the marriage simultaneously to his supposed self work but not this time.

So at the moment we are living once again like room mates. Which is working to a degree but is not ideal. Only time will tell.

StillConfused I am not and have not ever done that. TBH I couldn’t live like that and would honestly rather be divorced. In saying that it’s looking like that may be my end point anyways!

What did you say would be the consequences of lying to you?

Whatever they are, you need to follow through on them.

If you don’t have any, you need to really think about them, decide on what you would be willing to do if he crosses the line again, communicate that to him, and then follow through on what you promised you would do.

Your husband is going to keep doing whatever he thinks he can get away with… that’s just the bottom line.

Bluer - you are absolutely correct. And I guess I am doing what I said I would, go back to living like room mates - no physical intimacy, no dates etc b be it clearly that doesn’t mean shit to me.

So say I believe he wants to change, that he doesn’t want to keep being a lying POS I’m just not sure he can change. It’s obviously deeply engrained otherwise you just wouldn’t lie about dumb shit.

Either way I guess maybe the consequences of breaking these boundaries need to change 😢

One of the difficulties in changing something like a lying habit is that change isn't linear. You'll have to accept lies from time to time - more frequent early in the process, less frequent (one hopes) later.

So you have to be attuned to both him and you. You have to notice all the evidence about lying that he gives off, and you have to know what your limits are. He can be genuinely changing, but if his last lie broke through your limit, you may decide to dump him no matter how successfule he has been in changing.

Do you believe he's changing? Or is he just paying lip service to an ideal of telling the truth as he knows it without committing to change?

And where are your limits?

Do you believe he's changing? Or is he just paying lip service to an ideal of telling the truth as he knows it without committing to change?

And where are your limits?

Good questions.

The unconditional boundaries are yours alone. What you will and will not tolerate can only be decided by you. If, like sisoon has asked, you believe your husband is trying to change, then you know it's going to be a long road to change a lifetime of poor behavior/coping skills. From what you've written, I do believe this last episode was something that your husband understood....especially what happened when he last went there. But he incorrectly weighed the options vs outcomes. In other words, he knew it was wrong, but underestimated the fallout. And that's the real problem--that is what keeps him currently unsafe.

Can he change? Will he change? And more importantly, do you have the desire to wait out that possibility? There is no right or wrong answer as long as you choose whichever you believe is in your best interests.

Unconditional boundaries are supposed to be that, unconditional. FWIW i divorced my husband and cut off completely my mother and 3 of my siblings. I've also cut out friends i once considered family over the past 2 decades because they were toxic and trampled all over my boundaries.

I’m not sure I’m one to be giving advice , although I set a boundary, he crossed it, we separated….

My WS is knee deep in adult children of alcoholics 12 step and has learned that this lying by omission is one of the traits learned in conflict avoidance.of ACA. I’m not sure if you WS is an ACA and I’m sure it goes with other things as well….but it’s helping mine unpack his "Why’s"
It’s "integrity abuse" 100%

I also have found that the old pattern we had of him doing these types of behaviors, me getting angry, him waiting until I’m "over it" …was a pattern. He knew I loved him and would eventually cave. No more.

I’m not sure I’m one to be giving advice , although I set a boundary, he crossed it, we separated….

My WS is knee deep in adult children of alcoholics 12 step and has learned that this lying by omission is one of the traits learned in conflict avoidance.of ACA. I’m not sure if you WS is an ACA and I’m sure it goes with other things as well….but it’s helping mine unpack his "Why’s"
It’s "integrity abuse" 100%

I also have found that the old pattern we had of him doing these types of behaviors, me getting angry, him waiting until I’m "over it" …was a pattern. He knew I loved him and would eventually cave. No more.

I feel like my now XH is similar to yours, Webbit. I can't count the number of times in our 15 year marriage when he would lie about something just bc he thought I wouldn't like it and wanted to avoid an argument. I NEVER understood why he didn't do what I do -- if I thought he wouldn't like something, I'd either tell him and accept the consequences or NOT DO IT. Every time we had the argument/conversation I thought he finally understood, but he never did.

I can now see his affair as simply continuation of the same behavior. He wanted to do something, knew I wouldn't like it...did it anyway. I'm not saying your H will have another A, but I now believe that people who consider lying acceptable for any reason other than safety or kindness do not stop lying until they understand and believe in themselves that lying is wrong. And I mean really, really believe it. Not in the way a child will repeat the phrase, "lying is wrong," but bc they can give a long list of reasons why it is wrong and harmful to everyone, including themselves.

I feel like at the moment I am being strong in enforcing the boundaries I said I would. That is, we are now living like room mates. There is no physical intimacy at all, not even a hug. And we are doing nothing together that doesn’t involve the kids.

I do believe he is changing as there are a lot of other things he is now doing that make him a much better person. For example, his arrogance has pretty much gone. He always needed to be right about everything or know everything without actually knowing. He is not like that anymore. He now apologises when he is in the wrong. He would rarely say sorry before the affair when he did something wrong, unless prompted to.

However, I honestly think he did not have a problem with omitting the truth. With a few conversations over the last few days you can see it on his face he know he does. He even woke me up the other night to tell me ‘there is something wrong with me, I knew I wasn’t telling you the truth but I did it anyway’.

Next step I guess is seeing if he does anything about it. A big mistake I made after D-Day was help him too much. Not this time though. I’m strong and determined not to be the softy I’m know for. I can be kind and still have boundaries and that’s exactly how this is going to play out. Right now this is what I am doing. I guess I will have to put a time limit on the change and or lack of but I’m just not sure what that will be just yet.

Great update, Webbit. I think this sounds like exactly what you need right now. I hope it brings clarity and it’s okay that you don’t know a time period yet. Sometimes these things are better felt through than pre decided.