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Razhie. Advicenators Member Since: June 13, 2005. Answers: 5077. Visitors: 211514.
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The Question
***I'm not sure who this question was initially sent to when I wasn't logged in, but I wanted it sent to the entire pool, so if there is a duplicate, please delete the other, wherever it landed.***
My husband travels a lot for work and is currently away for a few months. We've always talked several times a day whenever he's been gone, but 3 days ago, he said he needed a break to focus on work, but since he's still using his personal email a half dozen times a day--I know because it syncs w/ our home computer so I can see what he does, but I didn't look at it until it had been nearly 60 hours since hearing from him--I know he's not THAT busy because he's emailing plans for a big drinking/strippers party with his buddies. Originally he told me to save the date so I could go to an event that same weekend, but he's writing everyone else that no wives are allowed.
So we did have a fight, which is undoubtedly the real reason he doesn't want to talk. He claimed I "wasn't on his side," in a conflict, and it drove him crazy that I didn't think my friend was wrong.
My husband constantly asks me to look up other guys on dating sites to sleep with to make a sex tape for him, and I'll help him fantasize about it and say filthy things, but I've never actually gone looking or taken it seriously. He suddenly contacted two people on my behalf without asking me, which is really embarrassing, because we know them. One is a friend of his, who politely declined, but to teach my husband a lesson for pimping me out to his friends, I sent him a series of texts that made him think it happened for six minutes, during which time he was going crazy with jealousy and fear, so I thought it was over. Then, when I was planning on visiting my friend and his wife (the center of this conflict), my husband got the idea to propose to him he make a tape with me. So the offensive thing my friend said was he would do 1st & 2nd base, but nothing below the belt--and since he "told" my husband what would happen rather than collaborating; whereas I felt my friend & wife had their own limits, and since they were well below what my husband was requesting, he was merely asserting how far he was willing to go. Husband said the tone showed he was trying to move in and alpha-dog him, so I can't be friends with them. He's never made this kind of rule, and it would have been awkward for me anyway, so I didn't visit them.
I want to make my husband happy; I don't know what drives him to these powerful, almost obsessive fantasies of me cheating on him whenever we talk dirty, but I know for sure he doesn't want it in real life and neither do I. I actually worried that he was cheating because being cut off is so unusual. I asked about other women and he said no one could hold a candle to me, I was being insecure. I believe him with about 98% confidence, but I still feel shut out, even if another woman's not the reason.
Last time we talked, my husband threatens/jokes about being celibate, because he says that the only fix for one extreme is another. I feel like he's being unfair, but I don't know how to make him see/care that he's not treating me well when he plans juvenile parties, tells people to sleep with me, and cuts me off instead of talking it out. Also, if my friend was wrong, I'd like to be convinced so I can agree with my husband and make him feel better.
The Answer
Your husband needs therapy, ideally by himself and with you. But if he only willing to do one of those - then just get it started.
He's being abusive. I know it's a scary word, but it's accurate. Exposing someone (you) to sexual situations they haven't consented too is abuse. The lies, the manipulation, the confused drive to both shame you and control you... It's impossible to guess why he is doing this, but the what is clear: he is demanding an unacceptable degree of control over you and he is deliberately exposing you to situations you haven't consented too.
Your friend is not wrong to have boundaries, or to express them and stick to them. Your husband's inability to deal with another person telling him the truth and setting healthy limits is just another sign of how deeply confused he is right now and how desperate he is to exert control over others - especially you.
If he can't get these impulses under control, or find healthier ways to express his sexual interests, he's going to loose you. Right? You don't plan on sticking this out forever if it stays like this, right? If not, tell him so. It's not a threat. It's just a fact. His behaviour will kill all the love between you two. Tell him to get his butt into therapy if he wants to keep his marriage.
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