WomanSavers.com Forum / ABUSE HELP / So, do I have the right to say something to him?

Thanks for all your responses.  The guy is saying I don‘t have the right to tell him not to work on his addictions - game and overeat endlessly at home or in the marriage or even out with me.  So what do you think I have the right to say?  He says I don‘t have the right to tell him that he can‘t binge eat, and that he has talked to folks but I know he doesn‘t always tell the whole thing.  He has some embarrassment over it, which is helping him from getting help.  I think I do have some say and have asked him to see an addiction counselor a few times.  I told him just to try to get off in the right direction.

It has started to impact the marriage.  Never wants sex, he is just tuned out all the time, we have grown apart, and he wastes SO much time on all that it could be another 2nd job.  It is also time he‘s not helping me do jack at the house, and he gets grouchy when he is not doing the stuff.

Yes, I do love him, I dont‘ think I can have kids with him.  I am like, how long do I want in a situation like that.

I have noticed now he is sometimes waking up every two hours and playing his video games...so he seems to have disordered sleep and eating.  I think he has male depression.

I have offered to stay and to help him get help.  He is turning it down and saying the only problem here is that he has a bad wife, beause sometimes I do get mad and lose my own temper when trying to deal with this situation.  I think it is kinda understandable.  Now that I am figuring it out I can work on getting him the right help, but I may not want to stick around.  If he isn‘t depressed, then he is just an emotional abuser, and that reality would be hard to understand.

I am going to bed and waking up every single day alone to him on video games in his room.   He is also locking himself in his room to play them like a teenager. 

You have the right to say whats on your mind...but you don‘t have the right to insist that he changes...only he can make that decision, you cannot bully, emotionally blackmail or cajole him into making these changes.

I second that word for word!!

Great post.

I think you should seek counseling for you and deal with co-dependency issues. 

You cannot force this man to change.  If this relationship is not working for you, you need to evaluate.  You need to become emotionally and financially independent.  What do you think, want, need in your life?  You need to answer these questions for yourself.  Put the focus on you.  How can you improve your own life?

Many an addict has sought help just from seeing changes in their spouses.  Perhaps it‘s fear of abandonment.  Perhaps it‘s that the co-dependent partner stops blaming and enabling.  I can promise you that it will get his attention.  And if by chance, changing your own life doesn‘t help the relatonship, it may end up making you feel better, and that is what counts.

Empower yourself, Alpha.  Do not live your life "waiting."  Do it now.

Thanks for all the messages.  I am reading a codependency book.  I agree I can‘t control him, just at this point I have asked him to not to things I don‘t agree with around me as much he can easily.  I don‘t want to see him have a heart attack.  I have come to peace with I probably can‘t ask him to stop gaming but the unhealty eating around me also stresses me out and I‘d like him to cut down.

I believe this man may just be an abuser I need away from.  He is also coming across as I get to know him better, that he may be a little too metro for me.  I noticed he ran the phone bill up this month to $250 talking to one of his guy friends back home.  He lived with this guy after college.  They talk some Friday nights instead of him going and doing something with me.  He is always trying to get the guy to move back here.  I don‘t know why.  It could be nothing, but seems strange to me.  Am I overreacting?  Some of my other friends have thought that was odd also.

Alpha:  What do you want out of life?  When you look at the road ahead, what do you see? 

If you could have any life you wanted, what would it look like?

You don‘t need this man to provide it for you.  You could be providing it for yourself.

What happens if he doesn‘t change?  What happens if he stay the way he is, or gets worse?  If your nagging and analyzing him isn‘t helping now, how much do you think it is going to make a difference down the road? 

What would happen if he died tomorrow?  What would you do with yourself?

I was madly in love with an alcoholic.  I was totally crazy about the guy.  But his problems only grew worse the longer I was with him.  Eventually, his problems caused me bigger problems.  We all have a bottom line, and I reached mine finally.

There comes a point when you realize you can‘t change anyone but yourself. 

Life is short - too short.

Get some counseling for your co-dependency.  Go to 12 step meetings.  They‘re free.  Do more than read books.  Find out what it is that attracts you to guys like this. 

Co-dependents are often nurturing, caretaking, super responsible people.  They tend to "mother" others.  It is a form of power and control.  Usually the partner is "addicted" to a substance, and the "co-dependent" is "addicted" to a person.  It is the reason behind the joke that when the co-dependent dies, "someone else‘s life" flashes in front of their eyes.  

It sounds like a "Loving" behavior but it really isn‘t.  It‘s an addictive behavior, too.  What happens to many of us, is we will leave one guy with problems, only to find another who is equally troubled or "needs our help."  We have a need to "fix" people.  We think things would all be better if they would change.

Who are you and what are you about?

Thanks for the messages.  At this point, I am reading a book and that is about all I have time for right now.  I do have an ok life outside this guy.  I have not dated a string of these kinds of guys.  I do feel like I rebounded from a very l/term relationship before this guy, cause I wanted to move on have a family, and I feel like this current guy kind of led me on.  I am open to learn how to be better myself. 

He can be an jerk sometimes, and I‘m just trying to get some answers about what I should do, cause stuff is happening with him that I haven‘t seen.  I think he is just a depressed person that thought he could do all this stuff w/a family, and he maybe isn‘t really able to.  I do want to try and trust him, and I feel like I just keep getting hurt.  I do need to take care of myself first.  I just want to be treated well.  I have little interest in what he does with his own time, its the time together that is also my time he is wasting that I do care about more cause that‘s my time too.

I think he might be a misogynist.  He is a computer nerd, and he says he is a super conservative, and seems to want a Stepford, which I am not (either one).  He knew that when he met me, but now we seem to misunderstand the other.  

Alpha:  Ann Landers posted a saying in one of her columns years ago when someone asked if they should leave a man or stay.  Her reply was, "You need to decide whether you are better off with him or without him."

I think you have to look at your long term goals.  If a good marriage and family is what you had in mind, it doesn‘t sound like this guy is coming from the same place you are.  It sounds like he wants to be left alone, and he wants you to put up and shut up.  It sounds like you are pretty disappointed and frustrated.  If he can‘t pull himself away from a computer, I wouldn‘t count on him being too involved with child rearing.  He sounds pretty self absorbed.

And the birth of a baby doesn‘t always make things better between a couple.  Sometimes it makes them worse.

If you were to leave, are you in a position to support yourself?