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I agree with you about the difference between "defensiveness" and accountabilty.If anything you are the one in the position to "defend"..because he is the one that "offended" in the past.
If nothing is going on that shouldnt why the feel "defensive".I can understand if you never gave him any privacy and were suspicious of every minute he was not with you ..like if you were a prison guard..But with his "history" he needs to understand your concerns over this specific set of circumstances.
I dont think you are "over reacting"..You aren't asking for too much.IMHO
Love
Dallas
Jane,
He promised you he would be accountable and now your calling him on it. There is nothing wrong with that and by his past choices you have every reason to be concerned. Having set boundaries and holding to them seems like a pretty good thing to do in keeping your marriage protected. You may want to share with him how much you love him and how much your marriage means to you and you don't want anything or anyone to bring any further harm to it. Also, you may be able to share with him some areas that he is done really well with up until this and what that meant to you to see him working hard at it.
Jane, let me ask when is the last time the two of you had fun together or how often do you have fun together? Laugh, play or kick back no heavy stuff.
I don't think you're overreacting.
But your not wanting him to delete the FB account sends mixed signals.
It will only cause ongoing strife in your marriage.
Let him delete it. Let him pout.
Being monitored and accountable will only cause ongoing resentment.
You are both far better off with his not having the account.
Hey Jane,
I don`t think you are over reacting either. I will be praying for you. I hope your h is keeping his nose clean. He sounds defensive. You have a right to hold him accountible...especially since that was the original agreement from his history. ((hugs)) ~ Cherina
JaneFW: I think that a man who is dissatisfied with his life - which I believe he is - having private conversations with an old female friend with whom he shared a past is dangerous to this marriage, which already has so many strikes against it.
Based on my own experience, unless he addresses the root cause of his dissatisfaction with life, efforts to control his behavior aren't really going to change a thing. He needs to clean the inside of the cup first...
JaneFW:I may regret posting this - I hope not.A situation has blown up in the last few days and, as usual, I'm reeling from the way it has all panned out.My h "happened to mention" that he now has a Facebook account. I have one too, let me just say, had it a couple of years but spend very little time on it (as some of you who have interacted with me there know!) My mind immediately jumped to how .. unreliable .. my h has been online in his interactions with other women. I told him that I was uneasy, and how I had only recently been reading about marriages breaking up when unhappy spouses made contact with former g/f / b/f's and decided that they would be happier with that person. My h said this wasn't going to happen, so I let it drop, and he and I have been posting a little on each other's accounts. Then yesterday morning, I went to use his Notebook, and found out that he had changed his password. I found his new password easily enough, and when I went online, he had disabled the history. *sigh*This just takes me back to when he was using porn, and he disabled the history, and he wanted his own account and email address. He was conversing with women at MySpace, and using porn, and our neighbor was emailing him .. it was a mess. I then went to our other computer and went down his page, and I saw that where old female friends had sent him a message publicly, he had asked them to email him! This immediately raises red flags with me. So, yesterday morning, he saw I was perturbed, asked me why, and I asked him why he had changed the password on the Notebook first of all. He said it was because he was taking the Notebook to school with him. I asked him whether he thought it would be easier for someone to access his computer with his student ID (which was what he had changed it to), or an email that refers to family members they don't know, and a date they don't know! He didn't answer that. It was a bit sarcastic, I admit, but you would have to know how many lies he told in the past about this kind of thing. So then I asked him why, when we had talked about this, he was encouraging women to email him. I asked him whether it would be okay for me to do this if old boyfriends contacted me? I had to ask him that question three times, and he still didn't answer it properly. I reminded him how jealously he had reacted that I had male colleagues, coworkers and friends when I worked at UT, and that whenever we bumped into one male student I knew, he (my h) would refer to him as my "boyfriend". He said that was a joke but you'll have to trust me when I say that, at the time, it absolutely was not, and I knew it was not. You have to remember that his wife betrayed him with several "boyfriends" - so it's not something that would amuse him or ever does. The upshot was that he got upset and angry. He has posted on his FB page that he is closing his account Monday - more drama - most people would just delete their page and not draw attention to it. I did this at Twitter when it all got too much for me. Maybe I'm just rude, lol. I asked him *not* to close his page. I told him that I just wanted him to have things open and accountable - because of the past. He said that he had read about this, and he knows he will always have to be defensive. I don't think that's quite accurate, is it? Maybe someone who has read those books about porn addiction will know. I thought it would be that someone who had escaped a porn addiction would always have to be accountable - not defensive. He had promised me that he would be this, and that he would always be open about what he did, and that I could check everywhere he went on the internet. Well, I haven't done that for a long time, but now here he is changing passwords and having private email conversations with other women. He thinks that so long as he's not going to meet up and have a physical affair, that's all that matters. I don't agree. I think that a man who is dissatisfied with his life - which I believe he is - having private conversations with an old female friend with whom he shared a past is dangerous to this marriage, which already has so many strikes against it.If anyone thinks I am overreacting, let me just say that I haven't even posted about a lot that I know about his online behavior in the past. There have been numerous flirtations. There was a flirtation with our neighbor. There was the porn. So, right now he's punishing me with silence, with the post about removing his FB page - which I seriously hope he doesn't do - and with this "hurt" expression on his face. God knows, I did not want to hurt him. But I did want to nip this in the bud.Yep, help.
Ah, Jane! I am just so sorry. Sigh. :(
I agree with SHP, let him delete his account and pout and rail and be as childish about it as he wants. It was *his* decision to do so and I would make that clear. "I did not ask you to delete your account, but to simply be transparent about what you do there for the sake of our marriage. It is *your* decision to delete it, not mine." Just let him be as dramatic as he wants to be. I bet it is a ploy to guilt you into giving in so he can just keep doing what he was doing.
Blah.
I don't understand his mindset of this always being an area that he will be defensive about...? I would think that a past sin area in your life would bring with it the understanding of a need to be reassuring about it to your spouse, not defensive. I just don't get that.
((Jane))
I agree with the deleting of the account.If he would rather not have one at all than have one thats open and visible to you if you want or feel like looking at it then so be it.But its sort of missing the whole point.Having the account isnt the problem.So deleting it isnt going to really change anything .
I hate to use the police as an anaolgy..But it sort of like saying..well if the cops are out there watching to see if I speed or run a red light then I'll just give my car away.
dallasapple:I hate to use the police as an anaolgy..But it sort of like saying..well if the cops are out there watching to see if I speed or run a red light then I'll just give my car away.
Excellent point. Alternately, the police wouldn't plead with someone to keep a car. They'd just shrug their shoulders and roll their eyes.
JaneFW: I told him that I just wanted him to have things open and accountable - because of the past. He said that he had read about this, and he knows he will always have to be defensive. I don't think that's quite accurate, is it? Maybe someone who has read those books about porn addiction will know. I thought it would be that someone who had escaped a porn addiction would always have to be accountable - not defensive.
I agree with the deleting of the account.If he would rather not have one at all than have one thats open and visible to you if you want or feel like looking at it then so be it.But its sort of missing the whole point.Having the account isnt the problem.So deleting it isnt going to really change anything . I hate to use the police as an anaolgy..But it sort of like saying..well if the cops are out there watching to see if I speed or run a red light then I'll just give my car away.
In the past, when I pulled him about the porngraphic images - and you remember this Dallas and P&G I know, because you were the ones hearing all the angst (poor things) - the first thing he did was close down the laptop and put it in a box. Despite the situation, I found myself laughing at the idea of the laptop being put in time out! But it wasn't the fault of the laptop, or the websites, or the women who bare their flesh - it's the fault of the one who is pursuing the bare flesh, via the laptop/website. I can't remove all women from the world, I know that for sure.
On top of this, he has decided he is going to Abilene the weekend after next (on his own), ostensibly to meet up with his two cousins. I'm very uneasy about this. I know he said that originally he wanted to hook up with his cousins, that he missed them, and wanted to start being able to visit them and have them visit us. I know he misses not having male friends/family.
Bottom line is that I want him to be happy, and I'm tired of having to pursue all of this, but I'm also scared about it, and I'm just plain offended that it continues and continues, and he's never going to be content with having a wife who loves him, and desires him. There's always going to be something else .. always.
(((Jane)))
You are not over reacting at all. I agree with everyone else. Let him delete the account. It's probably for the best anyway.
chaz345: JaneFW: I told him that I just wanted him to have things open and accountable - because of the past. He said that he had read about this, and he knows he will always have to be defensive. I don't think that's quite accurate, is it? Maybe someone who has read those books about porn addiction will know. I thought it would be that someone who had escaped a porn addiction would always have to be accountable - not defensive. He is way off base on the whole always needing to be defensive thing. Mostly. Here's the thing, there's two ways he may be feeling defensive. The first and by far the most likely is that he does have something to hide and that's causing him to feel defensive. The second may feel like I'm accusing you of something so if it feels that way please know that that is not my intent. But it is possible that if the wronged spouse uses the need for accountability as a way to punish the other spouse that they would end up feeling defensive. Actually differing degrees of both of those things can be going on at the same time. But it's really not quite that simple. In the early stages of someone getting away from that sort of behavior(porn and inappropriate virtual contact) there is usually going to need to be a very high degree of being watched. That stage, even though it's completely appropriate, can cause someone to feel somewhat defensive as even completely appropriate activity will be being watched. But with what you say about his attitide about what's appropriate, you two aren't even beginning to be able to move through and out of this "everything must be watched" stage. I've said it before and I'll say it again. With what you've shared about your situation with him, and especially this time with what you say his attitude about it is, I'd be VERY surprised if he has actually stopped as much as he'd like you to believe he has. I'm not saying that to be mean or negative, it's just that I've seen the attitude before, in myself and in other guys, before they had really stopped.
Oops, I was surfing & posting at the same time & missed your latest post Jane.
Sounds like he took your concerns to heart maybe?
The running thing sounds like a great idea! Something you can do together & experience the rush of having met a goal as big as a full marathon in Maui! That would be awesome! I think I'd go for it!
