Flea Treatment
My marriage counselor just gave me information on your column. I married husband number two about six years ago. He cheated on his first wife. Over the last two years he has sought out relationships with other women. He says they are only 'talking.'
But last summer when I went on a week’s vacation with my daughter, he carried on a phone relationship with a coworker all hours of the day and night. I learned from phone records they called each other over a hundred times. I spoke with the woman, and she said it was innocent flirtation.
She said her husband had an affair, and she was getting back at him. She says my husband is charming and funny and they have a lot in common. She apologized, saying she realized it was wrong. My husband has not apologized. In fact, he yelled at me because he said I was the cause of him losing this friendship.
Last November his employer sent him out of town. He said he had to go, but I later learned he volunteered. We both have full-time jobs and run a small home business. I reassured him I could handle it, because if he had to go, he had no choice.
He was gone two weeks, and when he came home for the weekend, he was distant, quiet, and suspicious. He went back another three weeks. He never called to say I miss you, I love you, or anything like that, and he discouraged me from coming to see him over the weekends.
I thought that was very odd. A couple of weeks later I received a phone call from a woman who said she met my husband at a bar in the other city. She said she approached him, and they danced, ate, and kissed. He told her he was divorced and just beginning to date again.
When I received the phone printout, I saw he called her relentlessly, sometimes 40 times in an eight-hour period. He says nothing sexual happened. I don’t believe him. He has a history of lying to me. I have talked with other women, and they say my husband acts single. He never wears a wedding ring either.
I’m a good woman, a great wife and mother, but I am continually disrespected. I recently agreed to marriage counseling. We’ve had three sessions, and he has not been totally honest. I know now I can’t change him. I love him, but am so very tired of the lies, late night phone calls, hidden phone records, and flirtatious e-mail. I feel like a fool. Lately, I feel the best thing for me is to call it quits.
Fanny
Fanny, going into marriage counseling with someone who isn’t going to tell the truth is like going to a physician and lying about your symptoms. There’s no way that can work.
Counselors aren’t supposed to take sides, but your counselor wants you to hear what he or she knows we will tell you. And what is that? You have the power to make an honest man out of your husband. You can make sure the next time he tells a woman he is recently divorced and just beginning to date again, he is telling the truth.
Sometimes we get stuck in patterns of thought which don’t make sense. Let’s see, rich people put their pants on one leg at a time. If I put my pants on one leg at a time, then I will become'. No, that one’s not going to work. Let’s try another one. If I go to counseling with a two-timing, double-dealing, dirty dog'. No, that’s not going to work either.
Wise counselors have the power to lead people to the right solution. Wise counselors do it every day. But people must realize the right solution may not be the one they hoped for.
Wayne & Tamara
Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
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