Can i expect him to ever train his eyes, and is his still looking as wrong as i feel it is?

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Rachel:

He will quibble and twist your words and use everything he can throw at you to confuse you, knock you off your feet, and cause you to wonder what your problem is, when you know that he and his sick view of the world are the problem.

Perhaps you should write down on a piece of paper a short script that details your response to him. When he is on the phone, just say the same thing to him. Hearing yourself say this will give you the strength to know that you are doing God’s will and the right thing. You must protect your daughters at this point. It’s up to your husband to change himself. Always have the same reply to him when he goes through this dialog with you. You must be firm and unchanging in how you relay the truth to him.

Also, if he is crying in front of the children, he just shouldn’t be around them. He needs to get his emotions together so that he doesn’t breakdown in front of the little ones. This is very selfish of him and only creates more anxiety, guilt, shame and confusion. He sounds like he’s very good at that.

Pray about how to handle Christmas. Stay in control. God be with you.
 
Rachel, your view of reality is skewed. No offense; I’ve totally been there, for about eight years.

What your husband is doing is wrong, wrong enough that anybody who hears about it thinks it’s not only sin, but dangerous to your daughters, and flat out disgusting. Stop thinking your way out of it because you don’t want to believe it. Go ahead and be horrified.

The other thread is interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily apply. That OP knows he’s got a lot of temptation going on and he is frustrated because he knows he’s on a path that could go wrong. He’s also apparently talking about women he doesn’t even know.

Your dh is being inappropriate with children, his own children, which violates the incest taboo, which is one of the strongest forces in any culture, Christian or not. All around the world, despite religion, culture, setting, EVERYBODY knows that there is something very deeply wrong with a person who looks at his own children that way.

Please excuse my rant. I’ve been reading some things on child abuse, and of course the vast majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone who knows and “loves” the child, because those around them couldn’t imagine it could happen.
 
He called and said he wants to come home and is willing to really work on being the personal friend I need, the good father to his children, the unlusting man he should be. I don’t know if I am being played again. We are starting with a priest on Tuesday evening, for marriage counseling, etc. Please, please pray us to becoming better people, true Christians, great parents, changing into who God wants us to be, or to helping me know how to deal with all this stuff.
 
RachelKH, is he willing to come home only after he has demonstrated his sincerity by going to several therapy sessions, etc? I think your chances of being played are pretty high if he gets to come home just because he says he wants to do the right thing, and much lower if you insist he actually do some of the work first.

I’ll pray for all of you.
 
he wants home by Christmas if not now, but I’m thinking I’d better stand firm for a bit, like you said – he has to show some actual effort.
 
Oh, how lonely the holidays will be for him otherwise. Give your daughters a nice Christmas present… the ability to walk around the house without that ookie feeling that daddy is leering at them.

He’s not sorry. He doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong. He’s shown no progress. He just doesn’t want to miss out on the holiday fun. Nothing is fixed.

At least that’s what it looks like from my point of view.

He is against normal boundaries that every family recognizes.

Makes me wonder if he was molested as a child and by refusing to close doors while dressing and subjecting his daughters to the view of him, he’s somehow in his mind minimizing what was done to him. After all, how bad could it have been if he’s doing it now and his daughters are “all right.” (No they aren’t. YOU need to protect them now or they’ll hate you later for choosing his needs over their emotional safety.)

He hasn’t changed. He’s begging to come home with one breath and threatening to take your kids away with another. Baby wants to sit around the Christmas tree. Well, Santa says only good boys can do that. He is NOT a good boy!

He needs help!

:mad:
 
RachelKH said:
He called and said he wants to come home and is willing to really work on being the personal friend I need, the good father to his children, the unlusting man he should be. I don’t know if I am being played again. We are starting with a priest on Tuesday evening, for marriage counseling, etc. Please, please pray us to becoming better people, true Christians, great parents, changing into who God wants us to be, or to helping me know how to deal with all this stuff.
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His sincerity will be reflected to the degree that he participates in the marriage counseling, retreats, and Family Consecration, etc. Let Christ do the true conversion and healing to his heart and mind; as TedFay, myself, and others will attest, if you help him get past his weaknesses (insisting that he complete these programs), he can become a great warrior for Christ, marriage, and true Christian Chastity. Please get him involved in doing the Family Consecration - his participation (even if he does so at first grudgingly, like I did) will open him up to receiving Graces from God to realize the error of his ways, and he will learn to model himself after St.Joseph of the Holy Family. Perhaps make some deal with him to return home after he completes some/some percent of these programs, etc; Tell him that you want ‘the man that God calls him to be’ to move back into your home, and that anything less is just not acceptable. Let him know that you will work with him to accomplish that, and that you will do your part as well, to model your whole family after the Holy Family - it is in that way that you can bring true happiness to your marriage and family, as God would want it.

Prayers going your way:

St. Joseph, please ask Our Lord to bestow special graces to Rachel’s husband so that he may better develop the virtue of prudence and see the error of his ways, thus allowing him to truly live Your Will. St. Joseph, pray for us.

YBIC,
-G
 
Rachel, I have been following this post but I am not sure this has been answered.
Have you told his family (parents, siblings) about his behavior? Have you asked them if there was any sexual abuse or exposure to over-sexualization in their home as children?
Have you point blank asked your husband if he was abused as a child?

I have no idea why you are entertaining the idea of having this man in your home again. He has shown you all the warning signs, and if you let him back in and something happens to one of your daughters you are responsible. You cannot act surprised, because when you let someone who has proven themselves to be a pervert into your house, you are an accomplice.

Do you know for a fact that your daughters have not been touched by him? Have you considered mentioning this to their doctor for their next physical and having him check for signs of sexual abuse?

You keep going back and forth and I feel that I have to be firm with you in order to be kind…STOP this. You cannot afford to be weak or indecisive; your daughters are worth too much for that. They already have one weak parent, don’t leave them spiritual orphans.
Leave him. Do not let him come back. Never let your girls alone with him unsupervised again. To do any less is to enable him and become just as guilty as he is. What is happening in your family is a microcosm of what happened in the Church with the abuse cases, the hush hush and giving evil people the benefit of the doubt. Children are not lambs to be sacrificed for the false sense of a home you think you might someday have with this man. Whatever fear or denial you are in, snap out of hit – let those mother bear instincts kick and do what you should have done years ago. Ask your daughters for forgiveness for not getting them out of this sooner.
 
I will be praying for your family!

That being said, I totally agree with Mercy Mia-- if you let this man back into your home and anything happens to your children, you are culpable. What is more, they will likely never forgive you for allowing it to happen!

Protect your innocent children FIRST, and worry about what he wants SECOND. His WANTS do not trump your children’s NEED for physical safety. Write that down. Tape it to your bathroom mirror. Read it often! No matter what he says to you, REMEMBER THAT! His wants are FAR inferior to your children’s NEEDS for physical safety!

Don’t take chances with your children! It’s a gamble I’d hate to see you lose!
 
Rachel,

You do seem to be going back and forth a little. I don’t even think it is between doing what is best for your kids versus whats best for your husband. Having him out of the house is what is best for everybody, including him! It will take him a long time to get over his problems, based on what you have said, his issues are very extreme. Like others I suspect past abuse and/or a severe porn addiction.

He needs to get extreme in trying to change. You mentioned that he is thinking of buying a home near you. If that is the case, the money may be better spent taking a leave of absence and checking into some sort of rehab program for sex addicts or an extended retreat at a monastery.

Prayers for your family and for strength.
 
that is why he is out, and I am present whenever any of the kids are exposed to him, that is why I sent him to live with my parents, that is why I put down my foot and said if he goes ahead and buys a house I will be seeking divorce and annulment, that is why I have sought out priest after priest to help me with this to gain understanding of what is going on and finally maybe have a priest who won’t just sweep it under the rug but get us the help we need to see if this marriage is salvageable

his parents are dead as of a few years ago, his 7 remaining siblings are aghast at his behavior (‘you mean even after all these years of being married to you he is still looking at others and is willing to let go of the best thing in his life for a piece of in-his-mind a–???’), although all of them repress feelings and don’t ‘share’ with anyone – being all bottled up inside as a result of their CS upbringing and natural( maybe?) reticence. he says he was never abused, would never never never touch a child inappropriately, doesn’t mean to leave doors open just forgets, doesn’t look at anyone under 16yo, thinks pedophiles are despicable and can’t fathom such behavior, can’t believe that just because he looks and lusts at other women I would think him capable of actually doing anything in real life with another women, much less child, doesn’t understand why I have lost faith in him ‘just because of his looking’, etc etc etc.

his dad made a few offcolor suggestive remarks to me early in our marriage and I forced him to speak to his dad to stop it – that is the one and only time he has ever stood up for me and I forced it by refusing to go to any family anything unless he did, which would have been tough, uncomfortable, spoil his fun, so he did it.

his second youngest brother’s wife told me they went through a bit of this type of narcissistic type behavior too but the brother has stepped up and realized it is not all about him and he acts more like a responsible person/husband/father now.
 
Rachel:

You should share some of this story with the sister-in-law who confided with you. You must put the proper perspective on this so that your husband cannot enlist their support against you and your daughters, who are their nieces and perhaps even god-daughters.

I would encourage you from refraining from a lot of emotional prayers for your husband. You need to ask God to be with him, but you must conserve your emotional energy for the battle that lies ahead.

You need a “treatment plan” for your husband, along with a timeline. He must agree to counseling individually, and also marital. If he isn’t willing to accept the terms that you and your counselor agree to, then I would say that your marriage is over. If he really wants to get better, then he must work hard in order to achieve that.

Also, it’s very weird that he is living with your parents. You need them on your side, with him living at their house, he still has access and control over you and your children, in the least, through them, and how can they see things clearly with him there? t impinges on your ability to visit with them. If your parents don’t understand what’s going on, they need to join you in counseling. Is this a financial decision? Perhaps I missed this in another post you made earlier in the thread.

Also, and this is very important: get an attorney and begin to work out the legal aspects of ending the marriage. I know this sounds final, but you need to plan for final. The burden of restoring the marriage is on your husband. If he wastes time, money, and energy while he tries to manipulate you into accepting his terms or wear you down, YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN LOSE.

Rachel, we know you are drained, stressed out, and wondering what will happen next. Let me tell you that if you keep doing the right thing, by next Christmas, this madness will be over and you and your children will know a measure of peace that you haven’t had for a long time. Stay with it, you can do this. God has already given you the grace to deal with this head-on.

Also, it’s wonderful to talk to Priests, but if they are not trained in dealing with narcissists, pedphiles, and the like, the priest you speak to may not be able to effectively help your husband and may urge you to offer the suffering up while your husband tries to get better. If your husband is willing to get counseling, get the best therapist in the field. You may only have one opportunity for counseling. Also, if you tell the priest that your husband acts like a pedophile, the priest will be compelled to call the authorities (unless he hears this in a confessional) or the Diocesan Safe Environment office.

You have a lot of people praying for you. Cling to the truth, it will set you free.
 
Cup of Kindness has given a lot of good, practical pointers. When you see an attorney, you might feel very guilty and sneaky, but you really need to protect yourself. I had divorce papers drawn up close to the time of separation, but did not need to sign them until six months later. The nice thing was, I had to do that when my husband cut us off financially, and since the papers were done, all I had to do was go in and sign. When he had to pay back child support, etc, it went back to the filing date. Had I waited, I would have lost out.

Have you been to a local women’s shelter? You don’t have to be getting physically hit to find a lot of value in their services. They have counseling and books to lend and a lot of sweet people who understand what it feels like to not quite know for sure whether your feelings are valid and what is real. They can also tell you what documents you need to have ready, like copies of a financial statements, a certified copy of your marriage license, past three years of tax returns, etc. My husband drew out the process much longer than necessary by not having information for his lawyer, but I had it all to my lawyer the day I filed, so we were able to override some of dh’s roadblocks. It helped me a lot to have that power.

Personally, I find your father in law issue very creepy, though you didn’t give much detail. It could be that your dh’s mom has been putting up with behavior like this and your dh is just passing on what he learned.
 
He’s playing you like a fiddle. Narcissists do that. He knows just what to do and say and how to sound all cute and contrite and how to make promises (the moon? I’ll give you the moon!) to get just what he wants.

He doesn’t look at girls under 16? How nice of him! :mad:

As the mother of daughters older than that I can’t tell you how much I despise being out and seeing men look around and watch them. Old pervs!

Take a vote of your kids. Should he stay or should he go. The older girls get 1.5 votes. The younger kids get 1 vote.

Yep. You know how that will turn out.

YOU didn’t turn the older girls against him. That’s more of his toxic counteraccusations to put you on the defensive. His own daughters, at an age when they should have been daddy’s princesses, are creeped out by him.

Keep him around and you’re telling your daughters to impeach their own instincts. To let men make them feel degraded. To ignore that feeling they have things aren’t right even though they don’t have a vocabulary to express those feelings. That boundaries mean nothing. You’re setting them up for a lifetime of being sexually harassed at work and they’ll end up with a man for a husband who will also denigrate them or worse.

Get them into counselling now. Keep them there. Protect them.

Once you drop all possibility of kicking him out, he’ll move back in and revert to true form and you won’t be able to get him out for love or money and your youngest kids will pay the biggest price.

Nothing you’ve said here has indicated he’s really repentant. He has a nice public image. But the people who know him best don’t trust him. Typical narcissist red light.

Does he leave the door open for your mother to watch him undress? Oh? You mean he can close a door when he wants to?

All you have is a man who wants the holiday Kodak moment. But his family life is one long endless Maalox moment.

He’s trying to sell you a fantasy. Don’t buy what he’s selling.
 
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