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my mother in law will make my life a living hell if i don’t let him come home. she has already started. i told her i am going to wait AT LEAST until we each have a therapy session with our new counselors. they were closed on friday so hopefully we will each be able to talk to them tomorrow and get appointments soon. but here is the contract:
CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT
These are the terms of the Agreement. If you disagree with or are unable to fulfill any of these, all bets are off and you will have to move immediately.
1. In order to move back home, you will first have to take and pass a polygraph test to determine whether or not you are telling the truth regarding how many times you have cheated on me. If you do not pass this polygraph test, you will have to move out completely, immediately. I simply will not tolerate lying of any kind, ever again, regardless of the fact that our marriage is over. I will not have a liar raising our child and living under the same roof as her. Since you can not be trusted to muster up the truth, the polygraph is the only reliable means of doing this. And while a polygraph, generally speaking is about 98% accurate (and this certainly gives you the opportunity to swear you were telling the truth even when you weren’t), 98% is a much higher rate of reliability than your rate of reliability which is exactly ZERO.
2. If you pass the polygraph test, you can stay here in our home for a trial period of six months, in which time you will work on yourself by getting in therapy, staying in therapy and making every effort in your being to discover and come to terms with your issues so that you can be freed from whatever sickness is ailing you. This is not a period during which we will be working on us. As of October 28, 2011, our marriage is over.
3. During this time, even though we are not working on us, you will share with me, to the best of your ability, the nature of your issues and your progress in therapy. It is important to me to know that you really are getting help and working on yourself. This lays the ground work for # 11. If you are not making a valiant effort at this, the Contract will be terminated immediately and you will have to move out.
4. If during that six months, there is any sort of undue stress on me because of your shitty attitude, inability to cope with, or ugliness toward me because of your issues, the Contract shall be terminated, and you will have to move immediately. If this makes you think you will be walking on eggshells, then welcome to my world.
5. I will agree not to throw you out at the drop of a hat, unless one of the terms of the Agreement is violated.
6. I will not verbally, emotionally or physically abuse you.
7. You will not verbally, emotionally or physically abuse me.
8. No discussions of any sort pertaining to your therapy or the issues precluding it or our problems will take place in front of Annika-Rose.
9. I will probably ask you a lot of questions, continue to try to understand how you could have done this to me, and remain very angry and in disbelief and cry a lot. And I reserve the right to do any of that as long as it does not involve name calling or physical abuse.
10. You will remain at your current job for the six month trial period. There do not need to be any more major disruptions in anyone’s life right now. You will just have to suck it up and do something that makes you miserable, just as I am by agreeing to let you come back to the house in the first place. Make no mistake: I do not want you here. I am fine with throwing your ass in the street and letting you deal with the consequences of your actions. You are an adult, it is time you started acting like one. I believe more than anything that by letting you stay here, I am simply enabling you and letting you think your behavior is ok. However, that apparently isn’t the ‘right’ thing to do so I am doing this to give you an opportunity to be with your child and to not be uprooted while you are trying to sort through these very deep issues that you have to uncover and accept and ultimately make peace with.
11. At the end of the six month trial period, we will assess, based on our individual counseling progress, our own feelings, and how well you followed through with #3 whether or not working on our marriage is even an option. As of now, it is definitely not an option. A six month window will give you an opportunity to discover the bases for some of your issues and whether or not marriage is even a viable option for you. And it will give me time to find out if healing from the damage you have done is even possible, especially in the context of staying married to you.
12. You will do your own dishes and pick up after yourself. I am not your mother and am tired of being treated like your crappy houseservant. If you don’t like the state the house is in, don’t stomp around the house like a six year old and slam things around: do it yourself.
13. There will be no more vodka shots. If you are serious about getting better, it is time you accept that the level of your drinking will most certainly impede that. I am sure you will sneak and get them and do them before you come home, and if you want to deceive yourself into thinking that’s okay, you go right ahead. But your issues will not get any better if you keep drowning them in alcohol.
Honey, I think that this is great…however, the over-all tone sounds a bit too angry and like you are ORDERING HIM. Now of COURSE, you are absolutely ENRAGED AND SHOULD BE, but if you come across that way in this document I’m afraid, that he’ll take the entire thing and rip it up in your face.
One easy way to tone it down would be to take as many of the “YOUs” and change them into WEs or I’s.
Also, its better to stick to the expectations and not go into all of the shit that he’s done in the past. Try to put everything as positively as possible. the message will come across much more strongly, actually.
I’ve learned these techniques through my shrink mom, from my own therapists, reading, and dealing with my AD/HD son and my HF autistic son.
For instance, “I need for there to be no more lies of any kind”
“Or, if I hear a lie, that will be grounds for dismissal.”
“Any kind of verbal, emotional or physical abuse is forbidden. I will not allow myself to be abused any further”
(although, he won’t like hearing this.)
“I think it only makes sense for you to be able to stay in your current job, to alleviate any further upheaval for our children.”
These changes sound more business-like and are apt to get better results…
now, make no mistake… I have verbally BASHED MY FUCKTARD HUSBAND OVER THE HEAD, ON NUMEROUS OCCASIONS
Hell hath no fury…
BTW, something we haven’t really discussed, but a LOT of SAs are also ALCOHOLICS.
xo ~ Lexie
PS: reading through this, some more… I dunno… I’m not sure if it will make any difference. He also might stop you at the poly. In any case, I’d also shorten it a lot… there’s too much, too much, for his primitive man-brain to absorb. LOL
If he does stop me at the poly, that will tell me everything i need to know. My intention is not to get him back home. I seriously could not care any less where he rests his nasty ass at night. However, my MIL is trying to dictate my healing process for me so I am trying to be diplomatic by creating my demands and give him the option to agree with them or not. If he gets past number one, and I seriously doubt he will then maybe that is a sign he wants help. The language such as ‘ I will not tolerate’ I feel is absolutely necessary for his primitive man brain. I am not negotiating or compromising with him at this point. The only reason I am considering this at all is so I don’t have to continually be told by his mother how it’s MY job to stand by HiM and how I’m making a bad choice for my child by kicking him out. Really? What about the choice HE made? I will reread again tomorrow and consider your suggestions though. Either way, he is not coming back until we have both had an appt with a counselor.
Oh and the lying part is about the lies I believe he is currently telling me. He us swearing that he only had one actual sex act . I don’t believe him. And I will have to know he is telling the truth before any if the rest of it matters. So, you are likely right that he won’t agree to the poly, in which case, problem solved! I definitely feel that’s an admission of guilt, do you?
Is depending on a polygraph even a smart thing to do? I hear they are used a lot with SA recovery. But how accurate are they really?
Hi WM,
I think I’d let his mom keep him. I wouldn’t care how angry she got. Then she can write a contract for him. You need time and space for you . Just my opinIon.Hi WM,
I think I’d let his mom keep him. I wouldn’t care how angry she got. Then she can write a contract for him. You need time and space for you . Just my opinIon.I agree with NAP.
Why give your power away to your MIL? Your physical, emotional and spiritual health is at stake here.
Do YOU want him back living with you? I think you have stated your position loud and clear.
Stand firm. This is your life. She has no right to be pressuring you on this decision.
The very best answer for people who try to manipulate you is this phrase, which can be uttered with all sorts of various vocal tones to fit the occasion.
Simply say, ‘I don’t think so.’
Funny she does not want him either!!! She is making you take him back. Ugh.
If you are going to have him move back in, i think you need to have a contract like you did. I think Lexie has a good point about keep it simple.
1. As part of staying at home with me you will be required to take a poly.
2. I will not accept lies.
3. I will not accept drinking.
4. i will not accept verbal or physical abuse.Consequence. You will move out. If you make six months then at that time i will consider marriage counseling as a couple.
Contract/boundaries are to be written as sort of a choice. In other words i will not accept you acting in xyz way; if you do the consequence is you move out. Its a choice per say for him; he either conforms to the new rules or he goes. That is what i did as well. You can also make one i will not accept you attending less than one SA meeting a week and one therapy session a week (or whatever you want). You may want to spell more out what you feel needs to happen with his therapy for him to stay in the house.The more words in each statement the more wiggle room and the more room for whining by him. Keep them short and simple.
I did the same thing. I wrote a boundary list rather than a contract. Followed by simple requests. They were not boundaries, but were things that i included for transparancy. I had him sign it and it was dated. We went over it so he was aware that there were no misunderstanigns. It hink what you wrote is a very smart idea 🙂 Just shorten and get to the point quicker, which his male brain they need to be about two sentences or less.
Good luck, i am rooting for you. I think you are on the right path. But when he returns if you find yourself anxious, on edge, miserable; and when he was gone you were not…i think you have your answer.
I know we would all like her t give the boot. But lets face it most of us let them back in. I love the fact that she has got wise and has made this contract…if he passes great…he fails…its there in writing of the consequences and course of action. I think smart cookie, wish i had been that smart the first time i let my h back in!!!
Love,
FloraI let my h back in twice, but with nothing but a promise by him and a wish an a prayer by me. What a fool i was.
I did not get wise to contracts or boundaries for about 7 months, of course after i found SOS.Love,
FloraAre polygraphs reliable enough that I can count on the results? You all KNOW that if he fails he will still swear he is telling the truth.
Polygraphs, when done by an expert who has experience with testing Sex Addicts, oversight by experienced counselors and with the proper prerequisites of a full written disclosure, are extremely accurate. These are best done in conjunction with a weekend intensive. If he fails that, he IS lying.
Otherwise, in my opinion, they are worthless.
Now, I am not pushing weekend intensives, I really don’t think they do a whole lot of good as far as helping facilitate recovery. But, their procedures for doing the polygraph are outstanding. If I wanted one, that is how I would do it.
Why do any of us think that a SA would honor a contract? Larry signed several. They were worthless.
As far as boundaries, yes, yes and yes. You absolutely need them. BUT, boundaries are for US, not them, and if we do not enforce them swiftly and as stated, they too are worthless. If not enforced they are simply lessons for the SA to learn what our weaknesses are.
And remember, if you have boundaries for acting out, how will you know? They have already shown us that they are masters of deceit.
good question WM. My h is a sociopath and l honestly believe he could pass a lie detector test. Some Sociopaths can because they ate so used to lying plus they believe most of their own lies. The funny thing is, until I found out my h was a SA a yr ago, I thought he was one of the most honest pepole I’ve ever known. After I found out I realized he lied about everthing! And still does! These guys ate master liars. IMO if you let him come back, you will be miserable because chances are he will also manipulate you. They ate masters at that too! If mommy kicks him out he can go to a cheap hotel. I lived in one for 5 months. What a life, the vending man comes on Weds, the pool gets tested daily at 2 pm. It won’t hurt him to stay out.
Much love, NapHi WW,
I had an SA with a difficult MIL as well.
I understand why you went to paper and pen (or screen and keyboard) to try and find some way of setting up a safe place for you to be in. That’s kind of the way I think too, when I start out. If I can get it down in writing then I think maybe all that needs to happen is to have his agreement. Boundaries are very important, if you want to continue in a relationship with an SA. But getting his signature is just the beginning. Following through is next, and you will have to follow through because I don’t there has ever been anyone on this site with an SA who didn’t have some kind of “lapse” or ongoing acting out. They simply lie to themselves as much they lie to us. So the notion of the SA self-regulating is kind of goofy. They are so comfortable lying and denying that it’s an easy out.
That being said, I want to affirm your need to have a life that isn’t booby-trapped by the SA’s behaviours. You deserve to have a home that is without terrible anxiety and constant vigilance. You deserve to have a relationship without those things as well.
It’s a very difficult thing to decided what to do and how to do it. Some women with children and young people still at home just can’t begin to extract themselves, so they stay and work incredibly hard at an SA recovery process. It isn’t a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of just what that woman can handle at the time. IMO there is clock running on those situations. Recovery for the SA is not something for which there are positive statistics, but some couples seem to reach a neutral zone where the SA either hides it all better, or actually DOES stop many of the offensive behaviours. Unfortunately, the bar is very low for what passes for a marriage at this stage, because there are so many other emotional/psychological deficits that accompany the SA alongside the acting out. But everyone has a right to choose how they will spend their precious hours of their lives. We can not always know why they choose as they do. We can only hope that every woman, at some point, asks herself what she wants to do with her life, and whether this is it.So, your draft agreement makes sense, and yet the struggle will take more than that from both of you. My personal goal is for each woman on this site to value her own life enough to stop giving it away to someone who has no capacity to receive it. If that means the end of a relationship with an SA, then that’s what it means. I am also open to the possibility that some SA’s may have the capacity to receive and value their partner’s life in a way that can sustain an ongoing life-giving relationships. I hope that for everyone who is wanting it. And I will be right there to support them at any moment if they perceive that is no longer something to believe in.
Long way of saying, there isn’t much you can count on from the SA beside pain and wounding. That’s why it’s such a devastating situation. But you can believe in your own life, and follow the path you believe you need to before you walk away from the hard truths.
I also believe if practitioners would stop wasting their time on treatment models that don’t work, we might have something that could help the SA. But they have to let go of the horseshit that the SA’s (who designed the treatment models). They have to face the leaking of the SA symptoms into their treatment models—(like the insane circular reasoning around partner co-dependency, and she’s “sicker than the addict” — a quote from Carnes)
Hang in there. You can find your way.
Diane.If feeling the push of the MIL and guilt, you may want to read toxic guilt. Another great book. Symptoms of toxic guilt are virtually identical to PTSD and co-dependence.
You remain forzen you feel guilt about what you should do, you feel you should give him a chance, you feel xyz and feel also maybe that what he has done was not that bad or you are wring, you may doubt yourself, feel moving him out may be too severe.
You could always tell her that you want to think about it for two weeks…or whatever. Give yourself more time?? I know the anxiety over this may feel overwhelming, but i guarantee that once you get over your fear of doing it, then do it…you will feel so much better. and then you have a week or two of peace…to sort it out. Everyone is always in such a hurry to make adecisions. But i think it takes a week or two with him away, just to clear your head…seriously.
Even boundaries that you have trouble enforcing are better than none. Even if you worry you may not be albe to enforce them…atleast you put it out there and stated it that you want nothing more to do with this crazy life and his ways. They say even just putting it out there and writing it down can change your path or course. The powers of the mind.
Never give up on your hopes and dreams or undermine them yourself.
Love,
Florai honestly believe my H could pass a poly too. lying is such a part of him, and he is done it all of his life. and then i would just be the fool again because he would know he had gotten away with it and his lying would never stop. quite frankly, i am not sure it will anyway. i am looking for a weekend intensive such as one you are talking about here in alabama but so far i have found nothing. hopefully i will get to talk to someone at the counseling center and we can get and idea if this is even a possibility for us.
Hi WM,
What generally needs to happen if you are considering staying in the reLationship is the SA needs to be shipped off to a treatment program for 30 to 60 days. The purpose of this is so they can get sober (not act out) and start the beginnings of insight into their own sickness and addiction. If they don’t get sober first recovery is slim and It’s already pretty slim at 5 percent. Then when they come home they are in therapy or groUp, sometype of output program. There are intensive treatment programs which are 3 wks if he cant be gone that long.My h was advised to go to a treatment program for 2 months . The length of time and level of his addiction determines this. Said he was going, told his boss, boss said ok however long you need then never left. Joined an output group and then started skipping meetings to meet people for sex. Mine didn’t/ could not stop. My therapist said in reality it would take yrs and he still wouldn’t be able to stop.
Love, Nap
Dear WM, my husband might be the greatest liar on earth and he still failed his second poly, 2 1/2 years into “recovery.” And, yes, he swears today that he hasn’t done ANYTHING–not even a slip. He printed out reams and reams of pages from websites claiming polygraphs are BS and acts as though it was all a big conspiracy against him. I guess my first point is that I doubt your SA could fool a test, and my second point is unless he owns the failure, you’ll be stuck making a choice based purely on the results of the test and not some certainty that he was lying. Unless, like I said, he cops to it.
More important, though, remember his mother raised the fucktard. So who is she to tell YOU what to do with him? I’m actually looking forward to telling my MIL the truth about her son. Soon after we married, there was a popular country song by Brad Paisley called Half the Man he Didn’t Have to Be, about a wonderful stepfather (the stepson hopes he can grow up to be half the dad his stepfather didn’t have to be…). Blech. She would get all wet-eyed and tell me that song reminded her of her son, who was–of course–such a great man to be raising my kids, subtext being I should never forget that and let him know how grateful I was.
him going off in to treatment really isn’t an option. that would mean me supporting me and my child entirely with the additional cost of childcare. furthermore, he can’t afford treatment. he has looked into it and it’s $35,000. i don’t know if insurance will cover it. we haven’t checked into it that far. but this issue is really less about his SA than it is about his sexuality i think. and i really do not believe that someone who is truly homosexual will ever stop having the urge to be with men. i really don’t believe there is a ‘cure’ for homosexuality. there is denying your urges, but it’s not the same. i am installing a keylogger on his work computer so i will be able to keep tabs on his recovery. he doesn’t have a computer anywhere else, so that is the best i can do right now, other than have someone follow his every move. that is another reason for having come home, is that i know where he is and that he is not out looking for someone’s ass to fuck. geez. how fucking unreal that i am even having to say that.
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