Q: I married very young and came to Venezuela 35 years ago. We made a life together and raised 2 children. In 2008, I discovered that he was having an affair with a very young girl. We have not had sex since. The other day, looking for information in his email account (he asked me to!) I found a letter from his “ex-lover.”  I am thinking of giving up on this marriage–maybe he has always been like this and I didn’t know. I do love him but I want to be free of this anger and sadness.

 A: Ann, you didn’t really ask a question.  What you’ve given me is really a sad statement.  I would suggest that you confront him about what you know.  Find out if he still intends to communicate with the other girl.  What are his intentions with her?  What does he want to have with you?  In other words, you need to find out what he’s willing to negotiate and then you need to decide what you’re willing to accept in the form of a negotiated agreement.  Perhaps you will only invest yourself if he’s willing to be accountable in marriage counseling.  Perhaps you might choose to give up and get divorced if he will not be accountable.  Another alternative is that you choose to stay in an emotionally distant arrangement  with him for the purpose of survival.  These are existential choices and are context dependent.  You get to choose but be conscious that you’re making a choice.  Good luck.

Bryce Kaye  

Q:  Please help! I have been married for only 8 months now. The main problem is, that since the day we said “I do”, my husband has become increasingly self-centered. He is also no longer interested in sex. He refuses to tell me I look good, or do any small act to show his love. His excuse is that he has no energy for such things. I have tried to explain how much it would mean to me, with no avail. He seems only to be interested in himself. Sexually, we had no problems until our wedding day. He admits that his sexual drive is dead now, and can give no reason.  In turn, it is making me feel extremely unattractive, and unimportant in his eyes. I don’t know what happened.  My only guess is that he regrets his decision now that it is over. Please tell me I’m wrong to believe this! In his defense, he feels that all I do anymore is complain. He also started a new job the week we got married, and it keeps him away from home for days at a time. When he is home, all he wants to do is lay on the couch and watch TV. I understand that he is tired, but I have needs too. He has also stated that he believes that a marriage should not need any work, it should just flow smoothly, so he sees ours as being defective. I am at my wits end. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

A:  Mary.  First, read the diagnostic section titled “Emotional Deprivation Syndrome” in the First Aid Kit.  See if your husband is willing to do some scheduling with you.  If he is not willing to do so, you would best confront him that the marriage is not working for you and that you both need to see a marriage counselor to save it.  If he still refuses, then you should reconsider your marriage with a husband who refuses to manage the relationship responsibly. Marriage relationships DO require work….a lot of work!  Good luck.  – Bryce Kaye

Q: Is it wrong of me to request my husband stop talking to another woman that I don’t know. The relationship was not known to me until this week when he announced he was trying to decide whether to stay with me or not.  He said they started off as business and then personal. He keeps talking to her about our problems. When I requested he stop the contact out of respect to our marriage, he became quite angry. I know people whose spouse ended up cheating in the same kind of situation. Am I wrong to ask this of him?

 A: Lisa, I wouldn’t say that you would be wrong to ask him to stop but I think you would be strategically wrong to keep insisting him to stop.  You have bigger fish to fry.  Yes, it is dangerous and a good many husbands in his position would have already had a sexual affair.  There’s certainly a good chance that it’s at least an emotional affair.  The fact that you didn’t know about it means that he’s already betrayed one of his responsibilities to the relationship (ie. to keep a partner informed about personal dealings with the opposite sex.)  The fact that he’s undecided about staying in the marriage would be a time when he would need to be even more careful and accountable about contacts with the opposite sex.   However, it sounds like he’s more interested in getting sympathy from the opposite sex than confronting his ambivalence with you in a marriage counselor’s office.  I would suggest that you not focus on the female confidant right now and focus instead on getting together with a good couples therapist.  Good luck. 

 Bryce Kaye

Q:  My wife and I have been married for 17 years. Now that our two children are getting older, we are having trouble making ends meet. I work very hard as the primary wage earner. My wife has entered the work force again, but we seem to be falling farther behind. Last month, my wife informed me of her plans to go to college to earn a degree. When I protested because I couldn’t figure out how we can pay for this, she told me that she wants a divorce because she hasn’t been happy for a long time. Looking back, it hasn’t been easy or much fun trying to pinch pennies to survive, but I guess I must have turned a blind eye toward any symptoms. Since this announcement, I have been struggling to hold on to any sign that we still have something left between us. I have suggested counseling, the answer is we’ll see. I’ve asked her to fill out an emotional needs survey so I can figure out what I haven’t been doing for her, but she has not found time. Today I asked if we would ever have sex again; she told me I should find someone to have it with. She told me that she is not there for me anymore, and it will take a long time before anything is different between us. I have asked what I can do to work at it. She tells me there is nothing I can do because the problem is with her. On the plus side, she seems to want to live in the same house until she gets her degree, maybe because we can’t afford to live apart. We have always been good friends to each other and we still have that and we are still there for our children. I feel so lost and lonely its almost unbearable. Can you please help me?

A:  Henry.  I doubt that I can help you towards getting your wife back.  You describe very consistent and clear messages from her that she wants out.  What help I can provide is to clarify that you run the risk of wasting your time with misguided hope.  It is likely that she will still want to use this relationship to build a foundation for her later independence – when she finally leaves you.  I strongly suggest for you to not buy such a cheap deal for yourself.  You don’t need to spend a lot of time supporting her with the misguided hope that she’ll change her mind.  You may want to spend 4 to 6 months to see if she really wants to work with you with a marriage therapist.  However, if she doesn’t choose that, then don’t hold on because of desperation.  Your life is too important to be a footnote to someone else’s – someone who has already emotionally left. Sorry. – Bryce Kaye

Q:  Me and my Husband have been married for two years and have two children. I am a stay home Mom, but in my opinion I think when my husband is home that the duties dealing with the children should be split 50/50. And I don’t ever get to do anything without the kids because my husband won’t watch the kids. So my first question is: Do you think the duties of the kids should be split 50/50 when he is home? And my second question is: Should he be able to go out and do stuff without the kids if I can’t?? Please help our marriage is falling apart because of it!!

A:  Frannie: Let me first give you a qualified “no”.   It is not ALWAYS the case that a 50-50 time split on parenting is best when both parents are home.  It can depend on a number of factors.  Probably the best way of approaching this issue is to look at the distribution of discretionary (free) time within the relationship.  Think of discretionary time as a resource.  You can spend this resource doing fun stuff that you like and have chosen for yourself.   Discretionary activities are not for the mutual benefit of both parties.  For example, if your husband plays golf, goes out with the guys, spends time in leisurely reading, then all of that is discretionary time.  However, if he is business meetings, is reading technical journals in preparation for a business move, or is going to the doctor, then all of that are responsibilities to maintain self and family.  I would suggest that you approach the problem from the stand-point of discretionary time.   Who’s getting more of it?  You both can do a strict accounting of how much time you each spend in discretionary activities during a typical week.  That will determine if there’s any unfairness in the distribution.  THEN you can approach him about shifting some of the discretionary time to you while he takes the kids.  Unless you go at this methodically as I’ve described, there’s a tendency for people to go with their gut feelings about why they’re psychologically entitled to more. Good luck.  – Bryce Kaye

Q: I have been married for 13 yrs and have two children, ages 8 and 5. My husband has lied over the years about big and little things. Lying was common in his home growing up. He had a substance abuse problem but has been sober for almost 5 yrs. He is terrible at communication and deals poorly with anger/anxiety. He loves me and the kids and there has never been any cheating. I am lonely and angry with him often. I do not feel like I can trust him, feel like I am on my own. What do I do?

A: Jess, I’m sorry to hear about your predicament.  Here’s what I’d suggest.  First, let’s give your husband some credit despite his obvious limitations.  He’s now sober 5 years.  That’s a HUGE step in the right direction.  Unfortunately, it’s not enough because of the poor programming he’s had growing up with low functioning parents.  It’s important that you realize that he has some programming that will not immediately shift even if he wants it to.  His lying is probably a defense because he lacks other emotional resources to protect him against disapproval.  It will take him alot of work for him to overcome this.  The first step for you is to lower your expectations, lower your own rage factor, and ask him if he’s willing to start his own growth program to overcome the lying.  In other words, as ridiculous as it sounds let him know that you’re aware that he can’t immediately overcome his compulsion to lie.  Accept that he has that limitation.  It’s like atrophied legs and he won’t be able to run a 10 K.  Next, ask him if he will use a sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous to do stepwork where he can practice ”radical honesty.”  It’s in the recovery community that he can attain some of the higher consciousness programming that his original family never gave him.  Hope this helps.

Bryce Kaye (10/29/2011)

Q: I have been in a relationship for almost two years. He is a good man, but has only had sex with me twice and he stopped in the middle of it. He says he loves me wants to marry me but we both agree with have a sexual problem and he blames me. what do you think the problem could be?

A: Sandie, the problem is probably how your boyfriend is construing sex with you in his mind.  We have no way of knowing how that is unless he’s willing to explore it with a sex therapist.  If he’s not willing to look at that before you get married, I’d advise you to consider whether you want to marry someone who won’t carry out his due diligence to protect your relationship.  Love without responsibility is a poor way to start a marriage. – Bryce Kaye 10/15/2011

When Empathy Becomes Codependence

When Disloyalty Becomes Growth

 Bryce Kaye, Ph.D.

There’s a joke I once heard about codependence: How can you tell if a drowning woman, is codependent? Answer: Someone else’s life passes in front of her eyes. Of course, the female gender holds no monopoly on codependence but I report the joke as it was told to me by a “recovering” person in AA. I tell that joke a lot when doing therapy, not out of disrespect but for its illustrative albeit exaggerated truth. Like drowning people who can’t think of themselves first, many people focus on their partner’s feelings and needs to the exclusion of their own.

Recently, it seems I have been seeing more clients who complain about losing their boundaries when another person is in acute pain. Many of these people also have trouble establishing boundaries in the face of anger but the real killer seems to be pain. It’s almost as if, when the other person is hurting, no legitimate choice exists other than to assuage his suffering. This may involve reestablishing an unhealthy relationship, granting undesired sexual favors, or sacrificing independent interests in a far from healthy empathy. It involves identifying emotionally with the experience of pain but not assuming the responsibility for managing it.

Adult children from dysfunctional families have exceptional difficulty in distinguishing between healthy empathy and unhealthy responsibility for pain. In their original families, most were taught inadvertently to cross the empathy and responsibility wires. When a parent who is suffering emotionally depends on the child for support, the child eventually will learn to assume responsibility for mollifying the parent’s pain. Children do not have clear psychological boundaries from a parent, and the sense of responsibility becomes ingrained before the child establishes those boundaries. Later on in adult life, it is quite natural for the grown-up child to repeat the feeling of assumed responsibility when presented with a partner’s suffering. It then feels tremendously disloyal to ignore someone in pain. .

In therapy, I have told many of my clients that feeling disloyal often is an indication of growth during the recovery from codependence. The reason is that loyalty to the original parent often is what keeps the codependent response in place. When one begins to consider one’s own welfare first, it actually may conflict with the implicit parental rule: “You are responsible for tending to my pain first.” To reject that rule, you may be implicitly rejecting the way you originally attached to your parent. You may have originally bonded with him or her through a sense of responsibility for “earning” his presence. To reject responsibility for managing another’s pain, you may subconsciously have to push away your old “internalized parent.” That’s pretty heavy stuff and guilt is understandable.

If this is your struggle, I would suggest that you not try going it alone. In my experience, people do not let go of what has even marginally worked until they have something with which to replace it. Most people cannot subconsciously push away an “internalized parent” until they have established a more healthy internal ally. This is the job of good psychotherapy. I recommended that you consider this option if you repeatedly cannot be disloyal enough to consider your own welfare first.  Bryce Kaye 09/24/2011

Q:  I have been trying to resolve a major marital problem with no success.  It seems that all we do is waste time and energy arguing about old and present issues without getting any positive results. This has been going on for about a year but in the last six months it has taken a much stronger force. If I/We do not find a true solution to the problem, then divorce is the only option. We have been married for 23 yrs.

Here is the problem: My wife (43yrs.)argues that she has devoted many years to the house and kids and ignored her needs. She claims the kids are old enough now to take care of themselves and that she will now look more after herself. The first thing she did was to lose plenty of weight, mostly through starving since there has not been a decent meal in the house for months. The “kids”( 17, 20 and 23 yrs) continuously make statements about being tired of eating out. She also started going to the gym. Later, all I heard was her need to have fun so she was drinking and going to visit friends. Later it was work ” so much to do” She will go in an hour earlier and get out two hours late, only to return at night. So she was out of the house since 6:30 am until about 10pm, not always but normally.  I put up with this behavior thinking it will pass and is only one of those growing up/growing old phases, but it did not.  It got worse. She started going out with friends and relatives to casinos and parties, and in numerous occasions (4) she never came home. She would spend the night with them because” they got too drunk to drive” To say the least this disrespect for me , the kids, and my home broke my heart into a million pieces.  I honestly can not recover from this, in my mind I always wonder who she was with and what they did. She claims nothing ever happened -sexually with another man- but I do not believe it for a second.  For months her behavior showed me she was looking for someone, that she was ready and willing to try new relationships.  After a major argument we decided to give our marriage one more try, and we decided to have a party. Everything seemed to be fine, we were dancing, and she was drinking ( I do not drink). At one time I went to check on the inside of the house, found a couple of drunk people, made sure that they were OK, and went back outside, where the party was at. Well, there she was, dancing with another man, whom I did not know nor did she. I got very upset. Did not talk to her for about 4 days, and her attitude was ” I have done nothing wrong and you have a serious personal problem” Finally we argued again and she claims she is not doing anything wrong, and the only one that sees a problem with her behavior is me. What else can I do? HELP.

A:  Mario.  From the sounds of it I doubt that you and your wife will stabilize your marriage without professional help.  You and I are only guessing at what has led to a change in your wife’s life priorities.  It is not clear that she truly wants to improve the relationship with you.  You also raise up the issue of fairly heavy alcohol use by she and her friends.  I don’t know if that plays a significant factor.  There’s also the history between you and she to which she may now be reacting since the kids are grown.  Then there’s the possibility of an affair.   With all these dynamics, you need a good marriage counselor to spend time with both of you to tease out what’s really going on.  This Q & A forum will not be able to do it. – Bryce Kaye

Q:  I have been married for 9 years and have two children. Recently my wife told me that she was unhappy with me always working on house projects every weekend. She said she feels like a single parent and that her feelings for me have changed. She does not love me anymore. I have not been trying to avoid my wife or children. I thought it was the right thing to do. I told my wife that I would stop doing things for them and do more things “with” them. My wife hurt me deeply by saying she does not love me. I love her very much and want her to love me again. What can I do to?

A:  Patrick.  Try to keep in mind that your wife not loving you is not about your lovability, only about your current situation.  If she loved you before, she probably now has accumulated too much pain and anger to feel love.   Don’t think that she can quickly change that.  You will need to first determine whether she will work with you to try to restore a healthier emotional environment in your family.  Do NOT make any demands on her to quickly change her feelings and try to love you again.  Your best strategy is to reassure her that you understand that she has lost her love for you and you don’t blame her.  Then, don’t look for any immediate change of heart on her part.  However, if she’s willing to work with you, then see if she will make a lot of plans for scheduling in time together – time as a family as well as time as a couple away from the kids.  Also, go to the section of the Marital First Aid Kit that deals with emotional-starvation syndrome.   Read it and have her read it.  Then try what it suggests. 

Patrick.  If you do find it difficult to break free of house projects, then consider that you may be very uncomfortable with emotional intensity.  If this is the case, consider joining a psychotherapy group that focuses on relationship skills.   You would learn a lot but also it would de-condition whatever shame or anxiety leads you to escape into responsibility.  It may also be that you have a hard time playing.   I don’t know but consider that as well. – Bryce Kaye