Hi, Beacher, I read your letter - twice. You said in your letter that you feel codependent. A very wise woman told me a long time ago that if you want the tug - o - war to stop, all you have to do is drop the rope. Easier said that done - at first. Then it is one of the most self empowering things I could do for myself. I dropped the rope. My husband also acts very much like a child. The games are incredible, as well as the lies and the denial.
I found that he often picks to start something, often does something so out of the way bizarre and nuts and irresponsible - to start something. Is neglectful and selfish - to start something. I used to just let it roll. And there we would go.

Then it dawned on me the words this woman gave to me so long ago - way before I ever married my husband. And I started dropping the rope. He would pick, I would just do what I had been doing, and if he would pick too much, I simply left the room, or the house. He would cause a crisis, I let him pick up his own pieces. After all, just because he is acting like a child, it doesn't mean I have to be his Mommy.
I don't. It was a process of discovery for me. As I learned to take care of my own stuff and worry about making my own skin more comfortable, I felt much more at ease with leaving him with HIS stuff. Know what is happening? He's growing up. If I continued to treat him like a child, he felt all to obliged to BE that child (complete with the baby talk and temper tantrums!!) But changing my thinking to treating him like the forty some odd year old MAN he is, with respect, with trust that if he falls on his face he's more than capable of picking himself back up. . .even if it isn't my way of doing it. . .he started changing . . .very slowly. . .but he started growing into himself.

I second the marriage counseling. It can't hurt, and it may very well help, even if you don't chose to stay in the marriage.


Beth