Agh! He's detached completely!

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

I'm in a new marriage and we've been womped big time by the economy (long story, but we lost tens of thousands selling my home at long last, and the job has suffered directly as well) and it's pushed us to the breaking point. I am still dreading & waiting to be served papers by the sheriff, and every day I look on our states circuit court pages to see if the first papers have shown up yet. I think what's toughest is that he has fully detached himself and wants absolutly nothing to do with me it appears.

All this started April 9th, becasue I left him for a "break" because we had had a nasty argument the night before and he had said our marriage was a "mistake" as well as the fact he wouldn't drop this ultimatim he'd started the month before saying if I didn't earn XYZ dollars in a month, he'd file divorce papers. This stressed me out so badly that I was unable to work at all in my small business becasue I was a wreck. So I left for 2 weeks to stay with family, expecting that when I'd come home he would be apologetic and loving. I was completely wrong.

Instead, he was detached already and very anxious. I couldn't talk to him at all because he would literaly start shaking. He is a co dependent but had never acted like this before as far as just mere talking to each other. This went on for a month, during which we continued to go to our therapist, the only place he would talk to me.

Then he dropped the bomb that he was "done" and wanted to file immediately because when I was gone he was at peace finally and calm and relsxed, and he hasn't been that way since I moved in last July, before our wedding. This triggered an amazingly angry response from me, in which I asked him to give me a month more before filing so that we could both really try (and have him talk to me) and unless he did give me this month of acting like a normal couple and both trying, I would drag on the divorce for eons as I have nothing left to lose, and make it cost a fortune.

Oh, and despite the fact he just told me this this day, he was all ready to play "let's make a deal" saying that I could have the house if I made the divorce go quickly.

This was me talking crazy and vindictively people, I was shocked and very very hurt. Mind you, I had missed my husband and life terribly and hadn't been back to that regular married life for 6 weeks at this point (2 weeks of me gone, then 4 weeks of him not talking to me).

Then, about a week after this showdown, and him pressuring me all the time about what exactly I wanted in the divorce settlement, had I seen my lawyer, etc. I responded as my own therapist directed "I will do what I have to do, you will do what you have to do" so that I didn't let his threats get to me like the ultimatim did earlier. Apparently he did file at one point, he notified me of this in an email, but I haven't recieved it yet.

Ever since him saying he's done, we've been in a bad place with him constantly trying to push me to tell him stuff that I want from the divorce when I wasn't remotely ready to. Prior to that, we'd actually had some constructive converstaions using John Gottman's "The 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work" communication techniques that I have made a "cheat sheet" for that I literally take into the discussions. He said he felt more listened to. I think these are great tools, but a majority of the time was spent not talking and me merely trying to survive, that's why I love the DR, because it feels empowering and tells me what to do as my marriage is going up in flames around me.

The worst part is that ever since I left, he has been so damn detached. At first, before I read DR, I was doing the begging and pleading for our marriage, as well as raging at him or sobbing. I'm doing much better, but it still kills me that he doesn't talk to me at all and makes his meals only when I'm not in the kitchen, sleeps in the living room, and we haven't had sex in over 2 months. What's worse, is while he's busy not talking to me, I can hear him typing away on his computer and that's where he spends 95% of his time home.

He just disapears for hours at a time, with no explanation, sometimes showers then disapears. I don't think he's having an EA even though he has mostly female friends, but it still makes me feel extremely disrespected. I have to go to my good friends wedding next Sunday all alone, which kills me because it's the first one I've had since ours. Why do I have to feel so stupid and embarassed telling people why he's not there when I'm not the one throwing away our marriage before it's even had a chance to start?

We have a therapy session scheduled tonight and I hope to god that I'm not going to be the only one that shows up. I made a note about it to tell him in the kitchen, but he hasn't responded at all and I don't want to press the issue in case he's on the fence. He knows I want to preserve the marriage, and that's why he doesn't feel that therapy is appropriate at this point, yet he says he still loves me and that this is killing him too (the one time he opened up about this to me).

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm doing better and better about the DR, but it's especially hard because I am on leave from my regular job right now and thought I had a pt job all lined up but they were just stringing me along, so I have no $ and another month of leave (no pay) to kill. I've been applying everywhere to no avail, this is a hard time to get work. So he's going out to dinenr and events and buying $700 bikes, when I'm eating sandwiches and can't afford to go out at all.

I no longer cry every night when I go to sleep because I miss him in our bed, but I miss him as a person, as well as my husband so damn much. He's not even asked anything about me at all, like how I'm doing or how anybody is, or whatever. I am finally getting better at detaching from him and said only 5 words total to him yesterday all day, but it kills me. I just want my old life back but better and with less arguments and hurtful words. I believe he is still a good man and want him back but my family and friends, while great, don't get it, so while I get a ton of support and love from them, they think I should bail out now and run away from him.

Our M therapist thinks that this really has nothing to do with me at all but has to do with his horrible childhood and rlsp with this mother and other women in his life. He never had good examples of married life and this is his 2nd marriage, my first. She also thinks that we've been unlucky to start our marriage at such a hard time economically for the world and that has really stressed him out although it's not anyone's fault, it just is. She thinks he'll come around, and I hope to god he does.

Meanwhile, I'm working on me, cause I definately know that I've lost the strong, confident, happy and upbeat strong woman that I used to be going through all this, and loathe the pathetic, begging, sobbing creature that I've become. I'm also making the best of a bad situation and working small jobs to get cash, like dog walking and small painting projects for people.

Any advice or compassion would be so appreciated from the trenches. Thanks so much!

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

We had our MC appointment today and all he (H) wanted to talk about was how to proceed with the seperation. H was ac mechanical and detached it was ridiculous. I found myself being really mean just to try and get a rise out of him. This wasn't intentional, I swear, I was just going off on him and I think that's why. Obviously this doesn't help the cause, but I was getting quite frusterated that he was just sitting there, unable to look at me and talking in a monotone. I wanted to shake him and say "where the h*ll is my husband and what have you done to him?" H was acting like a total stranger.

The MC spoke to me alone at the end per my request. She says that again, this has to do with his past, and things are happening that trigger him. God, I just want to go rub that in his face right now, but no, instead I am sitting here nicely typing to you.

[robx]

is this really about money?
was there an affair on your part? on his part?
It just seems so odd that he is detaching so hard to get away from you. It's like he's really been hurt by something - are you providing us with all the details?

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

robx- Thanks for your post.

More details:
My H feels that I lied by omission in not telling him that my small business wasn't doing as well as it could. I told him along the way that I was struggling by telling him I needed a loan from the parents, and that I had to use retirement funds to make ends meet, etc, but he wanted to know exact numbers, which I didn't have until after we were married because I took an extension on my taxes that year, it was the first year I had had all SBO income to report (as opposed to employee W2 100%) and the many #'s of scheudules weren't easy for me to understand at first.

Then 2008's income was even worse, negative, because I spent too much time with life changes (moving, selling my place, wedding planning) and not work. It's a long story, needless to say. But he's really resentful that he's had to support me to some degree and again, we lost major $ on selling my place which didn't help matters.

This year was really bad for me becasue I got hit with the worst depression I've ever gone through in late Jan through mid March. I think it was because of all the changes I've been through and the fact that my H is very resistant to change and very controlling, plus I moved into his house.

Then I got a new medicine whcih helped me start to come out of the depression and BAM, my H hit me with two weeks after starting this (so it hadn't started working 100% yet) "If you don't earn xyz dollars in the next month, I'm filing divorce papers." This absoulutely paralzyed me and I was unable to get anything done for that month because all I would do is sit and worry, then cry , then worry more.

Then I left him, came back 2 weeks later and he wasn't talking to me for the next month. At somepoint during this time, he made up his mind that we were "done" with our marriage, even though it had only been 5 months at that point.

So I feel that we haven't really had a time that both of us have been trying at the same time and also workign on the marriage. He refuses to go to therapy anymore after this Monday's session and says he only wants to talk about a divorce settlement. Since we are dynamically opposed on this matter, he is ok to let the judge handle it, he says. I am ok with this because it frankly buys us time. I've told him already that I'd rather he, me or both of us had $ rather than attornies, and he agrees, however, he's refused to understand how this state, a community property state, works as far as income and property goes. His income (since mine is negliable after business expenses) is 1/2 mine, and so is the property, since we mergeed individually owned properties into joint properties wehn I sold mine late last year after 8 months on the market and so much less than what I paid for it a mere few years ago! But he refuses to acknowlegde that I'm owed a dime, and so, I'm hoping we will be remedied long before the wheels of justice officially divorce us. If my friends experiences hold true, it could take at least a year, if not 16 months for us to go through the entire process if he is continugig to drag his feet as he has been. While I love him, I refuse to take "scraps" in the divorce settlement, because I am owed something here, and the law is on my side. I gave up my place, at a huge loss, because I put full faith in this marriage, and now I have noplace to go, so I'm continuing to stay in our small house, wiht me in the bedroom, him on the couch and not talking.

My H had a horrible childhood full of his mothers abuse after the divorce of his parents, his undiagnosed schizophrenic mother, who beat him and used her child support for raising animals for money instead of buying food for the kids, so he had to raise his little brother and use welfare money to do so, and government peanut butter. They were denied visitations with his father for years, and then they left the mothers place in his mid teens, never to return or to talk to her ever again.

He has been getting treatment for the past 3 years for "co dependency" that stems (accd to our MC) from these experiences with this mother. He was marriaed and divorced very young, and then in a series of bad rlsps before me. Now, he's rewritten history to include me in that group of seriosuly disturbed women and women trying to use him, unfortunatley. He refuses to go on medication, and his therapist is the instigator that's been pushing him to divorce me. He refuses to consider additional treatments or alternative treatments for his anxiety and has had 1 "panic attack" as he calls it early this year. It is not like any panic attack I've ever heard about howeve,r and I want to learn more about his disorder, however there are no books for wives of COD people, because usually COD's are with alcoholics or gamblers, etc. I have been reading about COD itself though, and it's all about how these people control others.

For me, I see my job income problem as a totally temporary situation and i'm trying to get a PT job to help make ends meet until my business does. I'm mroe that happy to give up the business for him, because I personally don't want to keep banging my head on the wall either for making no money. It's in our best interests right now to hold onto it for the next few months, (long story) so that's why I will do so. I've been doing this job for almost a decade and did well as an employee there, but I hate my "promotion" to being a small business owner because now I am in an office all alone and it has been very bad for me, personally, professionaly and otherwise. I need people around me, which is something I didn't know. Plus, I hate having to buy toner and fix my printers because otherwise no one else will. There are so many extra expenses and responsibilites being a SBO I had no idea. It's not sustainable for me as is, and I know this.

So no, it's not really about money. For him, he hates, due to his COD to be "needed" and althoguh I'm not reallly adding to his expenses much at all (he paid the mortage and everything else by himself long before I was in the picture), he resents it big time. For me, if he decides to work on this again, I'm totally afraid that he will ditch me once again when we come to challenging times. I feel like we haven't had a chance at all to work on our marriage this year especially because of my depression, then him not talking to me. All I want is a bit more time, but he's anxious.

When he's anxious, I was trying harder and harder to please him and subsumed myself too much to save the rlsp. That's why the divorce thing caught me so off guard and hurt so much. I thought that was the point of marriage, that you work thorugh tought times. Anyways, his anxiety has totally fed into this whole thing and everything has been a snowballing out of control.

Our MC says it's a shame that he's not giving us more time, but that I'm indavertently triggering stuff in him from his past that he can't deal with (mother stuff). At first she told me that it had nothing to do with me at all, I was just getting punsihed for ex wife and bad girlfriends. He swears that I am the problem, the alcohol, he is the alcholoic. and says I'm very needy. Being self employed, I HAVE relied on him way too much for my emotional needs, not having co workers to chat with, and I get that. I also take full responsibility that I haven't gotten what he's been trying to say through months of MC, but frankly, I was not in a good place for the first part of 2009, and cannot blame myself for that depression.

I feel like I never lied to him, but knowing his exacting nature, I should have given him at least ballpark numbers. He never gave me his #'s at all, mind you, but he is a details guy and I know this. I should have told him details, but frankly, it was a fluid situation, and I'd been doing the job for 6 years already with no problems as an employee, so I figured that my issues were temporary, not knowing any better. I didn't know what I didn't know. I feel horrid for dragging him through this, but I never meant to, and was open about my anti-depressant use, etc, early on.

I think his anxiety has been set off, and he sees the only way out is to cut me off. He does say he loves me still, which is hopefull, but prefers that I not talk to him day to day because that increases his anxiety. He is losing weight and doesn't look good nor healthy. OUr MC said that he may have already set his mind to this, in which case it may not be able to be changed, but she did say that he is hurting and that's why he can't engage with me or even look at me in sessions with her, and that I really need to not make him feel threatened, because that only increses his anxiety and makes him shut down. And I'll admit, I have been scary angry way too much lately, but it's cause a lot of the time he blindsides me with big, horrible news and expects me to respond immediately. Like I said in the orginal post, he wanted to already play "lets make a deal" on the day that he told me in marriage therapy that he wanted a divorce immdeidatley! When he's anxious, I get anxious and either sad or very very angry, and say things that are scary mean.

So that's why I have to do the DR as far as the time being, to control my emotions in front of him and get my own act back together again, no matter what happens.

Hope I answered all your questions. Let me know if you have more. Thanks for your response, it is appreciated.

PS: Nope, there was no affair on either side. He has a lot of female friends though, and got really upset when I asked him to PLEASE not go out with them alone just on Friday or Saturday nights w/o me! He says I'm showing I don't trust him, but I'm totally bending over backwards I feel because he can see him any other time, or in my presence Fri or Satu, just not alone because it looks like he is having an affair. I feel it's totally disrespectful of him to insist on this, because I make no fuss whatsoever about him going to lunch, brunch, dinner or whatever on weekdays or weekends, just NOT those 2 times on Fri and Sat nights because those equal date night in my book! We've been unable to resolve this in therapy, because I don't want to designate those times as "couple times only" because I do stuff with my girlfriends ocassionally on those nights, and that would mean I could no longer go to bachlelorette parties or gifls nights out, and I don't want to give them up. This couples times only idea was broached by our MC, but like I said, we've not resolved this at all. Neither he nor I is dating right now, we had a discussion about this that was very uncomfortable. I believe him.

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

Update...still more of the same. We are not talking, no eye contact, no nothing. I'm really NOT looking forward to this weekend, because a good friend is getting married and lucky me, I get to go alone to it. Thankfully, I have been recruited to help behind the scenes a lot, so that should help me feel a bit more detached about the whole thing so that I don't continue to think and overthink my singleness while there.

I feel totally embarassed to have to admit to some really great women who I've met throughout the bridal festivities thus far that I'm there without my spouse. I talked to my therapist about this and she says that I don't have to be such an open book, especially with strangers, I can just say "he couldn't come" or something of that nature. It is a big relief to hear that, not that it is rocket science or anything, but it gave me permission to not have to spill my guts to the world. What's worse for me about this is not the embarassment or lost of face, but the loss of control of my emotions. I feel that were I to have to fess up at a wedding of all places, I might lose it and start crying.

Weddigns are full of such hope and promise, and only a mere few months ago, I was there myself, making promises to my husband. This is really hard that this is our first wedding after ours, and we didn't even make it this long. I have to keep remembering though that this is not all my fault, but it feels like it. I feel like I'm going through hell and back, and never even had a full YEAR of newlywed bliss, much less more than the 2 months that were happy.

I will go into this here, because frankly I know my friends and family are damn sick of hearing it, but honestly, why me? This is SO not fair that after waiting so long to find my husband that it couldn't even work out for a damn year. I've dated for 17 years before meeting him, I really don't want to have to date any more, and you'd think that I would finally be done at some point. How damn unfair is this? I know this is not cancer or something but I still wonder what the h*ll I ever did to deserve going through all this pain, when i didn't ever get to enjoy some of the best parts of marriage.

Continuing with the sob story...I am really worried now about the idea of ever having a child. It seems so damn futile now because he's made me so wary of men, there's no way I'd accept an engagement until we've been dating for at least a year, and then where do I meet Mr.Right #2 so quickly before my biological clock runs out? I've stopped with my BC because we haven't had sex in 2 months anyways, which is really hard to deal with, espcially because he's still in the house. So right now all I am doing is stockpiling it for the times when I don't have health insurance in the very near future. Fantastic.

All I wanted in life was a happy marriage and a baby, now it seems I'm getting none of it. Better stop this pity party soon, because my eyes are welling up and I don't want him to hear me cry. He doesn't deserve to hear my emotions anymore, and I don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he got to me.
<sigh> Life is hard.

Note the papers filed date below....I STILL haven't recieved anything yet as far as being served. Time to do my daily check of the circuit court online to see if it is up there yet. I just want to get the papers so that I can move on to the next step, you know? I hate having to wait for the other shoe to drop, even if you are told about it in advance.

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

Just checked the state circuit court site, and lo and behold I found his filing at long last. I stifled my tears and went for a walk outside, calling my family for support. Thank god I have them. They didn't really know what to say to me, but the shock of seeing it, in black and white, with our names is horrible. Like I said, I still haven't been officially served yet, so it's the first time I saw this crap with our names on it.

<deep breath> This is so hard. I'm lucky it's nice out, so I could go for a walk outside and that I don't have kids to worry about so I can just take off for awhile w/o having to worry about them. Trying to stop the sniffling so he doesn't hear me, athough frankly I just want to friggen rail at him screaming because this is all his fault (the divorce filing, I know it took 2 for our issues). Thank god I have you people to vent to our I'd go absolutely crazy. I have 2 job interviews at the placement company tomorrow, so I need to get going to sleep. Thanks for listening.

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

Postponed the job interviews because I didn't get enough sleep yesterday, and all week I've been recovering from being out of one of my medications, so I've been much more tired than normal. Thank god, yesterday I got an "emergency" prescription for 7 more days of it, so I'm good for a bit. I will have to call them Monday (doctors office & 90 day mail order insurance supplier of medications) to make sure everything is ok as far as that order, otherwise I will need another 90 day emergencey prescription filled out. It's my fault, I should have sent the prescription in awhile ago, but as you are probably going through too, I am just barely existing here right now. It's hard enough to get out of bed, much less get my "game face" on for a full day.

That's why I postponed the interview, because I will need my "game face" on tongiht big time, because we are doing my friends wedding flowers tonight for her wedding Sunday. My mom and my sister will be there, helping the bride, so that's a big help, but I'm still afraid I will get upset. She is doing what she and her mom helped me with, centerpiece flowers that you order from the internet, and then you have your bouquets and stuff done by a local florist. There was no way our budget had in it the $80 per table centerpiece that I was quoted, so instead I ordered the flowers online from 2groses.com. We had to cut down the flowers and strip the thorns, so that's what we'll be doing tonight. It is painstaking and takes a lot of time, but with all the people we have, it should go fairly fast. I told her about seeing the online notice, so if she sees me well up, she knows why. But overall, I'm hoping to avoid being teary eyed at all.

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

This is what I felt like I was subjected to last night, C & UP. My H took off at about 9 pm and didn't return to the house until 12:30 am, with no word of explanation. I hadn't been talking to him or "bothering him" (any contact is bothering him nowadays) at all, all day, so you think he could have had the decency to say that he was going out to the bookstore or whereever. So he tells me nothing and of course, that makes me think he's on a date or something, which he's said he does not plan on doing, even though we are technically seperated, I guess, although not geographically, since we are still living under the same roof.

It really got under my skin that he would do that, especially because he knows I want to try to hold the marriage together, and it was a Friday night, after all. We've had issues in the past where he wanted to go out with female friends on a Friday or Saturday night w/o me, and i've felt very uncomfortable with that. Any other night, ok, but JUST NOT Friday or Saturday nights because that is "date night", and I'd call my girlfriend were I to see her husband out on a Fri or Sat night with a single woman because it looks suspcious. I was angry and upset but the biggest emotion was sadness.

God I miss my husband and my life before. I know it wasn't perfect, and it needed work, but we are NOT "irreconcilably broken" as the divorce filing reads (When I get it eventually...still haven't...and it's been 2+ weeks since he filed!). We need a lot of work on each of us, and the marriage, but we stiil love each other and that's a great starting point. <sob> I apologized to my dad and mom because I'm sorry that they spent so much money on a day not so long ago that is now moot. I feel so foolish and regretful that it's not worked out between us, but my parents were great and said "it was a nice party", and it was, but it wasn't supposed to be just a great party...it was supposed to celebrate me joining my life to another person who I made promises to in front of my family and friends..."till death do us part".

How the heck will I ever be able to trust anyone again in the world after these massive betrayals? I can't just keep laying my love on the line and getting my heart smooshed. I don't have the strength anymore. I dated for 17 years before I married, I'm tired, I'm done. I don't want to do it anymore. I can't even think about having to date without crying, because all I want is my husband. Not cause he's perfect or anything, but because I liked the idea of "us against the world"., and had started to think of us a "we", like "we like to go to politcal rally's" sort of thing.

So this morning I bit his head off - totally NOT DR - because I was still ticked off about the night before, and I wasn't prepared enough for today's neighborhood rummage sale, and I was rushing around trying to do everything at once. I was peeved he wouldn't be there to help, because he held it with me last year, and it wasn't too hard with him there. But now I had to worry about having my sister and mom come over to help me be "Covered" so I wasn't ever there alone.

I fell off our little porch and hit the rusty iron fencing surrounding it, onto a little shrub and thankfully, lots of wood chips, so my aSS is very bruised right now, so I need to go soak in a hot bath. Thankfully, otherwise I am fine, nothing broken and I think the little shrub will live too, with only one branch broken. Got to go.

[IWillSaveOurMarr]

I feel like I'm still shaking from this, our most recent argument. He just left to take an hour to cool off he says. It all started innocently enough, I put my arms around him from behind, as suggested by our marriage counselor. He was playing "Doom" or something on his computer and actually let me keep my arms there for a bit.

Anyways, I turned this into asking him for more clarity on things he planned on stopping doing because he had been doing all my laundry because he is OCD before, and I was running out of everything but didn't want to bring it up because I wanted him to know I was respecting his space, because he wants me to basically ignore his existance in the house.

Anyways, it morphed into a fight, much as I tried to keep it contained and not explode. What hurt was that he said we are "married in name only" and that "so many people told me NOT to marry you".

And here I was, doing so damn good on such a hard day for me...my close friends wedding, the first wedding I've gone to since our wedding this fall. I did ok until the reception, where they kept doing couples dance after couples dance, and then they did this anniversary dance thing when they kept calling "all married couples" 18x onto the dance floor. They then excused all couples from the floor in order of least married first. After the bride and the groom, we would have won this one. They had about 10-12 couples on the floor when they were at 35 years still, but the winner was the grooms parents, who have been married 48 years. It was just too hard sitting there alone, but I contained my teary eyes behind the camera and snapped away.

Then I left, called my mom and vented, and then came home all pumped up. Worked out and then took a bath and was winding down for the night before this argument happened.

[Kimmie Lee]

Sorry you're having such a tough time.

Maybe you should try going dark. Drag your feet on the divorce, but stop pursuing or initiating any talks with your h. It may shock him a bit if you do a 180 qnd just cut him cold. He doesn't want to talk, then don't talk.

Also, go for your fair share of the marital assets, and I am not kidding about this. Your h will make you feel afraid of "making him mad" but don't get confused about the money or you will really kick yourself later. Do not let him bully you into rushing anything re: the divorce. Get a lawyer immediately and let them handle things.

Plus, his childhood issues are not your fault. God, I get so sick of LBS's feeling like they have to fix their broken spouse. Most of the time they don't want to get better anyway. That would take away their excuses to behave badly.

Hang in there.

Oh, and another thing, of course he is having an A of some sort. They almost always are. In light of the other behaviors he is exhibiting, I don't understand why this red flag is being ignored.