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#2310201 12/28/12 03:44 AM
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I met and married my husband in my early 20s. We have been together 16 years. We had a rocky start. I felt he drank too much, smoked marijuana and put his friends first. I was pretty straight laced but went for him anyway. For MANY years now our sex has been infrequent (a handful of times a year despite my pleas); his binge drinking more often than that is getting old (again, despite my pleas); he still smokes sometimes (more pleas from me); he shuts down at any mention of conflict (again, despite my pleas); and he watched porn for years (says he has stopped now). I want out, want more than being roommates, but I continue to sit on the fence. I also don't have my family's support. I don't want to be in a relationship that lacks affection, sex and communication. But I'm afraid of making the wrong decision and hurting everyone. I know if I leave it won't be easy either. I understand the grass is not greener.

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Hi Confused Wife. You will find some great support here, although you may find that we may not validate your reasons for wanting out as much as we will encourage you to figure out what you want and then support you on moving in that direction, with much of it being focused towards saving an M.

Please pick up the book Divorce Remedy by Michelle Weiner-Davis and read it. The frame may appear to be from the LBS (Left Behind Spouse) rather than from the WAS (Walk Away Spouse; of which you appear to fit the understanding here), yet ultimately it is geared towards all people who want to give their M another chance.

If that were not the case for you, you would not be here.

From your post, you appear to have become more than frustrated as things have not gotten better in your M, despite what you believe have been your best efforts.

You point to a few negative points regarding your H. Those are all reasons to leave your H and we could validate you on those things.

Yet, what were the reasons you decided to become involve with him in the first place? What drew you to him?

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That's the problem, I hated him the first time I met him. I wrote a story last night about our life together. I was trying to purge some emotions. Here goes:

Part One

She had been married a long time and was proud that she and her husband had weathered so many difficult issues. But they weren't the typical issues most couples face like finances, in laws, chores or underwear on the floor. The issues revolved around his friends, alcohol and drugs. He often drank to the point of becoming a person she detested. They argued every time he binged and he always apologized and said it would never happen again. Sometimes during the binge episodes he would become overly flirtatious with other women, even touching them. From the beginning of their relationship there had been many times when the husband behaved disrespectfully, didn't come home, or was just an unattractive, belligerent drunk. His friends even had a name for his drunk alter ego: "Number 2." Everyone thought it was funny. Except her.

When they met she didnt like him. He was drunk and disrespectful the first time they met. When she rejected his advances he slept with another woman in her apartment that first night. He returned a month later and they flirted. She was young and insecure and got caught up in the fact that he liked her. They began dating. But he had a drug problem. They argued about the drugs; she told him it was something she couldn't tolerate and threatened to break up with him. Yet she stayed. She began smoking marijuana with him and his friends, but always felt uncomfortable with how brazen he and his friends were. He and his friends would smoke in the car while driving down the road, smoke in the crowd at a concert, smoke in a port-a-potty at a golf tournament...they would smoke anywhere and never try to conceal it. She worried that one day she would get in legal trouble by being around them when they behaved this way. But she convinced herself that it wasn't a big deal, that just about everyone you meet has at one time smoked weed and is accepting of it, so why should she feel weird about it? As the years passed and she grew up, she no longer smoked with them due to her job. When she was around it, she worried that second hand smoke would lead her to trouble if randomly drug tested. 

One day seven years into their marriage she had plans to meet her husband at home after she had drinks with the girls. She came home and he wasn't there. He had gone out with a friend, despite the fact that they had plans. She was angry. Later that night, the husband's friend called to say that they had gotten very drunk and that her husband had been touching another buddy's girlfriend at the bar. The friends had argued and ultimately left her husband passed out in the bar parking lot. Feeling guilty, the one friend went back for him and brought him home. When her husband got out of the car she was disgusted by his appearance and his incoherent jibberish. She made him sleep in the guest room, and set up his friend in the other guest room. Later that night, the friend came into her bedroom, got in bed with her and began trying to touch her and kiss her. She kicked him out. The husband maintained contact with the friend and excused the friend's behavior, saying he was high on coke. And as usual he excused his own flirtatious behavior on being drunk, and promised to never do it again. They arranged a signal to help him when he was beginning to drink too much whenever they partied. But that signal never worked. 

After the incident with the friend their relationship took a downturn. They sought counseling. He moved out for a week. He couldn't seem to perform in the bedroom. Eventually their lovemaking was reduced to once every three months, usually after she would bring it up. Every Friday night they went out for Mexican. She would have a margarita, him a few big beers. And they would argue. Sometimes they would get home from dinner and she would come on to him, and he would reject her. Years later he told her it was because he thought she was drunk and was trying to force things. She tried to spice things up. She bought outfits for the bedroom. Some he liked. Some he rejected. One night she put on one of the outfits and walked downstairs to the den and in front of the TV he was watching. He did nothing.

She asked him repeatedly what was wrong with their sex life. She asked him if something was wrong, if she needed to do something different, if he should see a doctor, or if he might be gay. After all, she thought, he did have one friend that he always wrestled with, so maybe.... It seemed odd for grown men to want to touch each other as much as these two did. But he assured her nothing was wrong. This went in for eight years. 

One year they traveled to another state to attend her friend's wedding. It was an open bar reception and they both drank too much. She lured him into the women's restroom to make out. She was having fun. They really didn't know anyone at the reception, but were sitting at a table with several people. One of the bride's girlfriends at the table said something about old men flirting with her. The wife joked that it better not be her husband. Later she saw her husband flirting with the woman, trying to touch her, and the wife became angry. She picked a fight with her husband and then stormed out of the reception hall. She went to the side of the building, threw herself on the grass, and sobbed like she had never sobbed in her life. She was hyperventilating. Eventually a woman from the reception discovered her and tried to find out what was wrong. She summoned the bride and groom, who came to the wife's side and pulled the story from her. Talking was difficult because she had cried so hard. The groom said he had already put the husband in the car to the after party, and suggested she go find him there. She found him and he was belligerent as usual. They argued in the hotel lobby. She slapped him. At one point he grabbed her wrist when she tried to walk away. A woman passing by came over to make sure the wife was okay, because she thought she was witnessing domestic violence. The wife assured her she was fine and did not feel threatened. The groom got a cab for the couple and sent them to their hotel. She told him she wanted a divorce. It wasn't the first time over their 10 years together that she had said that. They drove home five hours in silence the following day. He tried to apologize the entire way but she begged him to be quiet and leave her alone. She was done. She was humiliated. 

But she stayed.

She allowed the friendship with her friend to slip because she was so ashamed. Four more years went by. He contined to binge drink. She dreaded holidays because she knew he would ruin them. They attended her boss's Christmas party one year and he got fall down drunk. He almost fell on the boss's Christmas tree. She was again humiliated. The drive home that night was typical. He wavered between belligerent, back seat driver, incoherent and passed out. He had a habit of cranking the radio on these drunk rides home, but it distracted her, so she would always turn it down. And he would turn it up. And on and on. It antagonized her. This night was no different. When they got home he mumbled something as they pulled into the garage. She left him in the car and went to bed. The next morning he was in bed next to her. She went downstairs to make coffee, but noticed something trailing up the stairs. She realized it was vomit. Her husband had thrown up all over himself in the car during the night but had slept right through it. She woke him up and they looked in the car. There was vomit all over the front passenger side. It even went into her air vents. He took her car to have it cleaned. He cleaned the carpet. He apologized and said he was scared. Had the seat been fully reclined he might have died he said. Monday she went to work, embarrassed to see her boss and coworkers. She joked with one close coworker friend that she was expecting to be fired that day due to her husband's behavior. The husband went to the doctor that day and learned that he had experienced a heart problem that night in the car, due to the drinking. He promised to never binge again. Of course that didn't happen.

Eventually she became tired of arguing every time he drank too much, and just gave up on being angry. But that didn't bring her happiness. She had slowly lost respect for him. 

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Part Two

Thirteen years into their marriage he began meeting a buddy in the city once every quarter, 25 miles away, for drinks on Friday afternoon. When she would arrive home from work he would often be there on these days, passed out in front of the TV. She was annoyed that he had driven drunk, but he always blew her off.

It was June 2012. She told him she wanted a divorce and she told him that this was one of the things he needed to change if they were going to make their marriage work. It made her uncomfortable to be around his druggie friends. He told her that he would also stop asking her to do things with these friends since she no longer wanted to be around the drugs. He said he no longer felt a need to smoke because it was no longer something he enjoyed. But he also pointed out that she had not asked him to stop smoking. She knew that left him open to smoke if he so desired, because it meant he was not going back on a promise he had made to her to stop.

Several months following these promises she found a message on his phone about meeting up with one of the friends. She asked him if he had seen this friend and he told her no. A month after that she found a hidden stash. She asked him about it. He told her it was leftover from before and that it was very old. He became very defensive. She told him she didn't want it in their house and asked if it was old why did he feel a need to hide it, or why didn't he get rid of it. He told her it was worth a $ and therefore he wasn't going to just toss it. She didn't know what to believe. Was he lying about meeting the friend or were the text messages about plans that got cancelled? Was he keeping the drugs because he thought he would smoke it one day? Did that even matter since she hadn't asked him to never smoke again? A week later she looked again and the weed was gone. He had taken it to his friend when he went to visit him in another state. She was relieved it wasn't in her home, but was annoyed that he drove five hours with it in his car.

Another condition she gave him in June was to stop binge drinking. He promised to and made quite an effort over the summer. Then in the fall he binged four times, blaming her for his behavior. At Thanksgiving he ruined her good time with her family, as usual. He even stuck his hands between her sister in law's legs, aiming for her crotch. She didn't feel threatened by the behavior, but knew it was disrespectful. 

When they began exploring their problems in June he also came clean about their problems in the bedroom. He said he had been taking care of his own needs while looking at porn. He was uncomfortable talking about it, so she couldn't determine if this had gone on for a few weeks, months or years. She searched the computer history and found some websites that disgusted her. He said they were the result of pop ups and were not sites he actually looked at. Knowing this could be true, she wasn't sure what to believe. He promised to stop and said that he couldn't look at porn on an iPad anyway. She knew his owning an iPad made no difference--he could look at porn on an iPad, phone or computer. But she believed he had stopped. But she checked up on him anyway. Only days after he told her she could check his iPad history if she felt the need she found that he had searched for two specific celebrities using the terms "bikini" and "mini skirt." He had also searched for photos of an ESPN female producer. While she knew this wasn't porn, she also felt it could be a trigger for him to dive back into the more explicit material. She had never had a problem with porn, Playboy or soft porn before. Now she did. She found a Porn Addicts website for partners and read about the addiction. She didn't know if he had a real addiction or how much trouble he might have gotten himself into. She felt crazy for caring and thought that perhaps it was something she should just look past. Then again, for years he had neglected her needs to satisfy his own. He told her that he had sought out the porn because she wouldn't try out new positions in the bedroom. She found that to be a weak excuse because she had been more than willing to try new things. She didn't know what to believe or how she should feel. It all just made her just feel crazy, insecure and unreasonable.

They went to couples counseling in June and July. They had some good months during the summer. Then in September she decided she couldn't make it work, and began complaining again. Something still didn't feel right to her. She had always felt something was off in her their relationship but could never really put a finger on it. Maybe it was just her. Or maybe her intuition was right. So she checked phone records thinking she might find evidence of something sinister. She found that he had been having regular contact with the friend who tried to sleep with her eight years prior. This felt like a betrayal to her. She asked her mom and her brother about it and they told her to get over it.

She didn't know how she and her husband could resume a normal, passionate sex life, how she could ever trust him and began pointing out that he was never affectionate or emotionally intimate. She couldn't remember the last time they kissed beyond a peck, even during sex. He told her being affectionate and emotionally intimate wasn't in his genes and was something he could never provide. She let her family in on her problems, and they told her she was selfish and making a mistake. Insult after insult from her family wore her down. She cried almost every day in October. She began seeing a therapist by herself. She felt helpless and completely alone. She stayed because she felt so lost. But she wasn't really giving their marriage a chance. She was staying because her family told her to. She wasn't being nice to her husband. She barely spoke to him and was rude when she did. They agreed to live together through the end of the year, at which point he would move out. She continued to carry halfway completed divorce questionnaires from the attorney to and from work every day.

They resumed couples counseling. The therapist encouraged him to find an addiction specialist for the drinking and porn. They didn't share his drug history with the therapist. He began seeing an addiction specialist, but the wife still didn't believe he could change for good. And even if he could there was still the issue of emotional and physical intimacy. 

She asked him to tell her why he wanted the marriage to work and asked if he felt he truly could change for the long haul or if he was just going through the motions temporarily to appease her. He told her he would go away and think about these things. When he returned she asked again. He avoided. She pushed him. He said he wanted it to work because they had been together for a long time and considered them to be best friends. He told her he did not want it to work if she was not going to forget the past. He said he was tired of trying to be someone that she wanted him to be. He said he was happy when she was happy, that he wanted to be himself and do the things that made them both happy. He said he would change the binge drinking and porn, but demanded that she change as well, citing her social disorder. He pointed out that she had made no effort to work on things, which wasn't fair. She had to admit that part was true. He told her she was manipulative, unaware of what was going on around her and that she never apologized for any of her mistakes. He told her she always turns things back on him.

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That's really interesting, CW. What you have done is used a common technique that people in trauma use. That of speaking of their life from a third person perspective.

While that is functional, it is a crutch that hopefully you can remove yourself from, over time. It would not be healthy to not work through what ever it is you need to deal with.

I understand that "everything else was perfect" in your life, except for the drinking, drugs, etc.

Yet, you knew these things of him, you still M him. Funny, you say you hated him the first time you met. You got married to someone you hated. That is strange.

The reality is, there was something appealing about him for you, yet you are unable or unwilling to speak about it.

That said, of all the bad things you mention in your list of the bad things about your M and him, you are still M to him.

Sounds like a horrible, horrible life to live.

Yet, you came here to save your M.

Why?

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I guess I can't figure out why I married him. I know he made me laugh and I thought he was cute. I have pulled out letters from when we dated and they in almost all of them I say I couldn't tolerate the drugs and drinking, or Iasked him to communicate better--things that still bother me today. Maybe my 21 year old self didn't know better? He is an otherwise good person. I think the only reason I'm on the fence or considering saving the M is because of my family (mom), afraid to hurt him and afraid of making the wrong decision because I'm so caught up in the negative thinking.

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OK, so I understand the drug use and drinking is a problem for you. Something you do not like. Would you say, in your opinion, that he is addicted?

We could look at "why" you M him, and that could certainly be for any number of reasons. You liked "bad boys". He was part of an "in crowd" that was appealing to you. You wanted to party and he was your opportunity. Did your 21 year old self know better? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Considering your reasons for not wanting to be M any more, I suspect your mom would have no problem with your decision to D. Nor would anyone else. They are certainly valid reasons, especially because if there is addiction, there is a much higher risk of abuse.

Do you feel you are at risk of emotional or physical abuse? Do you feel you have been emotionally or physically abused?

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The only emotional abuse I can come up with is gas lighting, stonewalling and the four horseman. But no type of serious emotional or physical abuse, like telling me I'm nothing or hitting me.

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Confused w.

Have you gone to Alanon? It is obvious that he is a binge alcoholic. Also, that he touches other women, may mean he has engaged in unprotected sex. Protect yourself!

It sounds as if you do not have children, other than the one which you married, heh heh heh.

You have threatened, cajoled, all the other things...they have not worked. After reading Divorce Remedy, you may wish to come back and discuss some alternatives.

When it comes to addiction, there is going to be some really hard decisions you will need to make. You are going to need to look within yourself and figure out, knowing what you did about him why:

you continued to date him

you married him

you joined him

you want him to stop his lifestyle

you want to stay...again after all of this

These need to be really delved deeply into, so that you can decide where to go from here. But before hastily answering the questions, read DR.


Formerly Workinprogress
H :55
M :over 29 yrs.
Together : 33
D : college
D : adult
BD and left : May 2013
Separated
Experimenting/Replay

Jan 2014...Let go of rope!


God grant me the serenity...
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I agree AlAnon would be a great place for you to attend meetings. I also suggest you talk to a DB coach, so that you have the support you need to stay strong and also to have a plan on how to interact with him that can make a difference in whether you can make the marriage work as a partnership. Take good care.


Karen, Resource Coordinator
The Divorce Busting Center
303-444-7004
karen@divorcebusting.com

Give me a call if you'd like to schedule an appointment to speak with a Divorce Busting® Coach.

Moderated by  Michele Weiner-Davis 

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