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Hello, I've been a regular lurker here since 2016 but only registered for this forum yesterday.

My husband and I are approaching 2 years of no sex as he has no desire for me. He will kiss me hello and goodbye in greeting, hold hands and hug and stuff like that, but he has no desire to have sex with me. We are also approaching 1 year of separate bedrooms. He has the master bedroom, and I sleep with my 3-year-old. Since 2018, my husband and I have had sex 3 times - once at the end of 2018, and twice in the first half of 2019. I am losing my mind over the absence of sex and intimacy. You could say I've already lost my mind.

Last Saturday morning, my toddler was still asleep, and I went into the master bedroom. My husband was in bed watching YouTube videos about tiny houses. He invited me into the bed with him in a friendly manner. I got in the bed and eventually tried to initiate sex by kissing him in a sexual way, and he recoiled. Then he was looking up something on his phone. At first, I tried to play it off casually like it was no big deal. I went out to run an errand and get takeout, and in that time, I was stewing over being rejected. When I got back, he noticed I was upset and asked me why.

That led to a fight where eventually he was talking about divorce and using terms like "co-parenting" and "50/50 custody." That was alarming because he's not really the kind of guy whose vernacular would include such jargon unless he has been researching or talking to someone about it. He said I would have to get a job and my own apartment. I'm a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), and we have one child.

We've been married almost 7 years, and the first time he mentioned divorce was a few months after our wedding. That devastated me, the sheer mention of the word, and I think it had a way of setting the tone for the rest of our marriage. It's just one of those words that, once they're said, can't be unsaid. Yet we're still married.

I can't fathom being apart from my child to the extent that my husband is proposing. Although I have nothing against divorce per se, as something other people pursue, I am completely averse to it as an option for myself. I want to live with my child full-time, and I want my husband to live with us full-time.

I'm 43, and my husband is 52. We were 36 and 46 when we married. I was 40 when I had our child. When we were having sex (before our child came along), it was already infrequent, and there were ED issues. He started seeing endocrinologists, but they didn't have any definitive explanations at that point. When I got pregnant, it was a big surprise. We were not particularly trying to conceive, but we weren't trying to prevent it, and time kept passing without getting pregnant, so it was a surprise when it happened, and we were overjoyed when it did. He may have been taking Cialis or something like that, but he wasn't undergoing any hormone treatment.

Part of my anguish over the sexless state of my marriage, aside from the fact that I like sex and would like to experience it, is that I desperately want another child, and the window of that being possible for me is passing if it hasn't already. Yes, I know this is not an ideal situation for a child. But I'm just throwing it out there that, besides being condemned to celibacy in my marriage, there's an element of grief for me over not having another child.

At the beginning of this year, my husband was still talking about wanting another child, though we were approaching a year of no sex. He has not brought it up since then. I brought it up in the fight we had last weekend that I am grieving over the fact that another child may not be possible, and he said nothing in response.

In the last couple years, testing revealed my husband's sperm count and other numbers to be rather low. Because the usual testosterone treatments have a tendency to cause infertility indefinitely, my husband was prescribed Clomid. Now his numbers are normal, and he is still taking Clomid as far as I know. But he still has no desire for me.

Since the fight last weekend, we've just been trying to be friendly, and we have been. It's not like he's insisting I move out. I'll be signing up for the Divorce Busting telephone coaching. It's not cheap, and I'm just thinking - should I sign up for the package of 3 or 6 or 10? At first, I had it in my mind that my husband would be joining me in these phone sessions. Then it occurred to me that he wouldn't be required to, and it might actually do more harm than good if he did.

Since I'll be signing up for the telephone coaching, I thought I'd finally register for this forum. I've read both Divorce Busting and The Sex-Starved Wife. Needless to say, there's so much more to the story. But this is a start.

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Welcome! I am pasting in Cadet's Welcome posting. Please read all of the links.

Welcome to the board

Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.

Yes first thing you should do is be sure to read the Divorce Remedy (DR) book by MWD
http://www.mcssl.com/store/mwdtc2014/
http://divorcebusting.com/sample_book_chapters.htm

and Michele's articles
http://www.divorcebusting.com/articles.htm

You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts
(for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support).
Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active,
and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down.
Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come!
Most important - POST!

Get out and Get a Life (GAL).

DETACH.

Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.

Have NO EXPECTATIONS.

Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.

Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.

Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:

I would start with Sandi's Rules
A list of dos and don'ts for the LBS (left behind spouse)
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2553072#Post2553072

Going Dark
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=50956#Post5095

Detachment thread
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2538414#Post2538414

Validation Cheat Sheet: Techniques and tips on how to validate (showing your walk away spouse (WAS) that you recognize and accept his or her opinions as valid, even if you do not agree with them)
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2457566#Post2457566

Boundaries Cheat Sheet
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2536096#Post2536096

Abbreviations
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2553153#Post2553153

For Newcomer LBH with a Wayward Wife by sandi2
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2545554#Post2545554

Resource thread
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forum...ain=57819&Number=2578224#Post2578224

Stages of the LBS
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1964990&page=1

Validation
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=191764#Post191764

Pursuit and Distance
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2483574#Post2483574

The Lighthouse Story
http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2484619#Post2484619

Your H or W is giving you a GIFT.
THE GIFT OF TIME.
USE it wisely.

Knowledge is Power - Sir Francis Bacon


Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to.
The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
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Read sexless marriage by Michele!

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Originally Posted by 1hedlite
Hello, I've been a regular lurker here since 2016 but only registered for this forum yesterday.

My husband and I are approaching 2 years of no sex as he has no desire for me. He will kiss me hello and goodbye in greeting, hold hands and hug and stuff like that, but he has no desire to have sex with me. We are also approaching 1 year of separate bedrooms. He has the master bedroom, and I sleep with my 3-year-old. Since 2018, my husband and I have had sex 3 times - once at the end of 2018, and twice in the first half of 2019. I am losing my mind over the absence of sex and intimacy. You could say I've already lost my mind.

Last Saturday morning, my toddler was still asleep, and I went into the master bedroom. My husband was in bed watching YouTube videos about tiny houses. He invited me into the bed with him in a friendly manner. I got in the bed and eventually tried to initiate sex by kissing him in a sexual way, and he recoiled. Then he was looking up something on his phone. At first, I tried to play it off casually like it was no big deal. I went out to run an errand and get takeout, and in that time, I was stewing over being rejected. When I got back, he noticed I was upset and asked me why.

That led to a fight where eventually he was talking about divorce and using terms like "co-parenting" and "50/50 custody." That was alarming because he's not really the kind of guy whose vernacular would include such jargon unless he has been researching or talking to someone about it. He said I would have to get a job and my own apartment. I'm a stay-at-home mom (SAHM), and we have one child.

We've been married almost 7 years, and the first time he mentioned divorce was a few months after our wedding. That devastated me, the sheer mention of the word, and I think it had a way of setting the tone for the rest of our marriage. It's just one of those words that, once they're said, can't be unsaid. Yet we're still married.

I can't fathom being apart from my child to the extent that my husband is proposing. Although I have nothing against divorce per se, as something other people pursue, I am completely averse to it as an option for myself. I want to live with my child full-time, and I want my husband to live with us full-time.

I'm 43, and my husband is 52. We were 36 and 46 when we married. I was 40 when I had our child. When we were having sex (before our child came along), it was already infrequent, and there were ED issues. He started seeing endocrinologists, but they didn't have any definitive explanations at that point. When I got pregnant, it was a big surprise. We were not particularly trying to conceive, but we weren't trying to prevent it, and time kept passing without getting pregnant, so it was a surprise when it happened, and we were overjoyed when it did. He may have been taking Cialis or something like that, but he wasn't undergoing any hormone treatment.

Part of my anguish over the sexless state of my marriage, aside from the fact that I like sex and would like to experience it, is that I desperately want another child, and the window of that being possible for me is passing if it hasn't already. Yes, I know this is not an ideal situation for a child. But I'm just throwing it out there that, besides being condemned to celibacy in my marriage, there's an element of grief for me over not having another child.

At the beginning of this year, my husband was still talking about wanting another child, though we were approaching a year of no sex. He has not brought it up since then. I brought it up in the fight we had last weekend that I am grieving over the fact that another child may not be possible, and he said nothing in response.

In the last couple years, testing revealed my husband's sperm count and other numbers to be rather low. Because the usual testosterone treatments have a tendency to cause infertility indefinitely, my husband was prescribed Clomid. Now his numbers are normal, and he is still taking Clomid as far as I know. But he still has no desire for me.

Since the fight last weekend, we've just been trying to be friendly, and we have been. It's not like he's insisting I move out. I'll be signing up for the Divorce Busting telephone coaching. It's not cheap, and I'm just thinking - should I sign up for the package of 3 or 6 or 10? At first, I had it in my mind that my husband would be joining me in these phone sessions. Then it occurred to me that he wouldn't be required to, and it might actually do more harm than good if he did.

Since I'll be signing up for the telephone coaching, I thought I'd finally register for this forum. I've read both Divorce Busting and The Sex-Starved Wife. Needless to say, there's so much more to the story. But this is a start.


1hl, sorry you find yourself in this situation. It has obviously not been easy, and I am sure it has really hurt your self-esteem. However, I would like to point out that this is probably less about you than you think it is. When we are in a SSM we have a tendency to internalize it. I know I did. Was I not desirable? Was I not good at it? Etc. But the truth is that your H, (and at the time my W) were going through things that neither of us could relate to or understand.

I have a feeling the ED played a big role in all of this. Especially considering the low sperm count and other numbers. If ED, and low sperm etc were at play here then he probably had a low T, and that was also affecting his desire. Plus, not being able to perform is very embarrassing for a man so he has shied away from sex with you to prevent his feelings of inadequacy. Even with the treatments to improve things, more than likely he will need to get into IC in order to overcome the psychological effects of his past issues. Now, please do not suggest that to him right now, because......

...right now the best thing you can do is to avoid all pressure and pursuit. He is probably walking around with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and feeling pretty poorly about himself. So give him time and space. You read DB, great, now get DR and read that!

So what can you do? First, go GAL. This thing has been like an anchor around both of your necks. I see you are terrified of 50/50 custody. Most LBSs with children are. But GAL will show you that there is more to life than being your H's sex-starved W, and your child's mother. That you still have a lot of life to live and that you can still go out and enjoy life! (Just avoid other men at this point because you are very vulnerable, whether you want to admit it or not, to being open to having an A.) I'd also be a leader by example and get into IC yourself! 180s and self-improvements over time are the best way to turn your situation around. It doesn't happen overnight (you can't fix in a day what took years to get into), but if you improve and be consistent at it, then it can have a tremendous impact over time.

Finally, detach your emotions and especially your emotional reactions from his words and deeds. It is not easy, but work at it. Concentrate on not outwardly reacting first and overtime your internal emotions will remain even too. Things like stewing on the rejection and then coming home and starting a fight. Obviously that did nothing to improve things!

Also, for now, drop the 2nd baby thing. Seriously, do you really want to bring another child into this marriage? And then risk 50/50 custody with another child? It is illogical with everything going on in your MR to be entertaining a second baby. I know women feel the clock ticking and that causes them to throw logic, reason and caution to the wind. But that is just one more added piece of pressure you are putting on yourself, and him, and is easily lifted. This does not require a conversation with him. It simply means to stop worrying about it. And stop making it a goal.

Eventually we'll talk about other things you can do. Like eventually moving back into the MBR. But I think right now that would just be added pressure to him. So for now concentrate on dropping the desire for a 2nd baby, GAL, 180s and emotional detachment.


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Hello and welcome to the boards. I am also the HD partner in what was a SSM and I know how difficult it can be - especially when so much of the resources around this assume that the HD partner is the man.

I look forward to hearing more from you and getting to know you.

I wanted to pick up on this:

Originally Posted by Steve85
[quote=1hedlite]

Also, for now, drop the 2nd baby thing. Seriously, do you really want to bring another child into this marriage? And then risk 50/50 custody with another child? It is illogical with everything going on in your MR to be entertaining a second baby. I know women feel the clock ticking and that causes them to throw logic, reason and caution to the wind. But that is just one more added piece of pressure you are putting on yourself, and him, and is easily lifted. This does not require a conversation with him. It simply means to stop worrying about it. And stop making it a goal.



I\m sure you already understand that now isn't a logical time for a new baby. I also am sure that if you were able to just stop worrying, then you would have done. This is a real grief. A huge and important grief. And part of GAL - helping you find yourself, your enjoyment, your own interests and friends, is also to respect and process and take care of your own feelings. This feeling of grief will not go away because you want to pretend to be logical and rational and reasonable. It needs careful taking care of. Your H can't do that for you - you have to do it for yourself. And it will be hard. It may even involve a period of counselling. But first, having compassion for yourself in that loss is important.

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Hello.

So you need to read Michelle's book "Sexless Marriage." I would be willing to bet it isn't the fact he doesn't find you attractive.

I'm in my late 20's and sex drive was a big issue for my now ex wife, although it was a couple times a week for us. So age does not always matter. Working through the medical side right now

For a guy drive/performance issues are killers to esteem, so you need to be supportive.

In terms of fertility/testosterone, he can be placed on a combination of testosterone/hcg (keeps/improves testes production). If he is on hormone stuff, don't settle for anything less than an expert!

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Steve,

Yes, I absolutely have internalized it, and I'm going nuts. It colors my whole world. The thing is, my husband tells me outright it's my fault. He says my personality turns him off. I admit, I am angry. You know how someone might say about someone else, "She's always so uptight. She needs to get laid"? Yeah. I'm a married woman, the wife of a handsome and able-bodied man, and I haven't gotten laid in nearly 2 years, and I am angry about it. The more we go without sex, the angrier I get, the more righteous of a position he's in to say it's my fault he can't have sex with me, and the more we go without sex. It's a vicious cycle.

He says he can't have sex with me because he can't get over things I said or did that hurt him. However, he has also said or done things that hurt me that I've never gotten over, but I was obligated to have sex with him when he wanted it, even if it meant painful sex for me.

For a while, we wanted to blame low T. At first, the numbers were a tad low but not definitively so. Then, a couple years later, they were rather low and maybe significantly so. So he went on hormonal treatment, and now the numbers are within normal range. But more or less, he has always had a tendency to characterize the issue as a failure on my part to seduce him.

My husband is in IC. However, I wouldn't be surprised if terms like "divorce" and "co-parenting" and "50/50 custody" get bandied about there. As far as our relationship is concerned, anything unpleasant is always my fault, and I'm sure his experience in IC just serves to drive that home as well as what a terrible wife I am. He does not have the introspection, self-reflection, self-awareness it takes to own up to anything unpleasant with regard to me or our marriage. He would rather blame me. This has always been an issue. I will probably say more about that later.

Yes, he absolutely is walking around with the weight of the world on his shoulders. More about that later.

I know I'm vulnerable to other men. The idea of cheating has always been abhorrent to me. But recently, a man who lives in a different state flirted with me over DMs on Twitter. I don't know his name or what he looks like, but it made me feel good in a way I hadn't felt in a very long time. It was harmless banter overall, but I didn't think it would sit right with his wife. So I told him to tone it down. And I haven't heard from him in a while.

I always thought the DB book was like a "new and improved" version of DR. Are they very different?

The day after our fight, my husband was outside doing yard work all day long. I took our toddler to run an errand and go for a walk in a touristy part of town. Shortly after we got back home, my husband walked in the door. Usually, after a fight, it is awkward between us, and we kind of avoid each other. But for some reason, when he walked in the door, this thought came to my mind out of nowhere along the lines of: What if my son had a wife he didn't want to be with, and what if his wife rather disliked him too? It made me have compassion for my husband in a motherly fashion, and I gave him a kiss, just a peck on the lips. I swear it wasn't pursuit. He seemed to appreciate it. I was on the verge of tears, but I don't think he noticed. We've been getting along overall, but I still get edgy. I'll try harder to not get edgy.

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Alison,

Yes, that particular point is an excruciating pain of mine. I know I should be grateful that we managed to have one child, and I am. Becoming a mother is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

There was a time when having multiple children was one of the few things my husband and I mutually really, really wanted. We would talk about it when we were dating.

Shortly after our wedding, though, he threw me for a loop when he said, "I'm not going to give you a baby [with things being as unhappy as they are]." The way he worded it and his tone made me feel like more of a subordinate than a partner, as if a baby was something for him to withhold from or grant to me. Eventually he started to want a baby again.

Sometimes I get the feeling he is withholding sex (and the prospect of another baby) as a form of leverage or a way to punish me.

Yes, I completely understand it isn't logical to have another child at this time. And I understand that a child should be wanted by both parents before one comes about. I totally get it. But it's like the "Don't think of pink elephants" thing. Trying not to think of having another child makes me think of precisely that. The best I can do is try to think of other things and hope the grief fades with time.

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Mather,

Do you mean The Sex-Starved Marriage? I read The Sex-Starved Wife, and I heard that The Sex-Starved Wife is pretty much the same as The Sex-Starved Marriage. Basically, what I heard was if you replace "he/him/his" with "she/her/hers" in The Sex-Starved Marriage, you get The Sex-Starved Wife.

My husband tells me I am physically attractive but that he has no desire for sex with me due to my personality. I don't know if the effect on me is much better than if he told me he didn't find me attractive. I feel like he's basically telling me he doesn't find me attractive.

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When I say “we’ve been getting along,” of course it’s still nowhere near how I’d like us to relate to each other. It’s like roommates who can’t stand each other, trying to be nice to each other and avoid fighting. That’s what I mean when I say “we’ve been getting along” since that fight.

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Originally Posted by 1hedlite
Steve,

Yes, I absolutely have internalized it, and I'm going nuts. It colors my whole world. The thing is, my husband tells me outright it's my fault. He says my personality turns him off. I admit, I am angry. You know how someone might say about someone else, "She's always so uptight. She needs to get laid"? Yeah. I'm a married woman, the wife of a handsome and able-bodied man, and I haven't gotten laid in nearly 2 years, and I am angry about it. The more we go without sex, the angrier I get, the more righteous of a position he's in to say it's my fault he can't have sex with me, and the more we go without sex. It's a vicious cycle.


Would you say that being angry makes you more or less attractive to him? I was very angry and bitter about our SSM too. And then I realized through watching the bald TV psychologist from Texas that my reaction to our SSM was further cementing our SSM! In other words, being angry, bitter and resentful wasn't working for me!

Drop the anger. It is exacerbating your problem, not helping it. It is like using motor oil on acne.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

He says he can't have sex with me because he can't get over things I said or did that hurt him. However, he has also said or done things that hurt me that I've never gotten over, but I was obligated to have sex with him when he wanted it, even if it meant painful sex for me.


Drop the pariah act. Truth is that there is plenty of blame to go around. You aren't an innocent victim in this, nor is he. So stop trying to play the "he did it first" game. Again...motor oil on acne.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

For a while, we wanted to blame low T. At first, the numbers were a tad low but not definitively so. Then, a couple years later, they were rather low and maybe significantly so. So he went on hormonal treatment, and now the numbers are within normal range. But more or less, he has always had a tendency to characterize the issue as a failure on my part to seduce him.


These things are very complex. And I also do not like "ranges" for things like this. One man's normal is another man's low T. I know the medical profession spends a lot of time on ranges. But trying to fit all humans into the same box doesn't work. I knew a woman that lived into her 90s with triglycerides (part of the lipid profile) in the 1000 range. Drs will tell you that if you don't keep your triglycerides below 200 you are going to die earlier. Maybe she would have lived to be over 100 if she had lowered them. The point is that the "normal" ranges aren't foolproof.

Does he blame you for that WHEN you bring it up. Or has he just said out of the blue. "You know, if you were better at seducing me...." My guess is that his comment on your failure to seduce him was a defensive response to you brining the problem up.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

My husband is in IC. However, I wouldn't be surprised if terms like "divorce" and "co-parenting" and "50/50 custody" get bandied about there. As far as our relationship is concerned, anything unpleasant is always my fault, and I'm sure his experience in IC just serves to drive that home as well as what a terrible wife I am. He does not have the introspection, self-reflection, self-awareness it takes to own up to anything unpleasant with regard to me or our marriage. He would rather blame me. This has always been an issue. I will probably say more about that later.


This is pure conjecture. Most ICs are pretty good and sifting through the blaming, etc. Be glad he is in IC, so many LBSs would kill to have their WASs in IC.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

Yes, he absolutely is walking around with the weight of the world on his shoulders. More about that later.


This is why the less pressure you put on him, the better.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

I know I'm vulnerable to other men. The idea of cheating has always been abhorrent to me. But recently, a man who lives in a different state flirted with me over DMs on Twitter. I don't know his name or what he looks like, but it made me feel good in a way I hadn't felt in a very long time. It was harmless banter overall, but I didn't think it would sit right with his wife. So I told him to tone it down. And I haven't heard from him in a while.


Avoid this like the plague. Nothing complicates a R with someone than introducing a new person into it. If your MR ends in D, there will be plenty of time for this later.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

I always thought the DB book was like a "new and improved" version of DR. Are they very different?


I believe it is the other way around. DR is a new and improved version of DB. We typically recommend reading both, but definitely reading DR.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite

The day after our fight, my husband was outside doing yard work all day long. I took our toddler to run an errand and go for a walk in a touristy part of town. Shortly after we got back home, my husband walked in the door. Usually, after a fight, it is awkward between us, and we kind of avoid each other. But for some reason, when he walked in the door, this thought came to my mind out of nowhere along the lines of: What if my son had a wife he didn't want to be with, and what if his wife rather disliked him too? It made me have compassion for my husband in a motherly fashion, and I gave him a kiss, just a peck on the lips. I swear it wasn't pursuit. He seemed to appreciate it. I was on the verge of tears, but I don't think he noticed. We've been getting along overall, but I still get edgy. I'll try harder to not get edgy.


I have no problem with this. Maybe it was a little bit of pursuit (since you initiated) but your sitch is a tad different than others here. I would certainly recommend talk and touch charges (google them). Especially talk charges. You guys are missing a connection and subtle ways to reestablish that could help.


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DB was the first. DR is newest. I felt they were very similar, but DR is more refined. Get on Amazon and read the intro to DR. Michele talks a little about the difference.


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I am a firm believer that we all get into relationships to fix ourselves. The other person reflects issues that we can address.

We can't change other people, but we can change how we behave and how we interact with them.

Focus on you and what you can control.


"What is best for my kids is best for me"
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Originally Posted by 1hedlite
He says he can't have sex with me because he can't get over things I said or did that hurt him. However, he has also said or done things that hurt me that I've never gotten over, but I was obligated to have sex with him when he wanted it, even if it meant painful sex for me.

As a man who lived in a SSM with a wife who was unable to be romantic, sensual, or sexual, I will say categorically that this is an excuse, that there is a separate reason underneath the surface. I do believe that my ex's sexual hangups were the reason our marriage began it's slow decline in the first few months after we returned from our honeymoon. And I can only guess what the cause is, although I think I figured it out once she left me.

Your husband has anger issues and lots of others, too. Especially if he blames you coming and going. Are you certain that he doesn't have good reason for his anger? Did you stray from the marriage in the past? Does he resent the fact that you had prior lovers before marriage? Have you flaunted such?

Originally Posted by 1hedlite
For a while, we wanted to blame low T. At first, the numbers were a tad low but not definitively so. Then, a couple years later, they were rather low and maybe significantly so. So he went on hormonal treatment, and now the numbers are within normal range.

Never underestimate the rage and frustration that a man can have if his biology conflicts with his image of being a man. I had a brother-in-law like this. He had serious anger problems but they all derived from his feelings of inadequacy. He would blame his wife and his family and everyone but himself. It was incredibly obvious.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite
But more or less, he has always had a tendency to characterize the issue as a failure on my part to seduce him.

I find this deeply disturbing. He is projecting on you his own inadequacy. He is refusing to have sex, and blaming you that he isn't interested? It's good that he is in IC, he needs it.

Originally Posted by 1hedlite
I know I'm vulnerable to other men. The idea of cheating has always been abhorrent to me. But recently, a man who lives in a different state flirted with me over DMs on Twitter. I don't know his name or what he looks like, but it made me feel good in a way I hadn't felt in a very long time. It was harmless banter overall, but I didn't think it would sit right with his wife. So I told him to tone it down. And I haven't heard from him in a while.

Well, I am not surprised that you are thinking like this but should you decide to have an affair to make him jealous, or to fulfill your raging sexual desire, you need to realize that you have left DB boundaries.

I wonder if there isn't more going on here than meets the eye. Sometimes childhood sexual abuse, or date rape, can lead to huge sexual issues. Only you would know if such is the case. Not that it happened to your husband, but if an older man or woman abused him as a child, this could lead to major-league feelings of anger and inadequacy. Or maybe he has mother issues that are unresolved; especially if he thought his mother might be sexually loose or slutty after an affair or a separation/divorce from his father.

I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work. Nancy Missler (a Christian woman, yes I am a Christian) wrote a book that said that when a husband and wife are in chronic conflict, often the best way to fix it is for ... this is the hard part ... the woman to make the first move, and the woman to sacrificially serve the man for some period of time. Even if she is the one being wronged. It really doesn't take much, it just takes swallowing a little pride for the sake of the marriage.

How does it work? Without complaining or expecting to be acknowledged for it, change your appearance, behavior, and attitude. Start dressing really well around the house, better than just your normal baggies or sweats. Wear perfume, do your hair nicely. [Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.] Spend time making more elaborate meals. Pick up after him without complaining. Avoid the usual traps you have that lead to complaining and bickering. Stop talking about sex, and stop making overtures toward sex. Give him more of the sweet MTM kisses that you mentioned above (MTM = Mary Tyler Moore kisses, the kind of chaste sweet wifely kisses that you saw on the Dick Van Dyke Show). If you have daily or weekly routines, keep them up but maintain a positive attitude.

He will notice, of course. What you want him to finally do is, after a week or two, ask you "why are you so different?" Then you give him the truth. You love him and you didn't think you were honoring him, as a man, husband and father enough. So you decided to improve yourself a bit. And it's been fun, and I'm thrilled you noticed, you tell him.

The point here is that someone needs to break the ice with a whole lot of love and selflessness. And why not you?

Once you melt down his exterior, and the two of you can finally cry and hold hands together, now you have a view to the future ahead.

Final point -- one of the principles you should expect is that things will never be the same again, even if your marriage survives. Such would be the case here too.

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Always interesting when newcomers give firm advice to other newcomers here.


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Originally Posted by BenB
Always interesting when newcomers give firm advice to other newcomers here.

Maybe some newcomers, while they might be reeling from their relationships, have some wisdom or experience to impart.

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Dear Tom,

Women are not rehabilitation centres for broken men.

Quote
Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.


I'm sorry, can you please explain this comment so my silly little female brain can comprehend what you mean?

Quote
I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work.


Guess what, Tom? I did this. It didn't work! It just made my cheating ex-husband believe he was so wonderful that two women were begging for his attention. What a lucky boy he was! And because I had no inkling that he was in fact cheating, it just made him despise me for being so pathetic. How thrilling to put one over his fat, ugly, boring stay-at-home wife. Yes, those are direct quotes! Caring for an infant? Pfft, that's for the non-special, non-wonderful, non-lucky boys! Thanks to my grovelling, my ex-husband felt empowered enough to inform me that I'd never been good enough for him and I wasn't the wife he deserved. All because he had another younger, slimmer, funner woman blowing smoke up his ass. And guess what? Eighteen months after abandoning me and our baby, he's cheating on her too.

Being pretty won't keep a man.
Being funny won't keep a man.
Being sexy won't keep a man.

The ONLY thing that keeps a man is to marry a man who wants to be kept.

PERIOD.


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Originally Posted by scout12
Dear Tom,

Women are not rehabilitation centres for broken men.

Quote
Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.


I'm sorry, can you please explain this comment so my silly little female brain can comprehend what you mean?

Quote
I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work.


Guess what, Tom? I did this. It didn't work! It just made my cheating ex-husband believe he was so wonderful that two women were begging for his attention. What a lucky boy he was! And because I had no inkling that he was in fact cheating, it just made him despise me for being so pathetic. How thrilling to put one over his fat, ugly, boring stay-at-home wife. Yes, those are direct quotes! Caring for an infant? Pfft, that's for the non-special, non-wonderful, non-lucky boys! Thanks to my grovelling, my ex-husband felt empowered enough to inform me that I'd never been good enough for him and I wasn't the wife he deserved. All because he had another younger, slimmer, funner woman blowing smoke up his ass. And guess what? Eighteen months after abandoning me and our baby, he's cheating on her too.

Being pretty won't keep a man.
Being funny won't keep a man.
Being sexy won't keep a man.

The ONLY thing that keeps a man is to marry a man who wants to be kept.

PERIOD.

Scout, I touched a nerve and I didn't mean to set you off. I don't disagree with most of what you say, by the way.

Still, even Michelle's books mention (I forget where, somewhere 2/3 the way through DB I think) that breaking through the ice is the hardest thing to do, especially the "why should I give in first?" She doesn't make a specific recommendation as to which gender should do the breaking, though, meaning that either can or should try. Nevertheless, I do believe that women are naturally better healers than men, so that's why Nancy Missler's suggestion made some sense. However, in 1hedlight's case, her husband has some major league problems that are not, in my view, caused by his wife.

Still, 1hedlight is trying to break through, and wants to preserve the marriage, and I thought I'd make the suggestion. There really is little to lose. If it doesn't soften his heart, and just turns him into a more arrogant and entitled pr-ck, then at least she learns that perhaps the marriage isn't worth saving.

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Originally Posted by scout12
Dear Tom,

Women are not rehabilitation centres for broken men.

Quote
Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.


I'm sorry, can you please explain this comment so my silly little female brain can comprehend what you mean?

Quote
I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work.


Guess what, Tom? I did this. It didn't work! It just made my cheating ex-husband believe he was so wonderful that two women were begging for his attention. What a lucky boy he was! And because I had no inkling that he was in fact cheating, it just made him despise me for being so pathetic. How thrilling to put one over his fat, ugly, boring stay-at-home wife. Yes, those are direct quotes! Caring for an infant? Pfft, that's for the non-special, non-wonderful, non-lucky boys! Thanks to my grovelling, my ex-husband felt empowered enough to inform me that I'd never been good enough for him and I wasn't the wife he deserved. All because he had another younger, slimmer, funner woman blowing smoke up his ass. And guess what? Eighteen months after abandoning me and our baby, he's cheating on her too.

Being pretty won't keep a man.
Being funny won't keep a man.
Being sexy won't keep a man.

The ONLY thing that keeps a man is to marry a man who wants to be kept.

PERIOD.

Scout, I touched a nerve and I didn't mean to set you off. I don't disagree with most of what you say, by the way.

Still, even Michelle's books mention (I forget where, somewhere 2/3 the way through DB I think) that breaking through the ice is the hardest thing to do, especially the "why should I give in first?" She doesn't make a specific recommendation as to which gender should do the breaking, though, meaning that either can or should try. Nevertheless, I do believe that women are naturally better healers than men, so that's why Nancy Missler's suggestion made some sense. However, in 1hedlight's case, her husband has some major league problems that are not, in my view, caused by his wife.

Still, 1hedlight is trying to break through, and wants to preserve the marriage, and I thought I'd make the suggestion. There really is little to lose. If it doesn't soften his heart, and just turns him into a more arrogant and entitled pr-ck, then at least she learns that the marriage isn't worth saving beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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Originally Posted by scout12
Dear Tom,

Women are not rehabilitation centres for broken men.

Quote
Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.


I'm sorry, can you please explain this comment so my silly little female brain can comprehend what you mean?

Quote
I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work.


Guess what, Tom? I did this. It didn't work! It just made my cheating ex-husband believe he was so wonderful that two women were begging for his attention. What a lucky boy he was! And because I had no inkling that he was in fact cheating, it just made him despise me for being so pathetic. How thrilling to put one over his fat, ugly, boring stay-at-home wife. Yes, those are direct quotes! Caring for an infant? Pfft, that's for the non-special, non-wonderful, non-lucky boys! Thanks to my grovelling, my ex-husband felt empowered enough to inform me that I'd never been good enough for him and I wasn't the wife he deserved. All because he had another younger, slimmer, funner woman blowing smoke up his ass. And guess what? Eighteen months after abandoning me and our baby, he's cheating on her too.

Being pretty won't keep a man.
Being funny won't keep a man.
Being sexy won't keep a man.

The ONLY thing that keeps a man is to marry a man who wants to be kept.

PERIOD.


Scout, there are no doubt louses, of both sexes, that it isn't worth trying to save with. We have a couple of current examples on this forum of that, from both sexes. There are those that look outside of the marriage when things get tough. And then there those that look outside of the marriage.....just because. The first DBing can potentially save the MR. The latter, DBing is for the LBS to save themselves.


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Originally Posted by tom_h

I'm going to make a suggestion that is not according to DB principles. It might not sit well with you, but it's known to work. Nancy Missler (a Christian woman, yes I am a Christian) wrote a book that said that when a husband and wife are in chronic conflict, often the best way to fix it is for ... this is the hard part ... the woman to make the first move, and the woman to sacrificially serve the man for some period of time. Even if she is the one being wronged. It really doesn't take much, it just takes swallowing a little pride for the sake of the marriage.

How does it work? Without complaining or expecting to be acknowledged for it, change your appearance, behavior, and attitude. Start dressing really well around the house, better than just your normal baggies or sweats. Wear perfume, do your hair nicely. [Stay-at-home moms tend to let things go.] Spend time making more elaborate meals. Pick up after him without complaining. Avoid the usual traps you have that lead to complaining and bickering. Stop talking about sex, and stop making overtures toward sex. Give him more of the sweet MTM kisses that you mentioned above (MTM = Mary Tyler Moore kisses, the kind of chaste sweet wifely kisses that you saw on the Dick Van Dyke Show). If you have daily or weekly routines, keep them up but maintain a positive attitude.

He will notice, of course. What you want him to finally do is, after a week or two, ask you "why are you so different?" Then you give him the truth. You love him and you didn't think you were honoring him, as a man, husband and father enough. So you decided to improve yourself a bit. And it's been fun, and I'm thrilled you noticed, you tell him.



Tom this isn't bad advice with a couple of caveats. First, it doesn't have to be gender specific. A husband can also change things for the benefit of his W. I think this is what you were getting at in your response to Scout. (For full disclosure, I am devoutly Christian, but unfortunately the "man is the head of the woman" belief is scoffed at in modern western societies.) The bald, Texan TV psychologist likes to say that if you want a better marriage, be a betters spouse! It takes someone that is deeply flawed (sociopath, psychopath, narcissist) to not respond positively to positive changes. So yes, being a better W can improve the marriage. Being a better H can improve the marriage.

The problem is that becoming super husband or super wife after BD rarely works. The only thing that works is to move on. Either they will wake up in time and realize what they are losing. Or they won't. But in both cases the LBS moving on is the right approach.


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Maybe, but more often they don't. Just seems a bit strange coming here asking for advice and clearly making mistakes in ones own relationship, then offering clear instructions to others on what to do in their situations. It's one thing if you suggest GAL activities or even start the post by saying "I'm no expert but" as some newcomers here do, but you are giving detailed instructions.

These are people in tough situations that potentially have no idea you are a newcomer and potentially making life changing decisions based on what someone says who is far from ready to give advice. And frankly, the advice I've seen from you so far is terrible and reeks of misogyny.

The veterans here are vets for a reason, they have seen many, many sitches and their advice is based on what works.


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Originally Posted by BenB
Maybe, but more often they don't. Just seems a bit strange coming here asking for advice and clearly making mistakes in ones own relationship, then offering clear instructions to others on what to do in their situations. It's one thing if you suggest GAL activities or even start the post by saying "I'm no expert but" as some newcomers here do, but you are giving detailed instructions.

These are people in tough situations that potentially have no idea you are a newcomer and potentially making life changing decisions based on what someone says who is far from ready to give advice. And frankly, the advice I've seen from you so far is terrible and reeks of misogyny.

The veterans here are vets for a reason, they have seen many, many sitches and their advice is based on what works.

Well, Ben, thanks for the dignified reply, your initial one made you sound like a hit-and-run critic.

In fact, most of the veterans here encourage the newbs to try out their newfound wisdom on those who are newer. So it's not that unusual.

But if you do me the privilege of reading my thread, you'll see that I grew a lot over the first 30 days. So if I was parroting some of it back to others, by early October, that shouldn't be surprising. The principles are actually quite simple.

Others (perhaps you are in this situation) view posts as a way to get commentary on their daily lives -- how buff they have gotten, the latest calamity with joint custody, or how frustrated they are with the latest missive from their ex. I didn't. I came here to learn, and learn I did, quite quickly. So .... cut some of us some slack. If news say something screwy, or wrong, or downright in opposition to DB principles, call us out. But otherwise, maybe a "thank-you" or a "nice insight" would be the right approach.

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Many vets may encourage newbies to help others and I have done so as well but I only write what I am certain of and even then, I have always pointed out that I am new here, even a year after posting.

You are giving detailed advice i.e if she tries to hold your hand, remove it and posts that many here have pointed out are misogynist. Your condescending response to Ginger about drinking bleach kind of tells me it is a bit too early perhaps to give such detailed advice. But even after all that, I do believe you mean well and advise away, but at least try to be careful and point out that other vets may chime in to correct you if you are wrong or something.

It seems like you are making an effort to insult me by hinting I am here to get a commentary of my daily life and I'm not here to learn but that is just what I have come to expect from you after reading not only your posts, but also your earlier responses. So yes, you should be called out and I am glad other have and hopefully will in the future.

I can give you some examples of people who learned quickly. Unchien for example I think has been through hell and gives great advice, read RobX if you haven't. But careful to proclaim you arrived here and learned quickly. You have a long way to go still. As do I of course.


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Originally Posted by Steve85
Tom this isn't bad advice with a couple of caveats. First, it doesn't have to be gender specific. A husband can also change things for the benefit of his W. I think this is what you were getting at in your response to Scout. The bald, Texan TV psychologist likes to say that if you want a better marriage, be a betters spouse! It takes someone that is deeply flawed (sociopath, psychopath, narcissist) to not respond positively to positive changes. So yes, being a better W can improve the marriage. Being a better H can improve the marriage.

The problem is that becoming super husband or super wife after BD rarely works. The only thing that works is to move on. Either they will wake up in time and realize what they are losing. Or they won't. But in both cases the LBS moving on is the right approach.

Totally agree, Steve. Stubbornness and obstinacy does not belong to only one gender! The same for healing outreaches!

As for trying this after BD, we are in violent agreement. Yet, for a struggling marriage, before BD, when one spouse is wavering back and forth -- especially when there is a lot of unresolved anger -- it might break the ice.

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I feel like I need to defend Christianity. In case any readers are wondering, there are entire congregations of Christians who do not believe the man is the head of the woman. You don't have to subscribe to strict gender roles in order to be Christian.

This public service announcement is now over. Carry on.


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Originally Posted by Rose888
I feel like I need to defend Christianity. In case any readers are wondering, there are entire congregations of Christians who do not believe the man is the head of the woman. You don't have to subscribe to strict gender roles in order to be Christian.

This public service announcement is now over. Carry on.


Even if you do:

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it

That covers it. It is not a Lording over....or a master-slave relationship. At all.

Ok, I am done on this subject.


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Steve,

It was actually DR that I read, not DB. I recently went on my Amazon account to look DR up, and a message came up saying I purchased it in 2016.

Originally Posted by Steve85

Drop the anger. It is exacerbating your problem, not helping it. It is like using motor oil on acne.

I know. But my God, it's been almost 2 years without sex. I'm dying.

Originally Posted by Steve85

Drop the pariah act. Truth is that there is plenty of blame to go around. You aren't an innocent victim in this, nor is he. So stop trying to play the "he did it first" game. Again...motor oil on acne.

I think it's a little more than a martyr act, but yes, it's irrelevant as far as DB is concerned. I know I'm not a victim. I made my bed and am now lying in it. Red flags were firing off almost as soon as we started dating, and then I married him. Red flags continued firing off, and then I got pregnant by him.

Originally Posted by Steve85

Does he blame you for that WHEN you bring it up. Or has he just said out of the blue. "You know, if you were better at seducing me...." My guess is that his comment on your failure to seduce him was a defensive response to you brining the problem up.

Neither one of us has been happy with the frequency since we got married. The only time we were okay with the frequency was sometime before we were married. Right after we found out I was pregnant, though, we were having an amazing amount of sex - it's like he was so happy about my pregnancy that his testosterone and libido shot up or something, but that lasted maybe a couple months.

So to answer your question. Back when we were at least having sex infrequently, he would bring up the topic of the infrequency AND blame the infrequency on me. I remember he would do that, and then my head would be spinning because I had been spending hours upon hours doing my darnedest trying to turn him on, to no avail, and then he would act like none of that ever happened and complain about the infrequency and blame me. That led to really awful fights.

But blaming me for things that are objectively not my fault, even things that are objectively his own fault, is a long-standing issue. Then again, I do fail to seduce him - he's not wrong about that.

Nowadays, he does not bring up the topic. It only gets brought up if I bring it up, and he blames me when I do. So yes, nowadays, he blames me when I bring it up. I have not brought it up since the fight I mentioned in my first post. The plan is that I not bring it up anymore.

Originally Posted by Steve85

This is pure conjecture. Most ICs are pretty good and sifting through the blaming, etc. Be glad he is in IC, so many LBSs would kill to have their WASs in IC.

Another long-standing issue is H's propensity to badmouth me to friends, my in-laws, etc. So it stands to reason that he will badmouth me in IC. Badmouthing me to third parties killed us before we could ever get off the ground. That has been very damaging over the years. I am largely disinterested regarding him being in IC - I don't hold out hope that it will benefit our marriage, but if badmouthing me in IC somehow makes him less inclined to badmouth me to a friend, in-law, co-worker, ex-lover, lover, etc., then that's good. But based on my own experience in IC, it is often divorce-leaning.

Originally Posted by Steve85

This is why the less pressure you put on him, the better.

The weight of the world was already on his shoulders when I met him. I remember telling family members, when I first started dating him, that I wasn't sure I wanted to get too involved because I was intimidated by his being so dang busy and tired all the time, burning the candle at both ends. Our marriage is a potted plant that has been placed in the cupboard until it is convenient for him to nurture it. It has never been convenient. Other people and other things, even hobbies of his, have always taken priority. Another issue is that he has ADHD, but he is high-functioning.

Originally Posted by Steve85

Avoid this like the plague. Nothing complicates a R with someone than introducing a new person into it. If your MR ends in D, there will be plenty of time for this later.

It's not that I want a new person. I just want to be loved and desired by my husband. However, the boost in mood and energy that I got just from an anonymous man saying witty flirty things to me in Twitter DMs - it astounded me. It made me cheerfully scrub the kitchen floor, which my husband found curious and delightful. But he still didn't desire me.

There have been a couple instances of inappropriate texting between H and other women that I know of. He has never apologized for that - his take is that I drove him to it. He had a prior sexual relationship with one of those women, but they supposedly stopped having sex before we started dating.

I told the anonymous man that I thought his wife would take issue with the flirting, and that broke the spell. I didn't outright tell him to stop, but he got the message, and he stopped. I liked hearing from him. But I didn't want to offend his wife.

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Tom,

Originally Posted by tom_h

Your husband has anger issues and lots of others, too. Especially if he blames you coming and going. Are you certain that he doesn't have good reason for his anger? Did you stray from the marriage in the past? Does he resent the fact that you had prior lovers before marriage? Have you flaunted such?

I agree that he has anger issues and lots of others, as do I. I don't proclaim that he doesn't have good reason for his anger - he may or may not have good reason. No, I did not stray, and I don't think he resents that I had lovers prior to him. He is the only man I've ever had sexual intercourse with. He was my first and only real relationship. He, on the other hand, had countless women before me and kind of has flaunted such. This is the first marriage for both, and our child is the only child for both.

Originally Posted by tom_h

I find this deeply disturbing. He is projecting on you his own inadequacy. He is refusing to have sex, and blaming you that he isn't interested? It's good that he is in IC, he needs it.

Yes, he is blaming me. He has a pattern of blaming me even for things that objectively aren't my fault. But I'm not necessarily saying he's wrong about the issue being a failure on my part to seduce him. I am failing to seduce him - that's a fact.

Originally Posted by tom_h

I wonder if there isn't more going on here than meets the eye. Sometimes childhood sexual abuse, or date rape, can lead to huge sexual issues. Only you would know if such is the case. Not that it happened to your husband, but if an older man or woman abused him as a child, this could lead to major-league feelings of anger and inadequacy. Or maybe he has mother issues that are unresolved; especially if he thought his mother might be sexually loose or slutty after an affair or a separation/divorce from his father.

There absolutely is more to the story, so much more, known or unknown to me. I plan to say more about what I know, to add context. It just takes a lot for me to collect my thoughts. I don't know about childhood sexual abuse or mother issues. His parents had been married for more than 50 years when his father died. His mother didn't even drive a car.

You may be onto something about mother issues, though, I don't know. My husband was extremely close to his mother, who passed away a few years ago. I was in the hospital giving birth to our child when she was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, and she went downhill, passing away 7 months later. He was in his 20s when he had his first girlfriend, the one he lost his virginity to, and she was old enough to be his mother. He tended to date women his age or significantly older than him, women with multiple children who were done with childbearing. He is older than me by a decade.

Sometime back, I saw on his computer that he had attempted to download a video from a cougar porn site many years ago when we were just dating. It was a failed attempt, like a partially downloaded video that wouldn't play, and the source was a cougar porn site. But I also saw other failed attempts to download videos from other kinds of porn sites. So, I don't know.

As for what you suggest I do, I guess the key is "Without complaining or expecting to be acknowledged for it." Every so often, I immerse myself in doing what you suggest, except I attach it to whether I get any sex from my husband as a result. Occupying myself with the things you mentioned, my mood is lifted. Sometimes (not always), my husband is then delighted and curious to know what's up. But then a month passes with still no sex, and I get sour again.

Yes, he seems to like the MTM kisses. If I can achieve the "Without complaining or expecting to be acknowledged for it" part, then doing what you suggest would at least be good for occupying myself and lifting my mood. But as for "melting down his exterior," I don't know.

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When H and I started dating, there were unfortunate things that set the stage for the rest of our relationship. I know none of that matters in terms of DB. Most of this post doesn't matter in terms of DB and is just me journaling. But this is some backstory on my situation, and it pertains to DB insofar as it's stuff I have to let go. Things have never really been good. What respect I had for him was eroded very early on, leading to resentment and anger on my part that sent us spiraling further. We should have nipped it in the bud, but instead, we stayed together and got married (first marriage for both, and our child is the only child for both).

He's never apologized for anything, and I've never gotten over anything. Part of my problem is I want an apology that will never come. The price of admission for continuing to be in this marriage and live in the same home as our child every day, as long as admission is available to me, requires that I stop wanting what I can't have. Or at least accept that I can't have it. I don't think I can ever truly have the intimacy and closeness I want with a man who can't own up to hurting me. I am willing to give that up in order to live in the same home as my child every day.

I would love to be able to look up to H, with respect and admiration, rely on him as a protector of me and our family. That's what I've always wanted. That's my ideal. But if I'm honest, I don't think I can have it. He's gossiped about me, offered up personal details of my life and our relationship for others (friends, my in-laws, etc.) to dissect, people-pleased at my expense, and failed to have my back, far too much. I have to say, that doesn't strike me as manly and doesn't inspire respect in me.

But there's an article Michele wrote where she begins by talking about how you can't make a cow sing, and it applies here. I mentioned earlier that when I'm able to look upon H in a motherly compassionate fashion, it seems to help me get along with him, and there might be something to that. He was the apple of his late mother's eye, just as our toddler is the apple of mine. But I never wanted to be H's mother. And I wonder if I'll ever have sex again.

H is the only man I've ever had sexual intercourse with. I was 33 when we started, about 6 months after we started dating. He was 43 and had many "varied" sexual experiences with many women before me. He is good-looking, and female attention comes easy. He was my first real relationship. Out of a combination of me being extremely introverted and shy, socially anxious and awkward, traumatic childhood experiences, bad experiences with men who didn't exactly have my best interest at heart, and wanting to adhere to Catholic precepts on sexuality, that's how it played out for me. But I was always into erotic movies and books - that was my "safe sex."

H has a reputation for being a warm, nurturing, compassionate man, an image bolstered by being a medical professional. He just has this air of someone you can talk to. All manner of folks feel comfortable and free to unload on him their thoughts and feelings about politics and religion and all sorts of personal things. It's funny sometimes in a "Why on earth would someone tell him that?" kind of way. It's hard for me to talk to people, and what drew me to him was I could talk to him, I could confide in him. This man will guard my heart, I thought. We also both experienced being bullied and depression growing up, and we bonded over talking about those experiences. He got bullied a lot worse than I did in his youth, kids beating him with chains and stuff like that.

About 3 months after seeing each other took a romantic turn (we had been acquaintances for a few years, having a mutual circle of friends, before we ever really had a conversation beyond saying hello and goodbye), I was happy with how things were going. I thought he was too. But we were having dinner at his house (now the house we live in), and he suddenly confronted me about the fact that we hadn't had intercourse yet and that he was unhappy about it. He was suddenly agitated and aggressive. This was completely out of character as I knew him.

He had this male friend at the time, and he said this friend had assumed I was "taking care of" (having intercourse with) him and was very disappointed to find out I hadn't been. "He thought you were taking care of me," he whined, a pouty hangdog expression on his face, as if we had to answer to his friend as some kind of authority on our relationship. Now, though we weren't having intercourse, we had been messing around, and he scoffed at what we had been doing like it was something ridiculous and juvenile. I had no idea he felt this way. Using words and gestures, he derided it, said he wasn't used to it. This was our first fight, and it lasted hours into the night. It was 10 years ago, and I still remember it vividly.

As a man, he needs sex, he said, vigorous sex. Not the fluff we'd been doing. He told me I needed to come up with a "game plan" and soon because he was losing interest. He suggested I buy a set of probes of increasing size on the Internet that were made to address the issue medically (I did not end up doing that). He went down the list of ways I didn't measure up to his ex-girlfriends, ways he wished I did, and not just sexually. (Yet somehow, I'm the one he would eventually marry.) Towards the end of the night, I think he felt a little bad about how upset I was because he tried to pin it on his friend, said confronting me was his friend's idea.

I'm an extremely private person, and the fact that he was telling his friend - someone I had to face - about the intimate details of our relationship...was extremely mortifying and hurtful to me, let alone the humiliating rest of it. But at 33, I felt flawed for my inexperience, like I was in the wrong, as he was saying. I thought maybe that's just what men do - they talk to each other about their sexual exploits or lack thereof, and this man whom I had thought would guard my heart was no exception after all.

In time, I would realize I couldn't view such a gossipy man as a strong man, and I wanted so much to view him as a strong man. All of a sudden, he was saying things and acting in ways I never suspected he would towards me, and I thought if he of all people couldn't be patient with me, no man could. I thought maybe it was unfair of me to expect a 43-year-old bachelor, accustomed to women having sex with him right away, to hold out.

It wasn't that I was uninterested in sex. I think I'm actually a very sexual person. I just needed a little more romance, a little more warmth and comfort - it takes a lot for me to really get close to anyone, and 3 months into dating, I thought we were getting there, but I still wasn't quite ready. When I was single, I was accustomed to being celibate and relatively content with it. I think when you're single, it's not that big a deal. But in the present day, being married and condemned to celibacy by my husband is something I can't wrap my head around. We have gone without sex for almost 2 years in our marriage, and I'm supposed to accept that I'm starving, yet it was completely unacceptable to him to refrain from intercourse in our first 3 months of dating.

And his friend was disappointed that I wasn't "taking care of" him. He couldn't bear to disappoint his friend. You know that "honeymoon period" that typically starts off a relationship? I was looking forward to blossoming and growing with him, being accepted and embraced for who I am by him. That process of a relationship organically and sweetly unfolding was completely stunted 3 months in, once he put me in a position where I was like "Oh, your friend is disappointed! And you're losing interest! Well, then I better hop to it! Probes, you say?!" Thus ended our honeymoon period, which really wasn't much of one.

It's a little weird how his friend factored into this, no? H has always had a tendency to invoke third parties in our relationship. That's what killed us before we could even get off the ground. That's been very distressing. The thing about H is he's a pathological people-pleaser, desperate for validation from others. Where normally a man would prioritize protecting and defending his wife (or girlfriend), he will throw me and our marriage under the bus in order to please or appease others. He hates to say no to people, disappoint them or hurt their feelings, and then I find myself in stressful needless situations I never asked for.

(Like that one time we hosted a complimentary wine tasting and wedding shower for strangers in our home, a couple years after we were married. That was hard for me, considering my own troubled nuptial state, and not something I've ever even done for someone I know and love. But H agreed to do it for strangers without asking me first. I think that was the only time people with tattooed faces have ever been in our home, not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. I have many tattooed family members myself, but not in the face. It was like a dark comedy. I think it took a long time for H to realize that even though our home was his alone first, maybe I'm supposed to have a say in what goes on in it. )

H is extremely soft and unassertive when it comes to people other than myself. Outside of our marriage, he is the nicest guy ever, widely recognized as such, eager to please and non-confrontational and won’t argue. That has been very problematic for our marriage, especially when his family (my in-laws) would overstep the bounds.

When it comes to fighting me, though, he’s so very brave. He will fly into a rage rather than admit fault for things that are clearly his fault. He will pull off contortions in logic that make it all my fault. He only blame-shifts with me. When I call him out on his mistakes, he will fight me until he’s saying crazy things and acting crazy and making me crazy for hours. It's like he has this image of being good and nice and capable and competent, and he can't stand anything that deviates from that image if I'm the one pointing it out.

But if, say, a friend called him out on the exact same thing, he would readily agree with them. He'll admit fault or take the blame if they want him to, he'll say and do anything they want so they will like him. He has to please and appease and be liked by others at all costs, even if it means he says “My bad” when in fact he is not in the wrong. Even if it means negatively impacting me and our marriage.

He would continue to name-drop the friend in a "My friend disapproves of you" manner until after we were married. Ultimately, he told me in an "I should have listened to my friend" manner that the friend absolutely hated my guts and had tried to get him to break up with me, warned him that I had a "darkness" about me and told him not to marry me. That explained so much about the friend's cold demeanor towards me when we'd hang out with him and his wife, his rude comments alluding to my history of depression, which H had apparently been discussing with him. I had always attributed the friend's demeanor towards me to his bipolar disorder, but apparently it wasn't just that - he also really despised me, based largely on H badmouthing me to him.

Before we were married, H went on a trip overseas with his friend for a week, and before he left, he told me I would hear from him once he got there. I didn't hear from him the whole time he was away. That was confusing. When he got back, he said his friend wouldn't allow him to call me and blamed it on the friend's bipolar, said his friend was flipping out with rage the whole time. H has never held his friend's bipolar against him - he's had a lot of compassion for him having an illness. Sometime after we were married, they booked a flight to go on a fishing expedition, and H didn't tell me until the night before the flight, quite some time after they booked it. I was hurt that H didn't think he owed it to me to talk to me about booking a flight for a trip without me before doing so.

H has had a tendency to glom onto certain people, yearning for their approval, often not very nice people. The friend would call his wife a b*tch and scream and throw shoes at his dogs in front of their guests if the guests were people he didn't respect (e.g., H and myself), that kind of guy. It would just roll off his wife's back, though - she didn't seem to mind. I get really uncomfortable around people like that. The friend was unable to hold a job due to his bipolar being not under control, and smoking marijuana was his way of managing it. His wife, a medical professional same as H (she and H met at work, and that's how H met her husband) and college professor, was the breadwinner. He and H both had artistic sensibilities, a great love of the outdoors, cooking, growing vegetables and that sort of thing. But I don't understand why H held him in such high regard, looked up to him as an authority on us. It still disgusts me.

Yesterday, we received a Christmas card in the mail that the wife had written, and it only mentioned the names of H and our child. Something about that really upsets me, something about including my child's name while omitting mine. If they had addressed H alone, it would have bothered me less. I started shaking when I saw that. I've been agitated all day because of it. I threw the card out. H doesn't know about it. I was going to show it to him and talk to him about how it upsets me, but I decided against it. I would have wanted some kind of understanding of my feelings about it from my husband and to be comforted by him, but that's probably not what I would have gotten. He probably would have gotten defensive and told me I deserve it. It would have been the kind of "relationship talk" that would be no good for us right now. It took some effort to not say anything about it and not look sour when he got home from work yesterday, and I think he may have picked up on it, but not too much.

I mean, what was her goal there in leaving my name out and knowing I would see that? But people treat me like this, like I shouldn't matter, because H has invited them to do so. That's where my focus goes instead of our friends who actually seem to like me and are nice to me. My God, we got 3 other Christmas cards from friends in the mail yesterday, and they do acknowledge me, but of course I'm focusing on the one that didn't.

Anyway, it wasn't until about 3 months after H (my boyfriend at the time) confronted me about the lack of penetrative sex that we started having it. I went through some physical pain that was an obstacle leading up to that point, and also a little while afterwards, but I started to enjoy it eventually, even prefer it. It was a hurdle I was glad to overcome, but almost as soon as it started happening, I glimpsed an odd text message on his phone. What struck me as odd was the word "sex" in it. Later, I picked up his phone behind his back and saw that the text said "No sex really s*cks" and was sent from a woman. It seemed to me that she was commiserating with him over us having "no sex." I had no idea who she was. He had never mentioned her to me before.

I went down the rabbit hole of snooping. I found out that they had met on Match dot com and dated briefly just before he started dating me. They were already having sex by the second date. But they supposedly were just really good friends now, by his decision. She even invited him to bring me to her family picnic at the park. She liked to remind him that she was his friend and that she was always there for him. She was awfully flirty, though. She clearly wanted him as more than a friend.

And she seemed to know everything about me. She would refer to things I said to him that were supposed to be just between me and him. She would talk about me like I was some kind of frigid b*tchy weirdo - there was kind of a mocking tone. Eventually, she texted him, "Is she having sex with you yet?" He replied yes, which I don't think was the reply she was expecting. I hated that she felt so comfortable just asking him that question, and he replied to her like it was really any of her business. But I was hoping his affirmative reply would at least make her back off. My feeling was that she thought she still had a chance at a serious romantic relationship with him as long as we weren't having sex. But she didn't back off.

I didn't want to be that girlfriend, the kind to snoop. But that's what I turned out to be. And I didn't want to be the kind of girlfriend to demand he cut contact with a "friend." I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait for him to do it on his own. The hope was that he would realize their interactions were no good for us and naturally distance himself from her. I continued secretly monitoring his phone contact with her. The texts continued, and they would spend hours at a time on calls. It just kept on going. She kept alluding to things that were supposed to be private between us, yet I wasn't even supposed to know she existed.

I think I waited until 6 months after finding out about her to confront him about her. Then he made it all about me invading his privacy and was angry about that. (He never acknowledged any invasion of my privacy.) He deleted all their texts so I couldn't look at them anymore. He told me he wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with her, but he justified their interactions by saying that unlike me, she was "so loving," a "jolly woman," full of compliments for him and interest in him. That's his take to this day. They seemed to cease contact sometime after I confronted him about her, but not immediately. He didn't want to be impolite to her, and he didn't know how to cut ties with her without being impolite. She continued texting him for a while, and he would delete her texts before I could read them.

I never got over that whole thing, which wreaked havoc on our relationship for years. It is still a trigger for me. Everything I'm talking about in this post is. In the first couple years of our marriage, he was still telling me things like "My ex-girlfriends were never like you" (meaning he traded down with me) in frustration.

Another instance of inappropriate texting with a woman, a co-worker of his, would come to my attention in 2016, when I saw a text to the effect of "I miss you" with heart/kiss emojis flash on his phone. I didn't see what they had between them on his phone beyond that - he wouldn't let me. But when I questioned him about it, he gave me the impression that it was far less involved than the prior instance. I asked him if they were screwing, and he said it was nothing like that. He said she was a co-worker who had a crush on him. His justification for letting it get to the point where she was sending him texts like the one I glimpsed was basically the same as before - unlike me, she was fawning, complimentary, cared about him and his life, cared about his mother. I remember how he said "She cares about my mother" (the timbre of his voice and everything) and finding it odd, considering she never met his mother, yet it made me feel bad that I was never close with his mother, who was 92 at the time and had dementia. Once again, he made it my fault.

Painful sex would become an issue for me again within a couple years after we were married (we were married in 2014), namely when ED became an issue, and he would rush things for fear of losing his erection. Rushing things tended to result in pain for me.

In 2016, a series of events pertaining to my in-laws (his older siblings and nieces, who are only slightly younger than me) taking liberties in our home and on the property, and his inability to stand up to them on my behalf - he threw me under the bus - made divorce seem like the next logical step, the most sensible thing from a logical standpoint. Things had never been good, but we really took a downturn with what happened with my in-laws in 2016. But I still abhorred the idea of divorce to my core, which led me to Michele's DR book and this message board that year. The following year, I happened to get pregnant.

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1hedlite,

That was tough to read. I'm amazed every day on this forum. There are so many great women who are left behind by men who, quite frankly, don't deserve them. It makes me wonder how the hell I'm a divorced man.

A husband should honor his wife to others. That's a huge red flag. A husband and wife will have their disagreements, but a husband should protect his wife's honor in public.

You were a virgin until 33. You weren't married. There is an honor in that. However, I think you've settled on less than you deserve because of that.

The incident prior to you having intercourse was really difficult to read. I can understand frustration on his part if he was not as dogmatic was you were. The fact he was aggravated about it is a red flag. I'm unclear if you were just dating or married at this time? If not married, had you told him you wanted to remain celibate until marriage?

Lots of red flags. Have you ever thought that you deserve better?

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Wow--you've been through a LOT! For now, I just wanted you to know that I read your story through.

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Oh 1hedlite,

I am with Harvey that it was really, really hard to read all of that. And you have been living it... I am so, so sorry. It sounds truly truly awful.

From what you describe of him, he doesn't sound like someone I'd want to be married to or live with. It made my heart hurt to read about the incident prior to you two sleeping together, the two EAs and the gaslighting, the blame, the fights, the badmouthing to friends and family, the christmas card addressed to him and your child but not to you. I am no psychiatrist but he reads like someone with a personality disorder, potentially.

Have you read AlisonUK's thread? You might-- there are some similarities to how her H behaves, though (I never thought I'd say this) his behavior does not come across as extreme as your H's. I saw she posted on your thread earlier and I don't know if she's around these days, but if she is, I think she could be very helpful for you. Boundaries helped her a ton and you might spend some time thinking about where you might draw the line in terms of how you allow yourself to be treated by this person.

I totally get the not wanting to live apart from your child, at all. Absolutely. Can I ask you a really hard question, though? Do you want your son to grow up thinking that it is normal for a man to treat his wife the way he is treating you? I really don't think it is okay, 1hedlite. It feels abusive, to me, as an outsider reading about it. It really is not okay.

And also, why do you want to have sex with your H when he acts so horribly towards you? I understand the physical release part, but the part about wanting an H who desires, protects and cherishes you, and thinking about ML as an expression of that love... I'm so, so sorry, 1hedlite. But from what you describe of your H and your relationship with him, it seems like the love between you two doesn't really exist, and so you're looking for something that really cannot happen. I do not know, from what you describe of him, that he is even capable of truly loving another human being. (If you're looking for the physical side, they make some really nice vibrators these days. Just saying. ;))

You might also reach out to Scout on the MLC thread. Her H was emotionally abusive towards her and it took her some time to be able to name it. She may also have some advice for you.

To be honest, I don't know that I have any real advice for you right now, but just wanted to tell you that I read your story and I am sending all the caring I can through the internet to you. You don't deserve to be treated this way. Perhaps talking to an IC if you aren't right now could help, reading about narcissistic personality disorder and working on your boundaries could be a good step.

(((1hedlite)))


Me (46) H (42)
M:14 T:18, D9 & D11
4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs
9/20 - present: R and piecing
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I will write more later, but for now- I’m so sorry that you are here. And your story is heartbreaking. I think you do not need to read DR, instead pick up “healing from hidden abuse” by Shannon Thomas.

Learn to love yourself, value yourself. Read lots of thread here. Read scouts thread in MLC. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and you have been in the tunnel for a long time.

We are here for you.


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I'm so sorry for what you're experiencing. I am going through something similar. It is hard hard hard. But I will say I have found a strength in me that I didn't know I had. We will all be here for you as much as we can.


me: 46 h: 49
m: 24 T: 27
DD1:20 DD2:17 DS:12
BD1: PA for 2 yrs 08/2016
BD2: OW is one of my closest friends 12/2016
BD3: H wants a D 11/2019
Now: He is in the same house, but has filed for divorce.
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I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and may 2021 be a better year for us all.

I want to thank everyone who replied to my posts, I really appreciate it. I plan to reply and answer your questions a little later. I see your replies and have been thinking about them and am not ignoring you, I promise. For now, I want to mention that I signed up for ten DB phone coaching sessions and have had two so far. The next one will be in the new year - my ability to do such things is very dependent on H's schedule because he is the only babysitter I have for S3.

There's pretty much only one day in the week when I can do such things for myself. In addition to H working full-time, plus seeing private clients, he has numerous hobbies and distractions with his (very high-functioning) ADHD, so being there for me is a challenge for him. I have no family nearby, and S3 and I are home alone quite a bit.

But I have made it a point to tell H I need him to babysit in order for me to do this phone coaching once in a while, and he has been good about it. I've been vague about the nature of the coaching, but somehow he got the idea that I'm talking to a "life coach," and I am okay with that. I will say more about the coaching later.

For now, I want to talk about an exchange I had with H at the beginning of the week, a very short and relatively minor exchange, but it has been bothering me a great deal. It opened the floodgates and put me deep in thought about everything that's happened. So I want to write about it, as well as the family dynamics between H and my in-laws that factored into destroying our marriage. I've been working on this after hours all week while S3 and H sleep. (I know I can be long-winded and rambly - I hope that's not against the rules here. There are some message boards where "venting" is kind of frowned upon. I welcome any feedback.)

Why do I post these gory details of my story? Because these were traumatic experiences for me and my marriage that have bogged me down for years. Sometimes someone writes a letter to whoever and, instead of sending it, burns it as a gesture of letting go and moving on. Posting here is something similar for me. Also, it may or may not explain why H has only had sex with me three times since S3 was born and stopped having sex with me completely almost two years ago.

Every year, sending out Xmas cards is "my thing" - I design them, place the order for them, handwrite the notes and the recipients' names and our names in them, handwrite the addresses on the envelopes. The Xmas cards I sent out this year were a photo card featuring a photo of our toddler.

H is one of four children - he has two brothers (BIL1 and BIL2) and a sister (SIL), all 10-20 years older than him, and I don't have a good relationship with them. But I sent a Xmas card to BIL1 - I wasn't going to, but H told me to, and I was okay with it. BIL1 lives out of town and is the sibling H is closest to, and he hasn't seen S3 (or us) in person in a long while. He received the card and has been gushing to H over the phone about what a beautiful child S3 is, how he's grown and resembles their side of the family, etc. H is very pleased that the card made BIL1 so happy, and so am I. In return, BIL1 sent us a Xmas card with $40 cash for S3, and H was so touched by it, he teared up.

I don't really have a huge issue with BIL1, except he is constantly drunk and high and not all there, which has made it difficult for me to relate to him. He would drunkenly spew anger at our dinner table over politics when he would visit and stuff like that. Once, he fell and seriously injured himself while visiting because he was drunk and high, and he had to stick around and be nursed by H for a while until he recovered enough to go home. I've been told he has been in a drunken high tailspin since his wife died of cancer, before H and I even started dating (I never met her). He has a host of health issues, and I take pity on him.

Okay, so the thing that happened at the beginning of the week was that H told me to also send Xmas cards to BIL2 and SIL. Normally, my response to that would be something like "Are you kidding me?!" And a fight would ensue. Instead, I calmly responded, "But why? I don't think they're hurting to see S3." H replied "Yeah" and left it at that. Inside, I was freaking out because there's a history that makes it rather insensitive of H to suggest I send Xmas cards to BIL2 and SIL, and just when I start to think his lack of empathy for me doesn't surprise me anymore, he manages to surprise me.

I know where he's coming from. He's stoked about the gushing approval he's getting from BIL1 about the Xmas card and was hoping that by also sending Xmas cards to BIL2 and SIL, he would get the same approval from them. It's simple-minded, but that's H's reasoning, no doubt about it.

I mentioned earlier that H has had a tendency to invoke third parties in our relationship, gossip and complain about me and our relationship to others; glom onto certain people, who are often not very nice, yearning for their approval, putting them before me and our relationship. Well, my in-laws are included among such people. That's why I don't have a good relationship with my in-laws.

Let me explain why it would be inappropriate to send Xmas cards to BIL2 and SIL, especially considering that not even everyone I love gets one from me. (I come from a huge extended family, who all live far away from me, and I used to send out like 100 Xmas cards, but I don't have that kind of time anymore.)

BIL2 is kind of a creepy guy. H and I live on a ranch that belongs to H's family estate (his parents bought the property in the 1950s), and BIL2 also lived on the property until shortly before their very elderly mother (MIL) passed away, a couple years ago. (The property belonging to H's family estate might explain why H and my in-laws look upon me as having no status on the property, not even in our home. Though the four children equally own the property, H is the trustee of the property, the only one of their family who lives on the property, and the only one who puts work into it. It has been home to him since he was born. Our child and I live with him, but it's their world, where I'm nothing, the weird isolated world of H and my in-laws.)

Five years ago, the police came and seized BIL2's computer because they heard there was child porn on it. That alone should be enough to tell you why I'm not keen on sending BIL2 a Xmas card, especially not one with a photo of my child. Sometimes the way H thinks just freaks me out.

When BIL2 lived on the property, practically next door to us, he had kind of an addiction to the Internet. He had a habit of befriending strangers on the Internet and inviting them onto the property, sometimes to live with him in MIL's house, the house H grew up in. (He was unemployed but served as caregiver for MIL.) It tended to be females down on their luck, transients and drug addicts who were in and out of prison. They in turn would attract an element to the property. BIL2 had a hero complex where he fancied himself a savior of these people. (He has a similar thing as H where he desperately craves approval from others, but his manifestation of it is very different.)

They would loiter, and thefts would happen. Our home was never robbed, but I was constantly afraid it would be, and things would go missing from MIL's house. Outdoor storage structures would get broken into. Someone forged a check out of an old checkbook of H's that was probably swiped out of storage. Even the side mirrors on a non-operational vehicle were stolen.

Dealing with that kind of presence on the property was a source of great stress on me and my relationship with H, starting when I moved in with him a year prior to our wedding. H was very passive and generally did nothing about it despite my distress and pleading with him about safety concerns. He didn't want to offend BIL2.

Looking back, though, I don't know what H could have done. BIL2 is not someone who can be reasoned with. I think I wanted at least some gesture on H's part to show me he thought it was important to take my feelings and concerns seriously and protect me. But I don't know what gesture would have done any good even if he had the will for it. They say where there's a will, there's a way, and H simply wasn't willing. H was afraid to confront BIL2, so he ignored me.

Just prior to the incident of the police seizing BIL2's computer, a transient woman was living in MIL's house, brought there by BIL2. H somehow found the strength within himself to tell her to leave. I don't know that it had anything to do particularly with a desire to protect me. But it infuriated BIL2, who was wholly unaccustomed to H going against him like that.

So in retaliation, while H was out taking MIL for a walk in the neighborhood, BIL2 called the police and told them H was threatening his life with a gun. It was a complete fabrication, an absolute lie. Police officers arrived in several cruisers. H managed to peacefully meet and talk with them, and they left. I'm not sure what BIL2's goal had been there.

The next day, H and BIL2 carried on like none of that stuff ever happened - that's part of the dynamic in that family. The woman eventually left of her own volition. She would come and go and come and go and actually ended up being murdered (I suppose that was the fate that BIL2 was trying to save her from). Transients would continue to come and go for years.

Later on, when the police seized BIL2's computer, he got it in his head that it was me who had called them on him, to get back at him for calling them on H. But it wasn't me. It later came to light that BIL2 had taken his computer to a repair shop, and the repair people saw something that prompted them to report child porn to the police. The police ended up not finding anything incriminating and returned the computer to BIL2. Based on his history, it was probably just very young women in pornographic photos.

While I was in the hospital to give birth to S3, MIL was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. She went downhill from there, passing away 7 months later. In the first few months of her going downhill, BIL2 was really acting up, getting her to sign legal documents (she was pretty much blind and deaf) in his favor, inviting yet another unstable transient woman to live in MIL's house, and inviting a man with several horses to park his trailer and live on the property. As trustee of the property, H told the woman and the man with the horses to leave. They refused to leave. They were squatters at this point.

The combination of BIL2 making MIL sign contracts she didn't have the capacity to understand, and the squatters, pushed H to get a lawyer and file for an emergency restraining order against BIL2, on the basis of financial elder abuse. It was granted right away, and BIL2 was removed from the property by police escort. This was about 3 months before MIL passed. A court trial shortly followed to determine whether the restraining order should be upheld. It was upheld and deemed applicable for the duration of MIL's life.

But the squatters were still there. It was not legally considered an emergency to make them leave right away - there had to be a slow legal process. The unstable transient woman in MIL's house was a nightmare to deal with. Caregivers were hired to look after MIL full-time, and the woman - angry about BIL2 being kicked out - would harass them. She eventually left of her own volition, but it was weeks after BIL2 was removed. Shortly after she left, there was a court trial to determine whether the man in the trailer with several horses should be evicted. The court ruled to evict, and he took his horses and left.

S3 was about 5 months old at that point. Having a new baby is stressful enough, and litigation is an extremely exhausting thing. I helped H with administrative things pertaining to the litigation, and it was a lot of work. That time was supposed to be a special time to enjoy my new baby, and it was fraught with all these things. I will always resent that.

A couple months passed, and MIL passed away, which voided the restraining order against BIL2. So the first thing he did was come to the property and break into MIL's now-uninhabited house, intending to move back in. But it didn't work like that. H called the police, who came and told BIL2 he couldn't break into the house. He could come to the property with H's consent, but he wasn't allowed to be breaking into any houses. H did not press charges.

So, for at least a year after MIL passed, BIL2 would regularly come to the property uninvited and just hang out on the premises. He wasn't invited to do so, but H was permissive. BIL2 insisted on using the property as his mailing address, and he would come and get his mail and just loiter on the property whenever he wanted. This really, really creeped me out and drove me crazy. I would beg H to do something about it, and he would do nothing. He would shrug and tell me, "It doesn't bother me."

If there's just one thing that exemplifies H's response to me when I raise a concern to him, calling upon him to stand up for and protect me, it's him telling me "It doesn't bother me." Our wedding vows included "Let no man tear asunder..." In our case, it's more like: Let no one tear us apart, unless it doesn't bother H.

I was throwing fits over BIL2 just coming and going as he pleased and H doing nothing about it, and my pain simply didn't matter to H. Or rather, it didn't matter enough. We would be outside, and BIL2 would come along, and H would be like "Oh hi, BIL2, how's it going?" and just make pleasantries with BIL2 right in front of my face, as if we were graced with the presence of a wonderful visitor. It made me so sick. I'd be out with my baby on a walk in the neighborhood, and BIL2 would come strolling along, knowing I didn't want him around. He broke into MIL's house a few more times that we know of just for kicks - we found out after the fact.

Sometime last year, I overheard a phone conference that H was on with all his siblings to discuss estate matters. Somehow, on that call, he found the strength to assertively tell BIL2 not to use the property as his mailing address anymore, and not to show up uninvited anymore. I was so proud of him for that. It resembled the husband I've always wanted. Maybe there was something about the other siblings being on the call to chime in and back him up that inspired him.

Because I certainly wasn't enough to inspire him. At that point, it had been at least a year of me throwing fits and our marriage going further down the toilet over BIL2 trespassing. But lo and behold, BIL2 did change his mailing address after that. Coincidence, maybe. He didn't stop coming to the property uninvited, but he curtailed it after that, and now he only comes once in a while. He still freaks me out, but once in a while is better than all the time.

If you've read this far, then I hope you understand why I find it outrageous that H would tell me to send BIL2 a Xmas card. Now I want to talk about why it's also outrageous that H would tell me to send SIL one.

We live in a two-bedroom double-wide trailer home that was placed on the property when H was a kid in the 70s. It's not that big, and the walls are thin and bendy. It's not my dream home, but as long as I want to be married to H, home is wherever he is. In the first couple years of our marriage, BIL1, SIL, and her two daughters (H's nieces, not much younger than me) would routinely visit from out of town, and our home was the place for them to stay. It was that way before we were married in 2014, and it continued like that for a couple years afterwards as if we weren't married.

H wouldn't check with me first as to whether it was okay with me to have them stay in our home. They'd stay for a weekend or a week or two or six, and H wouldn't check with me beforehand - it was like "Oh, hey 1hedlite, by the way, so-and-so is coming to stay for a while," sometimes on very short notice. One niece liked to bring along a friend or two and request to be pampered with a vegan dinner by H, who was happy to oblige. Though he had a wife now, it was like H was still the single, hip young uncle.

It really bothered me that H wouldn't ask my permission first, but it kind of took me a while to realize it was wrong of him not to. I wanted a good relationship with SIL and her daughters, so I tried to be accommodating and welcoming, friendly and affectionate. Sometimes I did great, other times not so much. If you have social anxiety like I do, you know having houseguests can be really nerve-wracking even if they are people you know and love, even with ample advance notice. Even visitors who aren't sleeping over make me nervous.

SIL is a shrewd woman with an alpha personality, and H has a kind of fearful respect for her that extends to her daughters, though they are not quite formidable like she is. She is known to be off-putting and litigious, and her own mother (MIL) would go off on tangents saying she disliked her and calling her greedy, but I thought at first that it was just the dementia talking.

Once, H was on the phone with SIL, and she told him she was thinking of coming out and visiting, so he happily replied, "Of course! I'll pay for your plane ticket!" I was miffed. I don't even think she was asking him to pay for her plane ticket, which is typically not a cheap thing, and SIL has a lot more money than we do. But H was always expected to foot the bill for my in-laws. He would just do it without discussing it with me first, and sometimes the expense was a lot.

In 2016, this is what happened that destroyed any relationship I thought I had with SIL and her daughters. One day, while H and I were at work, they brought lawyers and businesspeople into our home for a meeting to discuss making the property the site of a certain controversial industry. I had NO IDEA that this meeting between strangers and my in-laws was going to take place at all, let alone in our home, and H claimed he had no idea either. I found out about it the day it occurred, after it already occurred, when I got home from work and found myself alone with one of the nieces. We were making small talk, and she happened to casually mention that they held this meeting in our home and that it was about to drastically change all our lives.

Let me back up a bit. When I got home from work and was pulling into our driveway, H and the niece were there outside talking, and the niece kind of scurried off to MIL's house as I approached them in my car. When I got out of the car, H told me she had taken it upon herself to spray flea killer all over our home because she had found a flea on her puppy (which she had brought with her without asking our permission, and it wasn't housebroken). H told her this would upset me, hence her scurrying off. It was unclear whether she was concerned that her dog got fleas from our house, or our house got fleas from her dog.

I did get upset when I heard about what she did because we had four pet birds, and if you know much about pet birds, you know that pesticide fumes could kill them. So I am touchy about fumes in the house. When I entered our home, sure enough, the fumes hit me. I found that our master bedroom was the only room in the house she managed not to spray, so I moved our birds there. This turned out to be the least of my worries, but it just goes to show you the kind of mentality I was dealing with. When you're a guest in someone's house, and you want to treat their whole house with pesticide, it would usually occur to you to check with them first, right?

The niece soon showed up again, slipping in through the patio door with the flea killer spray in hand. The first thing she said to me, pointing to the spray label, was that there was nothing on the label to indicate it was harmful to birds. Yeah, the label never says it could kill birds, but bird people know better. We moved on to small talk. (At this point, it was only H, her, and myself in the house, and H was in a different room. BIL1, SIL, and the other niece and her fiance were also visiting from out of town, but they were elsewhere doing their own respective things. We would leave our doors unlocked for the visitors to come and go as they pleased for as long as they were around.)

Then she mentioned the meeting, which made me extremely upset.

For one, houseguests bringing strangers into my home while I'm at work without letting me know beforehand - that does not sit right with me. It just seems impolite. And then there's the idea of SIL and the nieces making major decisions that would drastically affect our life on the property. They weren't the ones living on the property, and what they were proposing should happen to it would completely change the vibe of the place and require us, the residents, to go through a lot of upheaval.

Those decisions regarding the property may have been theirs to make, but they could not go forward without H's consent, and my issue was that nobody thought to give me the courtesy of a warning. About inviting strangers to enter my home or ANYTHING.

I brought my concerns to H and asked him to run interference for me, tell them to back off and just give us some time to think about things. In response, H did nothing. If you've read this far, that shouldn't surprise you. I begged and pleaded with H to assert himself to SIL and nieces on my behalf, and he smiled and nodded at me and did nothing.

He told me he wasn't necessarily on board with their plans. But they were used to H never telling them no, and this case was no different. He didn't want to hurt their feelings by appearing to disagree with them. So he was giving off every impression that he was on board with them, standing with them against me. They were in town for a week or so, and they were all carrying on around me like I wasn't even there in my own home, like I was Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense. At some point, I slipped out to take a break from them and get some air (I went to a gym in the next town over).

I was in IC at the time, and sometime after this visit from my in-laws, when they had returned home, I brought H along to a counseling session to talk about what happened with them. In this session, it came out that while I was away getting some air, they asked H what was wrong with me because I was very obviously extremely upset. According to H, he proceeded to explain to my in-laws that I had a history of mental illness (depression and anxiety), and that I was having an irrational reaction to their business proposal, an episode of mental illness. It was like a come-to-Jesus meeting where he confessed to my in-laws that I was mentally ill, and that he had been suffering on account of my mental illness for a long time. In response, they showered him with sympathy and affection and told him, "Our only concern is you. Do whatever you have to do."

I don't know exactly who said that to him, or what extent it was verbatim or paraphrased, or what it was even supposed to mean. But these words he recounted, in our counseling session four years ago, that my in-laws said to him - "Our only concern is you. Do whatever you have to do" - still ring in my mind, in the way he said they said those words.

Therefore, not only did SIL and the nieces overstepping the bounds become all about me being mentally ill and victimizing H. It also gave my in-laws permission to be further dismissive of me. Before, it wasn't so much that they were trying to exclude me but that they were oblivious to me - it simply didn't occur to them that I mattered. But now, with H's blessing, they were going to make it a point to exclude me.

One niece (the other one, not the flea killer spray one) sent H an email where she specifically told him not to tell me about the email, with some kind of business plan attached. In turn, H forwarded the email to a mutual lawyer friend of ours to ask her professional opinion, and he told her not to tell me about it. This came to light and to my attention accidentally, as things done in the dark sometimes do. I didn't think the triangulation against me could get any worse until I found out H reached out to this friend who was supposed to be my friend too and told her not to tell me. I'm sure a lot happened that I never found out about, but I happened to find out about that. Then I reached out to our friend and told her, "I consider you to be my friend too - please don't keep these things secret from me."

Ultimately, SIL and her daughters' business proposition did not pan out, for whatever reason. They badgered H about it for a year or so, but it never panned out. I have no idea what made it fail to be realized, but whatever it was had nothing to do with me. But the crying and screaming on my part that ensued for a couple years from that business meeting they held in my home was incredible. I'm not proud of that (atoning for it will be part of my DB process), and it gave H further reason to dismiss me as a lunatic. Our marriage was broken before, but that business meeting and pertinent events that followed really broke us. It made something snap in me. Yet I managed to get pregnant the following year.

To give you an idea of what little priority H gave our marriage, as if you don't already get it: We have been married almost seven years, and we literally didn't celebrate our wedding anniversary, didn't go out to dinner for our anniversary or anything, until our fifth anniversary. Why not? Because during our first four wedding anniversaries, BIL1, SIL, and/or the nieces were visiting, so the priority was to entertain them. Thus, each of our first four wedding anniversaries was just another day that came and went. I didn't complain about it because I didn't know any better - we couldn't celebrate our anniversary because H had to entertain my in-laws, and that was that.

Why did their visits coincide with our anniversaries? Because when we were planning our wedding, H wanted our wedding day to be right next to MIL's birthday, months before my preferred date. Why? To honor MIL, and also because there was a niece of H's (BIL1's daughter) whom he really wanted to attend our wedding, and he was concerned that there wasn't enough of an incentive for her to fly out and attend. He thought by placing our wedding day right next to MIL's birthday, MIL's birthday festivities would give the niece an extra incentive to attend our wedding. At first, she RSVP'ed no to our wedding, and I was disappointed that we accelerated our wedding date by months for nothing. But then she changed her mind and attended. That was the last time we saw her.

So, every year, my in-laws would converge upon our home to celebrate MIL's birthday, starting a few days to a week before our anniversary, and sticking around for at least a week or two. It was at the time of our second wedding anniversary that they held that fateful business meeting in our home. Our fifth wedding anniversary was the first one where they were not visiting because MIL passed away a few months after our fourth one. So our fifth anniversary was the first one we went out to dinner for. Our sixth anniversary was this year, during the lockdown.

Understand, the property is the absolute love of H's life. Before he is married to me, he is married to my in-laws, and before he is married to my in-laws, he is married to the property. He is willing to fight me in favor of my in-laws; and, though he feels really bad about it, really he does, he is willing to fight my in-laws when they threaten his relationship with the property.

As often happens, MIL's death brought about a fight between H and his siblings over the property. H wants to keep it, and they want to sell it. There is a stipulation giving H the option to keep it if he can meet certain requirements, namely buy them out. Whether it's possible for him to meet all the requirements is another story. The consensus has been that it isn't possible. But now we are in COVID-19 times, and H is counting on COVID-19 to be his lucky charm, play out in his favor such that he will be able to buy out his siblings and keep the property.

He is obsessed with keeping the property.

When his siblings first found out that H planned to exercise his option to keep it, they were infuriated - even BIL1, his favorite sibling. I never really understood why. Maybe it was because it made settling the estate and getting their inheritance a far slower process, I don't know. But they bonded together in their mutual anger against H. Dealing with their anger (namely that of SIL and BIL2) and the threat of losing the property was very stressful every day for a couple years. H was extremely sorry they felt the way they did and still is.

H has made sacrifices for the property all his life. There is work to be done at every turn, and to his ADHD, it is a wonderland of endless delights and distractions. It stresses him out to no end, but he wouldn't have it any other way. It is normal for him to be outside until 2:00 in the morning. Some men spend countless hours gaming, but he gardens into the wee hours. Our marriage was sacrificed for the property. In that regard, it sure would s*ck to lose it because all the sacrifice would be rendered to be in vain.

But I want us to lose the property. I didn't at first because it was instinctive for me to stand with H against his siblings in his desire to keep it, and there's nothing he wants more than to keep it. But now I'm so over it. I have come to have only hatred for the property and also this town. There are so many old ghosts and so much pain, and I want us to get out.

SIL was sending H threatening lawyer letters (she's good at that), and then COVID-19 hit. My in-laws agreed to put their fight with H on hiatus for a year or so, wait until the COVID-19 chaos subsides in order to maximize profits from selling the property. They are all on civil speaking terms, but they were on civil speaking terms before, on the whole, even as my in-laws (i.e., SIL) were sending H threatening lawyer letters.

H told me to send SIL a Xmas card at the beginning of this week, and I calmly said no. That brings us to where we are today.

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Harvey,

Yes, my ideal is a husband who would maintain a united front with me first and foremost, though we may disagree. That has always been my ideal.

My ideal would also assert himself in order to protect me. For example, the relatively minor incident I mentioned in my post above where H's (adult) niece sprayed flea killer all over our home without H's permission or mine. When H found out about it (before I found out about it), his way of addressing it was that he told her I would be upset about it, thus putting the problem on me in her eyes. That is very typical of how he addresses issues in our marriage when third parties are concerned.

My ideal husband would have told her, in an even-tempered magnanimous manner, that she shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't even appear to factor into it. H is not strong enough to think in those terms and do that for me. In his mind, it constitutes being mean to others, and he doesn't like to be mean to others. He has to throw me under the bus in order to avoid being mean to others.

Yes, I settled for less, so much less. There was a perfect storm of unfortunate things about my background and his that brought us together, and now we have S3. We were acquaintances for a few years before we started dating, having a mutual circle of friends. By all accounts, he was a good, compassionate and strong man. A medical professional, renown in the local community for being gifted in his field. It helped that he was also tall, well-built and handsome. I was a wallflower all my life, and he was quite the catch. I couldn't have it any better.

The incident where he confronted me about us not having intercourse yet and his friend being disappointed - it completely shattered the image I had of him, but I still thought I couldn't have it any better.

Originally Posted by harvey
The incident prior to you having intercourse was really difficult to read. I can understand frustration on his part if he was not as dogmatic was you were. The fact he was aggravated about it is a red flag. I'm unclear if you were just dating or married at this time? If not married, had you told him you wanted to remain celibate until marriage?


We were just dating. We had only been dating three months at this point, though we were acquaintances for a few years prior to dating.

He is not religious whatsoever. He was baptized Catholic, but that's it.

No, I had not told him I wanted to remain celibate until marriage, but I think he was afraid I wanted to. I would have been happy to remain celibate until marriage, but I knew he had tremendous disdain for the idea, and I wasn't going to make him wait until marriage for me. I was expecting that we would have intercourse eventually, before marriage. But I wasn't ready for it yet when he had that confrontation with me. In fact, when we started having intercourse, I still wasn't ready.

Thanks for your reply.

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May,

Thanks for your reply and advice. Sorry this post turns out to be so lengthy - it's mostly me journaling.

Originally Posted by may22
From what you describe of him, he doesn't sound like someone I'd want to be married to or live with. It made my heart hurt to read about the incident prior to you two sleeping together, the two EAs and the gaslighting, the blame, the fights, the badmouthing to friends and family, the christmas card addressed to him and your child but not to you. I am no psychiatrist but he reads like someone with a personality disorder, potentially.


I appreciate that you picked up on the gaslighting. To be honest, I'm concerned that people reading my posts think I'm crazy, because my story is crazy, H tells me to my face that I'm crazy, and he started telling others I'm crazy before we were even married. He specializes in brain-damaged patients, and when I'm really upset with him, he tells me unironically that I have brain damage. He even manages to have a somewhat uninsulting tone while telling me so, though it's very insulting. It has the effect of making me more upset and frustrated, which then seems to prove his point. And then I’m basically shut down, because what can I say? He’s the expert. So I am self-conscious about people thinking I'm crazy.

And no wonder he has no desire for me. Who desires a brain-damaged lunatic?

Yes, I have no doubt that H has a personality disorder of some sort. I don't know if there's a name for it, but in the past several years, I've done a lot of Googling trying to understand experiences I've had with certain people long gone from my life, and NPD comes up a great deal. I always thought H was extremely neurotic, unassertive and people-pleasing, and it only recently occurred to me that it's not just a matter of being neurotic - there's something pathological like the NPD I've heard so much about.

H's siblings, plus two of his nieces, whom I mentioned in my story above, are all a bit off also. That would make sense if there's a genetic component to personality disorders. They all have addictive personalities of sorts, they all get single-minded about odd things, they all blame-shift. They all have grandiosity, but it manifests very differently between them. While BIL2 proclaims to be friends with celebrities, for example, H gets his jollies from being known as The Nicest Humblest Guy Ever, and no one would suspect the h*ll I go through.

Originally Posted by may22
I totally get the not wanting to live apart from your child, at all. Absolutely. Can I ask you a really hard question, though? Do you want your son to grow up thinking that it is normal for a man to treat his wife the way he is treating you? I really don't think it is okay, 1hedlite. It feels abusive, to me, as an outsider reading about it. It really is not okay.


No, I don't want my son to grow up thinking that it is normal. The one thing I find saddest and regret the most and hate the most in all this is that S3 has witnessed our terrible fights in his very young life. The last fight we had like that was the one I mentioned in my very first post here, where H said "50/50 custody" and "co-parenting," and I am determined not to let a fight like that happen again. Also, hearing H say those terms jolted me and put things in perspective for me.

"Don't poke the hornet's nest" is the approach I'm trying to take here going forward. When I don't give H any criticisms or complaints about H, we get along relatively well. He has a fragile, fragile, fragile ego. I can't say anything like "When you say or do x, I feel hurt" to him because it doesn't result in any self-reflection and repentance on his part - he gets defensive and turns the tables on me very quickly. I can't try to have a conversation with him about anything he has said or done (or failed to say or do) that hurt me. Of course, that means we will never connect on any deep level. But the hope is that we will at least appear to get along enough for S3 to grow up well-adjusted and happy.

On Christmas Eve, I needed to finish up wrapping gifts for S3, so I had H take him outside while I did that. Afterwards, when they came back, H announced that S3 had been running barefoot all over the property, like it was delightful news. That stunned me because I am very particular about making sure S3 has shoes on outside. Being a toddler, S3 has a tendency to follow H out the door without shoes, which H finds really amusing - I don't know why it's so amusing to him, but it is. Then, if I'm aware that S3 followed H out without shoes, I'll run after them with shoes for S3. This happens over and over again.

A few months ago, a wildfire swept through the property, burning down barns and a farmhouse rental (that's another stressor on our marriage - dealing with the aftermath of that) - there are shards on the ground everywhere, including shards of glass. There is no good reason for S3 or anyone to go barefoot outside, and not even H would ever do so.

So when H told me S3 had been running around barefoot outside, I was stunned. It almost seemed like he let S3 go barefoot outside precisely because he knew I didn't like it. Could that be it? But why? Why on earth would he? I don't know.

S3 appeared fine, at first. Later, he was noticeably limping and crying, complaining about his feet. It turned out that he had abrasions on the soles of his feet and splinters in his right foot, but he wouldn't keep still and let me remove the splinters. I had H clean S3's feet and apply an antibiotic ointment, but I had to wait for S3 to fall asleep at the end of the night before I could remove the splinters.

See, that's the kind of crazy-making I deal with. There had been a couple prior instances of S3 getting hurt in worse ways as a direct result of H being even stupider. Yet he's a very smart man, far more educated than I am, as he likes to point out.

H did not acknowledge any connection between the injury to S3's feet and the many times I harped on the necessity of S3 wearing shoes outside. Normally, I would have had it out with H, he would have deflected, somehow he would have blamed me (reasoned that the splinters resulted from me taking the time to wrap gifts, probably, knowing him), there would have been a big fight, and Christmas would have been ruined.

Instead, I did not criticize H or complain because I wanted to have a pleasant Christmas. Other than S3 crying on and off all day long over the discomfort in his feet on Christmas Eve, the poor little guy, it was overall a pleasant Christmas.

On Christmas Day, H casually mentioned to me that he had spoken to his brother (BIL1) over the phone, telling him he had let S3 run around barefoot outside, and that his brother replied that it was "a stupid idea." In telling me this, H did not seem to have any awareness of how it might rub me the wrong way. He did not seem to make any connection between BIL1 saying it was a stupid idea, and me basically saying the same thing many times before. He needed BIL1 to confirm what I've been telling him all along. It's this kind of buffoonery that makes it difficult for me to respect H. Normally, it would have set me off. Instead, I didn't react.

Originally Posted by may22
And also, why do you want to have sex with your H when he acts so horribly towards you? I understand the physical release part, but the part about wanting an H who desires, protects and cherishes you, and thinking about ML as an expression of that love... I'm so, so sorry, 1hedlite. But from what you describe of your H and your relationship with him, it seems like the love between you two doesn't really exist, and so you're looking for something that really cannot happen. I do not know, from what you describe of him, that he is even capable of truly loving another human being. (If you're looking for the physical side, they make some really nice vibrators these days. Just saying. ;))


To answer your question, it's a combination of things. Yes, the physical release. When sex was decent, I enjoyed it a lot, and I miss decent sex. I never had any interest at all in sex toys for some reason. But I like sexy movies and TV shows and books, and I see sex in those things, and I want to experience it for myself, without stepping outside of my marriage.

Sex forges a bond, regardless of whether the bond is right or wrong - "love hormones" and oxytocin and all that. In the absence of sex for almost two years now, H and I are just feuding roommates trying to be civil today. If we had sex, we would be more like a couple than roommates. Back when we were at least having sex infrequently, sex had a way of smoothing things over. It is normal for a married couple to have sex, and I am desperate for some semblance of normal.

Very early on, when we were newly dating, H instilled in me the notion that I owed him sex. So, by his own standard, now that we are married, there is something very wrong about him not having sex with me, especially considering that he masturbates in his shed (I caught him six months ago). It weighs heavy on me. I guess what I'm trying to say is it strikes me as hypocritical of him not to have sex with me, and I would feel better if he did, and if the sex was decent.

But yes, I get what you're saying.

I know there will come a point when I have no desire for sex with H either. I have already started pulling away from him emotionally - it's defensive and unintentional. Kind of like how, just out of self-preservation, one starts to lose interest in an unrequited crush. He still wants to go through the motions of kissing and hugging, and I should be grateful, but it has become jarring to me the way being kissed and hugged by a roommate who dislikes me would be jarring. Even the way he smells is jarring.

Since I still desire sex with H, though, foreseeing the point when I no longer do makes me very sad still. It's like my heart is kicking and screaming against a future where each of us has no desire for the other. Once that future arrives, my heart will stop kicking and screaming against it, but I'm not there yet - I still desire sex and love from my husband.

In my story above, I talked about how the property we live on, which belongs to H's family estate, and the characters surrounding it have factored into destroying our marriage. I talked about how H loves the property more than he loves me. Since MIL passed away, H's siblings are trying to force the sale of the property, whereas H is obsessed with trying to keep it. I want that family to sell off the d*mn place.

H has occasional moments where he admits to himself that he may very well lose the property, and he looks at property listings online. He'll show me a listing of some lovely house far away from where we are now (far away from certain people who have plagued our relationship) and ask, "How would you like to live there?" He asks me like a husband asking his wife, and it's so novel and exciting. The idea of starting all over somewhere far away and having a home that belongs to me and H, as opposed to H and my in-laws. Maybe then we'd have a chance at something resembling normal. That's the hope.

Originally Posted by may22
I do not know, from what you describe of him, that he is even capable of truly loving another human being.


Interesting you mention that because he tells me I'm the one who is incapable of truly loving another human being, and he's always told me I don't know how to be a wife. The last time he told me so was when we had that last fight. "I've been trying to tell you how to be a wife for years," he said. That's why I don't get any sex from him now, he said. Because I still don't have what it takes to be a wife, whatever that is. When I was just his girlfriend, it was that I didn't know how to be a girlfriend. Then he married me.

I look at the posts I've made here so far, and it's like a list of the pros and cons of staying with H, except it's just a long, long list of cons. And then I think, "My God, it's far worse than I thought." Well, H has a long, long list of cons on me too.

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Thanks, CWarrior.

Originally Posted by CWarrior
Wow--you've been through a LOT! For now, I just wanted you to know that I read your story through.

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Thanks, wooba. I am getting that book.

Originally Posted by wooba
I will write more later, but for now- I’m so sorry that you are here. And your story is heartbreaking. I think you do not need to read DR, instead pick up “healing from hidden abuse” by Shannon Thomas.

Learn to love yourself, value yourself. Read lots of thread here. Read scouts thread in MLC. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and you have been in the tunnel for a long time.

We are here for you.


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Thanks, Oceangl.

Originally Posted by Oceangl
I'm so sorry for what you're experiencing. I am going through something similar. It is hard hard hard. But I will say I have found a strength in me that I didn't know I had. We will all be here for you as much as we can.

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Originally Posted by 1hedlite

Originally Posted by harvey
The incident prior to you having intercourse was really difficult to read. I can understand frustration on his part if he was not as dogmatic was you were. The fact he was aggravated about it is a red flag. I'm unclear if you were just dating or married at this time? If not married, had you told him you wanted to remain celibate until marriage?


We were just dating. We had only been dating three months at this point, though we were acquaintances for a few years prior to dating.

He is not religious whatsoever. He was baptized Catholic, but that's it.

No, I had not told him I wanted to remain celibate until marriage, but I think he was afraid I wanted to. I would have been happy to remain celibate until marriage, but I knew he had tremendous disdain for the idea, and I wasn't going to make him wait until marriage for me. I was expecting that we would have intercourse eventually, before marriage. But I wasn't ready for it yet when he had that confrontation with me. In fact, when we started having intercourse, I still wasn't ready.

Thanks for your reply.


I agree with Harvey. Religious or not this was/is a huge red flag. On both sides. That he pressured and didn't respect you enough to wait. And that you were willing to do that before you were ready. Relationships are built on a foundation and when that foundation has stones like this in it then it will only be a matter of time before the cracks begin to show.


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So hedlite, I just finished reading your long post.

Wow. I didn't quote it in case you ever need it deleted, but that was a very tough read. Extremely tough. You've been dealing with a feckless, weak, and spineless husband for years. You've been dealing with someone that has no respect for you. Someone that prioritizes virtually everything else above you. I mean the anniversary thing, not celebrating it for the first four years, is huge.

So what are you trying to save here? I'm sorry but it appears you've been eating helpings of crap sandwiches for years. I've gone on record here before wondering how spouses, and wives in particular, can put up with so much for so long. It saddens me that you value yourself so little that you'd put up with all this for so long. I'm not saying that to be mean or callous, I mean I feel for you greatly. But I say it because I'd love for you to find that value and then draw boundaries, have deal-breakers, and form core values based on that value. I feel with the history of this relationship the worst thing you could do is to further sacrifice and rollover for this man just to save your marriage.

What you describe in your post isn't marriage. It is a woman allowing herself to be walked over by a man that deprioritizes her in almost all cases.


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Steve,

Yes, I married an extremely weak man. To say the least.

What I want to save is that I want to continue to live in the same home as my child every single day, and I want to continue to be a SAHM to my child.

Other than that, there's nothing to save, I know. Our relationship never stood a chance. Much of why it never stood a chance has to do with my in-laws and the property we live on that jointly belongs to H and them. (Yes, I know that's only an issue because H doesn't put our marriage first, and THE issue is that he doesn't put our marriage first.) Since MIL passed away, and H's siblings are in the process of forcing the sale of the property, I am hoping we will eventually move far away to a home that is mine and H's, and that we will then have a chance at something that resembles a better relationship.

As far as deal-breakers and boundaries, it took me a while, but I did get some. When SIL and her daughters held that meeting in our home, that was a deal-breaker. They never stayed in our home again, but they never wanted to again after I fell out with them over that meeting. If they wanted to, I wouldn't have let them. Our home stopped being their frequent-stay free motel. BIL1 is the only one of my in-laws who has stayed in our home since then.

SIL would still visit whenever she wanted after that, but she would stay elsewhere or park her trailer on the property and stay in it for however long she wanted. H paid hundreds of dollars for special plumbing hookups to accommodate her trailer (without discussing it with me first, of course - I found out accidentally). But MIL was the big draw for SIL and her daughters, and they haven't really been to the property since she's been gone.

For that matter, BIL2 was on the property uninvited again a few days ago, doing who knows what. I didn't see him, but I saw his car parked on the property, and he wasn't in it. A sight that made my stomach turn. When H called me on his way home from work, I told him BIL2 was around and that I wasn't happy about it. He replied, "Maybe he's just there to take some photos." You'd think he was making a bad joke, but he was absolutely serious. Normally, I would pick a big fight with him for that, but I left it alone. I think I heard a hint of fear in his voice, like he was afraid I was going to ask him to tell BIL2 to leave. So there you have it - let's humor the serial trespasser's delusion of being a photojournalist, on the property from which he was once forcibly removed by restraining order.

Once I step outside my home (that is to say, the house I live in with H), I have no standing on the property, according to a pecking order that was established long before I met H. There's really nothing I can do about it.

But as far as our home is concerned, H is a lot better now about discussing it with me first before inviting people over. A sticking point for me as someone with social anxiety. We did have a few fights in the last year and a half about him inviting people over without discussing it with me first, but at least they were people I liked, and he is a lot better now overall.

Then again, that's probably just incidental, considering the new era of social distancing, and not anything to do with any particular desire he may have to do right by me.

I don't know if you read my post where I talked about a bipolar male friend of H's and the weird connection between them that started us off on the wrong foot. It was probably sometime in 2016 (a couple years after we were married) when H blurted out to me that the guy absolutely hated my guts. The guy would be rude and contemptuous to me when we'd visit him and his wife at their home, and I would pass it off as his bipolar disorder, as if it was a stuttering problem he couldn't help. Once H told me that the guy had a deep personal hatred for me, I refused to see or have anything to do with the guy and his wife ever again. So, what I'm saying is that's another deal-breaker and boundary - I won't put up with "friends" like that again.

I don't know if H has visited with them since, but I know he's been in contact with them via phone or text. He knows that if it were up to me, he would have nothing to do with them, but I can't stop him.

We saw the guy's wife at a party hosted by a former coworker of H's in 2018. That was awkward. And I caught sight of her a couple times when I had appointments at a medical facility where she was making the rounds, but I avoided her, and I stopped going to that facility in order to avoid seeing her there anymore.

Has H learned from our experiences with the bipolar friend, in any way that would benefit our relationship? Surely not. He doesn't have that kind of introspection when it comes to our relationship. He's weak before all these people, and I want to see if we can start a new and better relationship if we move far away to a home that is ours, where my in-laws and these "friends" have less influence.

Also, the "Don't poke the hornet's nest" approach I mentioned in my reply to May above - that's a new thing I'm trying. It's been years of me trying to fight H into becoming the kind of man who stands up for and protects me. He's limited - he's just not that kind of man, and I'm trying to accept it and not fight anymore.

Originally Posted by Steve85
So hedlite, I just finished reading your long post.

Wow. I didn't quote it in case you ever need it deleted, but that was a very tough read. Extremely tough. You've been dealing with a feckless, weak, and spineless husband for years. You've been dealing with someone that has no respect for you. Someone that prioritizes virtually everything else above you. I mean the anniversary thing, not celebrating it for the first four years, is huge.

So what are you trying to save here? I'm sorry but it appears you've been eating helpings of crap sandwiches for years. I've gone on record here before wondering how spouses, and wives in particular, can put up with so much for so long. It saddens me that you value yourself so little that you'd put up with all this for so long. I'm not saying that to be mean or callous, I mean I feel for you greatly. But I say it because I'd love for you to find that value and then draw boundaries, have deal-breakers, and form core values based on that value. I feel with the history of this relationship the worst thing you could do is to further sacrifice and rollover for this man just to save your marriage.

What you describe in your post isn't marriage. It is a woman allowing herself to be walked over by a man that deprioritizes her in almost all cases.

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I understand the desire to be with your S a to be a SAHM. But staying in a relationship like this is teaching your son that it is okay to treat a woman the way your husband treats you. Yes he is likely to get 50/50 custody, and you would have no input in what your H teaches him (just like now), but he would be seeing a woman, his mother, that refused to be treated that way, and taught that it is wrong to treat a W that way regardless of the finacial benefits a H provides.

I know ideally you'd want to be a SAHM everyday to your son. But that requires a husband that not only supports that finacially, but supports you in all the other ways a B should.

In about as pro-marriage as they come, but what your H has put you through is emotionally abusive.


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Hi hedlite...

I am usually over on the MLC forum, but pop over here to catch up on Newcomers (I was one not too long ago) and I have to say that your story is absolutely heartbreaking. There are lots of stories on this board, lots of different relationships and dynamics and people, but yours is really hard to read, my dear.

You don't deserve to be treated this way. You have at no point in your relationship deserved to be treated this way. And from an outsider's perspective, no amount of good your H does can atone for what he has put you through.

It makes me sad that you believe that moving to another place will allow for a fresh start and a new R. Your H hasn't shown any difference in his behavior towards you since you were just dating. I don't believe a new space will change his behavior. I also don't believe that the presence or absence of certain people will change his behavior. Your story shows a consistent theme thus far and that theme is that your H feels entitled to treat you however poorly he wants to, whenever he wants to. That is no model for a child to witness.

I know this is so easy for me to say, a stranger across the internet who is not living in your shoes and doesn't know every detail. I know that these processes take time. That we all integrate as much information/change as we are able to handle at the time. But just let me echo other voices (including your own internal voice) that tell you 'this is not ok'.

There was someone who posted on this forum years ago, her name was Vanilla. She was in a similar position as you (but no children) and through her threads you witness her realization that what she was experiencing was not just a bad marriage, but was actual abuse. Here's her first thread if you are interested in reading her story (she no longer posts here):

https://www.divorcebusting.com/foru...ain=56512&Number=2500642#Post2500642

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