Talk About Marriage - View Single Post

llake31 · 03-29-2008, 02:08 PM

Hi, I am new here. I really need to talk and could use some advice. and I am sorry, this is probably going to be pretty long. My husband and I have been together 14 yrs (married 7) and have always been up and down. I am not happy. I cannot decide if I should leave or try to "fix things."
There are a lot of issues and a lot of great things about our relationship. The main thing is we have no communication. Whenever I try to talk to him about serious issues like finances, our relationship or our lifestyle. He closes off, I get ignored and treated like I annoy him, not like I am his wife. We can never make decisions together, when HE makes a decision I go with it and think " This is great, this is what we are going to do!" (ex: like moving to another town, or a bigger house, or even going on a trip.) Always, hours or days later he has changed his mind and he does not want to do it anymore. I can NEVER plan anything as a family because he does not want to do anything. But if I do things alone with my kids then he gets mad that he was not included and it's not really fun as a family without him being a part of it anyway. I feel our family is held back because of him. We do not have the same interests in doing anything like going out, we do not have the same tastes in material things.

On the flip side, he is a great father, he is very intimate with me (sexually and non), sex is always great, we still call each other our pet names for each other and he even goes out of his way just out of the blue on occasion to surprise me with flowers just to let me know that he is thinking about me. I know he loves me with all of his heart, and I love him with all of my heart. but ...and I know this is very wrong, but I find myself looking elsewhere for what I am missing. I have hurt him in the past and am now finding myself on the path of doing it again. but I cannot continue to do so. It hurts me so much to hurt him. I have tried to leave him before and our emotions get so bad I cannot stand to see his pain and go through the pain myself. He knows he has an emotional hold on me and he knows how to use it. I had a talk with a girl friend last night and realized that what I am looking elsewhere for is the real connection with someone, real intelligent conversation and someone who has the same interests in life as I do. My friend says I need to think about myself but to me I think "Doesn't that sound selfish?" She says that no one can tell me what to do in this situation, only I can decide what to do. I know that, but I am really torn about this. When I mention anything to my husband about us getting help for our relationship like counseling, He just says that it is me that has the problem and marriage counseling is not going to fix my problem. So he won't even consider it. He is not ever going to change, I read online somewhere that people change on their own when they are ready for change, but if him not changing now is what is causing my unhappiness then how long do I keep waiting for when he is ready. I am always crying, I really don't know what to do.

03-29-2008, 02:08 PM	#1 (permalink)
llake31 Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Tucson, AZ Posts: 8	Confused and don't know what to do. Hi, I am new here. I really need to talk and could use some advice. and I am sorry, this is probably going to be pretty long. My husband and I have been together 14 yrs (married 7) and have always been up and down. I am not happy. I cannot decide if I should leave or try to "fix things." There are a lot of issues and a lot of great things about our relationship. The main thing is we have no communication. Whenever I try to talk to him about serious issues like finances, our relationship or our lifestyle. He closes off, I get ignored and treated like I annoy him, not like I am his wife. We can never make decisions together, when HE makes a decision I go with it and think " This is great, this is what we are going to do!" (ex: like moving to another town, or a bigger house, or even going on a trip.) Always, hours or days later he has changed his mind and he does not want to do it anymore. I can NEVER plan anything as a family because he does not want to do anything. But if I do things alone with my kids then he gets mad that he was not included and it's not really fun as a family without him being a part of it anyway. I feel our family is held back because of him. We do not have the same interests in doing anything like going out, we do not have the same tastes in material things. On the flip side, he is a great father, he is very intimate with me (sexually and non), sex is always great, we still call each other our pet names for each other and he even goes out of his way just out of the blue on occasion to surprise me with flowers just to let me know that he is thinking about me. I know he loves me with all of his heart, and I love him with all of my heart. but ...and I know this is very wrong, but I find myself looking elsewhere for what I am missing. I have hurt him in the past and am now finding myself on the path of doing it again. but I cannot continue to do so. It hurts me so much to hurt him. I have tried to leave him before and our emotions get so bad I cannot stand to see his pain and go through the pain myself. He knows he has an emotional hold on me and he knows how to use it. I had a talk with a girl friend last night and realized that what I am looking elsewhere for is the real connection with someone, real intelligent conversation and someone who has the same interests in life as I do. My friend says I need to think about myself but to me I think "Doesn't that sound selfish?" She says that no one can tell me what to do in this situation, only I can decide what to do. I know that, but I am really torn about this. When I mention anything to my husband about us getting help for our relationship like counseling, He just says that it is me that has the problem and marriage counseling is not going to fix my problem. So he won't even consider it. He is not ever going to change, I read online somewhere that people change on their own when they are ready for change, but if him not changing now is what is causing my unhappiness then how long do I keep waiting for when he is ready. I am always crying, I really don't know what to do.