General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
I would like to start out by thanking the people that responded to my last post regarding my husband’s bathing habits. He is having difficulties getting into the shower. He has been known to go as long as a month between showers. I finally had a discussion with him about this and he started being more conscientious of his showers for about a week. He is right back to taking one every 4-7 days.
I am so grossed out over this and have been for some time I haven’t wanted to touch him, even when he is clean at this point.
I am looking for some advice as to how to proceed from here. My husband and I have 2 common children together aged 9 and 11. We’ve been married almost 12 years. I took time off from school years ago to have my girls and have just started back to school last year full time (and will finish Spring 2011). This means that I am currently not working. I have a son (aged 20 from a previous relationship) that is currently buying a condo and will soon be moving out. This will free up a bedroom in the house that I can possibly move into. What I’m afraid of is when I finally let him know that I’m not willing to have sex with him anymore, he is going to try and throw me out of my home.
A bit of history on this point…
It used to be that when I didn’t want to have sex, he would kick me out of my bedroom and make me sleep somewhere else. He thought that he was justified in doing this. He has never questioned why I’m not wanting to have sex or tried in the least little bit to change anything about what he does. I’m sure that I have been no walk in the park in a lot of areas as well but at least I keep my body clean and try at least a little to keep up on myself.
I have been waiting until my son gets moved out of the house to really confront him on this. I had planned to move out of the bedroom and into my own for awhile. I was hoping that maybe we could somehow try to fix this (not sure if it is fixable). I feel this huge amount of anxiety every time he wants to have sex and I really have no interest in him anymore. I feel a bit more like I’m being raped every time we have sex, not that he is doing anything violent to me but because I feel like I’m being forced to do something that I no longer want to do because he is my husband.
I really don’t know how to proceed from here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
I'm sorry if I repeat things/questions from your previous posts, as I haven't read them yet.
Has he seen a counselor about this habit of not bathing? Could he be trying to push you away or dealing with some emotional issues that cause him to want to hurt (or at least not be good to) himself?
I understand your feelings about sex and the difficulty in forcing yourself to. Could you suggest a bath or shower together as foreplay?
As for moving into another room, that will be a definite sign to him. Does he have the power to kick you out?
My name is on the deed to the home that we own together. I don't know if he can kick me out but I'm pretty sure that he will try.
As for using baths together, I tried that years ago and he said that he wasn't interested in bathing with me since he liked his water so much colder than I. I like a hot shower or bath and he likes his fairly cool.
As far as him trying to push me away, he has made comments as to how important a sexual relationship is to him. He is a "very sexual person." I would think that someone who wanted to be so sexually active would be more inclined to try and keep his spouse interested. I think he thinks that all he should have to do is go to work and come home. He is 5'7" and weighs over 250#. He comes home and lays in the bed and doesn't move for the rest of the night...this almost every night. He also thinks that it is ok for him to sit over there and pass gas all night. He says he has a lot of gas and he'll explode if he doesn't get it out. He will sit there and put some effort into pushing out farts all night making the room only habitable for him. I should just put up with it because "he can't help it."
I'm so frustrated I don't know where to go from here. Any other suggestions?
And has he seen a counselor at all about these issues? Have you been to one together? It almost seems like he's just not willing to try and go even one bit of a mile, never mind the extra mile to please his wife.
Before all of this got severe how was your sex life? Could this just be a way of him communicating that he doesn't feel good about his body or the way your sex life was going? Not that you can proceed to have it more with him in this condition.... sigh. It's like going in circles.
All I can say is that it seems like someone else (aka a professional) should assess him to see if this is a psychological issue. It seems like it COULD be. Then if he could get help, you may see some changes in his hygiene habits. Sorry that I can't be more of a help
He has not seen a professional about this. I'm sure if you ask him he would tell you that he has no problem. He is usually a very nice guy but this hygiene thing has really killed it for me. This started right about the time we got married. I became pregnant with our first daughter prior to our marriage. It seems that he gave up right about that time. He put on a massive amount of weight instantly in that year and has never attempted to lose it. I asked him 11 years ago to handle this hygiene thing and it never really got done. I became sick (from a bladder infection that I'm pretty sure was caused by his lack of hygiene) in 2002 and had to go on an antibiotic that almost killed me and took 7 exceptionally painful years to get over. I was hoping that that incident would help him to keep a little cleaner but apparently has had no apparent effect on him.
I guess I feel like maybe I'm wrong for feeling the way that I do. Maybe I should expect less? I don't know. I'm so confused as to how to go forward from here. I'm sure that he will not see a therapist. He doesn't believe in them.
No way, you are SO not in the wrong here. This is absolutely disgusting and appalling.
Part of being married is being considerate to each other. He is being inconsiderate with the fact that he refuses to address his hygiene issues which clearly bother you, and he is being inconsiderate to you by living a very unhealthy and unsatisfying lifestyle.
You should enjoy your marriage, and you have the right to be happy. He honestly can't expect you to have a fulfilling marriage if all he does is work, come home and lie down, and expect you to just crawl on top and have sex with him at his whim. Completely unacceptable.
It is unreasonable for you to live like this and NO ONE but him expects you to. Hell, I'd tell him to fix himself or I'm leaving, if I were in your shoes. I wouldn't just be moving to another room, I'd be moving to another house. Get myself a hot male model who showers at least once a day.
Oh, also he cannot kick you out because it IS your legal residence. He would need to go to court to evict you and need evidence of why, doubtful it would happen.
However, he CAN make it completely unbearable for you to live there until you just decide to move out. Trust me, living in a hostile environment would not be healthy. It really is easier to just leave.
So give him an ultimatum. Tell him to either fix himself or you are moving into another room/moving out completely.
How long is it before he gets even worse? Quits his job and just stays at home getting fatter and eating cheetos? Before you know it he is in bed constantly while you cook and serve him meals, just getting him fatter and fatter until they have to lift him out with a forklift.
This is basically an issue of YOU having a boundary - either you shower or I don't go near you.
As for kicking you out, visit a lawyer to learn your rights so that the next time he threatens you, you can tell him he has no right.
There's a book called The Dance of Anger that teaches you how to set up healthy boundaries about things like that while still reassuring the person that you love them, so they don't feel attacked. It sounds like you would benefit from reading it.
Ok. We had a discussion this weekend and it went much better than expected. We will be separating rooms soon for awhile. I appreciate everyone's help here.
When I talked to him, I explained to him that I tried to go out of my way to make sure that I was keeping up with myself. I asked him if he thought I didn't deserve that....??? I don't think that he realized what it was doing to our relationship. I don't know how someone could not possibly figure that out but apparently he didn't. Doesn't exactly change the price of tea in China, but...
I wasnt gathering from your posts that it was something he was doing on purpose.
Im intrigued about the bladder infection that took 7 yrs to really get over. Did you make it seem worse than it really was hoping he would see this and magically say "OMG, Im so dirty I got my wife this sick?" No, Im sorry but he didnt get you that sick, nor would he see that just based on you taking a long time to heal. You express an awfully high amount of resentment and blame put onto him for something which happened to you. Even if it was from having sex with him... its your responsibility to clean the area and for a bladder infection to get that bad??? Means that it wasnt dealt with quick enough or with the right antibiotic. Sounds more like that the wrong antibiotic caused your body to have severe trauma... thats not your husbands fault. In order to really move on you need to not blame his "hygeine"... anymore as he didnt know it was causing problems in the marriage, and seems to want to do something about that now that he does know. You will need to let him know what you like more directly, because attempts to let him know before werent heard or understandable to him (since he didnt realize you were having this level of problem).
If you want to show him how you would like him to clean... I dont care if you like "hot showers", get in the freakin cooler bathtub with him and bathe him. You 2 might actually have fun
I do love my husband and have for a long time. I enjoy his company immensely. We are still talking this out and hope to make this better.
As far as the bladder infection goes, they had given me an antibiotic that wreaked havoc in my body and that was the cause of the "long term" illness portion of this. You are absolutely correct, that isn't his fault. It was just another antagonist to this situation. 4 years on morphine for the pain and more time to recover from all the meds they had me on.
I guess what I'm looking for now is just a little space to put my head back together and to try and get things going in the right direction. I believe that after our conversation the other night, he truly understands the nature of my problem now. I'm still not sure if I can get back what I had with him before this. He appears to be ready to deal with this problem on his end. He has made a very concerted effort now to be in the shower daily. I applaud his effort and now I need to work on my end to bring this relationship back together or to end it. I don't know which way it is going to go right now but a little space might help for a bit. I should have said more earlier but was afraid of the result. We hadn't talked about a lot of things for a long time. Maybe now we will be able to discuss things more openly...I hope.
Need help on how to proceed... 
