I am married to a man that has been driving me crazy for the past eight years. I have stayed simply because it has taken me this long to figure out what was happening.
For the past seven years, I have been focused on building my business and raising my kids, homeschooling them, et cetera -- my oldest has ADHD and a learning disability -- and even though I knew something was wrong with my marriage, I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Honestly, I didn't have time to figure it out, either.
Everyone thought my husband was great...and he is, when he's around other people. At home, however, is a completely different story. It's like having a rebellious teenager in the house. After doing some reading, I stumbled across some articles on passive-aggressive people, and the light bulb went off -- THAT is what's been going on here. I issued an ultimatum that he either seek counseling to try to work on some of his behaviors or I was filing for divorce.
In true passive-aggressive style, he went to the intake appointment to appease me, spent two hours with the counselor, who after talking with him said, "Um, yeah, you are definitely passive-aggressive, and it's no wonder your wife is at her wit's end with you. Do you not realize how destructive you are being with your behavior?" Even hearing it from a professional doesn't seem to have sunk in. Of course, all I hear now is, "I'm going to counseling to work on my issues," but yet that's all he is doing. He's going there, sure, I suspect only to pacify me, but he isn't even trying to correct his behavior; if anything, it's gotten worse and more blatant since he initially started seeing the counselor and then using the excuse "counseling can take years, and I'm just getting started. It will be like this for a while, yet."
Just some examples:
I will ask him to make a repair around the house -- aka water leaking through dining room ceiling from upstairs bath -- and he will promise to take care of it. Well, that's been going on for seven months. Every time I call in a repairman, he throws a fit and calls to cancel the appointment, swearing he will fix it this time. The water is still coming through the ceiling.
If I get really busy with client work, I will ask him to drop bills off at the post office -- we have a problem with kids stealing stuff out of mailboxes in the neighborhood. He will agree, leave the house, come back and swear he did it....except I get shut-off notices because the bills never make it to their destination. I cancelled our online bill pay two years ago after being victims of identity theft and went back to the old fashioned way of paying bills.
He blames me for everything -- literally. He refuses to take any responsibility for himself, and even when seeming to, somehow manages to still make it my fault. When I can get him to admit he's done something wrong, he will say, "Yeah, but it's your fault because you (insert one of a million excuses here)."
We have separate checking accounts because he is reckless with money, and our joint account was always off by at least $1,000 a month. I can't live like that, so I separated our money. Since doing that, however, he has not paid a single bill -- not for household expenses, not for the kids, et cetera. When I ask him why he thinks it is okay not to contribute, he says, "Well, I buy groceries sometimes." He is 40 years old, with a full-time job that pays well, and honestly doesn't see the problem with a grown man not supporting his family.
He has zero sense of direction, no ambition and no sense of self. We have a friend from a foreign country, and any time he is around him, he will come home and talk with an accent for the next week. He was recently talking to someone who is a die-hard biker guy, and now he runs around calling everybody "brother" in a really gruff voice. I honestly don't know who is going to walk in the door every day, personality-wise. An approach that worked yesterday won't work today. It's like I'm dealing with 100 different personalities, and racing around trying to make them all happy, and I'm exhausted.
The kids have started joking that we need to get him an iPhoneS so that Siri can tell him how wonderful he is every day, because we are tired of being expected to be his personal cheerleaders. He needs admiration like you wouldn't believe. He reminds me of a cat bringing the owner a mouse and being proud of itself and waiting for approval.
I have tried everything I can over the last several years to make this marriage work: I have gone to therapy myself -- 2 years and running -- to deal with some anger/resentment issues and to learn different ways to approach him and our marriage. I have given him complete freedom; I have been the ball and chain. I have spoken nicely to him, and I have lost my temper. I have prayed, cried, and prayed some more. I am Catholic and have always said I would not walk away from my marriage until I had tried everything possible to make it work. I just don't know how much longer I can live like this. His sense of entitlement and unwillingness to accept responsibility have been witnessed by my children for years, and my oldest is now in trouble with the law, telling me, "Well, he does stuff like that all the time and gets away with it. Fix it for me the way you do for him."
I have driven myself to the point of a breakdown, literally, to pay all of the bills, take care of our kids, homeschool both of them, et cetera. I get absolutely zero help around the house -- he says he works all day and he is not going to work all night, too -- and my older son and I are doing all of the housework, lawn work, et cetera. I do not want to live the rest of my life on antidepressants, but they are honestly the only thing holding me together right now.
It sounds terrible, but at least if I divorced him, I would get child support, which is more help financially than I get now with him living in the house...except I would shed a whole lot of stress that comes with him being here.
Some of you have made amazing turnarounds in your marriage. Is there anything left for me to try before I throw in the towel?
For the past seven years, I have been focused on building my business and raising my kids, homeschooling them, et cetera -- my oldest has ADHD and a learning disability -- and even though I knew something was wrong with my marriage, I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Honestly, I didn't have time to figure it out, either.
Everyone thought my husband was great...and he is, when he's around other people. At home, however, is a completely different story. It's like having a rebellious teenager in the house. After doing some reading, I stumbled across some articles on passive-aggressive people, and the light bulb went off -- THAT is what's been going on here. I issued an ultimatum that he either seek counseling to try to work on some of his behaviors or I was filing for divorce.
In true passive-aggressive style, he went to the intake appointment to appease me, spent two hours with the counselor, who after talking with him said, "Um, yeah, you are definitely passive-aggressive, and it's no wonder your wife is at her wit's end with you. Do you not realize how destructive you are being with your behavior?" Even hearing it from a professional doesn't seem to have sunk in. Of course, all I hear now is, "I'm going to counseling to work on my issues," but yet that's all he is doing. He's going there, sure, I suspect only to pacify me, but he isn't even trying to correct his behavior; if anything, it's gotten worse and more blatant since he initially started seeing the counselor and then using the excuse "counseling can take years, and I'm just getting started. It will be like this for a while, yet."
Just some examples:
I will ask him to make a repair around the house -- aka water leaking through dining room ceiling from upstairs bath -- and he will promise to take care of it. Well, that's been going on for seven months. Every time I call in a repairman, he throws a fit and calls to cancel the appointment, swearing he will fix it this time. The water is still coming through the ceiling.
If I get really busy with client work, I will ask him to drop bills off at the post office -- we have a problem with kids stealing stuff out of mailboxes in the neighborhood. He will agree, leave the house, come back and swear he did it....except I get shut-off notices because the bills never make it to their destination. I cancelled our online bill pay two years ago after being victims of identity theft and went back to the old fashioned way of paying bills.
He blames me for everything -- literally. He refuses to take any responsibility for himself, and even when seeming to, somehow manages to still make it my fault. When I can get him to admit he's done something wrong, he will say, "Yeah, but it's your fault because you (insert one of a million excuses here)."
We have separate checking accounts because he is reckless with money, and our joint account was always off by at least $1,000 a month. I can't live like that, so I separated our money. Since doing that, however, he has not paid a single bill -- not for household expenses, not for the kids, et cetera. When I ask him why he thinks it is okay not to contribute, he says, "Well, I buy groceries sometimes." He is 40 years old, with a full-time job that pays well, and honestly doesn't see the problem with a grown man not supporting his family.
He has zero sense of direction, no ambition and no sense of self. We have a friend from a foreign country, and any time he is around him, he will come home and talk with an accent for the next week. He was recently talking to someone who is a die-hard biker guy, and now he runs around calling everybody "brother" in a really gruff voice. I honestly don't know who is going to walk in the door every day, personality-wise. An approach that worked yesterday won't work today. It's like I'm dealing with 100 different personalities, and racing around trying to make them all happy, and I'm exhausted.
The kids have started joking that we need to get him an iPhoneS so that Siri can tell him how wonderful he is every day, because we are tired of being expected to be his personal cheerleaders. He needs admiration like you wouldn't believe. He reminds me of a cat bringing the owner a mouse and being proud of itself and waiting for approval.
I have tried everything I can over the last several years to make this marriage work: I have gone to therapy myself -- 2 years and running -- to deal with some anger/resentment issues and to learn different ways to approach him and our marriage. I have given him complete freedom; I have been the ball and chain. I have spoken nicely to him, and I have lost my temper. I have prayed, cried, and prayed some more. I am Catholic and have always said I would not walk away from my marriage until I had tried everything possible to make it work. I just don't know how much longer I can live like this. His sense of entitlement and unwillingness to accept responsibility have been witnessed by my children for years, and my oldest is now in trouble with the law, telling me, "Well, he does stuff like that all the time and gets away with it. Fix it for me the way you do for him."
I have driven myself to the point of a breakdown, literally, to pay all of the bills, take care of our kids, homeschool both of them, et cetera. I get absolutely zero help around the house -- he says he works all day and he is not going to work all night, too -- and my older son and I are doing all of the housework, lawn work, et cetera. I do not want to live the rest of my life on antidepressants, but they are honestly the only thing holding me together right now.
It sounds terrible, but at least if I divorced him, I would get child support, which is more help financially than I get now with him living in the house...except I would shed a whole lot of stress that comes with him being here.
Some of you have made amazing turnarounds in your marriage. Is there anything left for me to try before I throw in the towel?