General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
As explained in my previous post, I have felt like my husband of 10 years 'checked out' of our marriage about 8 years ago when he started playing video games excessively. So, I set my boundary a few days ago, and I said, that if he did not step up and be a husband and father to his children, then I would have to look at my options.
Since then, it has been a series of ups and downs. Today he tells me that he doesn't know what to do, because apparently, by me setting this boundary, he thinks that he has to be attached to my hip.
I don't understand why I should have to tell him what to do. No one told me how to be a mother, I just stepped up and did what ever was needed. I feel like he wants or needs me to mother him to tell him what needs to be done.
It also seems like it is either all or none, meaning, he is going to continue playing video games OR he is going to follow me around and expect me to pay attention to him like a child. What do I do?
Put time frame on the video games? Tell him you want to do things as a family. That can be watching a movie after dinner or going for walks in the park... playing board games (this is one my DH balks at a lot, but I'm still working on him). But the big thing is that to be a husband and father, he needs to unplug from the computer (or xbox or playstation, whatever) and plug in to the family. If somethign needs to be done, do it. Don't rely on wife/kids to do everything.
What you do is you gently guide him in and to the things you think a husband and father should be doing. He checked out 8 years ago and never learned how, did he? You finally decided you want a husband and want your children to have a father, so you have to finally show/tell/teach him what to do. You learned, experienced, and experimented with your responsibilities all along the way on a daily basis. He has only just now been awakened to his. He has to learn, ease in to it, and then feel comfortable enough that it becomes second nature like with you. And please stop calling him a child. It may be annoying at first, but he needs your respect and consideration for the first while. You might be sick of him acting like he had no responsibilities and now acting like a lost child, and I don't blame you. But you did, after all, allow it for 8 years for some strange reason. You finally put your foot down and at least he heard you, rather than ignored you. Be grateful for that and help him.
This is an easy one... All he has to do is read the Married Man Sex Life Primer book by Athol Kay and his eyes will open up. He sounds like a textbook case. Posted via Mobile Device
He has an addiction to these video games, this has been his life now for years. Finally you are giving him a wake up call to his role , to his need to break this addiction. Some people have addicting personalities, and they need alot of discipline to break free from these things. With your help, some boundaries and creativity...this can be done.
He will thank you...as he gets older in his life, he will look back at this time and feel he wasted these years...any good person who loves their children would feel this way.
Have you ever heard that song "Cats in the Cradle"? Me & my husband gets busy doing things & ignoring our kids sometimes, I am just as guilty, in fact likely worse than him...... but when that song comes on the radio, it puts it all in perspective somehow, makes us want to run home, hug them, kiss them and yeah.... get a board game out. It takes alot to get me to want to do that!
I've heard it said...if you can do something consistently for 17 days straight.... it becomes a HABIT....need to work towards this goal ..be consistent.
Get a timer & every day use it to only allow so much time on those video games....slowly ease him out of this time sucking habit...create some new family plans, adventures....go bike riding togehter, take a walk in a nearby Park, go bowling, roller skating, take the kids to the Library together & pick out books to read. Rent movies , go to the Movies, go camping, etc ...
Create new & fun memories, this can jump start his interest in being there for his kids. And take some photos of these events too -so he can see the joy on the kids faces that dad is interacting & involved.
Sorry to hear your problem, but I want to give you what could be perspective from the other side...
I am a gamer, I won't change that, but what I did change was my priorities, in the beginning I would spend over a half of an day playing video games, what I got out of it was an escape... An escape from the world, being a teen dad, I had no clue what I was suppose to do, jobs were hard to come by, and me and my girlfriend (wife now) were having a $h1tload of problems... All we did was argue and fight... I felt I had nothing in the real world that excited me, bounding with my newborn daughter was difficult to say the least... But I was determined to come out of this state... But, I could not do it alone....
Here's what I'm getting at, Yes, you do have to be joined at the hip... But you get to determine if you'll play the role of mother or wife... Trust me, if you choose mother, he will retract back to games...
You figured out how to be a mom already... The first thing you can help him be is a husband, by learning to be his wife... True, he may not have the first clue, he's following you around because he has been locked into his world... Everything will seem confusing to him... So while he's following you around, take time to TALK, don't play into his "what do I do now?" thing... Get him to express how he should handle taking on new responsibilities... Meanwhile, discuss your past issues, over this long of a time you both have resentment issues... Yes, he will have some as well...
In short, don't look at him following you as a negative, him putting down the controller is a sign he wants to come back to the world in which both of you share, but he's an alien to it now, be his liaison and incorporate him back in the life you share...
What you do is you gently guide him in and to the things you think a husband and father should be doing. He checked out 8 years ago and never learned how, did he? You finally decided you want a husband and want your children to have a father, so you have to finally show/tell/teach him what to do. You learned, experienced, and experimented with your responsibilities all along the way on a daily basis. He has only just now been awakened to his. He has to learn, ease in to it, and then feel comfortable enough that it becomes second nature like with you. And please stop calling him a child. It may be annoying at first, but he needs your respect and consideration for the first while. You might be sick of him acting like he had no responsibilities and now acting like a lost child, and I don't blame you. But you did, after all, allow it for 8 years for some strange reason. You finally put your foot down and at least he heard you, rather than ignored you. Be grateful for that and help him.
I have brought this up to him repeatedly for 8 years. He has made promise after promise in the past to fix it. I did not know how to set a boundary correctly and how to make him understand that I am willing to follow through with it. When I approached him about it in the past, I told him that if he continued, I would learn to live with it and I did. I also explained that he would not be happy if I learned to live with it because I had learned to live with it in my past marriage.
It wasn't a problem until he saw me check out of our marriage also. It was when I decided to only put into the marriage, what I was getting from it, that he started feeling that there was something wrong. When he saw that I was happy, despite him not filling my needs, I think it worried him that I was getting my needs met elsewhere. I wasn't, but I think it woke him up enough to see that if he wanted something in this marriage, that he needed to be in it.
My problem is, is that I do not know how to teach him to be 'the husband' because I am a woman and because I have not had a positive male role model in my life. When I was growing up, my dad was drinking a lot and my mom was co-dependent. They fought day and night and they were abusive to each other. I know that his family was close to the same as mine, so he doesn't know either.
I love him with all of my heart and I am committed to staying in this marriage. He is an excellent person, he is a great father to the children when he does step up and he is a great lover. We have overcome many HUGE obstacles together, he has been there for me, even though he was distant for the majority of the time. I know for certain we can overcome this also. I just need to know how to teach him to do this, but I literally do not know how.
I think he needs a role model, but I do not know of anyone that could fill this role or maybe some type of guidebook for him.
Well, he's been doing it for 8 years, and you've been pointing it out for 8 years...he doesn't really have a problem, does he? It's working for him, in that you are still around.
I don't think you are going to change him. All you can do is decide what you are going to do.
My husband checked out of our marriage and no amount of talking or boundary setting worked. What worked was me getting right with ME. I focused on myself and had the attitude of I deserve better than this without nagging or communicating much at all.
I won't bore you with my incredibly long story but the punch line is this he knew darn good and well how to be a good husband he just didn't want to do it. I ended up not teaching him anything. When someone wants to do something THEY will figure out how to do it. It's an excuse when people say otherwise.
Oh and read up on codependency because you've got many of the symptoms. Same here so I'm familiar.
My husband checked out of our marriage and no amount of talking or boundary setting worked. What worked was me getting right with ME. I focused on myself and had the attitude of I deserve better than this without nagging or communicating much at all.
I won't bore you with my incredibly long story but the punch line is this he knew darn good and well how to be a good husband he just didn't want to do it. I ended up not teaching him anything. When someone wants to do something THEY will figure out how to do it. It's an excuse when people say otherwise.
Oh and read up on codependency because you've got many of the symptoms. Same here so I'm familiar.
Yep, that is exactly what I did, I got right with me (and I am a work still in progress) and you are correct, I am codependent.
I have been going to IC for many months and my counselor helped me to set the boundaries and explained why I needed to set them. I plan to continue going and have asked my husband if he could start also but due to financial constraints, I have had to stop for a few months.
In the past, I had learned to stuff my feelings down. I had two modes, stuffing feelings or blowing up. There was no in between. I totally lost 'me' and 'I' did not exist. Part of this was due to extreme anxiety and because of something that happened in my childhood, I have learned to dissociate. So it would be no great feat for me to get someone that I know would be emotionally unavailable because in reality, I too was emotionally unavailable.
So now I am in my mid forties and I feel like for once in my life, I am getting to experience reality for what it actually is instead of hiding behind my own insecurities. I have this wonderful man in front of me, that I more than likely have harmed with my own mental illness, who is most likely suffering from his own, that I need to help (as some have said on here) but I don't feel like I can in the way that he needs.
I will recommend to him the books that everyone has recommended. Neither of us have much of a support group at all, so every bit of help is greatly appreciated. Thank you all so much.
8Likes
How do you explain to a man... 
Make sure it hits him square in the head too!!!
