# Husband and I are so different!



## Tootles33 (Mar 22, 2011)

I've just joined this forum as I have no-one I can talk to and I feel very alone right now. I don't like complaining about my relationship to friends or family. 

So, let's start... I would so love some advice, I don't know what to do.

First off, I love my husband. BUT at the moment I am starting to feel so irritated by what seems like selfish behaviour to me that I'm harbouring mean thoughts about him and having nightmares about me leaving him. :-(

We've been married for three years. He TELLS me he loves me all the time, calls me names like 'sweetheart' and 'pumpkin' and is generally very loving. However, he's loving to everyone, so this is not unique to me. That is his personality. No complaints there. Although i would rather he showed me he loved me than said it. 

My complaint is that we are so different and it's starting to really upset me. I'm 33 and my biological clock is ticking (still don't know if I want kids) but I do want to travel before I have them. I haven't seen the world, I've gone straight from school to uni and running my own business. My life has been work, work, work. He also owns his own business, this makes the possibilities of travel pretty much nil. I can work anywhere in my line of work as a writer, but he can't leave his business. 

His 'dream weekend' is surfing. So, he gets his dream weekend pretty much every weekend. He will leave for the beach first thing in the morning and come back late at night then zombie on the couch. His dream weekend is BBQs, beaches and beers. My dream weekend is going to see bands, visit art galleries, historical monuments - none of which can happen in the small country we are in. My dream weekend is not sitting in the house by myself waiting for him to come home, which is what I seem to do most days. He seems to have no sympathy for the fact that I work from home and don't socialise with people so my weekend with him is precious. 

He doesn't appreciate that I like 'quality' time with him. For example, when he came back from two weeks overseas he went out for breakfast with me, then proceeded to go buy some shoes while I traipsed around behind him and he chatted on the phone to his mates making plans to spend the next day fishing with them. When I dared mention that I wanted him to make quality time with me since I hadn't seen him for two weeks he bit my head off about 'I'm with you now, what's your problem? I haven't seen anyone else either!' My problem? He will happily arrange to spend a day with his mates but never puts any thought into time with me. I don't want to sound needy, because I have a lot of my own interests (although little money to fund them at the mo). Frankly, I would like to think that spending the weekend with me when he's been away was more important than suddenly needing to spend a day with the boys. Is that so wrong? He makes out that I am selfish with his time, but I'm a pushover. He does what he wants, when he wants. I even realised that when we go out I never, ever dare say, "I'm tired, let's go." I just sit there like a trophy wife and wait for him to say that he is ready to go. 

Recently he shouted me a wonderful treat of a massage - we went for a couples massage and spent the day together. I felt so tired and a little dow afterwards. He wanted sex. When I didn't feel like having it he yelled at me and stormed out of the bedroom slamming the door! Crikey, I can't just turn on the 'porn star' - I'm not a switch!! Cuddles would have been nice.

Every weekend he announces that he is off to the beach (always at the last minute) so I feel I never have time to actually make plans with friends and will say something like, "I'm going surfing, you can come if you want?" GEE thanks buddy! 

So I'm stuck here, in a country I don't want to live in, while he amuses himself doing everything he loves and I seem to spend my days fantasising about running away to see the world. I've told him so many times I want to travel, I've suggested that he would have more business success elsewhere and he's just not interested.

My mother warned me once. She adores him, but said that he likes the country and his mates too much to ever leave and that I will just have to deal with it. I am already starting to resent him and I don't know what to do. I feel like I can hardly even look at him at the moment. If I say anything he gets angry and defensive, so I just say nothing. 

I don't know what to do. I'm losing myself for a man and I feel so unhappy. Should he respect what I want to do in the same way he takes off and pleases himself? Or do you think I am just over-reacting? He is a good man and I want to spend my life with him, but I can't spend my life like this.


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## Tootles33 (Mar 22, 2011)

Oh and when I say he treated me to a massage - this was a rare thing. It's the first time he's done it. When he first met me he made me feel special all the time - gave me neck rubs every night in front of the TV, we'd go to the beach just the two of us and sneak off into the forest for sex, he'd organise surprise dinners and even weekends away... Now, nothing. He only organises things to do with his friends. In the past I was so wrapped up in his loving behavious, but now that I don't feel special anymore my mind keeps turning to leaving him and going to do the things that I want to do. I feel so horrible writing that. I can't bear the thought of him with another woman and I really do love him, but I miss the way we were and we are SO different. He used to make an effort, but now the fact that we are so different has become glaringly obvious.


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## greenpearl (Sep 3, 2010)

To be honest with you, if your husband doesn't take your feeling into consideration, you guys are heading to a miserable end! 

A lot of men don't understand why their wives are not happy, the sign is so obvious here, he doesn't care about the wife's feeling. 

He wants to spend time with his friends, fine, but he also needs to spend time with you! He has to be balanced. 

He wants to spend time doing what he likes, fine, but he also has to do what you like too, he is not single anymore. He has to take your interest into consideration. 

People say communication is important, communication is very important. But when you tell the other one your feeling, he just gets defensive and shuts up, he is refusing the communication. When we communicate, we have to listen to each other attentively and do our best to consider what the other one is saying and think if we can do something to compromise.


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## attmay13 (Mar 17, 2011)

you need to look up Walk-away wife syndrome. Print it off and hand it to him. I wish someone would have done that for me! Just google it.


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## Bella31477 (Jun 1, 2011)

Wow - I read this post and thought that it sounded like me and my life. I make the terrible mistake sometimes of talking to my friends and family about my marriage and always regret it, but feel that if I dont vent I might explode with fustration. Thats why it was comforting to read your post because i know exactly what your going through and can sympathize. 
Lately I have given up and am at the point where I dont say much when my husband leaves or makes plans without any concern to me. He does what ever he wants, when he wants. He has many hobbies - all that are not my cup of tea, like fishing, shooting, baseball, gambling and list goes on... all of which he does while drinking alot. It isnt the lack of interest in trying to work at saving my marriage - it is just I have regretable become bitter. I hate that i have, but I cant help it. Althought I know you said that you didnt have any children with your husband - I have 2, and am always left alone taking care of them and our home an a regular bases. I dont mind that - I love my children and enjoy every minute with them - but a little grown up time for myself would be nice! My husband helps out sometimes but the house becomes tense very quickly when he is home because of his short temper. Alot of the time I think that he is angry because of the life that he was asked to give up when he became a husband and a father. I would love it too if for once he planned a nice day for us rather than me hearing about his trips and plans hes making with his buddies. I have talked to him about how I feel and his response is that once a week i should go out. He misses the point! Plus finding 1 day a week (or 1 a month for that matter) that isnt filled with something for him or my kids is impossible. I hate feeling like a nag - but i dont feel like we are in a matually pleasing marriage anymore. I sacrifice so much for the well being of my family - so much that I am loosing my own identity...


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## AvaTara539 (Apr 10, 2011)

Honestly- when your H made an effort by getting you the massage you should have given him a little nookie. Not doing so showed him you don't appreciate the effort. I have sex with my H when I don't feel like it sometimes too, in fact we have been really rocky lately and I still gave him a BJ when he asked for one. Just saying would it really have been that big of a deal to have sex then? IDK. 

Maybe he feels sexually repressed and you feel emotionally repressed and it's just an icky catch 22. Were things ever different before he started spending all his free times with his friends and weekends working? If so maybe you can pinpoint when and how the problem started.


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