# Not Sure Really Where To Go From Here



## beatricecat (Jan 13, 2016)

So about 2 weeks ago my husband told me the, " I love you but I'm not in love with you anymore." line, and said that he would be moving in with his 2 buddies from work, that he needed his space, and that he really wasn't open to working things out. After I cried until I couldn't cry anymore, I sat down and had a very calm talk with him and he agreed that he would be willing to work on things and go to counseling with me.

We've been married for just over 3 years now, and I really am 100% madly in love with him still, I would do anything for the man, and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him. However this past year has been extremely hard not just on our relationship, but on our finances, at work, we've had car accidents, art shows, illnesses, and eventually I wound up losing my job in December. But as much as all of that may have added even more stress to our lives, the hardest thing is that I feel a lot of resentment towards my husband.

About 2 years ago in front of his friends, in a joking way he said, "You used to be attractive.". He has since apologized for what he said, and tried to make things right, but for me the damage was done and it destroyed me. I started drinking very heavily on a nightly basis, and when I was alone and when he was partying with his friends, a constant loop of that night would play in my head until I would have a breakdown and it would turn into a fight.

My husband thinks we need some time apart to work on ourselves, and make ourselves happy the way we used to be again, but he doesn't seem to really understand what sort of impact his words had on me, and each time I try to make him understand he just kinda tunes out. He thinks we should wait a month or 2 for marriage counseling, but I know that in order for me to be happy, I need to move on from this pain and anger that I have towards him and get a clean slate between us before I can try to work on myself.

However today when I tried to ask him when I can schedule an appointment he became really hostile towards me, kept saying it was too soon, and that he just wanted time to be happy. I don't want to chase my husband away by any means, but at the same time I don't want to sit around miserable for a month waiting for my time to be happy while he is out having fun. Honestly I haven't stopped crying for over a month and I just want to be happy like we used to be, because I don't know how much more heartbreak I can take at this point.


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## 225985 (Dec 29, 2015)

By delaying marriage counseling your husband is telling you he is not interested in fixing the marriage. Life is too short and you deserve to be happy. Concentrate on yourself right now. Find a new job. Stop the drinking. Consider individual counseling or schedule an appointment soon with the marriage counselor and tell husband you are going - with or without him.


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## Lloyd Dobler (Apr 24, 2014)

Generally speaking, the "I love you but I'm not in love with you" line is directly from the cheater's script. You might want to do some quiet investigation to see whether there is somebody else in the picture.


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## MommaGx3 (Jan 12, 2016)

I think there is a chart some where that ranks stressors. Like marriage is a stressor. Car accident a stressor. The greater the stressors the increase in statistics for marital troubles, addiction abuse, etc. First of all, you are hanging on to a statement that he made in jest over two years ago? Him making that statement caused you to become an alcoholic? You repeatedly bring that up in arguments? Honestly, my dear, I'm impressed he stayed true to you for two years. While words do hurt, people especially people who are trying to be funny, can sometimes lose the filter between their brain and their voice. If my husband made a comment like that in front of his friends, I'd smack him upside the head. I'd pout. He'd apologize and I'd probably end up with flowers, something sparkly and a great night out! But that would be the end of it. Hanging on to a statement of hurt only turns into poison.

First things first, you sound a tad co-dependent here and your behavior to turn to alcohol to deal with your problems creates more trouble that it is worth. My second husband was an alcoholic. Believe me when I say, non-alcoholics do not enjoy living long-term with alcoholics.

If I were to give you my advice of what to do. Give the man some space. Let him have a month where he can allow his emotions to settle down. Let him have a month to recenter himself. In that month he has, you should go see a therapist alone. Talk about your resentment, talk about your drinking. Get some advice on how to communicate with him. Then, you and your husband go together.


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## jorgegene (May 26, 2012)

Wow

"You used to be attractive"?

I know we all say dumb stuff, but that is over the top mean.
I can fully understand your resentment.

You cant force him to go to counseling. I dont think badgering him will work.
the above posters are right. I would go to counseling on my own.

What are the things you love about this man, and what are his negatives?

Personally, any man capable of saying somthing so cruel, I have my doubts about.


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## Bananapeel (May 4, 2015)

The only advice I can give you is start going to A.A. meetings and deal with your alcoholism as your priority. Any person that will blame an inappropriate remark for two years of heavy drinking is trying to avoid dealing with their own addiction. My friends that are alcoholics never take responsibility for their drinking and it causes a lot of resentment and damage to their relationships. Not that it's impossible but I've never seen an uncontrolled alcoholic in a long term happy marriage. If you go to marriage counseling make sure to bring up the alcoholism with the counselor too. Good luck.


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## beatricecat (Jan 13, 2016)

Lloyd Dobler said:


> Generally speaking, the "I love you but I'm not in love with you" line is directly from the cheater's script. You might want to do some quiet investigation to see whether there is somebody else in the picture.


I did ask him if there was anyone else physically or emotionally, and I can tell by the way he looked at me and told me everything that there isn't anyone else.



MommaGx3 said:


> I think there is a chart some where that ranks stressors. Like marriage is a stressor. Car accident a stressor. The greater the stressors the increase in statistics for marital troubles, addiction abuse, etc. First of all, you are hanging on to a statement that he made in jest over two years ago? Him making that statement caused you to become an alcoholic? You repeatedly bring that up in arguments? Honestly, my dear, I'm impressed he stayed true to you for two years. While words do hurt, people especially people who are trying to be funny, can sometimes lose the filter between their brain and their voice. If my husband made a comment like that in front of his friends, I'd smack him upside the head. I'd pout. He'd apologize and I'd probably end up with flowers, something sparkly and a great night out! But that would be the end of it. Hanging on to a statement of hurt only turns into poison.
> 
> First things first, you sound a tad co-dependent here and your behavior to turn to alcohol to deal with your problems creates more trouble that it is worth. My second husband was an alcoholic. Believe me when I say, non-alcoholics do not enjoy living long-term with alcoholics.
> 
> If I were to give you my advice of what to do. Give the man some space. Let him have a month where he can allow his emotions to settle down. Let him have a month to recenter himself. In that month he has, you should go see a therapist alone. Talk about your resentment, talk about your drinking. Get some advice on how to communicate with him. Then, you and your husband go together.


I've had to deal with emotionally abusive parents and partners practically my whole life before I met him, and I let him know about my past when we first initially started dating to make sure he knew about my needs. When he said those things to me, it just brought back all those memories in my head, and that hurtful statement just replays over and over in my head ever since.

And maybe I am co-dependent, and maybe I am an alcoholic, and I know these things, and I am trying to work on it. I haven't had a drink since he told me everything, I've been working so hard on finding a job (which is extremely frustrating because I had 3 job offers, and now because of the separation and because I'm having to move an hour away to move back in with my parents and starting all over on that) and I've tried to be as calm as possible, be friendly towards him, and stay positive but it's so hard. I feel like my whole life is falling apart, and I've tried to bring all these things up with him in the past but he never listened to me and he never took me seriously.



jorgegene said:


> Wow
> 
> "You used to be attractive"?
> 
> ...


Honestly when we were happy, those times were the best times of my life. He was the only man to not use me, and when I felt loved by him, I've never felt that pure joy before.



Bananapeel said:


> The only advice I can give you is start going to A.A. meetings and deal with your alcoholism as your priority. Any person that will blame an inappropriate remark for two years of heavy drinking is trying to avoid dealing with their own addiction. My friends that are alcoholics never take responsibility for their drinking and it causes a lot of resentment and damage to their relationships. Not that it's impossible but I've never seen an uncontrolled alcoholic in a long term happy marriage. If you go to marriage counseling make sure to bring up the alcoholism with the counselor too. Good luck.


 I definitely am owning up to my issues in all of this. I know what I did to contribute towards the decline of our marriage, and I'm trying to be active to make those changes, but even when I'm sober, that pain still is there and tortures me just the same. I just want to move forward and get a clean slate between my husband and I more than anything else in the world so we can just focus on falling back in love again. I would do anything to have that back right now.

I'm trying so hard to give him space, but it's been a really rough time even just outside of the marriage and I really need him by my side right now.


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## MommaGx3 (Jan 12, 2016)

I applaud you for acknowledging your faults in place. I can hear your frustration. It sounds like if you could, by just will-power alone, change the situation, you absolutely would. He is your rock it sounds like and you need your rock. Which I understand, but it's not really very fair to him to be your only rock. Having the history that you have you are fragile. At some point though, you have to stand on your own. You need to be happy for your own happiness, so that you can share the happiness with him. You need to be able to support yourself, so that you can enjoy and relax in his ability to support. 

Other than the advice for counseling for you right now. I think you just have to give him time. I know it's hard because it sounds like it's starting to get a little obsessing in your thought processes. But pushing too hard on him might result in what you fear, him throwing his hands in the air and saying it's over. He's asked for space. Give him space. Feel free to tell him that you love him, that you want this to work, so you are giving him the space he's asked for so that when you come back together to work on things, you'll both be in the right position.


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## happy as a clam (Jan 5, 2014)

I just left a response on your other thread: How Do I Forgive Him? 

You might want to ask the moderators to combine your two threads into one. Less confusing that way for posters as that thread contains details that this one doesn't.


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## beatricecat (Jan 13, 2016)

MommaGx3 said:


> I applaud you for acknowledging your faults in place. I can hear your frustration. It sounds like if you could, by just will-power alone, change the situation, you absolutely would. He is your rock it sounds like and you need your rock. Which I understand, but it's not really very fair to him to be your only rock. Having the history that you have you are fragile. At some point though, you have to stand on your own. You need to be happy for your own happiness, so that you can share the happiness with him. You need to be able to support yourself, so that you can enjoy and relax in his ability to support.
> 
> Other than the advice for counseling for you right now. I think you just have to give him time. I know it's hard because it sounds like it's starting to get a little obsessing in your thought processes. But pushing too hard on him might result in what you fear, him throwing his hands in the air and saying it's over. He's asked for space. Give him space. Feel free to tell him that you love him, that you want this to work, so you are giving him the space he's asked for so that when you come back together to work on things, you'll both be in the right position.


I guess my biggest fear with all of this is that he's going to just take his time apart to move on. Part of me really wants to respect his wishes and give him everything that he needs to be happy, with or without me. But of course the other part of me more than anything wants him back, wants to be happy together again, and wants to wake up every morning and see his face.

I've tried so hard to rely on other people, but for a long time I kept my marriage secret from my family, and as great as my best friend is he is a pinstriper and travels a lot. My life has been nothing but work, painting, and my husband for the past year.


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## Relationship Teacher (Jan 3, 2016)

Stop thinking. Start acting. Say to yourself:
"Am I going to let this negative emotional reaction dominate my life?"
"Should I be unhappy?"

Write down your answers on a piece of paper as logically as possible. Prove to yourself why you should be unhappy. Can you?


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## beatricecat (Jan 13, 2016)

happy as a clam said:


> I just left a response on your other thread: How Do I Forgive Him?
> 
> You might want to ask the moderators to combine your two threads into one. Less confusing that way for posters as that thread contains details that this one doesn't.


I went through and deleted the thread just to make things easier, but I did read your response before hand.

And my husband is fairly responsible, and limits his drinking to a drink every few hours if we do wind up going out with the club, or he just doesn't drink at all normally.

I think the problem I really have with the club is that he sometimes places that as a higher priority than our marriage. Like there was a point where we were looking to move into a house, and I wanted to move a bit further north of where we are by about 15 min. so I could be closer to my job which I was already driving an hour or more to get to and from every day in very heavy traffic, and the commute was really taking a toll on me and I figured the new area was in the middle for the both of us. He refused to even consider it because he said he didn't want to move further away from his friends. Even though I moved clear across town and an hour or more away from my friends and family to be with him.

Not only that I've had troubles with a few of the other wives before, they don't really like me because I don't want to pick sides in their arguments. It got to the point where one woman was complimenting me on how white my teeth were and she said she was genuinely concerned about how her teeth looked because she was getting married soon and wanted nice photos. I told her the toothpaste I use and just said that I've used the whitening strips before and they worked great, because she kept prying and seemed genuinely concerned about it. An hour later her husband was talking with mine saying that I told his fiancé her teeth looked terrible.

To top it all off, whenever something happens, rather than turning to me, or talking to me he just turns to the club and I don't know anything is wrong until it gets to a nearly critical level. I just hate the games involved with all of it, and I just want to enjoy my time with my husband without having to worry this putting a wedge in between us.


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## beatricecat (Jan 13, 2016)

Relationship Teacher said:


> Stop thinking. Start acting. Say to yourself:
> "Am I going to let this negative emotional reaction dominate my life?"
> "Should I be unhappy?"
> 
> Write down your answers on a piece of paper as logically as possible. Prove to yourself why you should be unhappy. Can you?


I definitely started thinking about everything you've said, and you're right about a lot of this.


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## medes90 (Dec 14, 2015)

I got the I love you but not in love with you, I'm not happy, need time apart etc etc. 

Long story short... He was lying and cheating.


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