# Everything will change...



## sunflowermama (Sep 16, 2009)

and it terrifies me.

My story.

Married for 9 years. I am 36, dh is 41. He was my first long term boyfriend. Dated for 9 months, got engaged, and I moved in with him, straight out of my parents home. Married a year later.

Have two children now, son is 7, daughter is 3. Dh owns own business, I work 4 days/week.

For over 2 years I have been very unhappy. Not in love with dh, don't even want him to touch me. Last sex was about 4 months ago. Only did it for his sake.

Dh is controlling. Friends notice it and someone finally mentioned it to me. I thought things were normal and I was told otherwise.

I am a quiet, gentle person. Dh is loud, a yeller. Like his late father. At me, at the kids. For awhile now, I have felt so emotionally beaten down, I can't get back up. I don't want to anymore. Something has to give.

He is a good person though. Good father, hard worker, good provider, encourages me. 

Except I feel like he is a father figure, not an equal.

We went for 4 MC sessions this past Spring. We both wanted to go. Helped a bit. Although I felt that I had the most issues. We still need to go some more, but time is an issue. Dh has told me that I am in charge of making the appt.

We fight about housework all the time. About how slack I am and how everyone else's house must look so much neater. When he comes home on my days off he always asks what I got done that day.

I mentioned to him today that my girlfriend wanted to get a group of girls together for a weekend away. I wasn't 'asking' him, but he said that in order for me to go, I had to do lots of work around the house since I had been slacking. (hmmm...cinderella...)

We go on and off the Atkins diet. We do it together, which is helpful. Except I am responsible for his success and/or failure since I do most of the cooking. It is very exhausting being constantly blamed for his fall off the wagon. No wonder I am a secret binger. 

let's see, what else.

He thinks my family is crazy, he's always making remarks about them.

I wanted to get a kitten for my birthday, last January. He finally agreed to let me, since he dislikes cats. However, I had to let him get a motorcycle. Real fair.

I work in a job where I receive tips. I am never allowed to keep my tips as my own money, it must be put in the bank. He says since he doesn't get tips why should I get to keep mine?

I am not allowed to have my own personal bank account. 

We 'fair' fight a lot. It is exhausting.

I finally opened up to my friend today about our problems. She told me that our relationship is not the norm and she and her dh have noticed how demeaning dh can be to me. She is willing to help anyway she can. She even knows of a place that is available.

I felt so relieved and full of hope when she told me that. Is that bad?

I am not a weak person. I have strength and courage and drive. I have just buried who I am so that I don't provoke the fights and arguments. I hate fighting in front of the kids so I usually don't fight back. I know this makes me look weak in front of my kids. I hate that.

I have lost who I am. I want to get it back.

I am seriously considering a trial seperation. I don't want to come out and say the 'd' word. That seems so final. I want to do things gradually.

I like to think things can get better. I want to keep that option open. I don't see how at the moment however.

We had a discussion about this 2 weeks ago. I approached him and told him I wasn't happy. Neither of us are happy but we hadn't admitted it until then. I told him I wasn't attracted to him anymore. We both admitted we weren't in love with each other. He wants to work at it though. He doesn't want to throw almost 10 years away. 

I see his point but I don't know if I want it to work though. I will go to counselling but I honestly don't know if I really want to try.

I am scared to death of everything changing.


----------



## alwaysalone (Nov 17, 2007)

Oh Sunflower, I don't even have any words of advise. The only thing I do want to say, I now realize that I am not alone in how my marriage works. All though there are a few differences between your husband and mine, they are pretty much alike. 

I commend you on actually sitting down and talking to him about it. Wish I had that kind of courage! 

Good luck with everything. And follow your heart, wish I could follow mine.


----------



## sunflowermama (Sep 16, 2009)

Thank you so much for your response and support.
I am sad that I didn't receive more support from others though.


----------



## alwaysalone (Nov 17, 2007)

Sometimes it takes a few days for them respond but they will.


----------



## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

Hi Sunflowermama,

Sorry I haven't posted sooner, just saw your post and hopefully bumping it back up will get you additional responses 

I guess I am waffling on what to say. On the one hand, if your friends notice he is controlling, demeaning I would take that in as they care about you. On the other hand, he didn't say 'no' to your girls weekend, if he were totally controlling I would think he'd try to limit your contact with your family, friends and be totally against you going away.

What seems to be more the case is that you shut down to avoid his temper flare-ups. That seems to be the main issue here. He needs to learn to control his anger and communicate in a non-threatening way. You on the other hand, need to be able to stand up for yourself and your kids and take some control back in this marriage so it feels more like a partnership to you.

Until this happens, it's like a snowball effect....his anger causes your resentment, your resentment reduces any desire to have sex with him, which probably fuels his own resentment/anger...it just keeps going in circles.

Have you talked about this in counselling? If you are used to staying quiet in front of him and he is used to announcing every area he feels you are not up to par I can see where it seems it's mainly you, but it's not...you are both fueling one another with resentment.

In my opinion, his anger issues should be the first thing that is tackled so you can begin to step up and work through the other issues together.


----------



## sunflowermama (Sep 16, 2009)

A very insightful response, I thank you. Gives me food for thought.


----------



## missingme (Sep 28, 2009)

Maybe he's feeling like you have more fun or freedom in your life than he has in his own? Complaining about tip money or the way you keep the house (that he shares in making messy) just seem to be ways of saying that you have all this time on your hands that he doesn't have or a silly job that you could lose (whereas his is the more "serious" job that you both need to survive). He seems to be viewing you in a cold way, like more of a partner and not a woman. It sounds like he has some source of stress in his work or life outside the home and doesn't know how to share with you other than through his anger and criticism. 

I'm so sorry that you're going through this and I hope you find ways to cheer yourself up until you reach a decision. Remember that there will always be things to laugh at and love.


----------



## mae (Aug 17, 2009)

I have a similar situation. I work more hours than my husband and take care of our 6 month old daughter more than he does. We each clean and cook equally but he somehow manages to make me feel like I never do enough. If I go out on my day off (with my daughter of course) he gets jealous and says he never gets to go out (whenever he asks to go out I say yes). He's always complaining about money and how I'm not good enough finacially (I put more money in savings than he has). Etc. Etc. 

I also used to not stand up to him and used to just take it and run with it. Usually trying to see how I can improve on whatever he was complaining about. At some point I was just done as well. And I told him that. I told him he needed to stop controlling me and stop putting me down. I have remained fairly firm in this. This has helped a lot. 

We are working on our marriage and we both want it to work out but I think we both know that I'm at the last straw and if he doesn't start appreciating me more and stop trying to control me and put me down, I will be leaving him.

So my advice is similar to others. You need to stand up for yourself. Lay down some ultimatums. But not an a mean way. Try to approach it quite calmly but firmly and with as little finger-pointing as possible. Then stick to it. I wouldn't say give up just yet, but if he's not willing to try and change then there's not much else you can do. It sounds like he is willing so give him a shot. See if he follows through.


----------



## Loving Husband (Aug 3, 2009)

I see so many issues in which I deal with them but the list is mior in retrospect. It's a lot of little things that are piled up. My relationship is very close. I am the aggressive one and she is passive. She doesn't handle critisum well and I bet you don't either. So when he complains you crawl into a ball. You hold resentment cause he is beating you down. He holds resentment cause your not stepping up.. See the snowball effect?? Good thing is your reaching out. My wife doesn't.. My marriage is further on the rocks cause my wife has an issue with compassion and forgiveness but its moving along. I hope you guys can meet in the middle. If he can be less critical it might be the start of repairing it.


----------

