# to leave or not



## 2bloved (Sep 18, 2012)

We've been married five years and I'm just at the point where he had enough. I'm no longer in love, no longer care about his actions, and he even disgust me at times. Sex with him males me feel dirty and I'm just tired of everything. However, I have to admit that he's trying to change even though he's in consistent with it. Do you think that I'm crazy for still wanting to leave even though he's trying to change? To me it's like what most people do...change in times of desperation. My heart nor mind is into it and I've just grown cold towards him. Is there any coming back from that? Everything in me says leave, but people, the Bible, etc say give it a chance. Of your spouse is changing (though inconsistent) would you give it a chance despite your feelings of being completely done?
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## lancaster (Dec 2, 2013)

Can you give anymore details. Why do you find him disgusting? What is going wrong in your marriage?


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## 2bloved (Sep 18, 2012)

lancaster said:


> Can you give anymore details. Why do you find him disgusting? What is going wrong in your marriage?


Sure. Throughout our marriage he has been emotionally abusive. During my times of depression he didn't really care. I told him I thought about killing myself and there wasn't much of a reaction from him. Many times he walked out on my while I was crying and he even stepped over me and kept on about his business as if I wasn't laying there bawling my eyes out and suicidal. He also hasn't been very supportive and he felt that because he provided my needs that should be the only requirement to keep my happy. Furthermore sex means everything to him. I know sex is important, however he fails to realize that sex is emotional for some women and if I can't connect with you emotionally then I can't have sex with you. I haven't been happy our entire marriage. Lastly, I feel disgusted because I'm not attracted to him sexually anymore and it's almost as if I'm having sex with a stranger. When I did have sex with him it was only because it was the "wifely" thing to do. I often felt used for sex for his gratification. Oh yeah...the only time he would hold me was because he wanted sex from me.
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## cdbaker (Nov 5, 2010)

2bloved: One thing I see ALL THE TIME here is women saying that they've had enough, they're ready to throw in the towel, they finally make that clear to their husband and suddenly he swings into action trying to save the marriage, leaving the woman questioning his motives.

I'm not trying to be insulting, I get it. Women like to communicate more than us guys, but they do so in a way that men don't understand. They struggle to be direct, and we men don't understand that at all. Women will dance around an issue, try to introduce a topic twenty different ways, they will try to avoid hurt feelings or sugar coat. In a struggling marriage, it seems like women will go months and years trying to get through to their husband in this way, always feeling frustrated. The husband won't have any clue how bad it is, and without being directly told the truth, he responds individually to each issue with the same degree of seriousness that she delivers to him. Which isn't much. Sugar coating a serious issue to a man implies that it isn't very serious.

So when she finally delivers the "I've had it. I'm done with this marriage, I want a divorce" message, he acts like it's come out of nowhere because it DID come out of nowhere. He wonders why she never told him that she was on the verge of wanting a divorce, why she didn't try to save it before she got to that point, etc. This response only angers her because to her, his cluelessness makes her feel like he must not have been paying attention for years. She points out how she tried to send the message (without ACTUALLY directly saying that she was unhappy and considering a divorce) but every time he'd change a little bit and then mostly go back to old habits a month or so later.

So now that he finally realizes how serious the situation is, he swings into action to save the marriage. She feels like she's seen this before, believes that it is meaningless, that it won't last, and as you indicated above, is even a little offended that it took her being direct for him to change. Suddenly her attitude is "too little, too late."

Here's the thing, if you've finally delivered the message directly, loud and clear, and he's responding to it, then that is a good thing! It's also something that probably should have happened a long time ago before it got this bad. (I've never understood why women wait so long to be direct with a man, as if prolonged suffering is preferable?) This means that he does love you, and truly wants to save the marriage. His efforts in the past can't be compared to this, because he never understood the actual problem. If he's ready to commit, lay out a plan of action, make positive changes and make them permanent, then I would most definitely encourage you to give him that chance now that you've made him fully aware of the situation.

I know your frustrated, and doubtful that more time will make any difference. We don't know your husband either, so you may very well be correct, but I also know that good men can turn it around once they understand their circumstances and accept that they have to make a decision to change or fail.


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## cdbaker (Nov 5, 2010)

I'll give you an example of how this confusion can happen. My wife for example. For a long time she was depressed. Post-partum depression was part of it. She was struggling to stay focused on school and watched our daughter for half the day when she was out of kindergarten while I worked. We mostly split the chores but she had a few more of the "every day" chores like laundry and keeping things generally tidy, while I did the yard work, dishes, etc. She was stressed, depressed, worried about her school, second guessing herself, and overtime she was unhappy about our relationship as well. She went on a new anti-depression medication around that time.

Maybe a week later she was having a rough day, I come home from work and she notices the trash can is already full and she just explodes. Not angry at me for any one thing in particular, but just depressed about the marriage, her future, etc, she tells me, "I'm just so stressed about everything! I'm in my last three weeks of school, I'm not sure if I'm going to pass and if I don't then I won't graduate on time, I'm on a new medication and now I see the trash is full again after I just emptied it myself yesterday and I'm not even sure if you care!"

Wowza. What I heard was that she's stressed about school and a new medication she's on, which will resolve itself in a few weeks but it's creating a problem in the mean time. I need to remind her that I do care, take care of all of our responsibilities for the evening to help calm her down, and I should probably make sure I handle the trash removal chore for a few weeks if I want to avoid another emotional explosion. I do all of this. From my perspective, I listened, I responded helpfully, all should be well.

From her perspective, she THOUGHT she had expressed that she's questioning her whole life, including our marriage, her education/career, our chore arrangement, her depression management plan, etc. Lots of huge topics. My response, though genuine, didn't address all of those issues at all, and my effort of helping with the one or two chores she mentioned for a few weeks makes it appear that my "changes" were temporary. To her, it appears that I don't care enough for her to do anything about the concerns she thinks she expressed, or I'm a fool for misunderstanding.

In reality, I'm not a fool (at least not in this instance), I'm just not a woman! What she needed to do all along was just tell me exactly what her concerns were, not sugar coating it, or offering a bunch of barely related excuses for issues that aren't the real problem (trash can being full, new medication, school finals, etc.) because I responded to what she SAID to me, not to what she felt should have been implied.


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## 2bloved (Sep 18, 2012)

Well I can say that I'm not afraid of expressing my feelings and I've told him time and time again how I felt. I even trued to work on the marriage for years. Fought so hard to get us into marriage counseling. However, he didn't begin to take me seriously until I started to "check out" on the marriage. I stopped caring and trying to make things work and gen all of a sudden it hits him, that I wasn't playing around. 
So I don't think anything I've ever said was implied; it was all direct. I know I'm not the best communicator, but I always say how I feel. However, some of our hang ups come from him misinterpreting or completely changing my statement. When he speaks to me he does t understand stand that word usage and placement of the word, and tone can completely change the way of a statement he makes. 

I do get what you're saying and I do agree with lots of what you said.
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## 2bloved (Sep 18, 2012)

I also want to add that he's very calculated. He wants me to tell him how long I need space, how long will it take me to feel better. What?? How am I suppose to know Lol and he gets mad when I don't give him a definite answer.
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