# I'm struggling



## K-3 (Oct 21, 2018)

I’m going to put everything on the table, because I just want help. 

I’m 25 and my husband is 42. We have been together for 7 years. I met my husband while doing a summer intern job. I was interning directly under him. The first summer I was in high school and we didn’t form any sort of relationship. The second year was the summer before starting university, he asked that I come back and I did. I saw him in between those summers, because my dad worked in the same office. I was there most Saturdays and breaks. My husband wasn’t suppose to be there on Saturday’s, but started going regularly after I did. At first he was just a really nice guy who was helping me and making sure I did well at the internship, which was used for my university application. After starting the internship the second summer things shifted to secretive flirting and flowers, gifts, helping me more. We fell for each other quickly, and both didn’t expect it. We were pregnant by the end of the summer, which my husband planned. We married a month later.

I’m a SAHM because it works best for our family. Our kids are 4 months, 3, 5 and 6. My husband has always worked a lot, but lately he has been working a lot more. He is at the office from 8-6, then works from home for a few hours, and after that he wants alone time to relax. By the time he is done that I am in bed asleep. I understand that he needs alone time, and someone has to pay the bills, I just feel invisible. Sometimes I worry that he might have met someone at work, but I try not to worry about that. I know he hasn’t and it’s just me overthinking. I do talk to my husband about needing more from him/needing time with him, but we are on different pages. He thinks we spend enough time together. He counts time in bed, when I’m/we’re asleep, as time together. He says I’m controlling and demanding, but I don’t see that at all. I just want time with him…  We’re just on different pages… different books even. He use to spend nearly all of his free time with me, so it’s been an adjustment. I know people change overtime and need different things, I’m just struggling with it right now. 

The majority of the household and children duties are my responsibility, which I understand. Lately it has been a lot harder of me than previously. I know that I should be doing the bulk of it, that’s my job after all. When I do ask my husband for help he gets mad and unintentionally makes me feel like crap for needing help or not having something done. He works hard, and personally I don’t think he understands what my day is like. Going from 3 to 4 kids has been a lot harder than any other transition. Maintaining the house and kids is my only job, and I’m failing at it. Even when my parents take our kids for a sleep over (minus our 4 month old) I barely get anything done around the house. I can’t keep my husband happy with this issue. 

For the last year my husband has been getting increasingly jealous. Previously he didn’t have any jealousy. He doesn’t like me going out with male friends, or talking to male friends. He says it’s inappropriate, and from what I’ve read some people agree so maybe I’m in the wrong there. He goes through my phone regularly, which I don’t care about because I have nothing to hide but I’ve never given him a reason not to trust me. There are certain things that he wants me to do and wear before I go out alone or with him. When we go out together he always wants me to look nice, a bit revealing, and I get it - he likes when I’m done up and I do it for him. This is regardless of if we are on a date or grocery shopping. But when I go out without him (groceries, sports games, kids stuff, …) he wants me to be the opposite. He gets mad if I look too nice when I’m without him because “who am I dressing up for”. The jealousy is frustrating, and sometimes (most of the time) I’m just tired and want to go to the store with him without changing, doing my makeup and doing my hair. He’s trying to stop me from going full “mom-mode” and I know he means well. I’m just struggling. 

My friends and family don’t like my husband, because he is older than I am. We have always had problems with my friends and family. He doesn’t want me to be around my friends anymore, because he doesn’t like what they say about him and how they make me second guess things or question things. I understand that they are a negative influence on our relationship and it makes sense. It’s just hard because I feel so overwhelmed with my home life and losing friends makes me feel more overwhelmed. I just wish they could support us. Some of my friends do support me and my marriage, and my husband doesn’t care about me being around them at all. In the last year I’ve given up 3/4 of my friends for the sake of my marriage. 

I only see my family on holidays now, and only when my husband can be there as well. He doesn’t want people talking about him behind his back and there have been many squabbles between him, my dad and brother. When my dad found out that we married, he took a bat to my husbands car. My dad and my husband have put their hands on each other. My family doesn’t want him in their home, and my husband doesn’t want me going there alone, so it’s a lose-lose for me. I can’t balance it and I can’t lose my family. I need them to be on board and support me. It feels like I have no one, often times not even my husband. Having so many people against us affects him a lot as well. I know that everyone can’t like everyone, but these are the people closest to me and I need them all. 

My husband’s family is better, but they don’t particularly like me. It has gotten better over the years, and at least is improving. They are nice to me, unlike my family towards my husband, but I can tell they don’t like me. I don’t know how to get them to like me, but I need them to. I feel like it’s me and my husband against the world, and I hate that feeling. Maybe not everyone does, but I need support from people and I have almost none. 

I’ve talked to my husband about needing 20 hours a week together, which I read somewhere, but he thinks that is ridiculous and unachievable. He might be right. We have a date night every other week, but it’s not enough. My husband says nothing is enough for me, maybe he’s right. Even after we spend the day together, have intimacy and lay in bed together, I still feel like it’s not enough sometimes. I need to shake the feeling of needing more. 

When we married, we did it quick and simple with just us. He said he wanted to have a ceremony later but didn’t want to wait any longer to marry me. That has never happened. And in the grand scheme of things it’s not the end of the world. I want to be with him, I don’t need the ceremony. I’m more bothered by him having done it twice before. It makes me feel like I’m not worth it, and I know that I shouldn’t feel that way but I do. He has been there, done that and he doesn’t have the need to do it again. 

I don’t feel loved. I feel like I’m here to make him look good when necessary but otherwise useless. It’s my fault, because that’s not what my husband has intended but I can’t shake it. I just want to be happy in my marriage and not feel like the life is being sucked out of me.


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