# Looking for advice from a guy...



## Mumofone (Mar 16, 2010)

Hi, I am new to this forum and looking for a bit of advice from a guy on how best to approach my Husband about my concerns for our marriage. 

I am 27 years old and my Husband is 38 years old, we have been together for 4 1/2 years now. We have a 3 year old daughter together, my Husband also has twin sons aged 13 from his previous marriage. They live with their mother 30 minutes away, we have them every other weekend. We have been married for just 10 months. 

During the 3 years before we got married we have had lots of problems, I am British Citizen and in Canada on a Visitors Record from the UK not able to work for the past 4 1/2 years so my husband has had to support our family, we have also lived at his parents house in their basement for much of this time. 

6 months after we met I became pregnant and had our daughter in Canada. Before she was born we had a pretty good sex life and caring relationship. As soon as our daughter was born it was like I became invisible, I had gone from 110lbs to 170lbs during my pregnancy and really struggled to loose the weight, our sex life diminished to once a month if that, I put it down to the arrival of our daughter. As months went by things became worse. 

My husband has always played poker online, over the next 2 1/2 years he became completely hooked on playing throwing away hundreds of dollars a month. When our daughter was 11 months we finally moved into our own apartment, I thought things may get better between us. But still things got worse, I began to feel like I was just his cleaner and nanny, I have always appreciated him, made sure his clothes are clean, had a meal on the table for him, looked after his sons when he had to work weekends, clean up after them etc..and I get very little in return, I became really depressed..

I have never thought he has cheated on me, he came home on time, didn't go out all the time - infact as soon as he comes home he sits on the computer for hours playing poker, It was a usual occurrence for me to wake up at 1am to find him still playing, if he looses he has really bad mood swings. 

We had really bad money problems due to a lack of money that he blamed on me on more than one occasion when he knew it was because he spent way to much money playing poker. He very rarely wins and when he does he looses it all again. 

So with my Husbands consent I took our daughter home with me for 6 months, after I got home we I told him we needed a break. I needed room to think about things. After 5 months my Husband over came his fear of flying and visited us in the UK, which means a lot to me for him to be able to do that. 

We decided to try again, so I went back to Canada with our daughter, after 7 weeks we were getting on really well and my husband proposed to me. Everything was going really well between us to start with until it came to organizing out wedding, he made as little input as he could and didn't seem interested at all, we got married in May 2009, then the cracks really started to appear in our relationship again. Our sex life went down hill we have what feels like token sex once a month, our daughter gets in our bed most nights around 3am, we are back at his parents house. 

My Husband had a promotion at work as a supervisor on the afternoon shift 2pm until 11:30pm, however he really cant get on with the day time supervisor, so he seems to be grumpy, stressed out and not interested in our relationship what so ever, at first I thought it was his job as he got his promotion just after we got married, but now I am not so sure.

We are applying for my permanent residency in Canada next month so with some luck I will be able to work by September/October of this year, we were supposed to apply in 2007 however my Husband has always dragged his feet on the subject and made excuses as to why he couldn't sponsor me in the past! 

Is it me? Am I doing something wrong? Do I expect too much of him? We never spend any time together its like the only thing we have in common is our daughter, I am not sure I can go through life feeling that my Husband is not interested in me and that he only wanted to get his daughter back. 

When I have confronted him in the past my husband has become very aggressive and told me to go home if I don't like the way things are...

I feel so confused at the moment...I am left wondering if I have made a huge mistake coming back to Canada, my problem is if I leave him I loose our daughter too!


----------



## nice777guy (Nov 23, 2009)

I'm sorry - but this sounds like a real mess.

The one thing I don't get is why you are so sure you would lose your daughter.

Not sure if it would help, but I would delay becoming official citizens of another country until you are a little more sure of your situation.

Good luck.


----------



## answers (Mar 17, 2010)

It sounds like financial struggles may be the underlying issue. If your husband is a prideful man, he may feel that he is working his fingers to the bone, yet not providing for his family the way he would like. This is VERY discouraging for a husband and father. It also may explain the poker issue, as he is hoping for a quick way to pull himself out of the mud.

I may be way off base here, but I remember feeling this way when I was first married. The weight I felt affected many things including intimacy. When I didn't feel good about myself, everyone else suffered.

I would make sure your husband knows that you love him regardless of your family financial issues. Take the approach that "as long as we have each other, everything else is just little problems we can solve together". Do your best not to nag about finances, living conditions, etc for a while, and make an effort to say encouraging things as often as possible. Tell him that you know he is working hard, and that it will be great someday when everything comes together for him. Make sure he knows that you support him in every good thing he does (or tries to do) for the family.

I may be wrong on what's bugging him, but his actions and attitude sounded familiar to me. It may be that he just feels inadequate right now. Doing the things I mentioned above can't hurt regardless.

Just my thoughts...


----------



## Jdack (Dec 3, 2009)

Mumopone,

Sorry to hear about your problems. 

You seemed to indicate that things went downhill after birth of your daughter, sexually and got worse. Is this also the time when your husband started playing poker as well or was he always playing on line right from the start?

You also mentioned you had a hard time loosing the weight after pregnancy but I wasn't sure from your post if you were eventually able to losse the weight or not? Could this possibly be an issue for him if you haven't? If he found you sexually attractive before at 110 lbs, is there reason he would not now? I'm not implying it is easy to loose this weight after children - hard to find time when you have a child to care for. This is a touchy topic and many men may not answer their wives honestly if they were asked straight up whether their husband found them sexually attractive after they gained weight. 

From a man's perspective, my wife put on some weight after children as well, but not excessive (maybe 20lbs - I'm guessing since before the kids) but she still looks good and I am still sexually attracted to her. If she was to gain alot of weight I am certain it would affect my sex drive and frequency in which I would want sex, no question about it. I would still love her no less, but being turned on sexually just by looking at someone does not have to be turned on or put on, it comes naturally. This may not matter to every man or in your case, it did and still does to me. I can only asume from my experience that if I wasn't sexually attracted to my wife, it would affect her as well and start a downward spiral in the relationship as a whole.

I wish you well.


----------

