# Married and Lonely



## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

Hello everyone,

I've been reading alot of threads on here and decided it was time to share my story. I'll try to keep it short.

Married to my H for 8 yrs, together for 10. Second marriage for both of us. He had 3 kids and I had 2. We have none together.

Somewhere along the way, with the stress in our lives, our marriage got off track. I've been telling him I'm not happy for several years now. He agreed that he wasn't either, his side being the slump in our sex life. Not that it is nonexistent, but that it isn't as often as he would like. My side being several issues, but I will lump them all into one and say I feel emotionally neglected. For several years we fought constantly, in a tug of war that nobody was winning. Through those years there were several supposed attempts to fix us but none of them ever panned out.

I eventually came to the realization that if things continued on with no change, I would either find myself looking for my needs to be met outside of the marriage or eventually just fall out of love with my H.

A few months ago I started very much leaning towards wanting a divorce and I told him so.

At that point, he basically told me that he didn't want a divorce but if I wanted to go, he wasn't going to try to stop me. He said if I wasn't happy then he couldn't see me staying in a marriage I wasn't happy in. 

That's it. No sudden need to jump in with both feet and try to save our marriage. No urge to get online and find a marriage site like this one, as so many other men have done, to get help. Nothing proactive on his part except when I started talking about moving out and dividing up our belongings and what to tell the kids he would tell me he didn't want me to go, but why was I supposed to stay when there was no indication to believe that anything would change?

Hanging onto the last ounce of desire I still had for him and my marriage, I once again became the driving force to try to put things into prospective and figure out what we needed to do. 
I put the idea of divorce behind me and we started talking about what we both needed from the marriage and agreeing to read some marriage help books. 

I have alot of resentment that I need to work through. In 10 years there have been several occasions where I needed him for support and encouragement and he wasn't there. There have been several instances where, when faced with having to choose between us/our marriage or something else, he never chose to put our marriage as a priority. He was always content with just sweeping things under the rug rather than putting them on the table to deal with.

Now, I am at the point where I *need* to see and feel some solid attempt on his part in order to believe that he wants our marriage to work as much a he says he does. 

He says it should mean something to me that he's still here and not out having an affair. Well, yeah that means something to me, but he doesn't seem to understand that it's not enough. The 'I'm sorry's' don't mean so much to me anymore. I'm tired of hearing 'I wasn't trying to do X and hurt you' I'm tired of hearing that he understands what I need from the marriage and yet nothing changes. His words have very little merit to me anymore, what I'm seeing is what he does and doesn't do, his actions very seldom match his words anyway and I constantly feel let down.

So I've finished reading 'His needs, her needs' and 'His needs, her needs for parents'. He is on chapter 7 of the first book. We have been answering the questions at the end as he finishes each chapter. Last night I walked in the family room where he sat, with the TV on, reading the book during commercials of the movie he was watching. I got upset. 

A man whose wife says she wants a divorce, cannot even turn the TV off long enough to put a good honest effort into saving his marriage. So I very calmly expressed my disappointment in how he set his priorities and left the room. Nothing more was said til later that evening when we went up to bed and he compounded the problem by choosing not to address the issue and continue on like it never happened. I finally brought it up and he compounded the problem even further by coming up with excuses for his actions.

At this point I still love my husband. I feel let down by him in multiple ways. I feel alone and I feel pretty low on his list of priorities. I feel like I am the only one honestly putting 110% effort into saving our marriage. I feel like it's getting harder and harder to try to hang onto the love I have for him when a little more of it dies with every action that makes me feel like he really doesn't seem to care as much as he should. I feel like I'm begging him to help me fix us and it's doing a number on my self esteem.

I try to meet the needs he feels I'm slacking at (sex), even though I don't feel connected enough to him to truly enjoy it, but I know he needs it. Problem is I am still left feeling empty.

Thanks for reading.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Sorry, but I think he has too big of a problem avoidant complex to be able to be what you need.


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## john_sean77 (Aug 21, 2010)

This does sound very intersting. I am very surprised that he has not had an affair yet or gone with another woman. The fact that he is still devoted to you in that aspect means that he maybe does not seem to understand how you really feel?
pardon me for asking, but this may or may not be relevant: is there a large age difference between yourselves? I mean, is he much younger to you?
It looks like a sense of immaturity is still hanging with him?

What about his social life? What kind of circle of friends does he hang with? I'm trying to establish some sort of connection between his immature and irresponsible ways with his way of life?


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## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

turnera said:


> Sorry, but I think he has too big of a problem avoidant complex to be able to be what you need.


Thank you for your honesty Turnera.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Well, problem avoidance is one of the most deep-seated issues that people can have, along with lying. VERY very hard to get them to acknowledge and even harder to get them to do the often painful work in counseling to get to the root of it. By their very nature, they don't want to address the issue.

Truly, the only way I see him changing is if you leave and he decides he wants you enough to 'go there.'


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## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

john_sean77 said:


> This does sound very intersting. I am very surprised that he has not had an affair yet or gone with another woman. The fact that he is still devoted to you in that aspect means that he maybe does not seem to understand how you really feel?
> pardon me for asking, but this may or may not be relevant: is there a large age difference between yourselves? I mean, is he much younger to you?
> It looks like a sense of immaturity is still hanging with him?
> 
> What about his social life? What kind of circle of friends does he hang with? I'm trying to establish some sort of connection between his immature and irresponsible ways with his way of life?


Thanks for your reply John_Sean77.

He will be 41 soon. I am 38.
As far as his social life, he doesn't have one. He goes to work and comes home every day right after. After his first marriage ended in divorce, he spent the next 3 years hanging with buddies and drinking. 

When he and I got together, the drinking stopped and he expressed to me that he didn't want to go out without me and he was content to do the social thing together. That was ok with me because that was my preference also. As a matter of fact, the book I just finished talks about making sure any recreational activities are done as a couple in order to associate the fun, happy times with each other.

So no, he has not had an affair,and I understand that this says something about his devotion to me, but what exactly?


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## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

turnera said:


> Truly, the only way I see him changing is if you leave and he decides he wants you enough to 'go there.'


Unfortunately, I think I already know the answer to this question. Honestly, if it takes me leaving for him to decide to "go there" it will likely be too late. If it takes me disrupting my kids' lives and finding another place to live and everything that entails, it's not worth it.


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## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

There's only so much you can do alone and it sounds like you have done it.

You need to see a marriage counselor. It would be better if you both go and if he agrees, make the appointment as soon as possible. if he won't go, go alone and tell him you are going.

But be prepared... these issues are rarely one-sided. You could have done something that started the ball rolling downhill and you need to take ownership of your problems just as he needs to take ownership of his.


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## writing2010 (Aug 5, 2010)

Hunt,

While I can see your point in misunderstanding the bad behavior. I'm first to admit that I've been hurt by my husband's seemingly passive aggressive behavior only to realize that it's just the way he deals with things and I'm being over judgmental of his process. Sometimes it takes him days to answer questions about his feelings/emotions. I once thought he just didn't care or was ignoring me. Now I know it takes a lot for him to mull over his feelings/emotions while dealing with ever day issues. Classical "men are not so good at multiple tasking"....sorry for the generalization. I had to stop seeing his behavior as an attack to me or our marriage, because eventually there was resolution to the problem. Probably not as fast as I would like it, but fast enough that it was acceptable to me. The point is I got resolution....

What I don't get is, if the behavior was learned over time that it takes time to change. If you have a behavior that's detrimental to your health, how long should you give yourself before you quit? Until you die? Maybe you smoke until you lose a lung? Another question is, as an adult, shouldn't you take the responsibility to take the steps to change the behavior not wait until someone is there to gently teach you how not to do it? 

Yeah, Butterflykisses, is probably going faster than her husband...but, what's wrong with asking him to pick up the pace if she feels like she's coming to a breaking point faster than he is. I think the whole point of her resentment, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that he has been very sluggish and unresponsive when it came to saving their marriage. While I do suggest Butterfly reevaluate her resentment to his behavior, weighing all that he is doing to what he isn't doing....I don't think it's up to her to "coach" a response. After all, if you have an A game and play too long with someone with a B game, you end up playing a B game.


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## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

I understand all that you are saying Hunt, and it does makes sense.
I don't consider everything my H does or doesn't do to me to be intentional, or for the sole purpose of hurting me. And knowing that does help some. 

But intentional or not, it still hurts. I am only human and can only give so much of myself before I feel exhausted and defeated. I guess what it boils down to is how much of myself am I willing to sacrifice waiting on him and for how long. 

We talked the other evening and I told him how it just makes matters worse when I bring something up that he's done to hurt me and his first instinct is just to throw out excuses. Sometimes he will just completely switch the conversation over to something completely unrelated. This makes me crazy insane and I just want to pull my hair out.

I found out that during these times he feels like he's in the 'hot seat' and the only thing going through his mind is to get out of it. Including defending himself. This just means that he is totally not listening to WHY it hurt me in the first place, or even considering that he may be to blame. To me, this is totally disrespectful and heartless and doesn't accomplish a thing. Why is it so hard for him to realize that pattern just creates more problems and is unproductive? I mean, it doesn't seem like rocket science to me. None of us like to admit our shortcomings but at some point you have to choose what's more important, your marriage or defending yourself when you don't even have a leg to stand on.

I don't pretend to be perfect. I've been working on myself. I just don't know if I can dig deep enough to meet him all the way when I would much rather meet him halfway. I don't think it's too much to ask for an honest effort, and to not find our marriage in the exact same place it was several years ago, having not moved forward in a positive way whatsoever.


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## Tru2mself (Sep 3, 2010)

ButterflyKisses, when have you noticed that your sexual desire for him was gone ? Was it around the same time that you started to feel unhappy ?


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## ButterflyKisses (Aug 30, 2010)

Tru2mself said:


> ButterflyKisses, when have you noticed that your sexual desire for him was gone ? Was it around the same time that you started to feel unhappy ?


Pretty much, yes. When the time that was spent arguing started to exceed the times we spent enjoying each others company. When the resentment I felt started to outweigh the love I felt.


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## marilee (Jul 24, 2009)

ButterflyKisses said:


> A few months ago I started very much leaning towards wanting a divorce and I told him so.
> At that point, he basically told me that he didn't want a divorce but if I wanted to go, he wasn't going to try to stop me. He said if I wasn't happy then he couldn't see me staying in a marriage I wasn't happy in.





ButterflyKisses said:


> Nothing proactive on his part except when I started talking about moving out and dividing up our belongings and what to tell the kids he would tell me he didn't want me to go, but why was I supposed to stay when there was no indication to believe that anything would change?





ButterflyKisses said:


> Now, I am at the point where I *need* to see and feel some solid attempt on his part in order to believe that he wants our marriage to work as much a he says he does.





ButterflyKisses said:


> A man whose wife says she wants a divorce, cannot even turn the TV off long enough to put a good honest effort into saving his marriage. So I very calmly expressed my disappointment in how he set his priorities and left the room. Nothing more was said til later that evening when we went up to bed and he compounded the problem by choosing not to address the issue and continue on like it never happened. I finally brought it up and he compounded the problem even further by coming up with excuses for his actions.





ButterflyKisses said:


> At this point I still love my husband. I feel let down by him in multiple ways. I feel like I am the only one honestly putting 110% effort into saving our marriage. I feel like it's getting harder and harder to try to hang onto the love I have for him when a little more of it dies with every action that makes me feel like he really doesn't seem to care as much as he should.


I just wanted to say that we are living freaking parallel lives. I know how you feel, truly. No advice, because I have no idea how in the world to change it either, but - I feel for you, I really do.


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