I'm really not sure where to start.
My husband and I have been together four years as of today, we've been married for 2 years, and we have 2 children.
When we started dating I had just left an abusive relationship with my daughter and he was my best friend. He helped me escape my relationship safely and helped me rebuild after my ex-fiance took everything, including any baby items I had for my daughter, and refused to give them back.
Anyway, it was a whirlwind romance, both of us coming from destructively abnormal childhoods and leaving destructive relationships...neither one of us had really grasped the concept of normal. We were poor are mice, but in love, and we made the best of it. We went on dates, stayed up late talking...we couldn't get enough of one another.
Around 9 months into our relationship, he had an affair. We never actually worked through this obstacle, basically we swept it under the rug and continued on.
That's when everything changed. For a while, he worked harder to earn my trust, then he would start getting frustrated that I couldn't instantly trust him again. I chose to keep my insecurities to myself after that, and that basically led to me internalizing everything that I felt would make him unhappy. This is a result of my childhood, I suffered years of abuse and I was trained that I couldn't talk to anyone about anything. I'd finally started to come around when he and I met, and he made sharing my feelings easier. After he started getting frustrated at me for my feelings, I shut down. And I've been that way since.
Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly, if I didn't I certainly wouldn't be here. The affair was the start of it. After 2 children I've changed physically quite a bit, and my health has also seemed to deteriorate though the doctors are still unsure as to what it may be. Because of my health issues, my physical activity is limited, and while I haven't gained any added weight since my last child was born, I also haven't lost any. He knows I'm insecure about myself, and he tells me often that he loves the way I am. But then he makes jokes about my weight, and I feel like he says he likes the way I am simply to appease me.
There's no romance. When we go on dates, half the time we're arguing because he doesn't like my decision where to go but when he's asked to make the decision he can't. By the time we're done arguing about it, the entire night is soured. I'm a student and stay at home mom, by his request. He wants me to finish my schooling without having to stress about work on top of it. Money is, thankfully, no longer a source of tension. His job provides well. However, he's constantly working. And even when he isn't working, he's friends with many of the people at work and they're ALWAYS calling. Even at 10pm, his work phone is ringing for someone to chat about the day. Over half of his time spent home is on the phone with people from work. He leaves at 9am, and gets home at 8, and we don't get to hold an actual conversation until after 10. He doesn't do things "just because" anymore. Not even coming up to me and kissing me. He kisses me goodbye, and kisses me goodnight.
I try to make an effort, but even I'm getting burnt out. I feel ignored and rejected, and it hurts.
I hate to admit this, and let me assure you, no matter how bad things become I would never actually act on it, but I've even found myself fantasizing about a prior relationship I had. This relationship was never negative, even our separation was a mutually agreed on thing. I'm not fantasizing about intimacy, just the positivity of it. He's my best friend (yes still), that alone is why the relationship didn't work. We both felt that we were too close to one another for the comfort of a relationship, and we didn't want to ruin what we had going on. But to say I never had deeper feelings for him would be a lie. And I feel like, now that there is this big void in my own marriage, I'm trying to fill that with silly and completely unrealistic fantasies. I've always been a bit hopeless, I probably have an unhealthy obsession with movies about "true love" and whirlwind romances. It's how I've filled that emptiness.
Yes, I've tried bringing this up to him, even in the gentlest of ways, but he feels like I'm attacking him and calling him a bad husband. Then I feel guilty, and I just drop it and internalize it again. It feels like this has been a never ending circle and it just got worse after our second daughter was born.
I think today is when it came to a point. We had a chemical pregnancy last month, it wasn't exactly planned, we had just decided that I would come off of my birth control and a few short weeks following we found out I was pregnant. We hadn't planned to start trying until this month. Unfortunately, my birth control was a big contributor to why I felt so awful, so we had decided that we would have our third child (we both wanted 3) and then I would get my tubes tied so we wouldn't have to worry about the concern and I wouldn't feel so sick.
Since coming off my birth control, I've gotten my sex drive back (it's been virtually non-existent since the birth of our daughter). This past week, he's either made excuses for us to not have sex, or he's had trouble keeping his own drive going. He blames it on being in "work mode", and as I said before, he's always in work mode. Even conversations after he's finally off the phone are all about work.
He won't go to counseling, I've tried. I don't know how to fix this. I don't want to give up, as I said, I love him dearly. I just want to feel like I mean something in return.
My husband and I have been together four years as of today, we've been married for 2 years, and we have 2 children.
When we started dating I had just left an abusive relationship with my daughter and he was my best friend. He helped me escape my relationship safely and helped me rebuild after my ex-fiance took everything, including any baby items I had for my daughter, and refused to give them back.
Anyway, it was a whirlwind romance, both of us coming from destructively abnormal childhoods and leaving destructive relationships...neither one of us had really grasped the concept of normal. We were poor are mice, but in love, and we made the best of it. We went on dates, stayed up late talking...we couldn't get enough of one another.
Around 9 months into our relationship, he had an affair. We never actually worked through this obstacle, basically we swept it under the rug and continued on.
That's when everything changed. For a while, he worked harder to earn my trust, then he would start getting frustrated that I couldn't instantly trust him again. I chose to keep my insecurities to myself after that, and that basically led to me internalizing everything that I felt would make him unhappy. This is a result of my childhood, I suffered years of abuse and I was trained that I couldn't talk to anyone about anything. I'd finally started to come around when he and I met, and he made sharing my feelings easier. After he started getting frustrated at me for my feelings, I shut down. And I've been that way since.
Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly, if I didn't I certainly wouldn't be here. The affair was the start of it. After 2 children I've changed physically quite a bit, and my health has also seemed to deteriorate though the doctors are still unsure as to what it may be. Because of my health issues, my physical activity is limited, and while I haven't gained any added weight since my last child was born, I also haven't lost any. He knows I'm insecure about myself, and he tells me often that he loves the way I am. But then he makes jokes about my weight, and I feel like he says he likes the way I am simply to appease me.
There's no romance. When we go on dates, half the time we're arguing because he doesn't like my decision where to go but when he's asked to make the decision he can't. By the time we're done arguing about it, the entire night is soured. I'm a student and stay at home mom, by his request. He wants me to finish my schooling without having to stress about work on top of it. Money is, thankfully, no longer a source of tension. His job provides well. However, he's constantly working. And even when he isn't working, he's friends with many of the people at work and they're ALWAYS calling. Even at 10pm, his work phone is ringing for someone to chat about the day. Over half of his time spent home is on the phone with people from work. He leaves at 9am, and gets home at 8, and we don't get to hold an actual conversation until after 10. He doesn't do things "just because" anymore. Not even coming up to me and kissing me. He kisses me goodbye, and kisses me goodnight.
I try to make an effort, but even I'm getting burnt out. I feel ignored and rejected, and it hurts.
I hate to admit this, and let me assure you, no matter how bad things become I would never actually act on it, but I've even found myself fantasizing about a prior relationship I had. This relationship was never negative, even our separation was a mutually agreed on thing. I'm not fantasizing about intimacy, just the positivity of it. He's my best friend (yes still), that alone is why the relationship didn't work. We both felt that we were too close to one another for the comfort of a relationship, and we didn't want to ruin what we had going on. But to say I never had deeper feelings for him would be a lie. And I feel like, now that there is this big void in my own marriage, I'm trying to fill that with silly and completely unrealistic fantasies. I've always been a bit hopeless, I probably have an unhealthy obsession with movies about "true love" and whirlwind romances. It's how I've filled that emptiness.
Yes, I've tried bringing this up to him, even in the gentlest of ways, but he feels like I'm attacking him and calling him a bad husband. Then I feel guilty, and I just drop it and internalize it again. It feels like this has been a never ending circle and it just got worse after our second daughter was born.
I think today is when it came to a point. We had a chemical pregnancy last month, it wasn't exactly planned, we had just decided that I would come off of my birth control and a few short weeks following we found out I was pregnant. We hadn't planned to start trying until this month. Unfortunately, my birth control was a big contributor to why I felt so awful, so we had decided that we would have our third child (we both wanted 3) and then I would get my tubes tied so we wouldn't have to worry about the concern and I wouldn't feel so sick.
Since coming off my birth control, I've gotten my sex drive back (it's been virtually non-existent since the birth of our daughter). This past week, he's either made excuses for us to not have sex, or he's had trouble keeping his own drive going. He blames it on being in "work mode", and as I said before, he's always in work mode. Even conversations after he's finally off the phone are all about work.
He won't go to counseling, I've tried. I don't know how to fix this. I don't want to give up, as I said, I love him dearly. I just want to feel like I mean something in return.
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