My husband and I have been married for two years, and have been together for six years, and things have been relatively normal until recent months. My husband and I have both been working a lot, which I understand stress can be hard on a person, and a relationship, but I think there are deeper issues at play here.
Sex:
Our first issue is sex. The amount of sex we're having had been reduced due to the amount of time we both spend working. It dwindled down to once per week or less when we used to have sex two or three times per week. A few months ago, we agreed to schedule sex twice per week, because my husband was becoming sexually frustrated, but scheduling sex has not helped his attitude. He continues to pressure me to have sex at inconvenient times or very late at night on a work night, when all I want to do is get some sleep. He is upset and agitated if we spend any time at all together and it does not end in sex. He talks to me like I'm not putting out enough, even when we are meeting or exceeding our twice per week goal.
I really do not enjoy giving blow jobs. I tend to only do it for him on special occasions, and in the past, that has been acceptable, but recently, he asked me to do it at least once per week. I tried this for a few weeks, and he asked me to "pretend to like it" because the fact that I keep gagging makes it hard for him to get off. This upset me because our relationship has always been built on honesty and trust, and now he basically wants me to lie to him. (It's not like I can control my gag reflex anyways.) It also upsets me because he seems to have no regard for my feelings. Even with regular sex, foreplay has become non-existent. He just gets down to business, whether I'm ready or not, leaving me sore. He used to try to hold off and try to get me to orgasm but he doesn't do that anymore. If I'm not wet enough for him right away, he just gets mad at me, instead of trying to woo me, like he used to.
Money:
My husband brought more that $100,000 worth of debt to the marriage with a car loan and a butt load of student loans, but we have budgeted everything out, made some realistic goals, and have been meeting them well. We have paid off more than $20,000 in debt over the past two years. I think we're doing pretty well for ourselves, but my husband has some financial mood swings. Sometimes he freaks out and panics, saying we're not paying off the loans fast enough. Usually this happens when I want or need to buy something. We could not afford for me to buy new bras when many of my old bras were starting to fall apart in the wash or stretch out too much to wear. He also freaked out when my parents stopped paying for my cell phone so I had to get my own plan. But yet we could afford to take a trip to New York City for him to visit B&H to buy some expensive camera equipment for his photography hobby. He has a very expensive photography hobby, and we agreed that he could buy one expensive piece of equipment per year, just to pace it out, and make sure we can still make our loan payments. He's already bought two expensive things this year without batting an eye.
He has also accused me of spending too much of "his money" on more than one occasion, when we have OUR money in one bank account. We BOTH work full time. I try not to bring up the fact that I actually make more money than he does and I was not in any debt before we got married, because I like to think of us as a team and our money and OUR money, but lately our money is "his money" and he can spend away without getting my permission, while I need permission to buy new underwear.
Jealousy:
My husband is a jealous person. I first noticed it when we were planning our wedding. Friends of his had just gotten married and he really wanted to outdo their wedding. We just didn't have the money for that. His friends were ten years older than us, better established and their parents paid off their student debt. We were not in the same position. That's okay with me. We just do what we can with the resources we have available to us and we can have our own memorable wedding. It was a huge fight to get him to concede the open bar, inviting more than 400 guests, and serving an expensive seafood entree, but we compromised. He got his expensive wedding band, and we found affordable ways to make our wedding look expensive, and when all was said and done he said he was very happy with our wedding.
Though now, he is upset that many of his co-workers own homes, have children, and go on long vacations. I keep trying to remind him that we're young. I'm only 25 and he's 27. We have time, and in time, we'll have all of that too, but every other week, he'll have an absolute melt down about the fact that he doesn't get to do or have everything that his co-workers do and have.
Negativity:
There has been a lot of negativity about many things. I know our lives aren't perfect but they're not bad either, and he's been having trouble seeing the good in anything.
He always complains about how terrible his job is, and how he wants a new one and wants to quit, but he works for a great company, with much opportunity for advancement and raises. He just got a $2/hour raise in January. The hours are super flexible. The benefits are fantastic. He likes his coworkers. His commute is easy. He can get as much overtime as he wants. His job is secure. His 401k plan is unheard of with his company matching contributions up to 6%. He's a chemist, but he complains he doesn't like bench lab work and wants to do field biology work. I understand his annoyance, but in this economy, I think he's doing pretty well for himself. And though I make more money than he does right now, I know he'll surpass me in a few years, if he has the patience to stick with it.
He is also super negative about where we live. We are very lucky to live close to my family. They invite us over for dinner a lot, saving us money on groceries. My grandparents own a horse farm. My husband and I have two horses that we don't even have to pay for because they live on the family farm. There are 40 acres of woods with trails on this farm with many, many opportunities for him to hone his photography skills, since nature photography is his favorite... yet all he does is complain about it. He doesn't utilize what's available to him, and he calls his horse "pain in the ass".
He hates our apartment because we don't have a dish washer and he doesn't like the plaster walls... ignoring the fact that the rent is phenomenal, our land lords are super nice, and it's HUGE.
Restlessness:
Over the past two weeks restlessness has become an issue. He complains that he doesn't want to be "tied down". He started looking at new jobs in North Carolina (we live in Pennsylvania). I explained that we both have good jobs here, and a lot of good things going for us with my family nearby for help. His family is not too far away either. They are only a 2 hours drive away. I also explained the logistics of a big move like that, and how we just cannot afford it right now. I told him that, in a few years, when the loans are paid off, we can talk about moving, if he's really unhappy here. I also explained that if he wants to buy a house and have kids, he's going to have to be tied down, and if he wants to get ahead in a job, he's going to have to commit to it and be tied down. This is when he accused me of being unsupportive of him.
Sexist comments:
My husband was raised in a household where his mom did all the housework, even though she worked full time. Since we've been living together, we agreed that while both of us are working, we work together to take care of the house. It's been mostly okay. He's not as neat of a person as I am so I do tend to clean more, but he's been pulling his weight by doing a lot of the cooking. Lately he's been coming home, plopping down in his chair, or disappearing to play video games and complaining that I don't cook for him enough, and he has not acknowledged the fact that I've been cleaning the bathroom, folding all the laundry, hand washing all the dishes, and that I have actually been cooking dinner more often than he has recently. One day, he came home, and told me "he expected more to be done when he got home." The way he's been talking to me lately has implied that he's expecting me to do more housework because I'm the wife, and he's told me he's jealous of some of his male coworkers who have dinner on the table when they get home. This is great if this is what their wives want to do, and if their wives don't work just as many, if not more hours than their husbands, but this is not true of our situation, and this attitude of his is very upsetting to me.
Overall, he just seems, really, really unhappy, and his unhappiness is growing. I can't put my finger on exactly why he's unhappy. For the first 5 years we were together, he wasn't like this at all. I'm just not sure what to do about it. I'm not afraid of him leaving or wanting a divorce because he honestly can't afford to live on his own, financially, without me, but that's not any way to live for either of us. I want to ease his distress, but beyond staying rational, and trying to be understanding, I don't know what to do. I've tried to be honest and tell him how I feel, but that hasn't worked... Any advice?
Sex:
Our first issue is sex. The amount of sex we're having had been reduced due to the amount of time we both spend working. It dwindled down to once per week or less when we used to have sex two or three times per week. A few months ago, we agreed to schedule sex twice per week, because my husband was becoming sexually frustrated, but scheduling sex has not helped his attitude. He continues to pressure me to have sex at inconvenient times or very late at night on a work night, when all I want to do is get some sleep. He is upset and agitated if we spend any time at all together and it does not end in sex. He talks to me like I'm not putting out enough, even when we are meeting or exceeding our twice per week goal.
I really do not enjoy giving blow jobs. I tend to only do it for him on special occasions, and in the past, that has been acceptable, but recently, he asked me to do it at least once per week. I tried this for a few weeks, and he asked me to "pretend to like it" because the fact that I keep gagging makes it hard for him to get off. This upset me because our relationship has always been built on honesty and trust, and now he basically wants me to lie to him. (It's not like I can control my gag reflex anyways.) It also upsets me because he seems to have no regard for my feelings. Even with regular sex, foreplay has become non-existent. He just gets down to business, whether I'm ready or not, leaving me sore. He used to try to hold off and try to get me to orgasm but he doesn't do that anymore. If I'm not wet enough for him right away, he just gets mad at me, instead of trying to woo me, like he used to.
Money:
My husband brought more that $100,000 worth of debt to the marriage with a car loan and a butt load of student loans, but we have budgeted everything out, made some realistic goals, and have been meeting them well. We have paid off more than $20,000 in debt over the past two years. I think we're doing pretty well for ourselves, but my husband has some financial mood swings. Sometimes he freaks out and panics, saying we're not paying off the loans fast enough. Usually this happens when I want or need to buy something. We could not afford for me to buy new bras when many of my old bras were starting to fall apart in the wash or stretch out too much to wear. He also freaked out when my parents stopped paying for my cell phone so I had to get my own plan. But yet we could afford to take a trip to New York City for him to visit B&H to buy some expensive camera equipment for his photography hobby. He has a very expensive photography hobby, and we agreed that he could buy one expensive piece of equipment per year, just to pace it out, and make sure we can still make our loan payments. He's already bought two expensive things this year without batting an eye.
He has also accused me of spending too much of "his money" on more than one occasion, when we have OUR money in one bank account. We BOTH work full time. I try not to bring up the fact that I actually make more money than he does and I was not in any debt before we got married, because I like to think of us as a team and our money and OUR money, but lately our money is "his money" and he can spend away without getting my permission, while I need permission to buy new underwear.
Jealousy:
My husband is a jealous person. I first noticed it when we were planning our wedding. Friends of his had just gotten married and he really wanted to outdo their wedding. We just didn't have the money for that. His friends were ten years older than us, better established and their parents paid off their student debt. We were not in the same position. That's okay with me. We just do what we can with the resources we have available to us and we can have our own memorable wedding. It was a huge fight to get him to concede the open bar, inviting more than 400 guests, and serving an expensive seafood entree, but we compromised. He got his expensive wedding band, and we found affordable ways to make our wedding look expensive, and when all was said and done he said he was very happy with our wedding.
Though now, he is upset that many of his co-workers own homes, have children, and go on long vacations. I keep trying to remind him that we're young. I'm only 25 and he's 27. We have time, and in time, we'll have all of that too, but every other week, he'll have an absolute melt down about the fact that he doesn't get to do or have everything that his co-workers do and have.
Negativity:
There has been a lot of negativity about many things. I know our lives aren't perfect but they're not bad either, and he's been having trouble seeing the good in anything.
He always complains about how terrible his job is, and how he wants a new one and wants to quit, but he works for a great company, with much opportunity for advancement and raises. He just got a $2/hour raise in January. The hours are super flexible. The benefits are fantastic. He likes his coworkers. His commute is easy. He can get as much overtime as he wants. His job is secure. His 401k plan is unheard of with his company matching contributions up to 6%. He's a chemist, but he complains he doesn't like bench lab work and wants to do field biology work. I understand his annoyance, but in this economy, I think he's doing pretty well for himself. And though I make more money than he does right now, I know he'll surpass me in a few years, if he has the patience to stick with it.
He is also super negative about where we live. We are very lucky to live close to my family. They invite us over for dinner a lot, saving us money on groceries. My grandparents own a horse farm. My husband and I have two horses that we don't even have to pay for because they live on the family farm. There are 40 acres of woods with trails on this farm with many, many opportunities for him to hone his photography skills, since nature photography is his favorite... yet all he does is complain about it. He doesn't utilize what's available to him, and he calls his horse "pain in the ass".
He hates our apartment because we don't have a dish washer and he doesn't like the plaster walls... ignoring the fact that the rent is phenomenal, our land lords are super nice, and it's HUGE.
Restlessness:
Over the past two weeks restlessness has become an issue. He complains that he doesn't want to be "tied down". He started looking at new jobs in North Carolina (we live in Pennsylvania). I explained that we both have good jobs here, and a lot of good things going for us with my family nearby for help. His family is not too far away either. They are only a 2 hours drive away. I also explained the logistics of a big move like that, and how we just cannot afford it right now. I told him that, in a few years, when the loans are paid off, we can talk about moving, if he's really unhappy here. I also explained that if he wants to buy a house and have kids, he's going to have to be tied down, and if he wants to get ahead in a job, he's going to have to commit to it and be tied down. This is when he accused me of being unsupportive of him.
Sexist comments:
My husband was raised in a household where his mom did all the housework, even though she worked full time. Since we've been living together, we agreed that while both of us are working, we work together to take care of the house. It's been mostly okay. He's not as neat of a person as I am so I do tend to clean more, but he's been pulling his weight by doing a lot of the cooking. Lately he's been coming home, plopping down in his chair, or disappearing to play video games and complaining that I don't cook for him enough, and he has not acknowledged the fact that I've been cleaning the bathroom, folding all the laundry, hand washing all the dishes, and that I have actually been cooking dinner more often than he has recently. One day, he came home, and told me "he expected more to be done when he got home." The way he's been talking to me lately has implied that he's expecting me to do more housework because I'm the wife, and he's told me he's jealous of some of his male coworkers who have dinner on the table when they get home. This is great if this is what their wives want to do, and if their wives don't work just as many, if not more hours than their husbands, but this is not true of our situation, and this attitude of his is very upsetting to me.
Overall, he just seems, really, really unhappy, and his unhappiness is growing. I can't put my finger on exactly why he's unhappy. For the first 5 years we were together, he wasn't like this at all. I'm just not sure what to do about it. I'm not afraid of him leaving or wanting a divorce because he honestly can't afford to live on his own, financially, without me, but that's not any way to live for either of us. I want to ease his distress, but beyond staying rational, and trying to be understanding, I don't know what to do. I've tried to be honest and tell him how I feel, but that hasn't worked... Any advice?
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