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Ok, now some questions that came into my head as I was reading this. I am not trying to pressure you, just sort things out a little. You certainly don't have to answer these on the forum of course smile But they might be worth thinking about. I am guessing, though, that some of it might be painful and might be worth considering with your counsellor.

Why did you feel, even a a child, that you had to be the one who made people happy?
What caused your world to crash?
How did you come to lose your friends at such a young age?
Did you enjoy college ~ without friends & without your boyfriend?
How old were you when the drinking, cutting, etc, began?
How did your family react?
Did you tell your husband about it?
How did your husband react?

Has all this affected the way that you behave, and have behaved, towards your husband, do you think?

Why did the photos cause you problems?

I get the impression that your husband has been your 'rock', but at a price. You seem to feel that you have to please him, just for being there for you. But marriage is a two-way thing. He must have got something out of it too. You want him to be happy, but does he want you to be happy?

You were both very young to marry, yet he is satisfied with his lot ~ even if it means hating his job and just sitting on the sofa, watching TV.

You have always appeared to be content with this too. But it was an appearance, only. You were not content, but you wanted to do and say whatever made him happy ~ including agreeing to have children.

Long term, living this lie has made neither of you happy, because you were becoming frustrated and he has now discovered this.

Losing your job and finding this amazing new one has given you what you always wanted ~ people, fun, adventure, etc, and all while you are still young enough to enjoy it.

It seems that he has never wanted adventure. He wanted a good job, a home, a TV, a wife and kids. He thought that he had that, so he is probably in shock.

But you, too, thought that life was going to just carry on as it had done ~ home, husband and babies.

However, the new job has shown you a new life. And it has happened just as counselling has helped you to discover the real you ~ and to make new friends and sort things out with your family. You are probably in shock yourself!

You feel confused, but your husband must feel confused as well. He has just seen his life change in front of him. His loving wife isn't sure that she loves him; his soon-to-be-born babies have been put on hold.

But has he contributed to the gulf between you?
He didn't want to watch TV with you.
He didn't want to deal with the body pillow problem.
He didn't want to go out with you.
He knows that you love your new job, but he hasn't supported you in it.
You are working away less than before, yet he still isn't happy about it.
Everyone needs friends, but he doesn't seem to like you having friends.

Is he really 'in love' with you, in a way that you aren't with him?

After 11 years of marriage, very few couples are 'in love' in the same way that they were when they were younger. The love develops and evolves.

Until recently, you thought that you would have babies soon and grow old together. That doesn't sound like someone who has totally and actively fallen out of love.

As you say, you have both been through rough times lately. You may well have grown apart. But this happens to many people ~ even in the happiest of marriages. Sometimes you just need to re-assess the relationship. Don't blame yourself. Don't blame him. You are bound to change and grow as time goes by.

Thirty is not too old to have children ~ though I was told that it was, when I had my first at that age.

If you have your adventures now, you will be happier to settle down in a little while.

You will be home more than you were before, so there will be time to get to know each other again.

And depression and medication can definitely affect relationships ~ sometimes for the better and sometimes not.

You may be able to fall in love again and start afresh, or it might be time to make the break. Be sure ~ or as sure as you can be. Talk it over. Give it every chance. Talk to your counsellor. See how it goes.

Good luck smile


"The secret of success is constancy to purpose" - Benjamin Disraeli.
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Thank you for all the advice - I will think about this and respond later this evening.

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Finally responding to the above:

Regarding the medication - I know you all don't mean any harm when you say the medication may possibly be hurting the situation, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. When I first started taking the medication I was extremely depressed - let me preface that by stating that some families may be labelled as "prozac families" - that's my family - the only difference is that I was the first to truly admit it to everyone that my depression was not a situational depression - it was something I had been struggling with for many years of my life - at least 10. Finally I found something that made me actually feel NORMAL - I had what regular people call their ups and downs, their highs and lows. I wasn't happy all the time, I wasn't sad all the time - I was able to deal with things rationally, the way an adult should deal with things that impact their lives. My husband told me he could tell the difference between when I was taking my medicine and when I wasn't taking my medicine - I was that different of a person. I have since stopped taking the medicine and don't feel like I need to take it anymore. I am happy when I should be happy, sad when I should be sad, I'm not irrational... but most of all, I feel right mentally and I honestly believe that medication has helped me get to where I am today.

Re. David and I doing things together: We used to do EVERYTHING together to the point where we had no external friendships. In my opinion, it is a healthy thing to have external relationships, it is healthy to have other people you can turn to, because Lord knows my husband doesn't want to hear every little detail of what is bothering me and I certainly wouldn't want to burden him with that. Just as I don't need to hear everything that flows through his head. I also think it's healthy to develop different interests - that way you can introduce the other person to those interests.

Re. some of the questions asked by PDM:
"Why did you feel, even a a child, that you had to be the one who made people happy?" - I was always the one that made people smile, I never wanted to see people unhappy. It's just been in my nature. My other siblings would tell my mother they hated her - I hated to see her cry after they told her that. I could never tell her that even if I felt it in the heat of the moment - I knew it wasn't true and I couldn't hurt her so badly. I never wanted to disappoint anyone, to the point where I was unhappy because it made my mother happy to see that I wore the clothes she picked out for me, did my hair the way she wanted it done, got the grades my parents wanted me to have. It made them happy and I guess in some aspect it made me happy to see them happy. That and as I grew older and I spoke up about things bothering me, it only caused fights, tension, anger - all things that would cause me to shut down and give in to what they wanted to make them happy - at the expense of my own happiness.

"What caused your world to crash? How did you come to lose your friends at such a young age?" My world crashed when who I thought had been my best friend (and other friends) for 6+ years told me she didn't want to hear my problems anymore. So I turned to the only other girl that I thought was my friend - she knew about my eating problems and ended up lying to her parents (who subsequently told my parents) about what we would do together: she said I was the only one going out drinking (which was not true, we were hanging out with college boys who drank in addition to her drinking) and that I was still making myself sick (which was not true). When I realized what happening, I got in the car and started driving west - wanting to run away. Ultimately, I turned the car around and went home. After being screamed at by my parents and realizing I had no friends left to turn to, I sunk into an even deeper depression. Then David came along.

"Did you enjoy college ~ without friends & without your boyfriend?" I think I enjoyed college. If I could go back through it, I might make more of an effort to make and keep more friends. I also probably would not date anyone. I think I was too young to get into such a serious relationship. Needless to say, based on the above, I think I would have enjoyed college more had I followed the comments above.

"How old were you when the drinking, cutting, etc, began?" I didn't start drinking until late in my senior year in high school - this was after my best friend told me she didn't want to hear about my problems anymore. I started my eating disorder before the end of my junior year. I also started cutting myself then - at first it was my belly, upper legs and arms. After that, since I was a lifeguard during the summer, I cut just my belly. This continued throughout my senior year - finally my freshman year in college, after a fight that David and I had, I took a knife and sliced very deeply - didn't get stiches, just patched it up with butterflies and wore long-sleeve shirts for a while. My parents have noticed the scar as it is on the arm that I got burned with boiling water when I was a child - they knew what that scar looked like - and this was fresh, red and out of place. I have not cut myself since then, although a couple of times I have taken pills in the hopes of not waking up. It has been several years since that though as well.

"How did your family react?" My family doesn't know about all the details of my friendship woes. The only portion they know about is my eating disorder as they are the ones that took me to a psychiatrist to get help.

"Did you tell your husband about it?" My husband knows about all of the above.

"How did your husband react?" My husband was sorry that the above happened to me. He now knows how I feel about college as well. He said he was afraid I would feel this way at some point but doesn't believe he's at all to blame for it - which I never blamed him anyway. This was something I should have realized at that point in my life, but didn't.

"Has all this affected the way that you behave, and have behaved, towards your husband, do you think?" I do believe that the above has affected the way I used to and currently behave with my husband. I should have had a different standpoint from the beginning - I should have know it's always a nice gesture to make people happy, but you also need to make yourself happy. Making others happy to the expense of your own happiness is not healthy, nor is it the way to live a life. I think, because I am now realizing this and feeling the pressure to continue to make him happy with where he wants to go in his life is impacting the way I feel about him - I think it has caused a rift - I think when I told him that I wanted to travel and I saw how negatively he reacted, it angered me and made me only want to do it more - like an immature child. I do want to travel though - and he does have the opportunity to meet up with me at the ends of my trips, but he says it's too expensive and he doesn't want to do it. He has also said that I can get to understand the business without having to travel - which is NOT true. I will not go into the details of my new job, except that I am an internal auditor of a manufacturing company. I was not hired into this position with the anticipation (by myself or the people that hired me) that I would always be in internal audit, I was hired in this position in hopes that I would move up within the company and possibly be a Controller at one of the many locations within the world. My husband knew this when I accepted the job - after I came back from my first trip and started talking about the possibilities, he got upset.

He says he wants children now - I do not (I do at some point, but not at the moment, especially now given the new opportunties with my job). I want to get out there, understand the new business that I'm in, do things I have always wanted to do, but never had the chance and once children are in the picture, those opportunities may disappear, especially with me being a woman.

"Why did the photos cause you problems?" It made me think of times when I was happy, but it reminds me of how much I've changed and how much I've realized since those days. Some of them also show me what lengths I was willing to go through in order to make him happy, sometimes even at the sacrifice of my own happiness.

"I get the impression that your husband has been your 'rock', but at a price. You seem to feel that you have to please him, just for being there for you. But marriage is a two-way thing. He must have got something out of it too. You want him to be happy, but does he want you to be happy?" He wants me to be happy and he's trying now that all of this has come up, but I have this feeling in the back of my mind that it's too late - it might be too late to build up his deposits in my "love bank" for him. (http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3200_love.html)

"You were both very young to marry, yet he is satisfied with his lot ~ even if it means hating his job and just sitting on the sofa, watching TV. You have always appeared to be content with this too. But it was an appearance, only. You were not content, but you wanted to do and say whatever made him happy ~ including agreeing to have children." This is quite on point with how I'm feeling looking back at things. And now that I think about it - I was crying the entire time during our wedding - was this something I should have paid attention to?

"You may be able to fall in love again and start afresh, or it might be time to make the break. Be sure ~ or as sure as you can be. Talk it over. Give it every chance. Talk to your counsellor. See how it goes." I have a meeting with my counselor tomorrow to discuss these things. I think this blog has helped and I hope it continues to help me sort through things. Maybe one day I will feel for him the way I once did, but only time will tell. I know it hurts him to know I don't want to kiss him or hug him - but when I do, I feel nothing, almost as though I'm kissing a brother or just a friend. This has and will continue to be hard.

Thank you all for your input - it is greatly appreciated.

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I hope that it works out as well as it can for both of you ~ but one more thing ~ about making people happy. I'm sure that this is what most of us want. Most people want to see their loved ones happy and hate to think that they might have upset them. I know that I feel this way. You are not unusual in this respect.

What, I suppose, is a little more unusual, but, again, not completely different from the way some others will react, is that your friends betrayed you and, when they did, you responded by punishing yourself.

I do wonder what problems you could have been talking about for six years, though, when you were quite a young girl. Maybe it was the depression that you mention, I can understand that. I suffered from teenage depression, myself. It was horrible.

You sound as if you have grown through most of it, which is great, and become more assertive and confidemts, which is also great, but which can put pressure on some marriages ~ as you have found.

Good luck! smile



"The secret of success is constancy to purpose" - Benjamin Disraeli.
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The problems were depression - but I also had issues with my parents and siblings. I had always felt so much pressure from them - that coupled with the eating disorder spiraling out of control must have been too much for them. I don't quite understand it, but it is what it is and I have grown from it and I am more cautious about who I open up to because of what happened when I was younger.

I understand it's normal to want to make people happy and that's fine - I'm game with that... but when do you stop trying so hard to make other people happy in order to make yourself happy?

Maybe some of these things will be cleared up today when I go talk to my psychologist.

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I have found this site in looking for some help myself and to be honest I find your situation eerily similar to mine... so I am hoping for a little advice from you. My problem is I can't have that initial conversation with my husband... I have tried ... I either can't spit it out (that never ending need to keep the peace) or I do start and he seems to talk over me and before I know it we are done with the conversation. Any advice on where to start? the same thing applies - I just don't want to hurt him but I do desperately want to be happier than we are right now.

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Hello Just Breath & welcome smile.

Since your situation is similar to that of MW1, you may benefit from this thread, but it would be a good idea to have one of your own, so I shall start one for you. smile


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Talked to the psychologist yesterday - she said it sounded as though I had pretty much gone through all the thoughts on my mind regarding my husband and I. I asked her for a marriage counselor and she indicated to me that she didn't think that I needed one - it appeared as though I was ready to take the next step - legal separation. I got the number for a marriage counselor any way because my husband wants us to go to one - and I believe it might help me to better shed some light on the situation to my husband. We have our first appointment in just under two weeks.

I have been trying to spend some time apart from my husband so I can sort through some things in my mind - so yesterday after work I went directly to the gym, then from there to my parents house for dinner. I got back from my parents house at around 11PM only to start fighting with my husband yet again. This fight eventually turned into a discussion on the splitting of assets if a separation and divorce were to ultimately come to fruition. This discussion was very calm and logical: re who gets the house, furniture, rugs, boat, dog, etc. At the end of the conversation things switched to another gear - we talked about how we were best friends and how difficult this was going to be on the both of us and we both started crying. I was going to sleep separately from my husband, but he came downstairs and asked me to come up and sleep in bed with him as a friend, simply because he knew the days were limited and he wanted to get in as many as he could. Just writing this has made me start to cry.

Today has been a very different day. We have talked a couple of times, but only has friends would talk. Not once have the words "I love you" passed through either of our mouths. David finally told me that he felt sorry for me because of what I was going through - not only with how things are between us - because he knows I feel lower than low about what is going on between us, but also with what I'm dealing with regarding my dying grandmother, my little sister getting married, my parents breaking down, etc. This caught me by surprise.

Now I have new thoughts crossing through my head - I'm scared. If what I think will happen happens, this will be the first time I have ever been on my own - and I don't know how to be alone. I will have to get an apartment (even though my parents tell me I can come and live with them - I don't think that's the best idea and I will need to figure things out for myself), I will have nothing... I will have to start over.

I can't stop crying. Why am I crying??? Through all of this, this is the first time I've cried when I'm writing/thinking about this (excluding the cry last night - but that was the start of it). Is it truly sinking in that the past 11 years of my life with David will only be a memory, including all the good and bad times we've shared? How could it have gotten to this point - I can't believe it got to this point.

All this and my engagement band was finally fixed yesterday - David showed me how they'd fixed it and polished it - it looked just like the day I first set eyes on it - when David proposed. The only difference this time is that it stayed in the box.... and there were no tears of joy, or kissing or hugging.

Last edited by MW1; 03/24/10 08:56 PM.
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Originally Posted By: MW1
..... I can't stop crying. Why am I crying??? ....

Because you are grieving.
This is a natural and normal reaction to such events.
I think that it is quite wonderful that you and your husband are 'friends' at this difficult time.


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I have submitted a request for an apartment. Move in date of April 10th. And so the separation begins.

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