Although things between my H and I are improving, overall, I recently admitted to myself that I have a need for Financial Support. When we first did the questionnaires, I didn't even list it in the top 5, but now I realize that it is important to me. H works with his family and will not consider ever doing anything else. I make more money than he does, which at first didn't bother me. But now I find myself becoming resentful (in addition to the affair stuff) that I have become the primary bread winner and cannot even consider taking a less stressful, lower paying job because we can't afford it.

I know I should discuss this with H and come up with some kind of POJA. But I also know that a man's self-esteem is very closely tied to how well he provides for his family, as well as his sexual prowess. I don't want to offend him or imply that he has failed to provide for us, but I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck. I have cut our expenses over 25% over the past couple of years and I don't know what else I can cut.

I have never wanted to live in a mansion, but I did have the hope that over time we would gradually be able to increase our standard of living. But recently we have even talked about buying a smaller house (right now, we live in a double wide trailer). I have driven old clunker cars. I know times are hard, but I am becoming more resentful of H. And then this resentment stirs up affair-related resentment and I begin to wonder if I am completely out of my mind for staying.

Should I just keep my mouth shut and keep making the best of what we have? How should I handle this?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by maxie:
<strong>Should I just keep my mouth shut and keep making the best of what we have? How should I handle this?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Nope, be a skillfull giver. You should take if it would hurt you. You should let him know w/o LB and find a way to cummunicate it to him. Do you follow 15 hr/week of quality time ?, that is the time to bring it up. Remember use I ... and avoid any reference about him (don't bring about your feeling of lack of effort from him). Let him be part of the solution. If you shut up ... it is like you drink the coffee and wish you husband to be awake.

-rh-

Thanks for the reply. I think I am afraid that just bringing it up at all will be an LB, no matter how tactfully I try to phrase my feelings. Maybe I feel he has failed? We're not even close to the 15 hours a week thing, although we do have a date planned for this weekend. Thanks for the suggestions.

Hey maxie. Redhat is right. You have to be able to talk to your husband about ANYTHING. I had trouble with this at first with my wife because she does have a temper and a lot of times I would make her angry when I tried to talk with her about certain issues. I learned here how to bring things up and talk to her in the right way and it has helped a lot. If you think through carefully what you want to say ahead of time you can do it without causing resentment. I have been able to talk with my wife about things that I wouldn't have gone near before and she has taken it all very well. It's all in how you approach it.

Thank you, starman. OK, so how do I approach it? "Honey, I appreciate how hard you work and how much you love your parents. And I know you feel obligated to the family business. But sometimes I feel that your parents and their approval are more important to you than me and the kids. I understand that they can't pay you any more, but I never wanted to become the primary source of income for our family."

I'm just afraid it will hurt him terribly for me to even suggest that he look for something else. He feels that he made the choice to stay in the business, and he is bound to that for life. (But then again, he made some vows to me that were also supposed to be for life, but let's not go there...)