Good morning everyone,

I'm new to this list - never thought I'd be going through the "divorcing/divorced" category, so bear with me. Any advice you can share is appreciated.

I have been with my husband for twelve years, and we have been married for six - no children involved. Basically, I am at the point I just want out. I wonder how we ever ended up together, and I feel so much guilt and responsibility.

I have worked two jobs or worked and gone to school for the majority of our relationship. I went back to school 2 months after we married, finished my BSBA just over a year ago after 5 years of nonstop FT work and school. I never took so much as a summer off. Now, for the first time, I actually come home from work, and I'm not real happy with what it's turned into. He's become very content being a married bachelor. He plays ball two nights a week and golfs on the weekend, and I'm at home playing Cinderella. I manage the house, do all the yardwork, manage the finances (which is a major battle - he is terrible with money), have to keep up the maintenance on the vehicles, etc, in addition to my own career, which has increased in time and responsibility since I graduated. If I even ask for his help in trimming trees, etc, I get yelled at and belittled in front of the whole neighborhood. Now I certainly realize that things could be worse, I'm not being cheated on or abused, so I almost feel ridiculous in wanting to leave. But at the same time, he does get very loud, angry and hateful if things don't go his way, and he doesn't care who hears.

So anyway, I'm tired of being his workhorse. I went "back home" to help my dad move in the fall, and when I returned to our home the reality hit me of just how miserable my existance is now, and he doesn't care. I've told him every way I know. I've tried to work in compromise and balance - nothing seems to work. I've asked him to give up golf so that I could take riding lessons and pick up some hobbies for myself because we can't afford both. He got one of his sports buddies to "gang up" against me and tell me how selfish I'm being.

In addition to this, in the last couple of years I've found other truths to what he originally "embellished" and sold me on when we first met, and I didn't question things. Not earth shattering, but things like education, credit and religious beliefs are not quite what I was led to believe. Actually, not at all what I was led to believe, but as I've found them out in bits and pieces I've let it roll. Now that I pile them up, it is kind of earth shattering - to me at least. I sure don't want any new bills, commitments, kids, etc with him. I want out of what we currently have now that I have the whole picture in front of me.

So, I'm at the point of feeling that my vows covered "in sickness and in health", but they didn't commit me to selfish and lazy. I just feel so terrible about it all - I was so focused on school, 4 days a week I was gone from 7am to 11pm, and had school work on the weekends, and I didn't look closely at what was happening (by the way, he never helped with anything while I was in school either - he "didn't have time"). So, after a lot of stressing and soul searching, I told him I wanted to leave, and I got accused that there must be someone else. There isn't - he just won't take ownership of any of his own faults, but I told him I'd give him 6 months to show me that I'm more than his caretaker. For two months he used all the guilt against me he could and wore a little halo. I wasn't sleeping, sick to my stomach all the time, feeling awful, as every morning he would tell me I'm his best friend and he doesn't want to lose me, and I just feel blank inside hearing it while he goes through the motions of doing what I ask. I didn't want to give him mixed messages, so we weren't intimate that whole time. Finally, I decided that he will say all the right things and behave in "honeymoon mode" so long as I hold the "I'm leaving" gun to his head, but the minute I relax and just let things happen he'll go right back to how it was. Sure enough, I finally gave in and we were intimate. The next day I got a quick peck on the cheek and off he went - no more about how I'm his best friend, no more anything for me. No helping with the bills or laundry, setting the garbage out, doing things I want to do - gone. Like flipping a light switch.

So, that has helped somewhat with the guilt issues. I know in my heart that I will have to force him to make me a priority - he'll never do it willingly on his own, and I can't live like that. I'm 32 and he's 38, and I don't want to wake up at 50 or 60 to the same nonsense and say "Yep, you should've left."

Any thoughts?

I can so relate to what you were saying. I am having the same guilty feelings. I have been with my husband for 8 years and married 4 and want out so bad. I have discovered things about him that are earth shattering. When I confronted him about them he totally went off the deep end. Maybe we can talk and be supportive to each other to get through this. I am also 32 and want lots of things in life and he is not on the same page I am on, but when I talk about leaving it is guilt central.

Before either of you take the divorce route consider reading the wealth of information that the Harley's have compiled on this site. It is indispensable knowledge, if not for your current marriage then for any future relationship.

Hi emh,

You might consider posting over in the Emotional Needs forum--because what you are describing is the fact that your emotional needs are not being met and you are growing in resentment.

While you have been unhappy for sometime, it is probably a little too early to be deciding about divorce. There are a lot of people that have recovered from the point you are at, and so there is still hope.

Read read read. Purchase the book "His Needs Her Needs" by Dr. Harley. Read the articles on this site in teh meantime. Also read "Overcoming Lovebusters."

It is very likely that your husband had to learn to cope without you over the years, and has been just as unhappy. Probably you are both lacking in desire to pour into one another.

Sounds like Domestic support is high on your list of EN's. Until you and your husband are able to work out a plan that you can both feel enthusiastic about, what about hiring some help? There are cleaning services that will come in... Laundry pick up and delivery services... Yard maintenance services (sometimes the neighborhood kids will do that).

You're both working full time, there should be money for some of that stuff.

In the meantime, after you read over the materials, try to figure out what your husband's top EN's are. Maybe his love for you has been draining as well... and maybe he has some resentments for being on his own for so long.

Anyway, come on over to the EN board. (Be prepared--it is pretty slow on the weekends). Don't even think about leaving until you've done everything you possibly can to improve your own part in the relationship... then see what impact all that has on your husband and marriage.

Welcome, emh.

This goes for both of you, rng and emh:

[color:" purple"]Oh, you soSO need to listen to Telly and follow his advice and to that of ba. [/color]

Ok Emh2,

I'll bite and offer you some advice. First, take Telly's advice and post in Emotional Needs. Second, sit down and read what you have written carefully. Actually, perhaps you read this post and let you know what I see as love busters and particularly the most fatal kind (disrespectful judgements, DJ's for short). Then once you have read my replies, please go read the articles on this site, AND THEN post on the Emotional needs section of this site.

Your marriage is not lost, in fact from what you have said it is very very salvagable, actually that is the wrong word. The goal here is not to just save a marriage, but to build into something you both like and need.

First thing that comes to mind in your post is that your H is filled with RESENTMENT and some of the reasons seem obvious. Let's discuss this after you have read what I have to say and read the articles on this site.

You said
Let me ask you something. When you plant a garden and the leave it for 5 years with little or no watering, no weeding, what do you expect to find when you go look at it?

If there is one thing that Harley states with clarity it is that a good marriage needs time together, 15 hours a week or more. You have been off doing your thing. There is nothing wrong with this, but something had to slide and it was your marriage. You don't think that your H doesn't feel he is WAY DOWN your "to do" list? If you think otherwise you are a very very foolish lady.

Ever heard the saying that the "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence?" Nice saying but the real truth is the grass is always greener where you water it. You marriage has been way short of "watering".


Let's see, according to you he does not work at all is that right? He is playing at being a batchelor and you don't like it, but he WAS a batchelor for 5 years of your marriage. He was on his own wasn't he? So he filled his time with things he liked to do. Makes sense to me.



Lots of potential issues here, but since we are focusing on the ones YOU can control, let me ask you a question. Why would he give up golf to do what you want? What advantage is that to him? I can see the advantage to you if he helps and you go further later on as to one of the advantages. But, why would he want to be around you, or work with you? Are you a pleasant person to be around? Are you demanding?

I ask this because your H's response is anger, and anger is a secondary emotion generally driven by primary feelings such as: fear, frustration, pain, etc. So what is driving his anger? Perhaps for 5 years you did not care about alot of this and although you don't mention it, perhaps he did some of this. Now that you are out of school you have more time and you are using it to order him around? Is that an issue? My point is not to blame all of this on you, but obtain a much better understanding of the dynamics of this situation, knowing full well that most posters come here and their beginning posts are ALWAYS from their point of view. Nothing wrong with that at all, but ultimately you are going to need to see his point of view as well, in order to make decisions that YOU can live with.


I take it from this comment that he does NOTHING. He apparently does not work. He apparently has done nothing while you were in school for YOUR benefit. He contributes nothing to your happiness. Is this about it, the guy is a complete loser?

Now is this close or are we talking about a DJ here? Please read up on them in the love buster section of this site. You see if you are DJ'ing him, you WILL get the type of response you have described from him.



It is highly unlikely that this statement is true. YOu may have tried all YOU know, but you have not tried the approaches found on this site, I KNOW THAT MUCH. Seriously, your existence is miserable for a variety of reasons and only one of them might be your H. Most of them have to do with your choices.


You call this "compromise and balance?" Let's see you give up something you like and I will then not spend any time with you, but spend the time and money on riding lessons. Wow, what a deal! I'd say his friend was right, this is pretty selfish considering that you complain he does not "help" you. This "help" suggests that you want to be around him, but actually it apparently means you want to dump it on him and leave to do something without him. He already has plenty of time without you and has for years. Your "kind" offer to have him give up golf so you could leave and ride horses is NOT much of a bargin is it?



I wonder if he found out a few "truths" about you as well. You don't seem very committed to marriage, to him, or to his happiness. I am betting that the intimate side of you marriage has atrophied very much like the unweeded and unwatered garden has as well. You feel guilty for leaving him, and frankly from what you have posted you should feel guilty. To quote Dr. Phil, "you have not earned your divorce yet."


You may or may not have the whole picture in front of you, but I would bet good money you do not. Anyone that things negotiations means "you give up golf and I will take up horseback ridiing" is negotiating, is fooling themselves terribly. In fact, the chances of ANY relationship ever working for you is very small until you see many things very very differently.

It is all about you isn't it? You clearly admit you had NO TIME for you H, and yet it is his fault. You were not only not "looking closely" at your marriage you were ignoring it. There are ways to rebuild your marriage, but YOU will have to change your perspective on a lot of things.




How generous of you. What did you do to make the marriage better during this time? Did you spend more time with him, go with him to his ball games? Did you do anything but complain and sit on the sidelines?



I see he had to dance to your tune and do what you wanted but did you do anything he wanted??
I'll bet that made him want to stay or perhaps it reminded him that you control the sex and he will have to dance your tune if he wants any from you. Nice real nice. Are you getting the idea that you are messing this up big time? I sure hope you are. I sure hope you do a lot of reading here.



Let's see, have you considered that you are going about this all wrong. That you are not meeting his needs so he feels little compulsion to meet yours. Have you considered that he loves you but he is putting as much effort into this marriage as you are. You seem to think writing a check for the bills equates to working on your marriage. You are going to be paying bills whether or not you are married.

emh2, you have a lot of things completely backwards. I am guessing but I would guess your H is so angry, so hurt, and so frustrated that what you are seeing is simply passive aggressive responses (other than the yelling when you corner him about yard work). This can be addressed and fixed. He apparently does love you, in all of his "playing" around he apparently has not strayed. So that man is also faithful to you. But, I think a lot of damage has been done and you are not going to fix it with ultimatums, demands, and barginning with solutions that means he loses and you win.


Actually, he may or perhaps we will have to force you to make HIM a priority. He clearly has not been a priority for at least 5 years. And he is NOT a priority now. You had no problem cutting him off for 2 months and probably before that as well. It seems to me he has substituted his recreation for what you could have and should have been giving him.

You need to do some serious reflection on things. I would like to strongly urge you to post in the Emotional Needs section and to read the articles here. No matter how this turns out, it is clear you need to understand many things about relationships better than you do now.

I look forward to hearing from you.

God Bless,

JL

Wow JL,
You don't mince words, do you? Actually, I left out several details that might shed a little more light, but I really appreciate your honesty and getting straight to the point. It gives me a lot to think about, as I am not taking this lightly - regardless of the impression my message may have left.

My husband works a 5-day week, and I work 4-10's, occassionally I go in on the 5th day for a few hours, but that's at my option. The hobbies that I would like to take up would be on that 5th day while he is at work.

We actually played softball on the same team until finances required that I pick up a 2nd job. He's not very patient and I'm no pro, so I also was also getting worn down with being humiliated in front of the team when I made a mistake. (It was D league coed, two games every Thursday night) So, I have been going to watch him play for the past 10 years. If I had a Thursday night class and couldn't make it to the game, I would always meet up with him at the pub that the team went to afterwards. Any time that he is around we spend time together, go out to eat at least once a week, etc.

I have made it a habit to get all the "chores" done on my day off so that when the weekend comes we are free to do what we want - part of why I feel guilty for paving this road, he's not used to pitching in and he resents that he has to now. We've moved into a different house that requires more care and work, and I can easily spend 6 hours on just the front yard and not get to anything else, so the weekend requires more work than it used to - if we had the money I'd hire it out, but we don't. His yelling at me in front of the whole neighborhood is more or less a temper tantrum - he almost acts like his Saturday morning should consist of watching cartoons like when he was a kid, and anything else just isn't fair - so I guess you could call that frustration. He has a very short fuse, and that is another reason I just do things myself rather than ask for help and get a big blow up. It may sound like "poor me", but when he is blowing up to the point that the dog bites him I think I'm justified in having some concerns.

Another issue that I don't like to bring up because it was one of the "untruths" I let slip by is that he was on steroids the first two years we were together. We didn't live together, and I'm pretty unfamiliar with any drugs, let alone something so obscure. He didn't play any sports at the time either, but ran with a crowd of guys that were really concerned with how they looked. When we moved in together and he was coming off of them is when I found out. There has been significant violence on occassion (I've been to the emergency room once with a broken arm and blown out knee), but it comes from out of the blue and the most recent incident was about a year and a half ago - it's never been an every day issue, literally it will surface once every 12-24 months. Again, that is why I'm prone to doing it all myself rather than put the opportunity out there for a blow up. Maybe now that it is happening less and less I feel safer in asking for him to pull his weight... I don't really know.

Our intimacy schedule has never been regular, and no I don't cut him off as a control tactic. His thinking is "Well, you're sleeping with me so you must not be mad" - that is why I wasn't intimate with him, I didn't want to send him mixed signals. We are usually only intimate about once a month as it is, and that's how it was long before we married or I went back to school. Not by my choice, I've tried to spice things up, but timing is a big issue. He doesn't want to fool around before a game - says he'll lose focus - and when he comes home he crashes out on the sofa and there is no waking him up, so it's an issue of timing that I haven't found a great way to tackle. When we are intimate it's really great, it's just not as frequent as I'd like. It's another issue that wears me down emotionally - he seems happy as a clam with the frequency, so again, no sense in bringing it up and causing a blow up or hurt feelings - I guess that's just how his clock works.

When I said that I am home playing Cinderella, I am available at his calling. He doesn't like me invite friends over for bbq or get togethers. He says he's not in the mood for company, etc. I've tried to explain that he's been out socializing all week/weekend, and I've been at home, so I'd like a little socializing, but he doesn't budge. I think he likes that I'm at his disposal. I've only had 3 "girls nights" in 7 years - I'd rather we all go out as couples and have get togethers as a group rather than me go do things with my friends and then get the 3rd degree when I get home, but if I convince him to go when he wants to be home in front of the TV instead, he's sour the whole evening.

As far as writing a check to pay the bills, I wish it were only that easy. He has a big problem with money. He wants the most expensive of everything, and he manipulates to get it if need be. I spend my time one cent short of robbing peter to pay paul, and he's out dropping money right and left. At Christmas he lied and said he was getting a bonus because he wanted to buy a flat screen TV. I told him when the bonus came in he could get it then - TVs are always on sale until the Superbowl. He pitched a fit, and I said no, until the cash is in the bank we're not buying it. As soon as it's deposited, he can get whatever he wants, but we have a 32" that works fine until we actually have extra money. Lo and behold, no bonus. This is what I'm talking about in the toll it takes for me to manage our finances.
We got free lift passes to go skiing this Saturday (the 2nd time we've gone in several years) and he wanted new goggles - his ski stuff is really nice, top of the line. He deliberately left his at home, and was "forced" to pay $85 at the ski shop. How can I deal with that? How can I work that into our budget? I've tried to put him in charge of managing finances, automated as much as I could, and it took me over 3 months to go in and get it straightened out after he let it go to heck. I can't afford that. Anytime I try to leave him in charge, he does a halfhearted job until I take it back over. I think it's his way of controlling things. So, your comment was that I was in school for MY benefit, but I'm not the one reaping the rewards of it. I don't order him around, and I don't ask him to do anything I'm not willing to do myself. When I ask for his help, I'm asking for his help - I'm not telling him "go do this or that while I sit here and eat bon bons". I'm asking him to help me get something done for the benefit of the household.

I'm not calling him a loser at all, but he is behaving selfish and lazy. I think if I was the husband doing nothing but work, and he was the wife out spending every spare dime on self-centered hobbies and "play" your reaction might be a little different.


I'll read up on the items you listed. I appreciate your insight and will definitely take it into account.

Take care,
emh2

ba and telly,

Thanks for the info. I've been reading the EN forum and wondered which would be the best route. I've definitley got plenty of reading ahead!

Thanks again for the support -

Emh2

Hi Redneckgrl73,

Thanks for the support. The guilt is definitely an issue, so I feel better that I'm not the only one, though I'm sorry you're in the same boat. I think I remember seeing your message on the EN forum, and if I remember right, you're facing much more troubling issues than I am - my heart goes out to you. I get the impression that we're in the same position - out of respect for him, you can't/don't discuss it with your mutual friends, but you still need somewhere to turn for unbiased advice.
I'm here - I'll keep an eye on both threads.
Take care-
Emh2

emh2,

Ok, next hard question. What possessed you to marry him? Why have you stayed past the first time he hit you?

You have justified a lot to me, but what you don't grasp yet is that YOU have full control of this situation and fighting with him about it is NOT working is it? What you control is yourself and how YOU interact with your H.

You also said Not sure what you are driving at here, but actually the answer would be the same because no matter if you are male or female YOU control you and the situations you put yourself in.

I also notice that you simply provided more information to reinforce your position on things, rather than address what I was talking about concerning issues of time spent, and YOUR choices on how you spent your time. I know you feel fully justified in your choices, but given the state of your marriage I would guess some of your choices have hurt it.

If your H is fully as you say, and yes the means he has no job that you have mentioned and no redeeming values and yes is violent, then I really have to wonder about your decision making processes. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

My point here is that you need to review many things in your life and understand why you have made the decisions you have made. You need to understand how making different decisions might well have led to a better marriage and life.

If you don't understand these things, even if you leave your H, your next relationship will be as messed up. At this point I would again like to recommend that you read the articles here and review YOUR behavior, your needs, why you chose this man, and why you have remained with him. He clearly gives you something you need or you would not be there. ONce you have done some reading then I would strongly urge you to experiment on your H with changing perspectives, behaviors, and learn from it. In short he will be your guinea pig. You need to understand how people react to you even when YOU think you are being very reasonable.

Clearly your comments about negotiating him giving up golf so that you could go horseback riding is a clear clue you don't get it. You responded to me that you would do this while he works, missing the point that it is still a win for you and a loss for him. Win-lose negotiations rarely work. My point is that no matter if your H is a complete loss, YOU need to learn some very important lessons about relationships.

Oh and I did notice that he does work 5 days aweek, suggesting that he is not a complete freeloader as you imply in your opening thread. Are you seeing what I am driving at? You cannot address things until you see them clearly and this marriage is about both of you, you both contributed to its current state. Or has Dr. Phil says: "you cannot fix what you don't acknowledge."

Being a scientist I can assure you that not looking at the data will lead you astray almost every time. You need a clear view of the data, and that includes yours.

Does this make sense? I hope so.

God Bless,

JL