My husband and I have been married for 10 years and lived together for 2.
Up until about 2 years ago everything seemed fine (don't remember either side having any relationship concerns) then his father got sick, terminally, they were extremely close and then I started seeing our relationship fall apart. One day after his parents left he announced he didn't love me anymore and didn't know what do about it. I was stunned and suggested seeing a therapist which we did for apx 6mths.
She concluded we were in a stage in our marriage where things were changing quickly. We had been blessed finally with children but now on top of it our parents were suffering major medical problems (both very close to them). The stress was affecting our marriage and we needed to learn to talk, argue and work out things rather than hold it in.
We did this, read your book "love busters" but never truly got back to the romantic happy love we once had. Rather just a comfortable lifestyle.
My husbands father passed away last year and its only gotten worse.
The man I married is gone replaced by someone who is hard, likes people to see him as tough and acts as well as dresses like a red neck motor cycle biker. I am not putting the red neck/biker lifestyle down, its just not what we envisioned when we married and he now says, HIS NEEDS have changed.
Our closeness is suffering a blow everywhere. His snoring is so loud, I have had to move into the other room where I have been for the past year he will not go to the doctor about it. Sex is basically none existant finally admiting he had a problem he went to a urologist got meds and I thought this might help to bring us closer but nothing has changed. If that wasn't enough, I found numerous sex websites on his computer including an email to a biker chick asking to meet and suggesting he knew how to please her. He said, he never sent the email and has never had an affair.
I confronted him and it was discussed with our new therapist I can't believe I am still trying to work this out. I am not as happy with the NEW man he has become and feel he is in a midlife crisis which our therapist also believes is an issue. He tells me he loves me but I would rather he show it than say it which is just what I told him.
My husband was always open to talking now he sighs or gets angry and feels I am accusing him ie; making him be the bad guy.
We are seeing another therapist more of a marriage counselor than the first he has seen us alone and now wants to have 2 hour sessions as he feels we are definatly IN CRISIS MODE. We can't see the therapist for 2 weeks as he went on vacation (what timing). Last night we fought again, about simple hand holding he feels I push him away and I feel he is pushing me away. I said, I think we need to really put an effort into making each other feel wanted but all he can say is he is stressed with his job, mothers health and worring about the kids. WHAT ABOUT US I SAID and he can't answer it!
After spending all day thinking about it while he went off to ride his cycle for several hours I told him we needed to talk.
I asked him if he was still interested in working it out with our therapist and he said yes. I asked him to really think about what he wanted to get out of our next session because we couldn't stay in this state much longer he agreed. I also said, I was not blaming him for anything only stating my feelings just as he did and that maybe he needed really listen to how I was saying it and I would do the same to make sure I wasn't giving the wrong tone. I suggested we needed to find a way to turn our marriage around and hopefully our counselor could help us with this.
I am asking my husband to read your book throughly and learn about love busters.I really am not sure we can work this out because I don't know how to make him happy anymore as well as make myself.
I still love my husband. I ended our talk with if it didn't work out, the children being our greatest concern, he could move in to our inlaw apt my mother could move in with me (will put the pressure on me) and we could go our seperate ways yet the kids would be apart of his daily life. This would help with the finances and still allow us to keep our home atleast till it no longer worked for one or both of us.
I truly don't want any of us to get hurt but I don't know what to do and I am so very unhappy it shows itself in my everyday life from work ( can't concentrate) to being with the kids( losing my temper).
Sorry for the long story, I know if we can master the love busters, things would turn around. I NEED ADICE:
Should I expect the therapist to be the driving force or do I need to help steer the ship with the love buster type concerns?
How does one move from therapy into working out issues so as not to keep repeating the same problems?
thanks for any advice,
not smiling.
