My husband and I have been married for a little over 2 years. We have a toddler and are expecting our second in a few months. Before we got married, he was very attentive. He listened to me, he comforted me, we cuddled and watched movies, he held my hand. Now sometimes I don't even feel like he loves me. I hear that I am lazy, that the house isn't perfect, I'm a bad cook, that I don't care about him or his feelings, that I put him last, and last night that I don't know how to please him in bed and apparantly never have. We fight quite a bit, it seems like we argue over little things all the time. And I don't have anyone to talk to about it. I am a SAHM, I don't have a car and don't get out of the house much. I don't have any friends. My husband says I am a "good for nothing wife", I can't do anything right. I am a bad wife in every way. I don't know how much longer he will stay if I can't fullfill any of his needs. I am scared about living this way forever, about him cheating, about raising kids in this house. Something has got to give, something has got to change, I don't know how to change it or if I can even change it alone. Sorry for rambling, Thanks for listening.

Welcome to MarriageBuilders, RG...

Please take a moment to breathe and realize what a great choice you made in looking for help in your marriage. That's a brave move. Posting your story is important and I don't believe it's easy.

So we already know you aren't look for an easy fix.

I believe what you're experiencing is very common. You are hearing a critical side to your partner which you didn't anticipate. When we fall in love, we see a lot of positive traits in our partners...in fact, we see their best...because that's what we put forward, our best self-images. As we marry and vow to love each other through anything (good and bad), we begin to reveal our true selves...an act of intimacy. It can be shocking, terrifying and extremely difficult.

What I hear your husband doing is being his parents. I would imagine they were very critical, or he perceived them to be...and you, being his safe place, the other half of him, he does what he saw them do...work his stress (work, fears, anger, frustrations, etc.) out on you.

Can you see where his abusive statements may actually be coming from where he loves you deeply, feels safe enough to do this? No reason to put up with abuse...however, your own perception is what is giving you a lot of pain, fear, anger and frustration...too.

Your own expectations of him continuing to share with you only his best self causes a lot of pain inside you...that he was your cure to a lot that happened to you as a kid...seemed the opposite, I'm sure. Which is why what you are living right now is really common in marriages...because what we look for is the positive and negative traits in our mates that our family had...our mother, father, siblings, close friends...to work through...as well as what attracted you to him was stuff you don't believe you had inside you...like he completed you.

Which doubles the pain you're experiencing because of him failing your expectations and no longer completing you.

Great news...everything you saw in him which seemed to complete you, is really IN you, already. No kidding. Parts you lost or disowned. And vice versa. What I'm telling you is the same for him...what you're experiencing, most likely, he is, too. This isn't what I signed up for. You used to do this, and this, or react like this and now you don't.

See how you're both still in tandem with each other, only now, it's reacting to negative traits with negative traits?

So you are half the marriage...and when you stop your part...what Dr Harley here calls Love Busting (LBs), you'll experience greater confidence, know, define and enforce boundaries around yourself...and stop taking his verbal abuse...

There's lots of work you can do, which is mostly becoming aware of your marital and personal patterns...so that you can be a whole, complete partner, a complement to each other, instead of completing one another.

"Getting The Love You Want" by Harville Hendrix really brought this home for me. It's as if in the first stage of your relationship, the courtship and marriage, you both saw each other as your friend, partner, other half. Now, it sounds like, you're seeing each other as your enemy. You have the power to change that perception back, RG...for you.

You've identified your deepest fears...ones you had long before you met your husband...that he will betray and abandon you...which is a betrayal, too. Those are your fears. And you can tell they come from when you were a little girl because you also said you fear living this way forever...which is us when we were three, four and five years old...before we knew time, yesterday from today, and a minute could seem like an hour. Know this and hug yourself...as an adult, you KNOW we change daily; life changes radically...humans do, too. Heck, that's why you're here...your life changed radically, didn't it?

Assure yourself because these old, deep fears are part of why you chose your husband to work through them...I promise. He's not a bad choice...if you divorce and remarry, plan on doing it a number of times in your life because you will only be attracted to these same traits again and again...to work them through.

You cannot change HIM. As humans...we have power and limits. Our power is that we are truly only responsible for our stuff...our beliefs, perceptions, feelings, thoughts and actions. Our choices. Our limit as humans, is that we cannot control another person on the planet. Not even our kids, in reality. They cooperate. As infants, they do it so well we think we're in control. God's design of humans is brilliant...even as you cannot control, cause or cure someone else of what is theirs...nor can they you.

His statements...his opinions are his...they aren't facts. Please stop taking his definitions of you as facts. That hurts you. And you're doing that. You can't stop him from saying his stuff...you can stop believing them.

For now, please really think on this...if he said, "Ohmygosh, Reaper...I absolutely cannot stand your huge purple head a moment longer!" would you flinch, recoil, feel sliced inside? Really, go with me there...because my reaction would be, since I know I don't have a huge purple head (or lime green, for that matter), "What are you talking about?"

There's no pain, reacting...just curiosity, right? So know your emotions are signalling you to a belief YOU have hidden inside you...that you're a good for nothing human, lazy, lousy, bad cook...selfish, uncaring, put him last...all have a kernel of truth...a molecule of something in them that you are believing...not because he's defining you, but because this is what you've feared of finding in yourself.

Then breathe with relief...because that doesn't make them true for you...just hidden, out of view, and giving you a ton of pain from choosing to believe that about yourself.

How much on his list did you hear as a children? Or fear a lot to hear?

And there's a lot of pain coming from him defining you...telling you who you are...what you do...what you feel, think and believe. That's exceedingly hurtful when ANYONE does it. Know that abuse. And look at what he says as his own stuff, "That's abusive. Are you saying you expected me to do stuff in the house which I didn't do? Then please state what YOUR expectations are as yours. I will do the same for you. I want to respect you and our marriage. I want to listen and hear your thoughts, feelings, beliefs and perceptions. I want to know you. When you define ME and make your stuff about me, then I cannot choose to listen and respect you. When you do that, it feels like you are batterying me with your fists."

Read up on boundary enforcements...and know that what you put around yourself...that you will not be defined by others...(not preventing them...because you can't...but the predetermined, progressive enforcements you take when the choose to do it)...also means YOU cannot define others, either. To stop abuse, you must first identify it, know it for what it is, revoke your own permission to do it (like defining he doesn't love you because you don't feel it), and then enforce your boundaries.

From love. Not fear. Not to make him stop---but to show yourself you don't have to literally take it anymore. Your taking his abuse tells you that you're worth abusing. Double pain, anger and fear in that, don't you think?

Read, RG, read...learn to become aware and choose your life. You're choosing it now, unconsciously. This isn't a stay or go decision...this is learning about being human (not unique), in a human marriage...

Harley's books...His Needs, Her Needs; Love Busters; Fall in Love, Stay in Love...so many...can get you to where you realize that in marriage, we can fall in love with each other over and over again in our lives...we can. I know because I've experienced it...and in the inbetween times, we KNOW we love because we CHOOSE to love and ACT on our love...loving acts.

Not to earn love, but to give it. Not giving to get, but loving from our own power, our choice...and relying on getting the information, the emotions, back when we work on getting a lot of resentment, frustration, and old stuff where we can see it.

Learn to act, not react. That's what adults do...and when you're in as much pain as you seem to me to be in right now, that's hard. I remember. We go to our youngest self when we hurt, feel beaten down...and lose all our adult choice, our power, in the process. We believe we were powerless as children...makes sense as we hurt we pull into our younger selves and feel powerless.

Know you're not. You are separate and equal from every human on this planet. You are. Get the real facts about being human...knowledge and choice will turn your life and your marriage into a thriving place to be.

I swear by it.

You are not alone, bad or crazy. You're human. And I'm in your corner.

LA

I am very sorry to hear those things coming from your husband. I can identify a little bit, being a husband and having my wife say things like to me. She would say that I say those things to her, though I haven't.

I am on the long road, and LA has provided much good advice. It is hard when one partner is tremendously abusive. You feel on the defensive all the time, angry, hurt, betrayed, resentful, questioning your own sanity.

I have compromised, capitulated, in order to lessen the intensity of our disagreements. I try not to argue anymore about the way she feels, put up a fight, etc., just let her get out want she wants. I dont argue against her point of view, though I rarely share it. I am finding ways of not escalating the confrontation.

The underlying issue that we both seem to share is that our partners suffer from some core hurt or pain, and somehow something that we do, maybe our compassion, brings that pain to the surface and allows it to express itself. If we had dominant personalities and stood up for ourselves from the get-go, I doubt he would treat you that way. Just an idea. I dont think they realize it, but it seems like, at least in my case, that as I wilt my partner has lost respect for me. I'm trying to get respect back, for myself, and then, hopefully, in some way that have yet to figure out, get the respect of my wife back.

I do not understand this marriage business at all.