Well I talked to him and he said he just had trouble adjusting to the new routine. My being here sort of upset the old one, but he's adjusted to it now.

I just emailed the ex-bf an NC letter. That should be the last one I need to do.

Update - He's not just postponing the talk about my past infidelities. He's postponing any relationship talk until he gets a new job. Essentially, our marriage is "on hold" until then.

I think this is a horrible idea but he's not giving me a choice. I wish I hadn't come here. At least before I wasn't around him all the time while he was being distant. It's not that he's unpleasant - just the opposite. But I'm not his wife anymore, I"m a roommate.

I want to escape but there's no where to go. I feel both trapped and rejected at the same time.

And I don't think I'll ever be able to meet his needs. He wants a wife who stays home with the kids and also goes to work and brings home money. That's a physical impossibility. According to his ads, he wants someone taller than me who is no older than 29. Well, thanks to my mother's good genes I still look 27 but that won't last long. And there's not anything I can do about being short.

Maybe the truth is the reason he keeps threatening to divorce me is because he really does want out and I should just let him go. What if trying to hold onto the marriage is just making him miserable anyway?

I'm so confused because a friend of ours swears that last Sunday was the happiest she'd seen him in a long time, but he doesn't seem happy to see me. Maybe it's just because the kids are here. This hurts so much and there's nothing I can do but wait.

Well, one lie seems as good as any other I guess.




Excuses continue to abound, don't they?

I would be curious about what your wedding vows actually said. What seemed important to both of you to include in the vows you both willingly took?




Yep, it seems your being there has upset his plans of his own adultery. Withdrawal "sucks," doesn't it?




Don't worry, once he gets a job HE will be able to "escape" and will let you go. That's will be his idea of "working on the relationship."

This "all things are relative to what I determine is right" has a "darker side" to that same coin. You should know how easy it is for imperfect humans to fool themselves into thinking what they are doing is "right," or at least "necessary."




If this is true, can we say "selfishness and self-centeredness rule?"

However, "working Mom's" are NOT an impossibility. Women do it every day. The question is NOT the ability to do so, the question is what is in the best interest of the children, not the parents.




Sounds like as good a reason as any to give up on the marriage. You want what you hope the marriage can be, but you want it NOW. Immediate gratification. Interesting concept that is an emotional reaction that has been shared by just about everyone who has tried to save a marriage that is in trouble. But life, love, and marriage don't work that way. They are the result of hard work, and careful attention to the "watering" of the needs.

By the way, how many MORE attempts at mind reading instead of communicating do you want to engage in? Oh ya, gotta get a job before you cant TALK. Silly me.





Ya, I know, "keeping the peace" through Conflict Avoidance isn't a bad thing when their are little issues like the sweet potatoes versus mashed idaho potatoes I mentioned previously. But CA when there is an 800 pound gorilla in the room with is just waiting for trouble and NOT dealing with. The gorilla could care less if there is a job or no job. SPOUSE should come before ALL others (except for God, but then God is not in the picture in your marriage), so we are apparently left with "materialism" as the driving force.

Granted that part of most men's psyche is to be the "breadwinner" and "provider," it is too often subsituted AS "how I show you I love you." No job = no love. Job = I don't have to get into all the other "stuff" because my bringing home the bacon is how I lover you. By the way, since "things" are so important to me, do you know how I can keep a "trophy wife" on display for others to see how successful and important I am?"

"Well, thanks to my mother's good genes I still look 27 but that won't last long. And there's not anything I can do about being short."

So are you both "hung up" on how you look? He MARRIED you. You MARRIED him. NOW you both think the "Grass is Greener?" This self-indulgence is getting old, don't you think?

I'm curious, WHAT was the subject of his SecHum speech? I've got a feeling this may be a case of "do as I say, not as I choose to do for myself."

Aph, welcome to the "world" of the spouse who want to save the marriage and the spouse who doesn't.

Are you "up to the task?"

Why DO you want to be married to his man?

FH,


There's no evidence of such a plan. His plans fell apart in late August, it seems, without my help.
---

You're being no help at all. I still don't know what to do. I can't force him to work on the marriage, and I can't save it by myself. And it makes no sense to be emotionally invested in someone who doesn't want you. And yeah I know it works for spouses of active waywards, but he's not currently in an affair and still doesn't want me. And he expects me to wait around until he gets a job and decides he wants a wife again. Am I supposed to go through that every time there is a financial crisis? So far, I have, but I don't think I should have to and I don't think I can do that again. What ever happened to for richer or poorer?

Same thing that happened to "forsake all others".

I know you have a lot going on Aph, and it's hard to separate it all out. Keep trying though, and yes one person's changes CAN make a big difference. Try to focus on yourself, not him, and eventually he will notice and adjust as well. It will take time. Keep at it.

~Saturn

Are you sure he is not actively in an affair right now?

He's sure acting like it.

rltraveled, He's like this every time he is out of work or about to be out of work. Maybe I should re-examine whether I want to be married or not. Being demoted from wife to roommate every time there is a financial crisis is completely unacceptable to me, and I don't see how I can tolerate the pain of it without cheating. I am tempted to tell him exactly that.

Aph, no one can give you the "magic bullet" that will make everything right.

But here is something for you to consider. I say consider, because so far you have found reasons to reject just about everything everyone has said in an attempt to help you recover your marriage.

1. Your marriage, such as it is, is already over other than the formality of divorce. It ended when you first chose adultery as the way to "address" your perceived problems in the marriage and it ended when your husband decided that "forsaking all others" was not applicable to him either.

2. It only takes ONE spouse to begin the effort to recover a marriage if that is what they commit to themselves to do.

3. You cannot have the sort of marriage you want by WISHING for it or wishing your husband was different.

4. If what you wrote in the above quotation is true, then the "marital environment" is not a "good one." Not by generally accepted marital standards and not by SecHum priciples either. There appears to be WILLFUL harm being inflicted.

5. You have not posted your specific wedding vows, and it would helpful for us in offering suggestions that might help to see what you both believed at the time you married.

6. CHANGE seldom takes place without a preceding CRISIS. The "change" can be good (as in a commitment to make positive changes that strengthen a marriage and love for each other) or they can be bad (as in "I don't need this stinkin' marriage to get MY needs met!).

Conflict Avoidance tries to circumvent the necessary potential for pain, hurt feelings, anger, etc. and replaces it with the lie that "out of sight, out of mind" will result in wished for changes. That seldom happens anymore than a house cleans itself. You may WISH for a clean house, but unless you engage in actual work, wishes won't come true.

7. Maybe what you should "reexamine" is not whether you want to be married to him or not, but that perhaps waiting for him to have a job isn't going to solve the problem either. He doesn't want to talk about it, so it's easy to say "okay" and just live with the feelings you described. But then you immediately start thinking the grass would be greener with some other man and, bingo, right back into the Wayward Spouse mind set of justifications and rationalizations.

This whole site is dedicated to giving someone the tools to attempt a successful recovery of a marriage in serious trouble. How much of it have you read and how much of it do you want to actually accept as your "guidebook" for what to actually do to have the best chance at recovering your marriage?

FH,

4- He's not trying to hurt me, but he is putting himself first by ignoring our marriage whenever he gets depressed over his career. It is self-absorbtion, but not malice. But it definitely has to change one way or the other.

7- Yeah that describes the problem exactly. I'm just afraid if I don't do what he wants, he'll leave. But if I have to put up with this much longer, I'll leave him, so I guess I have nothing to lose now.

5- Our vows were:

I, _____
take you, _____
to be my husband
to love you and to cherish you
to help you and to honor you
to share my life openly with you
to give you understanding and comfort
in whatever the future may bring
in confidence that together we are responsible for our destiny.

Okay, I told him. I think I'll move this to the GQII board, though.