Sorry for what you are going thru. It must be very hard for you. I can understand that you were hurt after his affair but I guess I have to ask why you wanted to stay married to him?

It seems like you wanted to stay married to make his life heck. Don't get me wrong I can understand why you would be angry but at some point you have to meet his needs or move on with your life.

Now if you have a husband and you are not having sex with him then would you care if he has sex with other women? I would assume you don't want him to sleep with others but very few men can be happy in a marriage when he is not having sex with his wife.

Now from his point of view he is stuck in a marriage where he is just a paycheck? I would guess that you expect your husband to provide financial support to you. Now you have a man who you do not have sex with for years and expect him to help provide for your financial needs. I can see why he does not want to be married anymore under those condition.

You are going to have to make the marriage attractive to him again. As a man who has a need for sex (and for many men it is a big need) if you don't have an intimate connection it will be hard for you to keep him. Admiration is a big need for men but I don't care how much admiration I get without the sex I see no need to be married. I am guessing that is what you are up against.

You are going to have to try and make the marriage something worth having. Resentment will kill it and I hope it is not too late for you. The way to a mans heart is not his stomach if you know what I mean. Good luck to you.

Hello G. My heart goes out to you. I read your thread earlier today on a whim and all day I've been uncomfortable with the tone of it. I've just come back to try to express my niggling qualms about the whole thing and the last message posted really bothered me a lot. Personally I thought it was horrible and crystalised what I don't like about this thread.

Yes, you haven't been a wonderful wife by your own admission but he certainly hasn't been a wonderful husband. You never signed a contract that you would be perfect but he did sign one that he would be faithful. Don't forget that.

I get the impression that the biggest problem you have is your lack of self-esteem and self-worth and I think a lot of the posters here are innocently reinforcing that low self-esteem by implying that the bad state of your M is your fault. It may be partly true but only indirectly. What's really at fault is your sense of low self-worth. So what if you have extra weight on? Yes, it would be nice to lose it for health and aesthetic reasons but it doesn't mean that you are any less a person or any less deserving of love and respect. My mother was the most wonderful person I ever had the good fortune to know and be loved by. She weighed almost 100kilos before her death and I adored every one of those kilos. Of course, for her health, I wanted her to lose that weight but it didn't matter a jot otherwise as to how great a person she was.

I think you should go out and buy yourself some lovely clothes that look good on you exactly as you are today. There are great ranges out there for bigger sizes. Don't put off buying things waiting for the day you will be thin. Think about what your best features are and focus on them. Get your hair done, wear higher heels, you'll feel very feminine if your nails look good. Stand tall and try to feel as entitled as anyone else in this world to take up the space you occupy. I do think it's a good idea to try to lose weight but don't make it the be all and end all of your life. Your weight does not define you.

As for sex, from your posts, I think your H has been neglecting your sexual needs more than you have been neglecting his. It's just that you don't have enough confidence in your own body to insist and to feel that you are giving him a gift too.

Sarcasm is a self-protective weapon people often use because deep down they don't think they deserve to be loved and cherished and so this is a way of protecting oneself by keeping those people away.

I think you should be kinder to yourself, find a way to love yourself and then you will be in a better position to love others. I am not saying this to make you more angry with your husband. On the contrary I think you should take the focus off him and put it on yourself. Spend time with people who love you, open up to them, do things you enjoy, find happiness. And hang on to your self-respect. As for this trip to Spain which is obviously devastating for you, I'd be inclined to not allow him to go but if you explain calmly and reasonably why this is unacceptable to you and he goes ahead and does it anyway then you do need to be prepared to maintain your limits and apply them. If you allow them to slide this is not good.

Sorry if I've gone on for too long and you may wish to ignore my advice since I am one of those BS who is now heading for D rather than R so what do I know about saving marriages? Good luck. You'll find the courage to do what it takes.

PS I'm Irish too and my mother was from the east coast too.

I just read your first message again in case I got it wrong but I am struck by just how selfish a man he is. He told you he had no feelings for you just after your mother died!! He objects to you spending 1 hour a day with your elderly, lonely dad when he's off doing other things and isn't even in your house. And other posters are saying that you should comply with his demands in order to meet his needs and cut down on looking after someone who needs you and loves you just so that he can control you??!! Is this upside down logic or what?!

I think he thinks he can treat you like a doormat and you've given him every indication he can. Stand up to him but not by getting angry or defensive or sarcastic but by being sweetly firm and by enjoying your own life whether he wants to be a part of it or not.

Sorry I'm a bit annoyed so I'll sign off now.

Gabzz, I started losing weight at the beginning from the "infidelity diet" which is common on these boards.
But then when I found out H was dating his coworker, I did not want to make myself crazy if they were going out during lunch (I work there also), so I joined the gym at work. I go during lunch most days during the week. Take yoga 2x a week and weights/bike the other days. It helped take some of the craziness away obsessing about their A. I have been watching what I eat --smaller portions. Coming off slowly but coming off. I was embarassed at the beginning going to a gym but now people there noticed I have lost weight and how I make a commitment to go.

H has noticed and what I lost he gained (karma).

As for your H going to Spain. In this case I think he has made up his mind and will go. So instead of going crazy and getting upset. Pull a 180. Act like you are happy he is going. Start making plans to go out when he is gone. Act happy. Make him wonder. He won't know what to make of it.

I know the mistakes I made in my M. I have deep regrets and H never gave me a chance to work on the M. You have a chance. Yes we all make mistakes but it is not too late to get on track.

Keep it up.

I have never been to Ireland but have been to Scotland many times. My H is from there.

take care

If the 1999 A wasn't resolved your M was doomed to keep limping along while it deteriorated. What was said in MC back then to make H feel it was good?

Sorry you are here at MB but I have to wonder if H is not involved in another A. No sex in two years and going to the gym 5 days a week? Not being home until late at night...what's the story there?

I have often asked myself the same question, i guess its because i love him and while i am not condoning his affair i did play a part in why he felt he needed to go somewhere else.

After counselling things did improve between us for a couple of years but then things started to slide again, i wasnt meeting his needs and visa versa and we just plodded along.

The sex thing worries me a great deal, if he is not having it with his wife for two years then he must be feeling really frustrated but i dont want to initiate it because i know he will turn me down. There is a lot of bad feeling and resentment in him for me because of not working on the marriage after counselling.

I dont depend on him financially for support i work full time too!

Hi Gabzz, ok now it has to be about 2 or 3 am there and you are on the computer? Where is your H? sleeping? one of the biggest mistakes I did with my H was he would go to bed and I would stay up late playing computer games or reading. Look where I am now.
Start trying to get back in that bedroom, rejection is tough but start taking baby steps.

Hi Tully,

Thanks for taking the time to post to me. I do have a low self image from being overweight and it has caused a lot of trouble in our marriage. My H doesnt like me being overweight, whilst he hasnt said anything about this to me in years now, he has said hurtful things in the past and they really hurt. Now i dont bother discussing my weight management with him because he just listens and says nothing.

My mam had a lot of weight on her too but you know that never bothered my dad one bit and he loved every pound of her and they were married for 51 years when she died.

I already do all the nice things for myself like getting my nails and hair done and i update my wardrobe on a regular basis. My 15 year old daughter said i am extremely kind to myself (someone needs to be :))

I am sick at the thought of him going to spain but there is no way he will back down now, he has the trip paid for too. Im crying all day about this, it is really upsetting me and i cant put a finger on exactly why. I have asked myself Is it that he might hook up with someone else and have sex with them or is it that he has never gone away on his own in 21 years of marriage and now he is and its with a group of men who are out for a good time. If i say to him that he is not to go he will tell me he is going. I just feel so powerless.

I did go and seek legal advice a few weeks ago and she told me not to leave the house because i was strongly thinking of this. She told me that if i leave, i would lose my full share of the home etc and that my h could say i abandoned the family. Apparantly affairs dont count this side of the water.

What part of the east coast was your mam from?

Hi Tully,

Me again

In answer to your second post, i feel so so bad for my dad, he is a lovely kind gentle hearted man who loved my mam with every inch of his being, He is absolutely heart broken at her death even now and she will be dead 3 years come june.

For the first year especially i spent a lot of time at my dads because i felt so helpless for him and he was so lonely. My H didnt say much so i didnt think it was a problem and as well as that i was and still am grieving for my mam. i did neglect my h through this time and i suppose i shut him out, i didnt tell him how i was feeling a lot of the times but in saying that he never really asked either.

Usually when we have a row about anything which is not very often it ends up with us not speaking to each other and my h will keep this going for weeks on end if i let it go on. I dont usually and am always the one to back down and apologise.

Hi Hope, yeah i know its really late over here its actually 3.55 to be exact.

I love the bit about the ka rma! I know the infidelity diet well, i lost about 60lbs on that one but unfortunately i gained it all back again and then some so from here on in i am gonna work my [censored] off literally

I could act like i dont care that he is going to spain but he knows well how much it is upsetting me and i find it really hard to cover up what i am feeling. When he came home tonight from work (hadnt seen him since last nights angry words) and i couldnt even look at him i was so upset so i just got my laptop and went to bed

I have never been to scotland myself but they do say the irish and the scots are very alike. ( think its in temperment )

The counsellor was a man for starters so that made him feel more comfortable straight away. He spoke about looking after each others needs and he discussed with us why affairs happen. My h got something from it but to be honest it was all too raw for me. I should have gone for individual counselling for myself as well to come to terms with the anger and resentment i was feeling.

I dont think he is having and affair but i may be wrong, he works for the social services so he does a lot of shift work looking after children in care. He has been in the gym for 22 years now and he goes 5 days a week all the time so there is no change there.

My H and i have very poor communication in our marriage, everything tends to get brushed under the carpet, even if we have a fight over something, the issue is never resolved its just left there and we move on.

I am finding it hard to cope with the fact that he is going away with these men, he doesnt wear his wedding ring and hasnt done in a while and i just dont think i can cope with it emotionally, i am at my wits end so i was thinking of writing him an email and saying everything i feel in it, i dont mean a crying begging type of email but one that states what i can and cannot accept from him.

Any thoughts? It will be a few hours until i can get back online so hopefully i can talk to you later.

Thanks

If I thought it would do you any good to send him an email and that H would not go to Spain, I would say go for it. BUT I do not think he will cancel and also it will confirm everything he has told you.

My C told me when you don't know what to do --DO NOTHING. H knows you don't want him to go, he already said he is, it is paid for - I think it is a done deal. So instead try to step back and detach from the situation. Call a friend -- let H hear you on the phone, say your H is going out of town and you want to make plans. Laugh, sound happy, let H wonder.

In the meantime, try and be happy and pleasant to H. Don't send him on a trip with your face tripping. Do you want that picture of you being miserable when H leaves. If you feel that you will be raw emotions -- go somewhere else before H leaves. These waywards do not respond from guilt. Take my word for that! take care.

You can not control him. You can't make him wear a wedding ring. You can't make him stay home instead of going on this trip. Quit dwelling on those things. You can't control them, you can NOT change them, and you'll make yourself crazy letting your mental energy dwell there.

Regarding the email, let's imagine you write "H, I cannot accept XYZ, it is unbearable to me." Then what? He does whatever he wants to, regardless of what the email says. You know he will, based on his current reaction to your statements of how you feel about his behavior. Then what? You file for divorce? You move out? You do nothing (thereby teaching him that your words are so much noise and nothing more)? I don't see the email accomplishing anything other than forcing you into a position of weakness and compromise.

Instead, forget about his trip. Forget about the wedding ring. Forget about him and his business, and focus on yourself. Practice meeting his ENs, get rid of your LBs, and make your life as fun as possible. Invite H along and if he goes, great and if not - his loss.

Your job right now is not coercing him into a certain behavior pattern, but attracting him into the marriage.

Hope i am usually a very upbeat eternal optimist but this week i feel really down in myself, probably not helping that i have been off work with a chest infection and i am feeling a bit sorry for myself. your right he wouldnt take a blind bit of notice of the email anyway so i wont bother with it.

Turtlehead,

I am not sure if i want to continue in this marriage where he constantly disregards my feelings, I am all for meeting his emotional needs and working on our marriage but not at the expense of my mental health and wellbeing which is suffering at the moment. I think i just need to face the fact that it is over for us, he doesnt have any regard for me, i have been unwell all week and he never asked me once how i was feeling.

Hi Gabzz, I know how discouraging it is for you. But keep in mind he is still home. It is much easier to repair a M when they are in the house. Only you can decide when it is enough.
You have support no matter what you decide.

Hope,
Thanks so much for your support i really appreciate it. I am coming down off my high horse bit by bit since the blow up over his trip to spain. I just feel so overwhelmed and so helpless because i know i cannot do anything about this issue.

I know these feelings of insecurity and mistrust come from him having the affair, the bottom line is i dont trust him 100% since then and he knows it, he also knows that him going away for 5 days is really going to upset me, why else did he keep it to himself for so long, granted he did say to me in November very matter of fact, "a bunch of lads from the pub are heading over to spain for a golf trip early next year and i have decided to throw my hat in the ring too, it would be a really great craic" to which i replied, well you had better get a solicitor before you go, i know, i know, it was the wrong thing to say but my stomach flopped to my feet at the time in sheer panic and it was the first words that came out of my big mouth.

It was never mentioned again,until the barman from the pub inocently told me it had been arranged and paid for, as i said before everything is brushed under the carpet with us. The thing is because of the state of our marriage at the moment he doesnt give a damn what i think or feel. I know i have been given some great advice from you, turtlehead and others but i cannot bring myself to sit in the same room with him at the moment, (i might strangle him) let alone meet his EN but i am being civil.

He has gone to work now and wont be home until tomorrow at lunchtime (thank God) i need the space to get my head around this. There is so much baggage and so many issues in this marriage that i dont know if it can be pulled out of the mud but i also know that i am in a good position with him being at home too. I think i will stay in the spare room for another while, it would be safer all round (for him anyway) :twobyfour:

Hello GABZZ, hope all is well with you.
To answer your question, my mother was from Louth.
And listen to your instincts. They are often right.
Best of luck.

Hi Gabzz, so sorry you find yourself here, but this is the best place to be not only to try to rescue your marriage but also, if that proves impossible to move on and take care of yourself.

My feeling from reading of your situation is that your husband is already completely detached from the marriage. You are lodgers under the same roof at the moment. A marriage needs intimacy, it's like the glue holding things together and at the moment you have none. You appear to want to save the marriage, but it appears that at the moment your husband is at best disinterested. Unfortunately, this means that you are the one who will have to do all the work with no guarantee that you will get what you want at the end of it.

I agree with Tully - you need to work on yourself, build your self esteem, see old friends, make new friends, take up a hobby, get a life outside your marriage whilst at the same time working your butt off the meet your husband's EN's as best you can, and being available to him when he needs you. Go back to the beginning of your relationship. What made him fall in love with you? What could he not get enough of when you were first together. If it was your laughter, then let him see you laughing with the children and/or with friends. He'll soon want to join in.

You cannot force him to love you again, but you can try to be the best person you can be, you can try to recreate the best person that you were when you fell in love with each other. He may well fall in love with you all over again, especially if you are doing all this as well as meeting his EN's with gusto. Please remember though, this cannot be achieved in weeks or possibly even in months. It's a long term project, but it's Project Gabzz, and the great thing is that this time next year you may well have a husband who is back in the marriage, but if not, you will have learned to love yourself again, and you will be in the best place possible to make a good decision about where you go next.

I feel excited for you. You have great oportunities here to turn years of negativity around into positives. You sound really lovely, but all your loveliness has been hidden from your husband whilst you have been grieving and taking care of others. I'm looking forward to hearing your story of growth in the next few months, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if at the end of this you are back in the marital bed building a great marriage.

Best of luck to you, and don't worry about Spain. (I know it's easier said than done). It is now out of your control. What will be will be as far as that is concerned. Hs mind is made up to go. If you make changes between now and then though, you may well find that he goes there and worries about you rather than you worrying about him.