hello.

I have been married for almost 8 years now and I've always had doubts about my husband. He's quite controlling and doesn't respect my opinion.

he keeps saying he'll change and promises me the earth, but now i've reached a point where I don't think i care anymore. Even if he could change.

I don't love him, something has died inside but every time i try to leave he starts crying and i feel so guilty. so I stay, BUT I JUST DONT LOVE HIM AND I DONT THINK I EVER WILL AGAIN.

we also have a child (nearly 3 yrs old), which is the only reason i've not left sooner.

I don't know what to do. I can't bare to see him upset, but the thought of staying with someone i don't love is unbearable too.

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I've always had doubts about my husband. He's quite controlling and doesn't respect my opinion.

Can you go into specifics?

Jane, if you and your H followed this plan, you could fall in love again. If you leave him, you will have the same issues in your future marriage because the basic issue is that you don't have the skills to resolve these problems. Better to learn how to have a happy, romantic marriage with your current husband since he is the father of your child.

I would RUSH to the bookstore and get these books:

Lovebusters
Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Five Steps to Romantic Love workbook

That is your first step. This program really does effectively show couples how to fall in love again. We can help you do this.

I would click on notify and ask the moderators to move this thread to the MB101 forum.

Will your husband come here and post?

I only have two things to say at this point.

1. Melody Lane is ABSOLUTELY right. I know that in your current mindset, it doesn't seem possible. It probably seems "wrong". Because using a plan is "forced" and doesn't match up with society's image of "if it was meant to be, it will be". I love the Beatles, but John Lennon didn't write All You Need Is Love about marriage... Marriage takes work. It takes commitment. Do you 'love' paying your bills? No. But you make that commitment so that you and your child can live... Just rambling words for thought.

2. You sound like my WXW (Wayward eX Wife). Look at my timeline. Is this what you utlimately want your child to learn? I'll be blunt, take away the affairs, and you are my WXW. You're staying because you can't accept what your desire will lead your child through. Your fork in the road right now is divorce or cheat. Teach your child about commitment and how to make your situation better; not just accept it and settle for it. Of course, you can only be one side of that teaching. It takes two to make a marriage work.

I wish you luck in whatever you choose. I'll await more specifics, if you feel like giving them. And I apologize if I sound overly jaded. I assure you that I am not pointing it at you, just wanting to share my emotions so that it may help someone see a different side of it all.

Marriage is not "work" when you are in love. My marriage is not work at all. Marriage is work when you are not in love! All it takes is a willingness to take the steps necessary to restore the romantic love in her marriage. A good marriage is based on the committment to make each other HAPPY, not to just stay married. The best lesson that parents can teach their kids is not to just stay married, but to have a romantic marriage.

I bow my head in shame, for not being able to say it like that. ML, you truly are an asset around here. Thank you. Like I said, I don't mean ('want' is a better word) to sound jaded. Guess I still am a bit though...

If we would only realize these truths, so much pain would be avoided.

Mel you said it very clear, it is so much to do with our choice to love, and our taking action in it, and trusting in a plan of extraordinary care for each other. As Mel has said prior, this is what is missing from your marriage. This is the "magic", that is really not magic at all, just reality.

Mel I sent those three books to my DS who is in his thirties, because I could hear the sounds of discontent in his marraige, and am giving him over to the most solid advice I have ever seen in the world of relationship, stay in love. Yes you are absolutly right, it is not work or hard, the only hard thing is our heads, untill we listen.

I hope that the kids do, and it is the best thing I could give them IMO, a healthy relationship with each other and thier children.

The next set of books is going out to my DD and her fiance. They have my preciuos little DGD, and are good kids, but it takes teaching to have a marriage, and humility to realize you need it.

Don't be afraid to grow with this material Jane, it wont steer you wrong.

Hey itsa, being at the place you are now, well I know that feeling guy, and I know what it means to give up on love also. When people come here, thats exactly what they are going through, or victims of, and man does it get out of control. It seems the Wayward spouse wants us to believe that love can't exist for us, or that we are not worth love, because they don't want us anymore. We seem to have nothing worthy to give.

They just can't/won't see us anymore, because they don't want to, yes the emotional needs are that strong. If you wern't a little jaded right now I would be worried about you man.

Myself being a man who didn't have this place for support, but waited for years to help my wife once she removed her head from her backside, I am full of opinions and self doubt, but I remember how the right descisions and proactive love can heal a completely destroyed marriage for anyone who commits to it.

So I also in time see that hope more and more, not in going back in time for me, but standing up for those who have a chance now, as another stage of life for myself, cheering on the other couples who are now so close to the prize.

So I heal that way also, but I can't orchestrate its timing, but I sure recognize its sound when I remember with my inner ear and see with my minds eye how love works when you realize its all we have of value anyways, and it is what everyone wants.

I do get the comparison to work and paying bills, but I gotta problem with myself, if I spend my money foolishly, and get nothing of real value for it. allways loved that line from that old Eagles song,(You like music too right Itsa?), "Take it to the limit".

"You can spend all your time makin' money,
You can spend all your love, makin time,
If it all falls to pieces tommorow,
Will you still be mine?"

Kinda works with the lovebank principle doesn't it? In loves economy? What institution will stand if everything falls to pieces?

I have been very poor and struggled but had a close family that loved each other, and my kids would drop anything and spend there last dime on me if I needed it now, but we invested in that also, because we needed to rise above the belief that we were valued by the clothes we wear, the house we lived in, and the car we drove. We were poor but did more than not know it when it came to each other we were more preciuos than gold. If money does anything it separates people from true value in others, if you let it, and boy isn't it tempting, to most of the world, to make it that easy.

Its too bad the world puts a $ on love. I know most of us would spend our last dime on our sick children, even on unproven medicine, when it comes to marriages, they won't do what God says and that is free.

Dr H did not invent Love, it will allways exist whether we all had a word for it or not, but he is an authority on it, and how it works. This is a worthy investment in everything you really value Jane. It is the best money you will ever spend for those books.

Welcome to MB Jane sounds like your just in time to be helped. You have Mel on your thread, you are blessed.

Work on your marriage. Find what you once had for the man, put your sleeves up and do the time until those feelings that ML talked about come back. Once they are back and you have the skills, I believe it will not feel like work it will be a natural process for you both.

I'm on the other end of someone not trying and walking out. I have the kids. It is hard and lonely. I have lost my best friend of almost 19 years. Do what you need to, to work it out. I hope it's not to late.

My feelings were mostly born out of being single for most of my life and not having any attention from anyone and then jumping in to a relationship far too soon and too quick. I would have ended it years ago (right after we first met but was always made to feel guilty about something). My husband was on the rebound and used my shoulder to cry on. I wasn't totally happy about this at the time and I did suggest space for both our sakes back then, but he was too insecure to go for that and has always kept me close.

I've always tried harder and given him the benefit of the doubt made excuses etc. But it has NEVER felt right. 'The feelings I once had' were naive ones.

We are just not compatible.
I understand what people say when they say 'we take our problems with us' - I agree in general and it is exactly what i would say to someone else. But I'm a sensible easy going person and wouldn't have this problem.

My only concern is for our child. What kind of a role would i be if she was to be brought up in a family with no love, and with bickering.

I understand what you're saying about 'working at it'. But people on here are almost suggesting that if everyone 'worked at it' then any person in the world could love any other person and if that's the case why don't we all just fall in love with the first person we see and just 'get on with it' and 'work at it'?

We fall in love with those people who meet our needs the best. What Marriage Builders does is teach you both to become professionals at meeting the others needs. It really does work. Compatibility is CREATED, it does not happen by accident. Falling in love does happen by accident either; there is a very specific way that it happens.

Just as you have created incompatibility in your marriage, you can also create compatibility by using this program.

You CAN fall in love with your husband. And you CAN learn to be compatible. It is not that hard. Not nearly as hard as living in a bad marriage and not nearly as hard as getting divorced and ripping apart your child's family.


What kind of role model walks away without trying to resolve a problem when she knows it can be resolved? Is that kind of the lesson you want to teach your child? DON'T bring her up in a family where there is no love and lots of bickering. Stop bickering and fall in love. Don't tear apart her family for no reason.

Hey Jane just a few more comments yet ok I don't think everyone has their guns sighted in yet.

But honestly, there is nothing said there that most people have not said before.

What does he say about building romantic love? Are you both too busy for each other? Or do you want Love to come in raging like a river? Is it a point in life you can appreciate the peace and ability to make choices but instead you blame the peace and want excitment?

Im sorry your husband was on the rebound at one time and needed you, yes that is not the perfect way to start a relationship, but we are human and fallible. Will you teach the children that if you are weak you are dispensible?

You can do whatever you want, but there will be consequences, why not seek the actions that open your mind to love and change, instead of running away to this option you have allready picked out?

Just a freindly encourgement to you, and I hope some other poster comes along with first hand experience, but I can tell you, that its all within you and your husbands outlooks and perspective, and you can make your marriage the loving and secure place it is supposed to be, if you want to.

i can understand your situation , when we start hating some one its become very hard to give him/her there place back in our heart . but you are saying he is trying to change and you have 3 kids then please think for your 8 year long relation . try to save this marriage . **edit**

So why did you marry him if you didn't love him? I've never known any man to marry a woman who told him she didn't love him.

Still waiting for an answer to my first post wondering exactly how he is controlling.