Hello, I'm new here and I don't know where I would post my issue(s). I read all that I could on the MB website, but I cannot find an answer. My husband and I have been together 9 years and married 2.5. We had many problems in the beginning. I got pregnant a couple of moths after meeting and that may be the problem. He had a drinking problem and went to bars a lot, and really only wanted me around when he went to sleep. We moved into my parents house after the baby was born and he continued on the same lifestyle. After a few months we moved into a place of our own. Our neighbors liked to party so my husband would go there a lot. I was struggling with being on my own for the first time. Raising kids, keeping up with the house, all of normal life demands. And he would come home say hi and go next door. Shortly after he moved his friend in and not only was the neighbor a distraction so was his friend. The nights he would come home from work around midnight I'd try to be sexy and he'd tell me to get dressed so he could drink with his buddies on the porch. I eventually gave up from being rejected so many times. He'd come and go as he pleased. But one night I had enough he said he was going with a friend to a drug test around 9 in the evening and didn't come home till about 3 am. He was high on mushrooms. I got the kids and left. The next day while he was at work I packed all our stuff and moved back with my parents. He left me alone a few days until I turned all the services off because they were in my name. He then would not leave me alone, I tried so hard to stay away from him. We got back together and moved to a house, and for awhile he quit drinking and started to work on things I complained about. I thought things were great.
About 6 months had passed and he got a better position at work but the thing was he had to be gone for a week at a time. It wasn't bad at first because he was close to home. After his work was finished he got moved to a different location which was about 6 hours from home, and there he would be for the next 2.5 years. But, he would come home every other week. Well one of those trips home he was so excised to tell me about his MySpace page. I instantly knew there was going to be trouble he showed me his friends and didn't think much of it. I arranged for my mom to watch my kids while I took a train to where he was at. He took me to place he usually ate and the waitress was happy to see him but indifferent about me. I got a little upset but I know how he talks so I figured he might have flirted a little with her. He was absolutely addicted to MySpace, every free second of his was spent there, which irritated me because we never spent time together and when he was home he was on the computer and at work I'd go days without hearing from him. I noticed he messages a certain girl a lot but then he started to get more and more girl friends on there, whomever I never heard of. He soon quit checking MySpace and started to check his email more. I was bad and spied on him as typed his password in one day. When he left for work I checked his inbox. He was emailing a girl from MySpace. It was innocent at first and really flirty on both ends. One night he wrote about something he should have done to her and I flipped. I called him but I noticed he had a message in his outbox he was messaging her as he was ignoring my phone calls. I called him 4 times no answer and he said he never got the calls. I was irate I told him about it a couple of days later and he was shocked and sent her a goodbye message and she made fun of me and that was it as far as I know. I kept my guard up because I knew and felt I could not trust him. I checked his MySpace messages and saw he was flirting with other girls and he was trying to friend like 30 more females not to mention he was trying to hunt down some other girl and one of her friends gave him her phone number. So I checked the phone bill and never found her number listed but he had a work phone too that I could not view. But I did come across many other numbers which were long phone calls to other women (I called them). He swore nothing went on but I didn't believe him. I felt even worse that he could talk to these women so much and text them but he never ever had time to talk to me. I was so hurt.
Keep in mind he has a job that requires him to be on location at all times unless he needs to take off. Ok, so he got moved somewhere that was a couple of hours from home. I questioned him on his whereabouts many times he swore he never did anything, that he didn't drink blah blah blah. But many times he came home smelling like alcohol and got mad if I said anything. Our sex life became all but non existant. I was still not trusting him. And one day I got a wild hair up my behind and opened all his credit card statements, he didn't know they were comming in the mail. And for a while it was nothing. But for about a year it was many bars, restraints, cab, more bars, and he said he didn't drink. I confided in my mother a lot because my dad cheated on her a lot. But she passed away and then he proposed to me a month later, which I second guessed and I wasn't making any plans but a month after that I found out I was pregnant with our second child. We got married a couple of months later so I could be on his insurance since I didn't have any. When I was about 8 months pregnant and I was being paranoid I checked his statements again. I noticed he had bars, dinner and then a massage?????? I flipped out and told him everything. I was disgusted with him. He cancelled his statements to the house which made me even more suspicious. Then I checked his bank and instead of running his card (paper trails) he started to withdrawal more cash.
This has been over a year now and even though we've fough and he swears nothing happened, I don't trust him. I'm so shut off from him I almost feel nothing, and if I do it's complete hate toward him. I'm at a loss. I've been a mess since my mom passed I feel I went with her, so having a combination of my mom and my relationship problems I don't know what to do. My husband now is away from home 2 weeks at a time. I don't trust him, I feel so much pain from him. And I often want to leave. We don't communicate and when we do we fight and the whole kitchen sink comes out. We have nothing in common so when he's home there's nothing to talk about. I don't check his stuff anymore, part of me doesn't want to know anymore than I do. We have separate bank accounts he still keeps his credit card statement paperless. I feel so shut out. We don't discuss things we should and if we do it's in a joking way. Everything is so smarta** between us. I feel like buddie, buddies that get along sometimes.
I just need advice. I know I have a lot of resentment toward him. But I think about all that he's done so much and it makes me so unhappy, and he won't tell me anything because he says there's nothing to tell.
Sorry this was so long, but I have a lot of baggage.

J.R.

JR, there is not much to save here unless you both change your lives dramatically and start living as married people. As it is now, you are just married on paper only. And nothing will change unless and until he makes radical changes in his approach to marriage.

The problem is that you can't force him to change against his will. He is not really married in spirit; he married you and continued to carry on his single lifestyle.

Since he is very unlikely to do change, I would strongly suggest you file for divorce so that you can get legal protection for you and your children.

I've felt we need a divorce many times. We've been together so long and I have basically no work experience. I've stayed home with the children almost our entire relationship, so I don't know how to go about that. My children are 12, 7, and 18 months old and I homeschool the othe two. I already feel I live alone because he's gone for 2 weeks home for 2 weeks. But things feel so divided between us. He's been trying to put me on a pedestal but I'm so withdrawn I don't know how to get back where I was in the beginning. My real love for him went when he kept lying and hiding stuff from me and not telling me anything. He told me he did that stuff behind my back because if I knew look how I react. But I tried to tell him my reactions are worse because he did lie and did them behind my back.
This past month someone got ahold of my bank card number so I reported it to my bank and my account is under investigation for 90 days. So I have no bank card till its over. If I need money I have to go there to withdrawal money. Which is ok but a big pain. We got an income tax check which had both our names on it so we had to cash it together. The lady told me let me see your ID because you're not joint on his account. Well that hit me, I've already been sick of that so it irritated me a lot. I didn't bring it up to him. A couple of months back he said he'd add me to his account but never did. But last night he called and asked what was going on with my account because he doesn't trust transferring me money since this whole thing. And tells me why don't you just open a new account. I was irritated at that and told him it sounds easier for me to get a new account than to have a husband and wife to have a joint account. He came off with WTF did I do? And I told him WTF did I do? And he say am I that bad of a husband? That's what I get all the time instead of dealing with the question or problem at hand it turns to defensiveness and turns to exactly that. WTF did I do? I'm sick of this.... Or I don't know what your dealing with but I didn't do anything. It's alway immediately turned to I'm attacking him and he gets defensive. And he tries to make me feel guilty and that I'm crazy. To him he's never done anything. And all he does is try. I'm so messed up I don't want to go through it all.

When he asks if he is that bad of a husband, say yes.

But you knew he would be before you married him, didn't you? Most of your story is pre-marriage. File. Protect yourself and your children. Improve your picker.

Oh and the other things that he complains about on me is not deciding where we go when we go somewhere. But the times I have brought stuff up where to go, where to eat, etc. have been criticized somehow by him that I've given up deciding. Mostly because I don't want to be criticized. And I hate going on trips because we always fight when we leave and there we are mad at eachother and far from home. And he plays music with bad lyrics to express how he feels toward me and it hurts. I honestly don't know who I am anymore because I've shifted myself so much to be the way he might like me, that I've lost myself in there. I don't enjoy anything and I don't even know what I ought enjoy. I know I have my faults too. I've tried to make him change his ways like the going out and drinking. But I didn't think that was that big of a deal if we were going to try to be a "family."


Thank you Melodylane for your input. It hurts because those that are close to me say the same thing. I think I just didn't want to hear it. I guess I was hoping that I had hope.

I have wanted to say that to him, but I don't have the guts to say something like that. And if I did it would just open the kitchen sink again. With everything that has went wrong, everything he did/didn't do, everything I did/didn't do. It's the same thing over and over. He thinks I should be over it all by now but pretty much everything reminds me. He's now working near the last place we had problems and it triggered all my pain again. He will never tell me anything but how crazy I am, or how stupid I sound, and that I don't know what I'm talking about, or my favorite that I need to grow up.

He is abusing you, and you need to leave.

I know it hurts. But it hurts more living like this. If you would make a decision to get divorced, though, and move on without him, you could have a happy future. I know it will be hard, but not as hard as being married to a player. Your husband would likely have to pay you spousal support and child support. You could get job training and earn a living.

You are not stuck, my friend. You do have options. But you must first accept that you can't change him and your future will be one of misery if you don't change. You don't have to live like this.

I know for sure it hurts to leave and it hurts to stay. Last year I planned on leaving I had all my ducks in a row. I had a place to stay, I had an immediate job offer, I moved most of my important things in storage, really all I needed to do was walk out the door. My heart was not with him anymore. He kept calling me and coming home. And he cried a lot, seeing that his life was walking out the door and it hurt him to see that I just didn't care. But I was trying to get the house cleaned from the kids and I expected him to be gone. But he kept coming home every night. I don't know what happened I somehow got manipulated to stay even though I was pretty much out the door. Since then he's been trying but I'm not much involved.
I hurts both of us because I'm sick of stuff getting thrown in my face and I'm sure he is too. Not to mention I'm sick of hearing him say he's sick of me over and over. He tells me all the things he calls me is not considered calling me names because he doesn't call me a B or a C. I told him he is because what he uses instead is other words intended to make me mad or hurt me. When we first got together and I did something he didn't like he'd say I made him sick. That was the worst but now all the new words are getting under my skin.
And I know I'll be happier if I left but I'm just not ready to be put through all that again. And I don't have any ducks in any row. My ducks are scattered.
I've looked at many types of abuse and personality disorders that could fit us. A lot is verbal, mental, and financial abuse. He falls into many of the personality traits. He's a complete different person with me than with his friends/coworkers. He's much happier with them. And he has a big ego. He thinks pretty highly of himself and the better he is a work the worst he gets. He compares his life and things to the friends he admires. And he is very image oriented. How things look and what brands they are. It's so annoying.

So it sounds like you need Plan B.

Here are some links to help you out.
How To Plan B properly
Plan B sample letters
Parallel Parenting

We can help you get your plan together.

I have a doctors appointment in the morning for depression, go figure? My husband is at work out of town, he had to fill in for another guy so he's been gone longer than usual. Plus he says where he's at there is no cell service although he can text. So I've pretty much haven't talked to him in a couple of weeks and him being near a trigger zone makes it worse for me. He said he would drive home in the morning so he'd be with the kids and I told him it wouldn't be necessary. He said thanks. And I told him for what? And he told me for not caring that he was coming home in the morning. I told him thanks for not being concerned for what's wrong with me. He said he didn't know anything was wrong. And I figured sure why should a person who's suppose to be there for you not even know there's anything wrong. Let's see our marriage is horrible not to mention I've never really coped with my mothers death and I'm stuck at home all the time with children I never get a break from unless they go to sleep. I have no friends I have no life and I have no life because I have no friends. While my husband is at work and at his other non mentionables. So anyway, he tells me he is showing concern by risking driving home after he's been up working all night. But I told him that is the only concern he's shown. How about last night? I have trouble with sleeping and I have bad nightmares often. Well I had one around 5 this morning, my dreams are bad but I get caught between this sleep and awake state where I'm trying to wake up but I'm still dreaming. Usually I call him but I can't so I tried to text him. Not only was it my nightmare affecting me but all the dogs around we're barking like crazy which made me more scared and I'm trying to text him not fully awake and my eyes are rolling around. I just needed someone to wake me up or keep me awake till I was out of it. He just told me you're ok go back to sleep, which was what I didn't need to do. I told him whatever and he text you're so sweet. WTF!!!! I did fall back to sleep and I didn't fall right back into a nightmare. It was horrible. I feel and felt so alone. My cousin calls it single-married mom. That's exactly what it is.

So did you see a lawyer yet?

Like Melodylane always says "feelings follow actions".

Did you read these?

No I don't have the support. I did read about it though. I only have a couple of people that I can sometimes rely on and that's my grandmother who doesn't like to be bothered with other peoples problems because she stuck it out with my grandfather who in many ways was abusive. And my father who is the prodigy of my grandfather and who's always on my husbands side. So that really just leaves me and my kids. I have cousins but they are so involved with their own lives I don't mention mine. I have family in another state but that would cause more problems and I can't do much with the custody situation between me and my ex. I had a good savings going on at one point but I had to keep getting into it when my husband wasn't able to give me money. Not to mention I have other problems because someone got my debit card number and messed my bank account up. Plan B would take some time. And I don't have a lawyer.

Haven't posted here in awhile I was "just living" with our situation. I don't know how all this started. I've been really distant to my husband at times yet he says I am all the time. He rarely ever notices the little things I do for him. We got in a fight a couple month back about what "my problem" was. At the time it was because I was sick of how he was treating our son. When he gets mad or irritated he gets treated like a dog. I told him he can't treat him like that and he throws in my face that I don't do anything. I told him I'm tired of him yelling at them for laughing to loud or just being loud. I understand it sometimes but not everytime they are loud. He asked me if I wanted to leave, I told him sometimes I do and he said sometimes I wish you would too. He then went on to about how we can't communicate and how we never get along when we are out of town or when we do anything together. And we don't because he has severe mood changes that he doesn't see it, so naturally it changes my mood. So pretty much the conclusion to that fight was him telling me to leave. Well I have no where to go, so a couple of days later he acted nice and like everything is peachy. I started to create my own saving stash but he hasn't been giving me enough money. I didnt pay the bills last month because I had to get groceries and household stuff plus planning for my sons birthday. So this month he gave me $1000, and since the bills were behind I had to pay more. Well I didn't have enough to pay PG&E, I had to use my stash to pay off my charge cards. Well yesterday I got a 24 hr notice on PG&E. I told him last week we had a notice and I couldn't pay it. He says I didn't but he doesn't listen to me. So I was stressed out. I had $150 in the bank, my kids needed shoes, I was stressed over the bill, I was just a mess, I was trying to quit smoking and he was getting even more mad at how I was. He said I was being mean to him. I told him I'm trying to quit and it's hard on me so I was trying to keep to myself so I wouldn't actually be mean to anyone. Needless to say I started to smoke because I was tired of him running his mouth on me and being stressed out. While I'm stressed about money and bills he was out shopping for a new Harley. I was so angry he came at me the same as last time and asked if I wanted to stay together and all that BS, I told him yes if I was happy. I told him its hard for me to live with all the lies he's told in the past and still denies it, I told him it hurts to think of all the women he was texting and calling in the past and he asked me who? Like I know who they were. At the time I called them and they said yes they talked to him, so I know I wasn't imagining it. He said what do you want me to say? I said the truth he said he already told me the truth. I told him everytime I brought it up even when it happened he denied it. I told him I can't move past it because he never answers me. I told him I'm tired of him spending what he wants and I can't afford to pay the bills. He said well I didn't know you were out of money. I told him that's the other problem, I'm tired of asking for money. I told him we are married we should have a joint account. He said I don't have an account with you because the last time you left you took money out of my wallet. He tells me that and he can't believe I'm bringing stuff up from before we were married. Like it makes a difference???? We've been together almost 10 years and married for 3. So while he was talking to these women and going to bars (while at work) and he quit drinking and going to get massages, we were together 4-5 years. If day that's pretty much a commitment. So this fight he told me I need to leave, and again I can't. I have no where to go, I have no money to leave. He told me to go stay with family, but me and my children aren't my families responsibility. So now we aren't talking unless we have to.

I just don't know what to do now.

bump

I would follow the advice we gave you on your other threads. Here is your first thread: here

Threads merged.

Some of the best posters on this board advised you to divorce him because he is very unlikely to change. Why haven't you done that?

Nothing is going to change if you continue to "just live" in the situation.

He's not going to change because you aren't going to actually do anything drastic like separate. There are ways to separate - you aren't willing to ask family for help and in the past year, you have spent money on shoes (used shoes at a thrift store are $2) and cigarettes, so how can we help you....?