I think the sex thing was my fault - I was too eagar to please him and thought if I said no then he would be even less inclined to try work on our marriage, so pretended to be enjoying it when I was not.

You actually need to complain about the problem you care having with sex. There is lots of information here regarding how to complain.

Start being honest and open about your needs. It's likely a good thing your a renter given your husband's acted a freeloader. You have to be ready willing and able to give up the relationship as it stands in its crippled state to gain a healthy one. Take the healthy action steps to gain a healthy relationship or let it go.

Thanks yes I realise now that i need to tell him how I feel, I just don't want it to create a fight. I feel sometimes i have to walk on eggshells around him and I'm sick of it.

We spoke the other night and I told him how I need to feel loved and cared for again if we are going to make things work, and his reply was "well I'm moving for you so that should show you how much I care", but I need more. If he can be the person I fell in love with then I want to fight for our marriage, but at this point i don't know if that was all an act and he is only recently showing his true colors, or if he just turned into this person because he was scared of change and as soon as he gets here and gets used to being here then he'll start being that wonderful person again who made me feel so loved and wanted. It's all so confusing :P

Graceful2b, that's what I am asking for help with - I have no idea how to change the relationship into something better. I know it's broken but I don't know how to fix it. I guess both myself and my husband are just really bad at relationships. I look at my friends and see how happy they are in their marriages, and I want that so badly, and I want my husband to treat me the way my friend's husbands treat them, but I don't know how to get there.

It is expected behavior for a husband and wife to LIVE together, not something he is doing to woo you. Good grief.

You need to STOP 'walking on eggshells' and sacrificing in order to keep his attention. You will never get the marriage you want doing that. You will likely not get it by complaining either, with someone who has such a freeloader mindset. But you might as well know that now and move on to find a buyer, than mess around with this much longer.

I don't understand why people whose spouses are having affairs are given so much support and encouragement on this forum, (even those whose spouse has had multiple affairs), and yet everyone here just tells me to divorce and that there is no hope. Surely if marriages can recover from affairs then there is something we can do to make our marriage work too?

The advice to marriage with or without affairs is the same. If you do not live a buyers lifestyle, one where you provide each other with extraordinary care and protection, then you are destined to have affairs and live unhappy married lives and are better off divorcing.

The reason you are hearing this more on your thread is because you have so very little to save, you are very newly married, do not have children together, and do not even live in the same part of the country. You have never been buyers and it does not seem like your H is interested in becoming one now.

In many affair situations, couples have had good marriages until one spouse goes into 'the fog' from an affair, and it is important to do what you can to break them out of the fog. If that occurs and the affair ends, but the WS is not interested in creating a marriage of extraordinary care and protection, the advice will also be to divorce.

Why don't you write to MBRadio?

Right now you can decide what you want. Seems you don't want what you've got. What if you decide you want a relationship of extraordinary care? So you tell your husband that your experience together so far has helped you understand your self better. And this has lead you to a program called MB. You like this program because it focuses on action steps that meet one another's intimate needs. Now that you are together you would like to stop operating independently and learn to act interdependently. And so on. Don't get into a lecturing mode. Invite him. If he wants continue to disregard the marriage you have your answer.

I could swear we talked to you about what a free loader this man was, before you were married, when you were posting on the Dating forum. Do you mean to tell us that you went ahead and married someone about whom you were specifically warned, and now you want us to support the marriage that never got off the ground, and that never stood a chance?

Is that why you are calling yourself "anotherusername"? Because you have posted here before, you did not like the advice, so you just changed your identity?

Why else would you have chosen that user name?

How is ignoring our advice and changing your identity working for you?

The thing is you've got yourself wrapped around an axel rod figuring out how to save a marriage that never became a real marriage in the first place. Your asking us to fix your fantasy. The actions I'm throwing out such as complaining and various tools here just might help you sort out fantasy from reality.

I never posted on the dating site - this is my first thread. I chose anotherusername because the first three user names I tried were taken, so after the third one I thought now I have to think of another user name!

Im really trying my best to have a great relationship. I just don't know what I'm doing. Besides telling him my needs and feelings, and complaining about some of his behaviour, what more can I do? I realise you don't think we have a marriage at all, but I said my vows. So my marriage is every bit as valid. It's really insulting actually to have it referred to as an experiment.

Please email me about the use of multiple screen names.

The very first thing that must happen is that you need to live together. You absolutely cannot have a marriage living apart like this. You cannot spend the time together that is required to have a good marriage, or fill each other's EN's, or avoid affairs, living apart like this.

When is this going to happen?

You cannot force him to live with you. But if he refuses to live together, there is nothing else we can advise you to do that would repair this.

If he does not want to move to where you are, you need to POJA a solution, whether that is move to where he is, or move somewhere else entirely. But you need to be together to have a marraige.

AUN,

I assume you went into the marriage with the expectation you'd live together as a married couple. Unfortunately your husband has chosen to remain apart from you. Its impossible to apply MB principles to make this work if you are apart. It sounds like you have gone along reluctantly. You've exhausted yourself trying to get the marriage on track and now you are confused. If you have gone along reluctantly I assume you are applying your sense of 'hope' this suffering will soon end and be worth it at some point. Using this 'hope' is like an experiment and soon hope dries up and you withdraw too. That seems where you are at. Your husband will give you an ounce of hope and you hang on a little longer. Its a sad dance.

I am sorry this has happened to you. The marriage you are in is high risk for you. Because it shows such risks so early on its likely not useful to put the energy into it. I don't say this to be hurtful or mean. Its away of showing care.

Last week I fired a woman about my own age who worked for me just under 3 months. Her background experience made me hopeful she would be a great asset.
We threw lots of effort and resources to train her. She questioned and complained about our systems from the beginning. She wore our staff down from not listening to instructions and performed in a way she liked independent of our instructions. She made lots of mistakes. She confused and upset our clients. Our staff began to shut down when she came to them for help because she would not listen and follow directives. I'd talked to her several times. She would lead me to believe she wanted to be part of our team. When I fired her she said she was shocked. Although we told her what we wanted and how to get the job done she was unaware she did the exact opposite of what it takes to connect and perform. Because I'd hoped she would work out and along the way I had to re-connect with my own sense of hope and she would keep helping me feel l hope, in the end I had to give up on my hope. We took care of our side of the fence, we'd hoped the employee would catch on and take care of her side, but she choose not to. It was her failure. It was like an experiment to find out how it would go. When I am hopeful I am front loading a sense of future. So this projection of hope is an experimental process. Its not always connected to reality or an actual outcome I want to happen. You can't control your husband. Your effort to get what you want may not work out.