I have been married for 2 years, now. From day one, I wanted to run the opposite direction of the groom. (Wedding dress and all.) As our days in marriage progressed the stronger my feeling had become. I can easily say I married because I love him. And I don't think I am alone. I have tried to be honest with him. I was straight with him just last night. I said, "We are not in love any more. You don't like me no more than I like you." He was insistant that he was still madly in love with me. His actions show different. He is always complaining about how I don't do certain things but he does. I am really confused. I almost feel that he will never admit to something being wrong in our marriage. Which makes me feel like, "is there something wrong with me?"

I must add that I believe in order to make a marriage work that it is essential to understand each person's definition. My husband and I lack in communication. When I talk with him, I know that he will not take anything I say to heart. I really feel that our marriage is doomed due to no effort. I am not just complaining. I am screaming out, "HELP". What is one to do when there is no effort from the other member?

Whether or not your marriage can be saved, or even whether either of you want it saved, I cannot say. But to avoid a repeat, there is much good information that will help. I have found wisdom in such books as "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" (Dr. Grey or Gray, I think) but this is much too simplistic, although often accurate. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is exceptionally useful to understand why some people are the way they are, and what can you do about it (not a lot, actually, but you can become "bi-lingual" and learn to speak in ways the "other types" will understand). For instance, I am an "INTP" (there's 16) and I tend to explain in great detail and precision to make sure the nuances are fully covered. It will also tend to be scientific and not oriented toward feelings, which are not easily talked about, but rather somewhat more concrete things. My opposite is ESFJ; she likes to talk and she likes feelings and the "J" means quick to judge and act; my "P" means perceive -- I like to let things soak in and think about it. Keeping in mind the possibility of erroneous judgement, and the fact that people can play more than one role depending on their age and versatility (as we get older we learn to speak more than one "language"), knowing these things can let you discover whether or not there is liklihood of genuine communication. When I was in Alaska, I loved eagles; that was a one-way street to be sure! But it taught me that love "creates" an imaginary, perfect partnership and it might take a long time to discover the real partnership does not conform to the imagined one. In your case it did not take you very long to discover that what you thought you were getting, and what you got, was not the same. Marriage Builders has some tools to help MAKE your marriage into what you were hoping, but of course, it won't work if you are the only one working at it. For now, I can suggest only to find trusted friends to talk to so that some of your needs can be met. If your husband will not permit you to talk to your friends, that should be (in my opinion) a dangerous signal that you have been circumscribed by controls and boundaries. Real love lets go and does not confine; real love hopes the partner will wish to stay but does not force it to be so.

I wish to follow this up a bit. If I am asked a question, I must go into "think mode" before I answer it. This is sometimes interpreted as unwillingness to speak. If the asker is impatient, then by the time I have thought about it and produced an answer, the asker has already left the scene, sometimes in a huff or angry, and is herself no longer interested in hearing the answer to her question. But a "F" (Feeler) person thinks out loud; to ask her a question will produce an immediate response, but it may well turn out not to be her only or last word on the subject -- she is still thinking out loud. A "T" person will take the first thing he hears as being her answer, and any subsequent statements will be taken as attempts to hide, change, or disguise her first answer, when in fact she intends for him to listen to, heed and obey only the LAST word she utters on a topic. So you see, communication between an "F" type and a "T" type has problems on two levels: The level of "what shall we talk ABOUT" (feelings versus thoughts), and "HOW shall we talk" (speak while feeling for feelers -- maybe some thought to follow, think first then speak for thinkers, maybe some feeling to follow)

We all have an alter-ego; the opposite in ourselves, it is to this alter-ego we may have to communicate until we get older and learn to speak the other languages. It is also known as "reverse psychology" but it works because every extravert has an undeveloped introvert waiting to come out (and wanting to!) and vice versa. A person that thinks all the time, is excited by the pure force of "feeling" and plays video games or goes camping or adventuring just for the "feeling" of it. It is therefore possible to target the feeler in a thinking person; but beware the unpredictable results of speaking to undeveloped capacities in the other person and the primary mode may not wish to relinquish control of brain and body to the alter ego, so to speak.