Please help! I was the happiest millennium bride who got married on New Year's Day this year. I know that my husband and I are very much in love with one another, after having spent almost 8 years with each other. I went back to school right after the wedding to finish my last 4 months of study. (I was also in school the whole year last year before we got married. We kept in touch via emails and phone calls.) Guess what happened? He asked me to agree on annulling our marriage when I came back 2 weeks ago since he feels that we are not compatible for each other! He said he had a recurring dream for many nights about 2 months ago which told him that we should not be together. He also dragged out all the problems he had with my parents, since my parents never liked him from the beginning. Then he said I always defend and am very much influenced by my parents. That bothers him a great deal and therefore he feels that our marriage will not work in the long run. (That is not true. I was always on his side if he were right.)<P>I asked him why didn't he think about all these problems before we got married just 5 months ago? After all, we have been together for almost 8 years. I kept persuading him that my parents have agreed to treat him nicer from now on since he is my husband. He told me that he is not convinced.<P>He wouldn't touch me at all since he said it would hurt us even more. I am devastated since even less than 3 months ago on Valentine's Day he sent me an e-card telling me how fortunate he is to have found me and that he loves me very much! How could the whole world change in just a matter of 2 months? I asked him if he had met somebody else, but he denied. I noticed from his cellular phone bills that he has been calling this girl daily since 2/18, but when I confronted him he said that he was just bored and needed someone to talk to. 11 condoms were mysteriously missing from the box (I remember how many were there before I left in January) and his explanation was that some of them fell on the floor and got wet when he was moving to our new apartment last month before I came back. He is now very short-tempered and starts yelling that I don't trust him whenever I ask him if he has someone else. The first few days when I returned he always went out at night for a few hours saying that he needed some fresh air and time to himself. A week after I returned he finally persuaded me to agree on annulling our marriage. He said that would be the best thing for us to do before we start fighting and hating each other, since we still love each other now. I kept asking him, why is he so pessimistic and constantly believes that we are going to fight? I didn't want to annul our marriage, but I had no choice. We both hugged and cried for about half an hour when he returned from the courthouse after he had filed the petition about a week ago. He kept telling me that his strongest reason for annulling our marriage now is that he really cares about me and doesn't want me to a "divorced woman." He said he hopes I will one day understand that this is the best solution for us. I moved back to my original home 2 days later.<P>He said he needs time to sort things out and hopefully we will get back together again. He told me that he is very confused right now and would like us to just stop seeing or talking to each other for a while. However, he still calls me at least once a day.<P>He denies every time when I ask him if he has someone else, although I found it hard to believe that his fear for problems with my family would cause him to terminate our short marriage. Afterall, we have been together for so long and I know that he still loves me. I don't think he is the type who would go out to have an affair when he just got married, but Dr. Harley wrote that we should never assume that our spouse would never cheat. I feel very bad because our marriage ended before it even began. I really don't know what to do, since I really want to get back together with him. I think he is hurting as much as well, since he cried many times when I was with him last week. He kept saying that he needs "space" for now. He feels really tired even after one night sleep. My biggest question is, does he have someone else? If so, what can/should I do, especially when he is not admitting it?<P>He claimed to have an unsound mind at the time of our wedding on New Year's Day as the reason for our marriage annulment. I received the petition and have 1 month to respond. What should I do? Should I respond or should I just ignore it? I notice that our date of separation is incorrect. He wrote the date when I went back to school, but we really just separated about 10 days ago when I moved out of our new "home". (I came back "home" in mid-April.) Is there any way I can contest it? But even if I do so, what good is it if the man doesn't want to stay married to me anymore?<P>Please help me!!!<BR>

SMB: What a sad and tragic way for you to begin your marriage. I am so sorry. Your spouse does exhibit the classic signs of having someone else, I am sorry to say. But, who knows, perhaps he is just having some other kind of crisis going on. It's tough to know if they are telling the truth.<P>Since you have moved out, it's pretty hard to implement PLAN A. If you really want to salvage your marriage, you could contest the annulment and see what happens. It may snap him out of it and make him feel valuable and important enough that you would try to save the marriage, however, be prepared for some unpleasantness if he is adamant about getting an anulment.<P>I don't have any sound advise to give you, only offer support. Your problem is pretty unique. You didn't mention why your parents don't like your spouse. <P>Prayers, <P>Catnip =^^=

Thanks, Catnip, for your response and your support. My parents don't like him because they feel that I am "too good" for him. They always say that I am a very assertive self-starter. I always continue to motivate myself to learn new things. (That's why I went back to school for my Master degree.) He is the contrary. He has a lot of ideas, but he never carries them out. I am a very determined person while he is not a very decisive person. I am very optimistic while he is quite pessimistic, especially everything I do seem to be going well while everything he does seem to almost always goes the wrong way. I have to admit, this guy really needs some luck. That's why my parents have not been very friendly to him since we started our relationship almost 8 years ago. I have had many other admirers who are in a much "stronger position" than he is financially and professionally. My parents always asked me, "why didn't you give other people a chance?"<P>On one hand he wants to annul our marriage, on the other hand he doesn't want me to tell anybody yet since we may get back together again. He said he needs time to convince himself that our marriage will work in the long run before he proceeds. He admits that after he went in to file the annulment petition, he didn't feel relieved. He asked me to give him some time to think this over.<P>I have talked to his sister and 2 of my closest girlfriends about this. I feel a lot better now. My 2 girlfriends don't think that he has someone else since they feel that he loves me very much and that he is not the type that would go out to look for another woman while I'm away. (They both know him quite well.) They feel that he is most likely trying to reconsider our relationship, since he believes that there were many unresolved issues in the past which we had ignored. His sister told me that her brother always likes to be by himself when he is confused about something. She said I should give him some time to sort things out, but I should also think about myself in the long run. I should therefore only give him a month or 2. If he doesn't make up his mind by then, I should leave him for my own good.<P>Well, I guess I'll just leave him alone for now. I don't know if it makes a difference if he has another woman while I am his wife. Does it give me more "protection" or "bargaining power" if I discover the affair while I am still his legal wife? Please let me know.<BR>