Here is my situation. I love my husband. The moment we met, I knew he was my soul mate and I know that he is still to this day. We have been married for 11 years. Even though I truly love him, I am developing deep anger and resentment towards him. About, 9 years ago, we both became self-employed with independent businesses. Due to many things, his business did not succeed, he lost a fair amount of money and my business has supported us financially. My business has done well yet requires a lot of attention at this stage. I know that is not easy for my husband.

About 18 months ago, my husband convinced me to move across country. We moved into an area that is 3 times the cost of living (we didn’t mean too). Aside from the cost of living, we both love the new location. However, it doesn’t appear that we will be able to continue living here on my income alone.

The 3 areas that I have developed resentment are:

1. The amount of hours I work a day and still am responsible for the majority of running the house, paying the bills, coordinating the kids schedules, etc. Now, my husband is great with playing with the kids and spending time with them. Here is a recent example of my frustration; I finished a 13 hour day (I typically work 12-13 hours a day M-TH, 8 hours on F, 2 hours on Sat and 2 hours on Sun.) and was scheduled to leave town for business the next morning. I went to sleep at midnight, woke up at 4:45 am to get the laundry done in order to pack the next morning. I found that I was running a little late and had to ask my husband to get up at 8:00 to get the kids lunches for school and he was ticked at me. The only thing that he is responsible for each day is taking our son to soccer and doing the evening dishes.

I find myself getting angrier and angrier all day long as I am working and watching my husband not work or help. I treat him with resentment and not the Biblical respect I should. He in turn, knows that I am watching his every move and feels constant pressure from me. He tends to do the opposite of what I would want out of spite.

2. Both of us want to stay in the new community but my husband does not want “to have” to work. He doesn’t want “to be forced to work when he doesn’t feel like it.” He doesn’t want us “to depend on his income.” This is straight from his mouth. It infuriates me because I can’t remember the last time I felt like working 12 hours a day or wanting to depend on my income.

3. There are also many loose ends from my husbands business that are not tied up yet, including taxes. It has been 4 years now and he has never gotten them in order because it has been “too depressing.” He has been saying for a few years now that he is going to get to it but just never does.

I know that I am not appreciating all the qualities that he does have and bring into our lives because I am only focusing on what he doesn’t have. I am not sure the resolution? Our kids spend the summer with their grandparents out of state so I thought that this might be a good time for us to spend some time apart in order to learn to appreciate each other again.
Any thoughts?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Both of us want to stay in the new community but my husband does not want “to have” to work. He doesn’t want “to be forced to work when he doesn’t feel like it.” He doesn’t want us “to depend on his income.” </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">To be blunt, in my book, this makes him a bum. He is the man of the house and is supposed support YOU. He just friggin needs to grow up. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> 3. There are also many loose ends from my husbands business that are not tied up yet, including taxes. It has been 4 years now and he has never gotten them in order because it has been “too depressing.” He has been saying for a few years now that he is going to get to it but just never does.

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">In other words, he would have to be a grown up and accept his failure.

I don't mean to be cruel but I am really sick of these so called 'men' who will not face up to their responsibilities but want to be called 'head of the house' anyway.

Bless your heart, you are a strong woman. Put your foot down and tell him he has to help pull his weight.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I find myself getting angrier and angrier all day long as I am working and watching my husband not work or help. I treat him with resentment and not the Biblical respect I should. He in turn, knows that I am watching his every move and feels constant pressure from me. He tends to do the opposite of what I would want out of spite.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And you won't be able to respect him until he act respectable. There are some things that are the very minimum a man can do and still be looked upon as a man, the first of which is providing for his family.

My h was out of work for 3 months and it truly pissed me off every day that *I* had to get up and go to work and he was still laying up in the bed. *I* have held my job for the last 18 years--so he's never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, how he was gonna get smokes (tho truthfully, I refuse to buy them for him), etc. It was only when I stopped paying his car payments and it was gonna get repo'ed that he put a real hustle on getting a job.

I guess you are just gonna to decide how much you are gonna take. Be careful when drawing the line, tho, cause you can't change it and still have credibility.

Please let me know how it goes...I am separated from my h over some of these issues as well and would like to see how maybe to handle them better thru you.

Thanks.