<P>I wrote several months ago about the fact that I have no friends or family to care for our children so that we could go on a business-related vacation. There were some helpful suggestions about hiring nannies and the like, but the fact is, although my husband makes a good living, our debt to income ratio at the moment prevents us from considering such excess expenses. <P>Anyway, long-story-short now, is that my husband is currently in the Caribbean and I am back here in this small mountain town with our two children. I have been unable to keep myself from behaving childishly, as if wanting to start an argument everytime he calls here. There's added pressure about the calls because we spent a small fortune when he was out of the country last year. So now we're down to 5 minutes a night. <P>Tonight my husband called, he'd obviously had a few beers, and described how he'd golfed with the other men and then sat at the bar with one of them for a while "b.s. ing" and how he walked on the beach by himself for 2 hours and "it was great." <P>Soon enough we were yelling at each other. Me yelling at him because I am so immensley jealous of this trip, and because I also get really unsettled when he travels to far away places, I feel like I've been abandoned. I know that's illogical, it's entirely emotional. If feel like I'm about 5 years old sometimes.<P>But my imagination fills with images of beautiful women on the beach, parties with happy smiling people and my husband's outgoing nature, and I think about how little there is about me that's worthy of him or this life...<P>He does say that there's another man on the trip whose wife is also home with their young children. So at least I'm not the only maniac in the group!<P>My husband shouted at me tonight that I've ALWAYS been like this and that it wasn't any particular trip that caused me to behave this way...I've always been selfish and possessive and jealous and AFRAID. <P>I don't know what on earth to do now. The feeling of having a fight over the phone when you're thousands of miles away from someone is one of great dismay and desperation. It cannot be fixed. <P>He was on his way to another PARTY when we ended the call with nothing resolved. We've had problems always of course. But as we get closer to our 10th anniversary, my mental/emotional hangups that I can't seem to control are becoming worse and worse. <P>The final thing here is that it seems that my husband is really at the end of his rope. He is sick and tired of me and the way I am. The fact that I'm not with him on this trip is an unhappy thing, but when he calls and I cannot fake a "Hi! How are you? Are you Having a GREAT time?!!" makes him furious. I know I don't treat him like we're on the same team, in fact much of our marriage has been more like we're opponents. And honestly, it's me, not him that has continued trying to run this relationship into the ground.<P>I'm afraid he's going to return home and say, "That's it. I can't take it. I've had enough and I'm DONE. I deserve to be happy and I deserve to have a loving, positive, supportive, outgoing wife who'll put me before everything, and be willing to treat life as an adventure, rather than being terrified of everything around her!"<P>The really scary part is, I KNOW what needs to be done, logically, and I can't seem to bring bring myself to do it. I know it's best for the kids to be part of a loving 2 parent home, but it's gotten to the point where it's like watching a horrific car wreck. You shouldn't look, but you can't seem to help yourself. <P>I seem to have a compulsion to wreck this marriage. It's like my destructive nature wants to be able to say, "See! I KNEW you didn't really love me! I knew you'd leave me someday! I knew you'd want somebody different!" <P>I sound completely out of my mind, don't I? I think I (perversly) want this to end. I think my husband WOULD be better off with a Miss-Mary-Sunshine type of woman..Maybe my kids would be better off with her as a step mom as well.<P>I've failed at this. I've tried and tried and tried, and it's like having an automatic default button that I keep falling back to. My changes and improvements never "stick." Our lives are not going in the direction my husband wants to go. My neurosis is holding him back. <P>I just don't think I can ever change enough for him to be happy with me. I've tried again and again and always come back to this place. I'm not happy with me, he's not happy with me. There's something wrong. <BR> <BR>

Lisanne - I've only been coming to this forum for a short time (a couple of weeks), but I've read a lot of postings and I don't believe I've ever heard someone's pain as clearly as I hear yours. My heart goes out to you. You sound like I did a few years ago . . . then I went to the doctor to be treated for migraines, and the medication she prescribed just happens to also be an antidepressant (amitriptaline). I could not believe the increased control I had over my self-destructive emotions and behavior after that. I also used to have thoughts that my husband and child deserved a more positive wife/mother. You might want to see your doctor about possible depression or other mood disorders. There's no shame in it, these are diseases just like any physical ailment.<BR>

That is a very hard situation to be in, I could never handle the trips like that and I think that alot of marriages would end up in failure because of the trips as well. <BR>I know you are stuck in a little town, have you ever thought of moving to another town, somewhere close to relatives if there are any. He is expecting a lot from you and I am sure it would bother him if you were going away to tropical islands. Do you work? <BR>Well I wish I had a solution, but I don't think that I would just go on anti-depressents because of it, I think you have a valid reason to be upset over him being gone on these trips alot. I know it is his job but I think you have to find a way to be able to go on a trip even if it means that you may have to go into deeper debt for a while. It may be worth it.

Yes, I know it's really a thing that's been building up for years. Not the trips, this is a new wrinkle in an old situation. But the fact is, I have not made the marriage my #1 priority since the kids were born, and we've struggled and struggled because of it. Since we moved up here 2 years ago, we were faced with a new set of challenges, small town life, and my husband's job which requires a certain amount of travel. But I really sense a change in my husband within the last year....It's obvious that he's not going to just submerge his own desires for a life filled with new experiences and adventures. I will either have to find a way to join him, or he's going to leave me behind. Maybe not by divorce, but by unshared interests, and very possibly opening the door BIG TIME for him to meet someone who wants to be with him and go on vacations and climb mountains etc. It's a time for change and growth, and I can't hold back any longer. The consequences for my fear and inaction very likely could be devastating to myself my husband and my children.