Knowing when to separate - 01/09/18 12:36 PM
Jdreaux, I've only skimmed through this long blog but I can say that I'm in the same shoes as you are- but with a husband who I am no longer attracted to and can't stand to be around. It sounds like your revulsion towards your wife stems from both emotional and physical turn offs as does mine. My husband doesn't work out, eats poorly, has a nicotine and sugar addiction and looks very different than when I met him 5 years ago. However, most of that would be a non issue for me if he was kind, positive, selfless (at least some of the time), and didn't try to control everything. Instead I'm living with the meanest person I have ever met, who complains and curses from the moment he wakes up until the moment he falls asleep; he is unbelievably narcissistic in everything (including sex) and I spend my life bending to his needs and his whims. Its created total sexual aversion on my part, even though when we met I was actually the one with the higher sex drive but now he disgusts me.
I feel like I've aged 10 years in the 5 years we have been together. Every emotion in my body screams at me to leave - and I often fantasize about divorce or more often, fantasize about what my life could have been if he had never crossed my path. However, despite all of this I am still with him - I haven't threatened divorce, haven't cheated, haven't stopped hoping things will change one day even though it seems less likely each year that passes. Have you heard the saying "Marriage was not designed to make you happy, but to make you holy"? Dr. Harley encourages everyone to not settle for anything less than love butterflies I think its worth remembering that God didn't guarantee us that our marriages would be full of happiness or that we would have a partner who treats us as well as we do them. This is not to say that I think living with emotional abuse is acceptable nor that settling for unhappiness is the best course in the LONG run, just that we do have to actively fight the urge to bolt when things don't turn out the way we expected.
I'm here on this site looking for help just like everyone else but I also continue to remind myself of the pitfalls of thinking my life will be better without him, or better with someone else. Could it? Possibly, but if you look at the number of people unhappy in marriage you have to concede that you will probably find yourself right back in this same situation with another person. Different problems maybe, but same outcome. Like you, I also would be "perfectly fine" alone - but would I be happier after the initial honeymoon stage of getting this marriage off my back? Or would I end up like many other single ladies I know that are just as lonely and just as hurt because of all of the creepy dates, betrayal, rejection and failed relationships they go through trying to find "the one"?
I am praying God will put in my husband's heart the desire to change. I'm hoping he will instill in him the desire to follow the principles on this site to transform our marriage from a battlefield to something resembling a real partnership. But while I wait, and worry, and hurt, and cry I am careful not to fool myself into thinking everyone else has it so much better. I don't think for your marriage nor mine enough time has passed to give up hope on the person we made a life long commitment to. Don't spend as much time trying to figure out when to know when to leave - continue to do what you can (even if she won't do anything to help) and lean on God to make the changes in your spouse. Know that the decision to stay is painful but the decision to leave could end up being much more devastating in ways you haven't yet imagined.
I feel like I've aged 10 years in the 5 years we have been together. Every emotion in my body screams at me to leave - and I often fantasize about divorce or more often, fantasize about what my life could have been if he had never crossed my path. However, despite all of this I am still with him - I haven't threatened divorce, haven't cheated, haven't stopped hoping things will change one day even though it seems less likely each year that passes. Have you heard the saying "Marriage was not designed to make you happy, but to make you holy"? Dr. Harley encourages everyone to not settle for anything less than love butterflies I think its worth remembering that God didn't guarantee us that our marriages would be full of happiness or that we would have a partner who treats us as well as we do them. This is not to say that I think living with emotional abuse is acceptable nor that settling for unhappiness is the best course in the LONG run, just that we do have to actively fight the urge to bolt when things don't turn out the way we expected.
I'm here on this site looking for help just like everyone else but I also continue to remind myself of the pitfalls of thinking my life will be better without him, or better with someone else. Could it? Possibly, but if you look at the number of people unhappy in marriage you have to concede that you will probably find yourself right back in this same situation with another person. Different problems maybe, but same outcome. Like you, I also would be "perfectly fine" alone - but would I be happier after the initial honeymoon stage of getting this marriage off my back? Or would I end up like many other single ladies I know that are just as lonely and just as hurt because of all of the creepy dates, betrayal, rejection and failed relationships they go through trying to find "the one"?
I am praying God will put in my husband's heart the desire to change. I'm hoping he will instill in him the desire to follow the principles on this site to transform our marriage from a battlefield to something resembling a real partnership. But while I wait, and worry, and hurt, and cry I am careful not to fool myself into thinking everyone else has it so much better. I don't think for your marriage nor mine enough time has passed to give up hope on the person we made a life long commitment to. Don't spend as much time trying to figure out when to know when to leave - continue to do what you can (even if she won't do anything to help) and lean on God to make the changes in your spouse. Know that the decision to stay is painful but the decision to leave could end up being much more devastating in ways you haven't yet imagined.