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Yes, I agree. He isn’t trying to fight for us. He gave me ultimatums and then stated I wouldn’t be able to meet the demands.
Hello Heidi,
I get the self healing and betterment aspect as we need to be two wholes and not two halves. I don’t think anything will help anymore. My husband just will make a fight over any of my small mistakes. He doesn’t love me. There is no care.
I see you wrote we are not acting on love but on woundedness, that may in part be true during some occasions. It feels nearly an impossible situation at the moment.
I have been more mindful and doing things that help me heal and be better. It’s hard to action some of the concepts because we are still together but, he has made a decision to leave. This in between space where I am doing better but, get emotionally overwhelmed just with life and have no way to decompress. I lack additional support I usually get from my sisters to help me with my kids due to this pandemic.
My husband says I pressure and bombard him, when I felt like I have been giving him so much space. I don’t question him or ask much. He brings up the past. Yesterday he told me I have dug my own hole and he doesn’t know if I can get out. This was as part of our discussion of our future which he brought up. I said this: you really setting up to live life without your family then? just be single and their dad that comes around and provides for them, but isn’t the dad of our family.
I can see how he was upset by that. He took it as I called him a deadbeat dad, which was not at all what I meant.
I was just talking functionally how it would be, wherein if he moves out and we separate, if the kids are with me, then my home with the kids is not where he would be coming home to and his routine wouldn’t be with us.
It’s a mess. I explained myself, but he won’t hear me and just says that I already said it and I can’t correct myself even if that isn’t what I meant. He said additional hurtful things, and I just think he wants to be gone but wants me to do it.
Hello Kanya,
I guess I never thought about it as I also lack maturity in my relationship approach. Thank you.
Things have been rocky. He truly wants to be away from me and be done. I don’t trust him and he doesn’t give me much to trust. He does words but, is very secretive in actions.
I think he has a proclivity for attention and he is honestly exhausted with mine. Everything is about mind my own business and stay out of his life. On the flip side, we do family life together and speak and interact really well in that arena.
I feel like giving up. He continually comes back to that he doesn’t want to be with me. He is exhausted defending himself against any hint of disappointment or suspicion from me and I am exhausted getting hurt from his words.
Without his desire to have an us, I don’t know. He doesn’t like any attempts to help me, he helped me fix something that I was struggling with, and he said, “Do you think it’s sexy to have me help you? Because I know you are fully capable and can figure stuff out on your own.”
Hero instinct, but not for me. He has said we are equals and he expects me to handle things.
Honestly, I don’t know how to approach him except I have the urge to just escape to keep from being dejected with just regular life stuff that should happen with couples.
Hello Bruzaite,
Bottom line up front: Your husband may have done the kinder of possibilities given how he feels.
It’s hard enough to heal yourself while being an awesome mom to raise children, but having the mixed signals from your love makes it worse as you can’t move forward.
I have been married to my husband for 14 years going on 15. I am completely in love and Love my husband for the man he is and the man he was. We got pregnant when he was 21 and Married after our son was born.
I posted about the full history, but long story short: he didn’t love me when he married me and I cheated on him when he had left us (my son and I) in our 3rd year of marriage. We ended up back together and bought a house and recommitted to our lives. My husband struggled with forgiving me, but we had hit a spot in 2017 where we wanted to build our family and wanted to commit fully to our future. We had our beautiful daughter in March 2018. I thought everything was wonderful, but after about 5 months, I think I began to go through postpartum and our son turned 13. It was a house of crazy hormones with the infant and all that goes with it. My husband, who had started his own business right before our Daughter was born, began an affair with one of my friends in October during my postpartum.
I stopped it all in July 2019. It has been horrible and difficult. He has threatened to leave and has told me he no longer is in love with me, but he never has left.
He hasn’t committed back to me and hasn’t said loving things freely, but we continue to plan together and raise the kids. I continue to work on myself and try all the methods being taught. It’s disheartening at times and I don’t know how much progress I have made with him. I grieve the loss of our relationship and have not fully gotten over his affair, all while living wirh
I shared because I wanted you to see the flip side of the coin.
Hello Kanya,
Well, this morning was not good. I had a panic attack and chained called him. One of my triggers of his affair is when he would be unavailable to answer, but not just that, but if he never responds or calls back. He would tell me he is working, but had been with the other woman during those times. I know that I should have calmed myself down and not done that type of texting and calling, but I wasn’t stopping myself from letting the insecurity and pain feed the actions.
This morning, when he finally called back, he didn’t make any sense about what he was doing. It showed that we had trust issues and he said he is tired of the roller coaster and he is getting off. He wants to put our relationship to bed and be done with it. It was the first time in a while that we had come to a point where he said he was over it and us. He is wary of my actions as well because it showed him that I don’t trust him.
He said he is still willing to go to the counselor, but he would be done if it doesn’t work. I asked him what he wanted and he said, to stop feeling like this and ending up in the same place. We are like a broken record to him he says. It was a tough conversation and I tried not to get emotional and cry, but we pushed on and he answered and stayed with me on the phone. He says he hasn’t changed and he just doesn’t care. I know he was upset too and he has said this type of thing about many things when he is frustrated and upset.
I asked him if he doesn’t care about me or the relationship, and he said, he doesn’t care to be patient with my panic attack when he says he isn’t doing anything that should trigger it. We have very unhealthy habits of response and I know I need to work on it. I get that our thoughts feed our emotions and then those feed our actions. Sometimes it’s just so hard not to give in and go crazy.
I do not feel out of control like I used to and have just huge emotional flooding.
I want to better understand how to show him respect that he would recognize it.
I want to truly enjoy my life with my family and stop the bs of the past.
I want him to understand him. I have given space. I let him decompress and don’t pressure him to talk when he gets home. I do miss when we would catch up during the day. These times make me reflect and I remember when I used to be so busy at work that I didn’t call him back and we didn’t share out day.
Now more than ever, I want us to feel connected. We are comfortable in silence. He says he sees me as his equal so, it’s not like he can just bs with me, which he enjoys doing with his friends.
I guess what we are missing is that easy friendship. We do talk as confidants and I know I can’t be his everything, but boy, I sure want to be 🙂 LOL!
I want him to feel good around me and enjoy himself and ACTUALLY recognize that. I have felt like we enjoy each other, but it’s been tenuous knowing if he feels the same way.
I dig my husband. He told me that he doesn’t need me to praise him or thank him for doing things he expects himself to do. I have been doing that with regularity to show him my appreciation and admiration because I in fact feel it. However, with his remark, I don’t know if I am making the desired effect.
He provides for us and purchases goods for our house that we are planning to move in to, and I am appreciative. However, he points out that I am not chipping in anything and he does everything. I put all my paycheck into our house bills and family expenses, as well as my debts. I know that he just must be overwhelmed with the purchases, but he can afford it and we are very grateful. I think me not trusting him makes me seem like I am not grateful, in his eyes. This was the same train of thought he had when he remodeled our home that we live in now back when he was having an affair, and he even said, “Would I be fixing our house if I was cheating?” The irony.
Hi Kanya, I forgot to answer some of your questions.
He has said it was a mistake to think he had a future with her. He is sorry he hurt me. He regrets hurting our family, and especially regrets betraying our son. He has said he never, ever would or wants to cheat (again). He has said that it is completely selfish and destructive. It was his thought that he would leave me before he would ever cheat on me, but I think he felt he could get away with it because the woman was so conniving and complicit. She encouraged him to continue to hang on and keep appearances until she could figure out things. It was utterly disgusting how she was. I know I engaged in an affair, but at that time I never asked for anything or put down or disparaged his wife or family. In fact, I kept that all out. I didn’t want a life with that man. That doesn’t make me better per se, but it lets me know I wasn’t evil.
Hello Kanya,
Thank you for responding. Yes, our marriage/relationship over the past 18 months has been unbalanced. Though we are ok right now, I am still not confident that we have weathered this storm or have moved past it. Last night, my husband had a very good discussion with me and provided me with his reflection of us vs. his affair. He said, we are a real relationship, with ugly and bad moments and it has not just been good. His affair was like a movie and he is quickly forgetting the details and it is becoming a blur; Like the plot is there, but the exact actions and details are becoming a blur. Whereas we are real and he doesn’t forget anything about us.
He was talking to a friend who had been pursuing a married woman, and he had asked his friend if he even felt like his affair with the woman was real, like did they even have a real relationship with all the details and the rawness, but his friend had no answer. My husband said to me that he knows we are the real thing and that our relationship even with our affairs would not be surprising if we stayed together and we look back a year from now and everything about the affair would be forgettable.
I am unsure if that was his way of telling me that he wants to move forward with us in totality. I have been committed to (re)building us and not just trying to bring back what was lost, but build something better that matches who we are right now and how we want to be. My husband said we are like the super powers in the movie Hancock, where we are drawn together but, when together we become mortal and vulnerable. I laughed, but he is pretty right.
My husband is my biggest Achilles heel. I am most vulnerable to him. I am driven, successful, competitive, compassionate, and loyal. I don’t sacrifice the gifts God has given me. I trust my intuition and it has led me well. But, I was completely ignorant of my husband’s need; his secret obsession. I recognized the self esteem aspect of being successful and being able to provide. He has finally become the breadwinner of the family and it was about that time when he was making more than me that I felt him look elsewhere-to that woman.
I wish I was better and responded better back then. But, I can only focus on making us better now.
I won’t push or work to have him forget and forgive me, but just working on having him enjoy being with me again. I want to have fun with my husband. We are incredibly bonded. Our counselor, who we had stopped seeing because we came to an impasse where My husband basically just had to make a choice about us, he had said that though we felt disconnected, the counselor had said we were the most bonded couple he has worked with in his 27 years of practicing. I don’t think he was paying us lip service, but i did find it to be the truth that both my husband and I agreed on.
I think my husband will look like he goes out of his way for some kind of female interaction because he doesn’t have a workplace per se. As a contractor, he works with his subs and his clients. My work has me engaging with all kinds of people all day and all the time. I am going to accept that, and I have to start making him feel like I trust him, even though I don’t. There is no percentage in trust, it either is or isn’t. I get that now. I want to trust him and maybe I just have to give it, but I think I am waiting for him to show me or say he is committed to us. We are planning to move our family and picking our everything for the new house, but he hasn’t said “it” or been the affectionate one and I need that. He knows it and we are working on it.
He craves that in love and I feel alive feeling and I do too.
I am wondering what I should be focusing on in my interactions. I do practice self care and I love being a good mom to my kiddos. My work takes enough of me. I am content coming home to them and decompressing. I just turned 40 and my husband just turned 36. I say that for context, because I think context always matters. I don’t feel like I missed anything in my life nor do I fear growing older as I have enjoyed and embraced the year by year process. I don’t wish for days gone by.
My husband’s current circle of friends are all single or without kids. It’s a different dynamic. He has had them coming to our house more rather than going out to meet them over the past 7 months and that’s been better. We had to have the discussion of one friend come over so much that it was like they were the couple and that’s been minimized. I am at times upset and jealous of the time he gives his friends, but he has been more cognizant and does it less this past month.
