Topic : 06/13 Trapped

Follow what your heart tells you and don't let what others tell you get you down.  I see you love him still and with all your heart.  You do Need to be more stronger then him in this case and don't let what life's little misery get you both down and start blaming each other for them.  Love is not meant to be that way.  I do believe you two needs couples counseling in order to help your connection out.  With his loss of a mother (and being a mothers boy), he maybe still in morning.  Really think about it.  I think threw reading this he is trying to push everyone away and finding a way out so he doesn't have to worry about what happened.  You can not let him do that for he will find away to forget about himself as well.  He is feeling sorry for himself and taking it out on you.  Please don't tell him what I said for a proud man will never admit his own sorrow.  Stay by his side, I see you want to.  Love him unconditionally until there is no hope.  Don't listen to what others tell you.  Seek counseling, and be strong.

 Every situation is different.  I can only relate my expirience.  I found out that my husband was having an affair when I was 1 month away from delivering our third child.  Talk about devestation.  There is no worse time to discover this than when you are pregnant.  At the time I had been a stay at home mom for 5 years.  Therefore, I was financially dependent on him.  I didn't feel like I had any other choice than to stay with this man.  Sure, I still loved him, but at the same time I hated him.  I spent my days dwelling on the matter and being terribly depressed.  For the first year after the affair, he, of course, treated my like a princess and I actually thought at the time that it made our marriage stronger to go through this.  That only lasted for about a year.  Then reality was back.  I am still with my husband, sometimes I don't know why.  While, I don't think he has cheated on me since, I still do not trust him.  It has been 7 years now.  If I still can't trust him after 7 years, I don't think it is going to happen.  The memories of the affair still sting, I think they always will.  While the pain is alot less, the trust issue never has gone away.  I still feel trapped in my marriage.  I am a financially dependent woman with three kids and has been out of work for 10 years now.  My advice to you is think about living with a man who you cannot trust and will probably have no respect for.  This also has a huge effect on the kids, they suffer while going through the pain  That is really being trapped  That will definately show in your actions and in the long run and will probably cause extra stress to the marriage.  I wasted alot of my precious time with my kids worrying about him and what he is doing.  Constantly checking up on him and going through his things.  That is not something that I want to do or should have to do.  I am still doing this, although to a lesser degree, after 7 years.  I wished that I would have came up with a plan 7 years ago to get out of this marriage.  I think I would be a better person for it and so would my kids. 
If you can get out, I would definately try.

I hope all works out for the best.  Maybe he is going threw a mid life crisis or something.  37 years is a long time. 

I have been married 13 yrs, 91-95 and 98 to present to the same man. 

The past years have been pure hell. He has been diagnosed as bi-polar and while I have been supportive of this I am no longer able to continue to live as we have been. I am aware of the effects on our children. My husband is detatched, verbally abusive and self absorbed. He "lives" in the basement(furnished). On his days off he does not leave that room. He sits down there and smokes, sometimes does not even get dressed. He holds a full-time job of which he has been responsible with. 

I told him I was planning on filing for divorce as our marriage has been inthe tiolet since past 3-4 years. I have been trying to tell him about the issuses as they have been growing for years, His response was,"leave me the $%#@ alone, not going to jump through your hoops, your a #$%@^d now he is making an effort to contribute to the marriage. I cannot erase the years of abuse and disrespect he has shown me and I know that he has an illness. He is on meds but I feel so far gone. Is this just another ploy so that he can keep what he wants or is he truely willing to work at saving this marriage. Our sex life is non exsistent, which is fine with me as I no longer feel any attraction to this man as there has been so much hurt etc.My pldest says"its about time when I told her of my plans, my son on the other hand is 7 and worships his father, which worries me as his father is not a good role model. 

Any advice I can get would be great as this is very difficult. 

My wife of almost five years says she wants a divorce. She would rather say that than to look at any reponsibility she might have in our ( my problems.) She says that i am self absorbed, contained and happy to live that way. I don't like gossip and small talk, she does. She talks about her girlfriends and their husbands or boyfriends mostly negative stuff. Yet when I meet these people i'm supposed to forget what she has said and treat the situation open mindedly. That hasn't worked well for me. Thus I don't like meeting most of her friends. I am also sure that she has shared all my short comings with them. Some of my short comings: I am caught talking to myself and thinking out loud, I don't mind spending lots of time alone, when i talk i would rather talk about positive things that we can do to better our lives and relationship. Because that seems to get sabtaged by gossip or negativity (sometimes just a negative tone of voice) I find myself at a loss of words. The problem - SHE REALLY LIKES TO TALK AND DOES NOT LIKE BEING ALONE. She has said that my lack of participation causes her to feel disconected and rejected. I am sorry but sorry is not going to cut it. I NEED TO LEARN TO TALK TO MY WIFE!!!

My husband and I have been married going on six years.  We met while being stationed overseas serving in the Marine Corps, we were in love.  Ask anyone and they all would tell you how much we were in love. 

Only being married for less then a month he went stateside.  I haven't met his family or he meet mine.  One night I called over there and his mother answered the phone only to tell me when I asked for him that he was out on a date with a gal he gave a promise ring to.  It broke my heart and to top that off, I was pregnant with our first child.  I couldn't believe his mother told me were he had gone.  When I asked him about it he told me why he met with her but I still felt like I was stabbed in the back by the one man I fell in love and put all my trust with.  When it was time for me to come back stateside I met his family.  They assumed I didn't understand Spanish and that I was other then American.  Boy did they have a wake up call when they met me.  I speak fluent Spanish and I am a Marine as well.  Due to them thinking that way gave my husband and I problems.  He lied to me, he disrespected my feelings on things.  I would catch him watching porn just so he can get it up and make love to me.  The list goes on...  I became vengeful and not a care in the world about him.  We lost sight of the love we had and started to disrespect each other.  Even became physically violent toward each other. 

We finally got counseling and were able to talk things threw.  I guess what I am trying to get at is, I love him.  I love him with all my heart and could not see the day of living with out him.  I let the past and events from how his family feelings about me get in the way of our marriage.   We both did.  Now we have three healthy beautiful kids, we both are ignoring what others say about us, we both are focusing on our marriage and not letting others get in between, we have expectations that we need to fulfill for each other, and last but not least we have faith.  Our kids need to know that we are there for them and what ever trust issue or problem that comes in between the love my husband and I have for each other will not be show in front of our kids.  They sense all that and it is painful for them to watch.  I don't want to sound very religious but you know what, the other day I found three porno movies.  I didn't freak out.  Trust is a big thing in a relationship but you know what, I talked to him about it and asked him if it was his and how it got there.  He told me while we were separated for three months, his nephews probably hid them there.  I had to believe him.  See I Love him and I don't want the same crap that happened to us in the beginning to start over again.  For all we know it probably was from the beginning of our marriage.  OK, what I am now saying is...  Our husbands have a higher person to answer to.. that is God or what ever they believe in.  I told him, I believe in you and I love you very much, you know how that makes me feel but you will have to feel the guilt and the wrath of God if you are lying to me.  I will no longer feel the pain you cause me for our kids are more important to me then what you are putting all of us threw.  

You have to have faith in a relationship in order for it to work.  What do you think years ago how marriage worked?  I understand when a person needs to get out is when they are being beat everyday and abused verbally.  But no days I feel people are giving up and the only easy way out is threw diverse.  Come on, all the problems that you endure threw your marriage will only be brought on to the next and so forth.  You have to face it and try to fix it.   

My husband tells me everyday that he loves me and I the same.  I don't depend on him because times has changed and I don't want him to feel all the stress of todays society on his shoulder.  We both feel it together.   

What we are doing now and I'm sure plenty of people disagree but we don't care.  We both served in the military and now we are both attending a major university while having help from the government to help us raise our kids and put food on the table.  We figure when we get our degree we will pay the government back.   

Because we are doing this, his family including mine puts us down for it.  But I don't care because we have each other. 

  

I hope all of this is helpful for someone out there.   

  

My message to you is no one feels trapped unless you make yourself feel trapped.  You have the will to make your own decisions in life and how you change or continue to live the way you are only reflects on you. 

I think it would be wise in this relationship to be finished.  If you have no more feelings for your husband and he is verbally abusive, God will only know if he has laid a hand on you as well.  I think it would be best for you and your children.  Just remember when you leave, you may need counseling yourself to get back to feeling good about yourself.  You were married to man you hurt you and in more ways....  I'm so sorry.  You need to pick up the peaces gal, and be strong with your decision.  Your kids need you so that when they grow up they will be productive citizens.

We learned early on that asking for what we need from each other is a sign of love and acknowledgment.  That is the recipe for success we have used for our marriage for 20+ years and it works a treat.  I tell him what I need and he does me the courtesy of telling me what he needs.  Obviously, we want to make each other happy, but getting clear, easy to follow directions makes each of us more likely to succeed.   

  

It can be hard to figure out what exactly I do need and, once in a while, getting what I asked for hasn't been what I wanted but I learned from those experiences. 

mmmmm, did you have any conversations BEFORE you got married????? People don't suddenly change just because they got married.  Most people talk about their friends and situations, not all that unusual.  Everybody has foibles in their relationships.  Here is an idea, change the subject, get her talking about something else.  And, how did you date if you really just wanted to be alone?  You can't be w/ someone and be alone.  Soooooo, while you were dating you must have been talking and spending time together.  NOw YOU don't like the conversation, AND YOU don't like the tone of voice, AND YOUlike being alone.  Gee, i wonder why she feels rejected.    Maybe you should just relax and come on down from the pedestle, the altitude might be affecting you.