Hi everyone. I love this community and I have been reading your posts. Youre all so supportive to eachother and when your in a bad marriage it's so hard to find people who support your choice. It seems like everyone is telling me and my husband to never speak again. Here is my story, I'm hoping you guys can shed some light...
I met my husband four years ago when i was 27 and he was 40. (I know, I know). I'm a bellydancer and he is a drummer. He saw one of my posters and contacted me. I was in a relationship at the time and was on my way out. I instantly developed a school girl type of crush on him. IHe was so handsome to me and he is an attorney! It was the first time I have ever been that attracted to a man, but I never thought we could make it work because I am such a jealous girl and he so obvioulsy loves women. Well, when my X and I broke up, he said all the right things and I dated him. We had almost like a daddy little girl type of interaction initially. Sometimes I felt it very difficult to have meaningful conversations with him and be clos eon a real level, but I loved him desperately and wanted to please him. He wanted me to move in with him, and I told him I wouldn't unless we were engaged, so he got me a bill old rock and I moved in. Things were pretty decent for a while, but soon after I moved in, he started to become super critical and I became unhappy. We faught constantly it seemed and he would always withdraw. Our problems got bad before we got married. I found him at a strip club on his 42 birthday. We almost called the wedding off a hundred times but we got married in the end. On our honeymoon he was kind of cold and distant. I think he resented the whole thing on some level. I think he felt like it was something he had to do. I was 29 and still somewhat nieve, It hurt me and I would go from beng mad and thinking "f him", to desperately clinging in my familiar little girl fashion. My father is extremely emotionally distant, so while this interaction was painful, It was something I was comfortable in. Typical frued stuff. LOL Our way of interacting didn't change after we got married. I was going to school full time and taking care of the house. I didn't work. This was our agreement, but I think he started to resent it. He would give me a small allowance to pay for groceries and gas and then get furious if i needed/wanted more for myself. Money because a huge issue for us and he would become extremely critical of everything I did. He would tell me to get a f-ing J-O-B, make fun of me when I would cry, and just generally be extremely cruel. In the meanwhile, my jealousy and insecurity got out of control. I went home to visit my family with a friend and we faught before I left. He wouldn't talk to me the whole time I was there. When i came home there was 40 hours of pornography on my computer. When I came home he was asleep in the other room and the next day he was posting adds on craigslist looking for women to take on dates and sleep with. I got so cray after several o incidences of this kind that i couldn;t stand being out with him because i was afraid he would stare at/flirt every other woman. So much of our marriage we were both misserable. I could hardly go to school and concentrate so much of the time because he wasn;t talking to me for days/weeks. He was so mean and verbally/emotionally abusive. I got that way too. And everyu situation felt thtreatening to me and we would fight about that constantly. He would call me petty and jealous. I know that I was. So, a month before he left, I couldn;t take in anymore. I drew up a contract which included that he treat me with respect and that we attend couples counselling or we call it quits. He initially didn;t sign it, but he did and we started to go. I thought things were getting better, then one day he stormed out of fthe house because I 'was crying and ruining what otherwise was a beautiful day'. He packed all of his stuff and moved in with his sister five weeks ago, which is where he is now. At first, all he said was that he wanted to come to terms. that he had no good memories (I do) and that he just wanted out. I was so devastted because i tried so hard to make it work and to please him. I begged and cried and freaked out. I threatened to tell people about a time that he hit me and make the pictures I took public. It got nasty. Over the course of 5 weeks we started going out on dates, he put his ring back on, got me a doggie, buys me gift and has more real conversations with me. I keep trying to show him i'm not a 27 year old virgin anymore. I'm a 31 year old woman capable of being his partner but he says its too little too late. My friends and family hate him.... I don't know what to do. We spoke a week ago and he said he wanted to try to make it work and that we could be exclusive. I suggested that we make a time limit on our sepperation and we decided on two more months, I thought we were headed in the right direction. Then he posted a personal add on craigslist!! Looking for an older woman fro companionship. A woman I know incedentally responded (not on purpose) and after the fact realied who we were and forwarded me the chat! He said he never really loved me and felt pressured to marry me and that he would be happy if he never heard from me agian. He said he married me becaus ei was pretty. He said i was too pretty and too young (I KNOW!!) and that it gave me a sense of entitlement. ha. and all along i thought he wanted a teenager. He said he was being nice to me because he was afraid I would smear his name if he wasn't and wanted to meet her. When I confronted him (calmly), he said he was just 'venting' and needed someone to talk to. He said he didn;t mean any of it. I told him I was fine with letting him go and that I promised not to be ugly. I told him nothing he has ever done to me hurt as much as him saying he never loved me. He said it was absolutely not true and he was just angry. We had our longest phone conversation of our marriage and then we hung up. A day later he asked me to dinner. That was thursday and we had dinner last night (friday). It was nice. I felt better before I saw him. stronger. I melt when I am with him. I love him so much I don't know what to do. I told him at dinner that i wouldn;t even let him move back at this point. he seemed surprised. At dinner I asked him what we were doing here, and he told me he was 'willing to try to make it work. I asked him about dating other people and he said he knew it was a bad idea. He says he never would have met her. I know he's lieing but what can i do? I asked him if he owuld be upset if i dated and he said he just thought it wouldn't help us get back together. He got a lease for a house in a little mountain community outside of our city with a party reputation. I am at a loss as to what to do. Before he left I quickly gave him back the upper hand by freaking out after having too much wine and asking him what was happening. I keep asking for reassurance because he keeps changing his mind!! He says stuff to me like I have enjoyed having dinner with you. Our anniversary is on sunday. I asked him if he wante dto see me and he started yelling atme about how much work he has to do this weekend and how i never cared about how stressed out he was. He said maybe he should quit his job and travel. I told him to figure it out becaus ei wanted to married and have children. Things go better when he is persuing me but he does it so haphaardly because he doesn't seem to really want this. I can't decide if i should just let go completely or keep fighting for my marriage. It' scarey and confusing and he seems to 'skeptical' as he puts it that we can make it work. I don;t know how to convince him we can when we never really did before. it seems it taked him messing up for me to have any power and for him to get afriad of losing me and to do anything. Then i show weakness and he runs away again. We hqave been spending a night a week together, and he says he has enjoyed it, but i ham afraid that he is just lonely and that he is stinging me along until he finds my replacement and all my fiends say i should deliver an ultimatum. I know this was soooo long and i thank you for taking your time to read it. what should I do? do you think i can save this relationship guys?
May I ask if the two of you are from the same social background? What about the same culture/racial? You said he was already a lawyer when you met and you are in school now, so do you feel you are having to "catch up" to where he is educationally?
I do not mean any of those questions to be offensive, but if there are some other factors to consider, besides the age difference, it would help to know.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
social backround, yes. it never really bothered me or him that i wasn;t as educated as he was, but I guess I could be wrong. We are both white. and youre not offending me at all, thank you for responding.
Okay, that helps to know. I want to talk with you more, but I have to leave for a while right now. Don't be discouraged if you don't have many replies over the weekend b/c it can get pretty slow. Things will pick back up Monday.
Continue to read other threads b/c you will discover that there does seem to be a lot alike. I have my own idea or thoughts about what you've said concerning your stitch, but I'll talk more later.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
i'll be waiting anxiously. i just went to his office to drop some stuff off and he was very negative. all he does when i see him is talk about how bad i was during our marriage. he goes on and on about all the mistakes i made and says he doesn;t see how we could ever fix it. he said if he knew he could come back and be happy he would but he knws it will never happen. i asked him what he needed to know it was possible and he said he didnt think anything could ever convince him and he spoke about 'coming to terms about what i wanted to go our seperate ways'. He said he 'has tried to spend our weekends together to see if we enjoyed eachothers company' and i asked him if he had and he said yes, but it seems so bleak and hopeless. i feel like giving up and letting him go. it's breaking my heart holding on and he isn;t trying at all anymore. he says the best four years of his life are gone and he won't waste anymore of his time.
Hi, I'm back. I don't consider myself as being the "cheerleader" type, but we do have several on the board who are very good at that. I suppose I am one that picks up on certain vibes and usually call it like I see it. I have almost stopped trying to post to other women b/c I tend to speak too bluntly for their taste, so I try to mainly respond to the LBH's.....and try to give them a POV from the WAW.
So, I hope you can realize we all have different personalities but I think everyone's goal here is the same. BTW, my H and I are together and doing very well. I stay on the board in order to pay forward, hopefully, the help that was given to me in my time of need.
Okay, so back to your stitch. Here's the big blow.....your H sounds as if he is a womanizer. You didn't say if he had ever been M before you or not....but it would be rather unusual for a good looking dummer/lawyer, who flirts & plays with the women....to go all those years single. Perhaps he lived with someone but never made it legal? I don't think he ever intended to get M b/c he liked his lifestyle.
He sees a picture of you and was knocked off his feet. You must be very beautiful. He was experienced enough that he knew you were sexually attracted when you met him. His number one goal was to win you over to his bedroom, but I don't think he wanted to be a H. So, you put the pressure on him to get "at least engaged" before you would live with him. I think he figured that he could hold you off walking down the asile until he was sexually satisfied, or done, with the R and he'd move on. Don't you think he has left a trail of females down through the years?
So he buys you a "rock", and I could say some things about that....but there's really no use b/c I don't think it has that much bearing, except that it points to the kind of man he is.
You have pointed out how he changed and admitted that he really did not want to get M, but went through with it. But from the get-go he felt doomed and was sorry he agreed to it. IMHO, you feel insecure in the R b/c you see him as being some kind of idol who has his own female fan club. His flirting and porn habits certainly doesn't help that, does it? I think his attitude and being critical--causes you to feel insecure and therefore you are jealous. Or...have you been jealous toward your ex-boyfriends? Jealousy is the result of feeling insecure. That is why I was wondering if there were other things in the MR that could add pressure to you feeling that way. I knew you had to be a "knock-out" for him to want to date you. Your looks aren't the problem, and if the other areas are pretty equal (like your social backgrounds, etc.) then that has no bearing on it.
Not only were you very attractive, but you were several years younger than him. That made his ego soar, I'm sure. He probably loved being seen by the other guys with you on his arm. But, as sexual addition goes, it would only be a matter of time before he would want a new woman to bed.
He is sexually addicted. Plus, he is probably beginning MLC(or has been in it for a while) b/c it's obvious his getting older is bothering him. To him, being settled down with one woman for the next few years would be like a life sentence to him. That's why he feels that he has to move on now b/c he's not getting any younger.
Well, I could keep on about all of that, but you are smart and I think you already know all of this....but love is blind and you didn't want to see that.
Let's get down to what you need to do. First of all, decide if you really want to spend your life with this kind of man. And, BTW.....don't expect him to want any babies. He would look at that with the wrong attitude. He's not the marrying kind....and he sure is not "daddy" material.
He has tried to tell you in his attitude and verbally that he hates for you to pressure him into anything. You pressured him into M you, and you listed other things that you have emotionally bullied him about. Do you know what I mean by that? If he doesn't do what you want, then you cry, nag, throw a fit, etc., until he gives in. Only young, immature girls do that, okay? When we start growing up, we get smarter and learn that is not the way to behave.
You can see, I'm sure, that you have not received the total results you wanted by pursuing him like you have. In fact, the more you press him, the less he likes you. I think if this R stands a chance at all....you must back off and do not say or do anything that even hints at you trying to plead with him to stay in the M.
Pleading, begging, whining,b*tching,hanging on, chasing him etc......is the biggest turn-off for him that you could do! Number one rule of DBing is to detach.
Yes it will be difficult for you. Yes you will experience fear of him not returning. Yes you will doubt the techniques of DBing.......but it is the best game plan you could find anywhere. But, it is up to you to make the choice to do it or not. What you've been doing has not worked, has it? If you continue doing what doesn't work....well that would be kind of crazy wouldn't it?
I hope I don't sound as if I'm talking down to you. I'm just trying not to sound so harsh that it will stop you from coming back again. Seriously, it is important that you post often....and stay here in the same thread for a while and not try to have several at once, like some do. People in other forums will find you here. (Just thought I'd throw that in... )
Well, you see now that you aren't the only one who can write long post. And, this isn't even my normal....but I think a storm is coming and I may have to shut down the computer.
So, I hope you'll really think hard about this M and the man who has not treated you in a very honorable fashion, IMHO. He is very self-centered. I want you to expect to be faced with some difficult news. You can hope, pray, and work very hard....but be prepared for the worst.
I think I've probably spread enough of dreary sunshine this time around, but I will come back to talk futher about what you can do.....if you decide you want it.
Take care of "you", Sandi
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
but he did want to settle down and does want children, just say i would be a bad mom because all i do is be lay and spend his money, which i guess there is some truth to. it sounds as if you think the prognosis is not good for us, am i right? you had many many good points and i absolutely adore you for being so honest and direct with me. I wish you could be my personal mentor. I'm so freaking confused and scared right now. can you tell me more about 'detatching'? do i ignore him if he does call?
and he was married before when he was 25 for eight years. he says nothing good about her. every relationship after was a year or less... until 40 when i met him.
Seriously, it is important that you post often....and stay here in the same thread for a while and not try to have several at once, like some do. People in other forums will find you here. (Just thought I'd throw that in... 
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