Hoping my marriage can be saved :(

[Maggie3]

Okay- I guess my response post to you 25yrs isn't going to post so I will give it another shot.


180 #1 is to CALM down when you expect a conversation of any type, to come up.

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I will definitely try to remain completely calm when we talk. During our last discussion (when I was very calm and I asked him to leave for a month) he actually told me it was hard to talk with me before because I would start crying. I think I only was calm in that conversation because I was so emotionally drained. I will try and keep repeating "Calm" to myself to help. I've actually been very calm since he has left but am anxious that calmness will go away when I see him.

So he wanted to have more sex, and you said he had to make you feel more desirable and THEN you would have more sex.
Why did you tell him you felt HE was using you and that he "made" you "feel bad" about yourself? Is that another reason for you not to have sex?

[color:#CC66CC] Yes. This was after the bomb that I told him this during one of our conversations. I didn't think of it as attaching conditions to it, but he had gotten to the point where his come on line was "let's go upstairs" and other than that no real affection. I think I was offering an explanation more than anything. Explaining to him that for me to feel "turned on" I needed some emotional connection/to feel desired. He was blaming me for the lack of sex but he was not initiating sex in an appropriate way either. After the bomb I wasn't attaching any conditions. I started doing things I never would have before- sending him suggestive texts, lingerie, etc. No matter how he was treating me. It made me hate myself to be honest. Afterwards he would go sleep in the guest room (where he had started sleeping). The last time we had sex was in late March. He stopped over to do some work at our house and we had a talk. During the talk I started crying and said I was willing to go to a sex therapist if that was what he wanted (this was pre-DB). He said, "Do you want to work on it? Let's go upstairs and start working on it". Then he crossed the room and pulled me up from the chair and started kissing me (he had stopped that kind of foreplay long before). During he started talking about back when we were dating, etc. I honestly thought this was a big changing moment and that we would BOTH start to work on things. Later on he left the house after to go sleep at his mothers (which had been the plan prior). I asked him to stay and he said he couldn't. Then when he went to leave I went to kiss him goodbye and he kissed me on my forehead. I felt awful about myself for the next 2 days. During our next talk (when I asked him to completely move out and stop communicating for a month) I brought it up and he told me he felt bad and that he felt as though he had used me.

#3 180 Lose the scorecard.

First off, he has his own scorecard b/c we each look at the world with our own lenses.

[/color] I brought this up with my counselor to work on it.

As for housework, another option is to hire a housekeeper and let HIM see the bill for it. IF he has no problem with buying it, then let him.
[color:#9999FF] WISH I had done this before.

Does he think this really is YOUR job, as a woman? IF so, that needs addressing.
[/color] I don't think he thinks of it as my job as a woman, but his mother 100% caters to him so I think this is something he was used to. When we moved in together she brought me the tray he liked to eat dinner on as a child. I threw it away. Before our issues started happening he used to help more with cooking and cleaning- but he always tended to be on the lazy side (my counselor said to refer to it as low energy whereas I am high energy, sounds a bit nicer). I definitely think some sort of depression had also crept in making him even more "low energy". One of the things he has said is that since the bomb he has felt like he had a lot more energy.


Don't re-hash the past or try to relive all the traumas of the past. You two don't have to see your history identically as long as you both learn what not to do, from this day forward. Make sense? [color:#9999FF]Absolutely. I am trying to not do this (internally) but I keep looking back for clues in our history. I need to stop doing this so I can move FORWARD.

What? Who says YOUR timeline is his? Why do you determine when things MUST be done? This sounds like control on your end. What do you think?
[/color] Yes, I guess it is control and more of me being high energy and him being low energy. My counselor said sometimes someone high energy like me needs someone low energy to balance things out, but it was almost like he had gotten so low energy over the past 5 months or so that it was driving me crazy. Again, I think maybe depression that I missed. In another of our post bomb talks I said about how we used to do so much together, races, bike rides, hikes, etc and how he never wanted to anymore. He said something like "I needed you to make me". Which to me felt like nagging but I guess it's a difference between making someone do something fun or making someone clean the toilets.

#5 180

If my h kept up the snooping, I'd want him to get counselling

and if it kept up we might be done... [color:#9999FF] I'm trying to not be a snooper. I honestly think like other things it IS an addiction. Will I get caught? Will I find something? It all started because one time years ago he had me get something off his phone and I found texts between him and a girl he had dated before me. Nothing scandalous but her talking how she was moving up our way. I was deeply hurt because the texts were happening while I was away helping to care for and then bury my grandmother whom I was very close with. I was only gone physically from our relationship about a week (during which I still saw him a few days and talked to him several times daily). Obviously I had been kind of checked out emotionally for a few weeks leading up to it. My grandmother loved him too (she gave him her diamond which is now part of my ring). When we talked he said he had "liked the attention" from this former gf. Before this I didn't snoop, or spy, or worry or get jealous when he went out. For the most part I didn't even snoop much for the next 4 years but when I did and would get caught he would make jokes and if/when we ever talked about it he seemingly got where my insecurities were coming from. Once things started feeling different of course I started checking his phone, and looking for an explanation. One night he went out and I looked at his email the following week and there was an email from his friend calling him the deli man because all the girls were lined up waiting to talk to him (he is very attractive). I confronted him. I was so upset. He was mad at me for looking but of course had an explanation. The bomb happened about a week later so I have no doubt that part of this comes from my invading his privacy. How do I show him I am working on this? And can I EVER really gain back trust after all of this if I already had trust issues?


b/c you were ignoring him or what? Is this how you two related for your r?
[/color] I don't think I ever ignored him but maybe that was how he was feeling? Or maybe he needed more good feelings than I was giving him and so he sought the attention of this work friend? I think he talks to her about our relationship.






(potential OW was also his friend on fb and I wrote a childish comment on his page for her to see when I found out he was talking to her).

(SIGH)... what were you thinking? IT never looks bad for the OW, just for the wife.
[color:#CCCCFF]I was so angry! I wrote a comment on something she posted on his page 2 months earlier, so when I wrote it I knew only she and him would really see it. Also what I wrote only someone who knew exactly what was going on would have understood. He deleted it IMMEDIATELY (and I do mean immediately, I think he was waiting for it, which I guess means he expected me to be childish).

You would do it anyhow KNOWING it would hurt your m and YOU...that's NOT a healthy behavior nor is it you "just being nosy".
[/color] I also think this is part of me trying to protect myself/not be made to look like an idiot. I guess I feel like if I know he is doing something it won't make me look as bad if I find out about it rather than it happening behind my back. Does this make sense?





See, When we revolve around our spouses, which is what it looks like if we do when we never go anywhere, it makes us look as if we bring little to the table...except for our needs.[color:#9999FF]
Completely agree and feel so happy that I have started GAL that is not defined by him or what he is doing. I feel like for the past year or so I was always waiting to see what his plans were before making mine.

[color:#9999FF][/color] One final note- in terms of positivity, I was always the more positive one in our relationship. I think I still am more positive than him, but I had a really rough fall with work and with my own finances, which my expectation in a marriage would be that he would help me through. I guess what I failed to see was that he was also having a really rough fall with his father's passing (even though he said he didn't care) and with his work moving. I think I was so focused on my issues and since he never talked about them I guess I didn't think the issues going on with him were as big a deal. Now that I am reading Men are from Mars I get that men deal with hard times differently and I probably should have offered him support in ways other than "conversational support". I just wish I could go back in time with the knowledge that I have now.

Thanks again for your response.