Tinydoc's first post, 5 months in.

[V2pt0]

I know it must be really frustrating for you seeing that you were almost to the other side. What I will say is that you don't know if that would have changed anything. Your H's coping skills are what they are. My H graduated and was only working in a temp job until beginning of January. He was in school 12 out of the 13 years. He applied for his current postion in September of last year and started the job in January. I found out in April that he started a PA in October, not even a month after he was offered the job. Talk about anger!! I have told him we had just gotten through this and have the time and money to work on us. He just does not see it.

I am not sure how long you have been in school/residency, but maybe hearing how things were for me on the opposite end might help you empathize and relate to your H more. I think that is a key aspect of DB. It can be hard to do that when you know there is an A. You need to find a way to not express anger and coolness toward him. I did not do the best job with this after finding out the A was going on in my home.

So, here is my perspective...

I felt a great deal of pressure on me to keep everything running at home and to be the primary income earner. There was a great amount of limbo when H's masters and PhD took longer than expected. I had no idea when he was going to graduate. There were many times that I felt trapped in an unsatisfying job because we could not afford for me to take a lower salary. Then, after he graduated, we were not sure if he would find a job locally, so we had to be prepared to move. I did not want to take on a new job and then turn around and quit. That went on for 7 years!!

There was also a lot of time spent on my own. I felt like I got married to just be single. My H always told me I would come first, but as soon as schooling intensified, that was not the case. When he was home, he was very grumpy because of stress. Overall, I no longer felt special or important to him. I held way too much of this in because I felt guilty. I knew he was busy, so I just chalked it up to his schooling, but my resentment grew. Not feeling important and resentment I have come to find out are horrible for your desire for sex. Here I was supporting him to better himself, but I was stuck at home busting my butt for him and he was ungrateful for what I did do and would just focus on my negatives. He did not focus on my needs at all. I whole heartily admit I went about things wrong by withdrawing and not communicating better.

My point is that he may have been very lonely on his end and did not feel like he had a wife for many years. His emotional needs probably got lost in your schooling as well, yet there he was being supportive of you accomplishing such an amazing personal and professional goal. That does not mean he communicated that to you in the right way or at all, but he probably thinks he did. I am learning now how easy it is for our wires to get crossed as far as why we are actually mad at our spouses and what we actual communicate. I did not even know there was such a difference in emotional needs and how what I was and was not doing was killing the emotional connection with my H. Most men have admiration on their list of top needs and yelling and criticism are killers for that. If your physical relationship suffered as well that was extra salt in his emotional wound. He was probably already feeling low with his job or any other self worth issues he may have had prior to your M.

I know reading that might be extremely hard and make you feel like (censored). I only shared it to help you see how hard it can be to be for the spouse on the other end of an advanced degree. Maybe try to keep those thing in mind as you DB. It will help you find some compassion for your H when you want to be hostile. You want him to start seeing a new and improved Doc.