You Can't Fix 'Em-But What About Family?

[2Lady]

During our last call, in the middle of talking about something unrelated, my husband suddenly had a trigger that reminded him of the reason (a fear) that he took another wife. And he blurted out, "We need [the reason]." Now, on the one hand he truly does believe he is doing this for OUR benefit and it showed me he really cares about me, on the other hand, it's more likely to be for his benefit and less guaranteed to be for my benefit, simply because of the way certain things are that we can't control. Also, his reason is sort of like an insurance policy, we may need it, we may never need it, but we have to pay for it regardless. And so I said, "We may or we may not need it." And he got annoyed at that, as if it was me criticizing his choice. But I simply was stating a fact and I explained that to him and we quickly got back to the original topic of our conversation.

But this made me feel depressed today. He really feels he is doing the right thing for both of us and wants me to appreciate that. But his fear of the future was so overwhelming that he was never willing to consider the possibility of not marrying. He gave me a choice of staying or divorce. I certainly feel more secure with him than I ever would have with a divorce. But I would have felt more secure if he hadn't married. In fact, it had taken me many years to feel secure about certain things and I had finally reached that point a few months before BD and now I am back where I was before. In the end, what he has done may actually make me more secure than if he hadn't married, BUT I won't know that for sure for many years down the line and so I am stuck living with uncertainty.

We are in a situation where we both may benefit, neither of us benefits, or only he benefits and maybe I even lose. And while I am afraid for the future, it's clear his fear is much greater than mine at the moment and I got used to this uncertainty before whereas he at least at the moment needs this to feel secure. He's at least not in any state to listen to reason or alternatives and so I think I just need to be patient and give him time to be ready to face the reality that I don't feel secure and to figure out what he can do to change that.