Yes, my ideal is a husband who would maintain a united front with me first and foremost, though we may disagree. That has always been my ideal.
My ideal would also assert himself in order to protect me. For example, the relatively minor incident I mentioned in my post above where H's (adult) niece sprayed flea killer all over our home without H's permission or mine. When H found out about it (before I found out about it), his way of addressing it was that he told her I would be upset about it, thus putting the problem on me in her eyes. That is very typical of how he addresses issues in our marriage when third parties are concerned.
My ideal husband would have told her, in an even-tempered magnanimous manner, that she shouldn't have done that. I wouldn't even appear to factor into it. H is not strong enough to think in those terms and do that for me. In his mind, it constitutes being mean to others, and he doesn't like to be mean to others. He has to throw me under the bus in order to avoid being mean to others.
Yes, I settled for less, so much less. There was a perfect storm of unfortunate things about my background and his that brought us together, and now we have S3. We were acquaintances for a few years before we started dating, having a mutual circle of friends. By all accounts, he was a good, compassionate and strong man. A medical professional, renown in the local community for being gifted in his field. It helped that he was also tall, well-built and handsome. I was a wallflower all my life, and he was quite the catch. I couldn't have it any better.
The incident where he confronted me about us not having intercourse yet and his friend being disappointed - it completely shattered the image I had of him, but I still thought I couldn't have it any better.
Originally Posted by harvey
The incident prior to you having intercourse was really difficult to read. I can understand frustration on his part if he was not as dogmatic was you were. The fact he was aggravated about it is a red flag. I'm unclear if you were just dating or married at this time? If not married, had you told him you wanted to remain celibate until marriage?
We were just dating. We had only been dating three months at this point, though we were acquaintances for a few years prior to dating.
He is not religious whatsoever. He was baptized Catholic, but that's it.
No, I had not told him I wanted to remain celibate until marriage, but I think he was afraid I wanted to. I would have been happy to remain celibate until marriage, but I knew he had tremendous disdain for the idea, and I wasn't going to make him wait until marriage for me. I was expecting that we would have intercourse eventually, before marriage. But I wasn't ready for it yet when he had that confrontation with me. In fact, when we started having intercourse, I still wasn't ready.
