My H keeps breaking my heart so I have got to keep it to myself for a while. He doesn't know it but I have lost my sexual connection with him as well. I like him to hold me and I like to hold him but the last time he hurt me, by proving to me again that my place with him is dead last and then topped it off by telling me that he hopes I will learn how to stop being a victim, the connection broke. I have orgasms in my sleep but can barely get aroused with him.
This also resulted in loosing any expectations I have of him. The reason I have been continuously victimized by this man is because I kept asking for things that I felt would help us heal and help me to heal and he can't even remember the conversations much less that he made a commitment to do something. At work he remembers and follows up amazingly well. He saves forgetting for me. He has convinced me that he keeps me around to comfort him and that he thinks this should make me happy and that he believes that doing anything to meet my needs means I'm trying to control him. I think he simply doesn't get it but has no time and little desire to learn. I still believe that he is not a bad man just incredibly dense.
I feel compassion for him and I am committed to his well being but I have got to put my well being first or I will have nothing to give anyone. I am loosing my love for him as a husband and think his love for me as a wife has always been at some sort of "first stage".
Evidently, John Gottman has a new study out because my local paper picked up a story on it. The story said that he has found that "distancer/pursuer" marriages are the most likely to end in divorce. I am living proof that bringing up problems that need to be solved with an avoidant, distancing man absolutely does not ultimately end up anywhere near a happy life for anyone involved. He feels continually criticized and I feel continually discounted and frustrated.
So it is probably a good thing that I am giving up...at least on that. Vast experience has shown me that to try to talk to him about this stuff, even though it seems like we resolve things at the time, is not helpful in the long term. So now that I've explained all this, I am going to try my best to defocus from my marriage and put my energy into MY LIFE. My husband has no problem using all his energy outside of our marriage so that it feels like there is no marriage (focusing on something that doesn't exist is problematic). There is just me hearing in exhausting detail about all his work problems, dreams, frustrations, sacrifices, etc. For 12 years I have kept a complete catalog of all the people and incidents so that many times I remember it better than he does. One example of the attention he pays to me is that he couldn't remember that I had worked for a year at a college near us (it was a pretty big deal to me). I have always been the best friend he ever had. I have loved him too much giving him the right to love me too little.
This is sick and I am sick of it.
I really thought that when we started piecing our marriage together (it wasn't "back together" it was putting it together for the first time after all these years) that would mean all this would change. It did change at first but now he is just like he used to be.
I've gained back the 30 lbs I lost, but I am less happy than I used to be. I am functioning at about 60% and feel like I was at about 90% at my best. During the very worst time of my life, my early 20s, 25 years ago)I completely shut down and was in an utter hell. This has hurt just about as badly but at least I'm that much stronger and none of this has brought me back to that! Still, I WANT MY HAPPY, 90% FUNCTIONING SELF BACK!!! I miss me.
There are many, many things I want to do. I am doing some of them and setting things up to do others later. I'm exercizing 3x/week but still eating too much so the weight hasn't changed. I've got ideas for things that might help me get a grip on the eating and am pursuing them. I have many joyful blessings in my life and want to focus on them. My marriage is a challenge not a joy but there are pleasant moments when I view my husband as a nice room mate that I have no expectations of and then I can enjoy his company.
I'd prefer a committed partnership where the inevidable joys and heartaches are equally shared. I'd like us to both feel we can trust each other. Looks to me like he could easily be having an affair now and I feel little assurance that it won't happen, if not now, then in the future. Still, I have a pleasant roommate who provides the finances for me to spend my time on whatever I think is important (and there are a lot of things I think are important!) and maybe someday we will be married beyond legally. Or maybe I won't ever have that particular experience in my life. Perhaps he will have another affair--I do not know how to inspire his love, in a way that honors myself as well, in order to prevent this--I don't think I could stay again. Perhaps he will leave me for another woman, my love is cooling beyond what I can control, he probably feels that on some level. If I get to the point where I really don't love him my conscience will hurt me too much to stay.
My sister-in-law is doing this with my brother. My brother is on the fence with their marriage. She is moving on with her life and doing things she never dreamed she could do (like a 150 mile bike hike in two days in the Rockies). Still my brother says that they have hurt each other beyond repair and she has seemed angry to me as well. I don't want to have anger as the motivating force. I don't think I've said anything dreadful and beyond repair. I have tried always to be as kind as I could figure out. I could easily get over this last insult from my H and feel married if he changes. We are by no means beyond repair. We are at a standstill in the twilight zone that the marriage may never escape but I AM GETTING OUT MY SELF!
