Q: I have been married twenty-five years, but I don't know if I want to stay married. I'm confused. How do I distinguish between a real crisis in my marriage and just another bad spell (of which we have had our share). I try to keep in mind all the compromises that have kept our marriage going, and sometimes I can focus on the basis for what I used to consider a deep, loving and committed relationship. But I feel so angry at my husband that I can't focus on the good stuff anymore.
Our children are all out of the house and we are alone. But contrary to all of those commercials on television, instead of enjoying each other more -traveling, sports, cultural events or just plain talking -- we are spending less time together.
I think my husband must be having an affair. Why else would he not be more focused on me? I can almost understand why he would stray. We are no longer all that interesting to one another. We don't look to the other for stimulation and certainly not for intrigue. Nor do we try to appreciate what the other is saying when we differ. Instead, we argue. We've heard all the old arguments before. Instead of trying to understand one another and appreciate that one of us could be in some emotional pain, we just power on through. We seem to be just exasperated and bored. Arguments and disagreements are just another reason to walk away.
The last infuriating incident involved a dinner party we had for a friend's retirement. As usual, I pulled the whole thing together -the menu, the drinks, the guest list, etc. I didn't mind because this is one the compromises I've made in my marriage -- I'm caterer-in-chief as well as the toastmaster and he's in charge of the Air Force or something -- and I've grown accustomed to it. I thought the dinner party was a success until my husband told me that while I had toasted our friend just fine, I had neglected to toast his own impending retirement. He had me there.
Isn't it true that if someone wants to justify their own distance or their own straying, they'll turn anything into a justification. In other words, there is nothing I can do that will be enough for him. He wants to leave and that, apparently, is that. Do I hold on?
A: Look at your question! You started with your own anger and confusion and ended with the certainty that your husband, not you, is the one who wants to leave the marriage. Are you wondering if you should allow yourself to continue to be a victim or are you wondering if there is a way for you to seize control of a situation that is spiraling downwards and can only end badly.
I think you should trust your own. You husband is straying or is thinking of doing so. You are right to assume that when someone is afraid to take a difficult course of action -- like breaking up a marriage -- they attempt to get the other party to do the heavy lifting for them. Your husband wants you to walk. This is not something he is aware of, though, or even something that he deeply desires. Rather, he is expressing -- yelling, is more like it -- his dissatisfaction. He probably believes he is making compromise after compromise in your relationship while, somewhere else, there is a woman who tells him what a delight he is. It is easy for him to believe that you are the one who is difficult, not very thoughtful, and certainly not very exciting anymore. When one person in a relationship is unhappy and wants to blame the other, that's a powerful impulse. Nothing can change it. Therefore, you will feel like there is nothing that you can do that is enough.
But, I think there is a larger issue here and one that would be more helpful to focus on. You don't trust your husband because you don't trust yourself. You feel his dissatisfaction with everything you do, because you also feel dissatisfied with him and your relationship. You want to have an affair. You want to find some excitement as well as some emotional support. You may be a very capable woman. But at the moment you also want some emotional support, the proverbial shoulder which, in your case, you think has been claimed by someone else.
The day-to-day aspects of your maternal role have vanished. The kids are gone, the glue that held your family together. You are insecure and unsure of your future. You had a role and now it's gone. You want to run away -- from sadness, from fear. From life itself.
But before you and your husband take permanent vacations from one another, try something simple. Take a long vacation, but take it together first.
Para 1? Same.
Para 2? Same.
Para 3? Same.
The last infuriating incident involved a dinner party we had for a friend's retirement. As usual, ***my wife*** pulled the whole thing together -the menu, the drinks, the guest list, etc. I didn't mind because... *** she's good at it, we don't work well together, and it's perhaps true I don't express my appreciation often enough.***
I thought the dinner party was a success until... ***my wife utterly and completely overlooked my own pending retirement. All I could think was how she's simply not looking forward to spending our golden years together.***
Isn't it true that if someone wants to justify their own distance or their own straying, they'll turn anything into a justification. In other words, there is nothing I can do that will be enough for ***HER***. ***SHE*** wants to leave and that, apparently, is that. Do I hold on?
If this had occurred in my first marriage, there is no way in hell I would have been able to care for a man I didn't even like, much less love anymore. With my second husband,it was a certainty that he would have done the same for me, had the circumstances been reversed.
In older marriages, if one shudders at the thought of this kind of commitment, there is either work to be done, or time to say goodbye, cruel as that sounds.
Some of the nurses we met during my husband's hospital stays told us of older couples who were so hateful and angry at each other,and how illness made a bad situation worse. No one can predict the future,and I hope that few people have to walk my path,but I ache for those who have to care for spouses strictly out of a feeling of duty, and without love.
If this had occurred in my first marriage, there is no way in hell I would have been able to care for a man I didn't even like, much less love anymore. With my second husband,it was a certainty that he would have done the same for me, had the circumstances been reversed.
In older marriages, if one shudders at the thought of this kind of commitment, there is either work to be done, or time to say goodbye, cruel as that sounds.
Some of the nurses we met during my husband's hospital stays told us of older couples who were so hateful and angry at each other,and how illness made a bad situation worse. No one can predict the future,and I hope that few people have to walk my path,but I ache for those who have to care for spouses strictly out of a feeling of duty, and without love.
At best the chemical romance ends at the year and a half mark, then the children come and there's all this business centered around them, then there's the empty nest, the time when many marriages end because in the midst of "raising a family" the couple has failed to take care of the primary relationship. It isn't about keeping the "romance" alive. Chemistry ebbs and flows and sometimes people will feel romantic and other times not. It's about friendship, UN-selfishness, treating each other with even the remotest congeniality that you'd give a friend.
Women react by becoming more "strident" and demanding more, and men react by becoming more silent, withdrawing and even having affairs. They've stopped being friends if they ever were in the first place. How sad that this could be prevented.
People get "bored" because they perceive THEIR needs not getting met. Love is a verb, and unselfish love is a great cure for boredom. I'd say to this woman, "pay attention to yourself and give yourself what you need so that ONE of you can make the first move towa4ds friendship, kindness, and renewal from a place of personal abundance, not in resentment and unfulfilled needs and disappointment. Frankly, guys don't make the first move, they just don't. So if you even want to save your marriage, whether you like it or not, it's YOUR move."
Your comment was very very well thought through and filled with the wisdom of life experience.
A terrific post and I could not agree more.
Universal love is the key though extremely difficult to find when some people have no consept or reference points to what it is and have such integrated within themselves.
Rolf Krogsæther
Dump all the baggage and see. Chances are it's the routine, and the house, that's the prison, not marriage.
Then, if that doesn't work, get a divorce. It's not 'failure.' It's an improvement.
Every second that ticks on that clock is a one-way ride, so don't stay unhappy out of sheer inertia, or some vague form of marital guilt.
If you can't be friends then get out and find someone else willing to be your friend and who you can tolerate naked (candlelight is your friend.)
Problem solved, case closed.
Pax, Steve
Talk to you in 25 years, honey.
Get away from each other. Decide beforehand about fidelity and avoid any other conditions. Just go somewhere so you can hear yourself think and try to relax. You may be all over each other really quickly or... you may decide that being alone is more comfortable. Either way you are acting on your feelings and you are taking the time to assess and decide rather than hating the life you are currently sharing.
Marriage is retarded, folks.
Get together when you choose to, and end it when you choose to, just don't make the mistake of being forced to give the other person half your stuff.
These are natural things in men. In our relationships with women, its essential. We all know these things instinctively but social forces have clouded those instincts. I'd suggest anything Dr. Laura has to say on this issue.
Seriously though, I don't usually agree with her methods or her skewed moral view on "shacking up vs. marriage", but when she resorts now and then to common sense, it works. Any relationship, whether a "marriage" on paper or not can benefit from unselfishness, friendship, R-E-S-P-E-C-T (just a little bit!), and giving each other space when needed. People need real education/training with regards to living with each other as it's not an instinct, but our society offers outdated "taboos" and platitudes instead. No wonder so many marriage partners with their unrealistic and unrealized expectations cause their marriages to fall by the wayside.
She's the "enlightened" one who calls women whores and sluts if they dare to have sex outside of marriage.
AS IF only prostitutes have sex without being married!
Meanwhile, Laura's ugly youthful nude photos are on the internet.
Her mother was dead and her body was decomposing for three months before Laura found out---and she lived only two miles from her mother.
Laura's soldier son had a website in which he advocated the rape and torture of teenage Iraqi girls. Her "I am my kid's mom" bullshit didn't work!
So please.....don't recommend "Dr." Laura.