NEED HELP...Marriage on the rocks!!

[LadyLuck77]

I am in need of some help and not sure where to get it from and family friends are not much help here since sides have been taken. I am hoping that I can get some good advice here and the help I so desire. This maybe a little lengthy and I apologize there is just a lot of history here and I am not sure what would be important to everyone and what would not.

The Basics:

My husband and I met when we were 16 and he proposed at 18, we married at 20. We have been married for 12 years as of two days ago.

We have three children ages: 3, 4 and 12. (I was told at 17 I would never have children due to a medical condition, so we had adjusted our lives to never having children..that soon changed when I got pregnant with our first child at 19. He immediately want me to abort and when I didn’t our lives changed drasticly.)

My husband works in the oilfield and is away more than 50% of the time. He just recently took a position out of the country where he will initially be gone for 3 months and then after that it will be a month on a month off. I do not work and haven’t in a long time, I am mostly a homemaker but I just recently started back to school full time to get my RN license.

The History:

Our first year of marriage my husband cheated on me and I forgave him but after this he has courted two other women, but with no sex involved, and one of them he introduced to his mother. He lies to me about everything, things that he shouldn’t have to and it has come to a place where I just flat out don’t trust him but I try to make things work.

Our sex life was very passionate at the beginning and after not aborting our first child it went downhill quick. He started making up excuses on why he never wanted it like he was tired or had a headache..etc. This is still going on today. When we do have sex I have to literally beg for it or guilt him into it. He does not initiate any contact or affection, I always do. He will kiss me goodbye when he leaves and he used to make sure that we had sex the day before he left but now he does not even bother with that. When we do have sex it is more like a chore for him, he just lays there and barely does anything at all which makes it very hard for me to get into it. I am at a loss here I have tried everything..and since nothing works I have resorted to using toys instead of cheating.

I am always helping him out and giving him advice. I make a point to show him daily how much I care and I put forth a lot of effort to encourage him in his job and help him succeed. I also always compliment him on his looks and try to make him feel good about himself (me thinking he might be depressed, he is very high strung). He on the other hand does not do any of these things unless prompted to do so. Every once in awhile he will say something nice but mostly he says nothing at all.

I have suggested marriage counseling and even going seperatly but he refuses. When I try to talk to him about anything with our marriage he shuts me down or he just pretends to listen. He is most famous for closing his eyes and laying down or trying to watch tv while I am talking to him. He will not look me in the eye and hold a conversation unless he is forced to then he just gets very confrontational. He acts like a child when it comes to communication…drives me nutz! He still says he loves me and he does not want our marriage to end and that he is comfortable and does not want things to change. I have told him many times I am not happy and I am not “in” love with him anymore but he does not seem to care. I even had a serious health scare just a few months ago and he seemed to just be going through the motions. I talked to him about what would happen if I did not make it through and he actually seemed to really care about my well being, but that was the extent of it.

The Now:

As of the last couple of weeks things have spun out of control. He was told he was going out to do a job for a couple of weeks and needed to leave immediately, so I packed him up and he left. He was supposed to leave two days after he got there and instead I found out he did not have to be there and he went to his mother’s house instead. He spent the entire weekend there until Monday. Keep in mind this was our anniversary weekend and we have not spent one together in almost four years. I called him out on this and told him that everyday he was giving me another excuse another lie and he just ignored me and said I was being stupid. On our anniversary he was still at his mother’s and had told me he was supposed to be at work that morning and he just did not go in, so he was supposed to be there the next day cause he was supposed to leave on wed this time. I did not believe him and I told him so. Things got out of control and I asked him if he wanted to just give up and get a divorce…he initially said I don’t know but I pushed for an answer and finally he said yes. So, I immediately went on the defense and went forth for making plans to do it. I am not sure if this is what I really want but I don’t want to be the only one to make the effort here anymore. To say the least it is wed today and he still has not left, and now he is not sure if he is going off or not and he does not want to come home. I have all of our email pulled to our home computer in outlook so even before we talked about getting a divorce he was out house hunting by his mother’s house without even telling me about it.

I need some help here…I am just lost!!!

Sorry again it was so long!

[ThunderHorse]

Search "Chairs"

How are you attempting to demonstrate Mars type of Respect for your husband?

The Caring concern you describe, that you have given your husband, seems devoted, but the Respect craved for by Men is different.

Many men have been rejected in their various requests for Respect from women. So Even many men will not tell you what they really want. The Venus approach is fine for mothering, which is important, but different from the Respect desired by men.

What are some of your husband's close calls? What are the challenges on his job, and how does he try to better his chances of avoiding injury?

What space inside your house is devoted to his ideas, and arranged exactly how he wants it, and honored by your leaving everything arranged as he wants it?

Many women show caring fo their husband by nitpicking. Is ther a time set aside for suggestions? Or, like my wife, do you feel that anytine the idea of nitpicking occurs to her, is a good time to bring up my foibles.

..

[LadyLuck77]

Thunderhorse:

I give my husband a lot of respect. I constantly praise him on a job well done with things at home and with his career. He has his "man cave" as he likes to call it, which is all his to do with what he wants. He also has picked almost all the furniture in our house and in most cases puts it where he wants it and it stays.

His job is very risky as he works offshore in Brazil and in the Gulf, he constantly faces danger being there and I am worried for him. I understand how stressfull his job can become because he is also responsible for many more men's lives. I try my hardest not to bring anything up when he is working to avoid anymore stress on him. He is very safety concious as it is his job and profession.

I usually do not "nitpick" him for anything. When he is actually home I try to cater to his every need and make sure home is a stress free place, but this does not always happen. It usually the other way around, I bend over backwards to please him in every way and he in return "nitpicks" me for every little thing. Like hey..you left a dish in the sink or did you not vaccum today...little stuff that gets irritating to me.

Here is an update though...he came home unexpectley two nights ago and acted as though nothing ever happened like he just forgot about everything. Now I am more confused than ever. He still will not talk to me about what is really going on with him.

[ThunderHorse]

My husband works in the oilfield and is away more than 50% of the time. He just recently took a position out of the country where he will initially be gone for 3 months and then after that it will be a month on a month off. I do not work and haven’t in a long time, I am mostly a homemaker but I just recently started back to school full time to get my RN license.


Our sex life was very passionate at the beginning and after not aborting our first child it went downhill quick. He started making up excuses on why he never wanted it like he was tired or had a headache..etc. This is still going on today. When we do have sex I have to literally beg for it or guilt him into it. He does not initiate any contact or affection, I always do. He will kiss me goodbye when he leaves and he used to make sure that we had sex the day before he left but now he does not even bother with that. When we do have sex it is more like a chore for him, he just lays there and barely does anything at all which makes it very hard for me to get into it.

Chairs, Need/Desires of men from women


Here are some “Chairs” search results form the Secrets Forum


Post near the end of the thread, wife not experiencing passion in marital relations

http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com/phpB ... ght=chairs



Post 2 and further on, Wife feels she is doing everything right in the marriage, and household, but husband does not like to engage in conversation, and does not really like to be at home.

http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com/phpB ... ght=chairs


Last Post Page 1, Wife asks how to get more from her marriage, and what is important to husbands in marriage.

http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com/phpB ... ght=chairs


3rd post. Attractive wife with 3 children complains that her husband has lost interest in marital relations.

http://www.secretsofmarriedmen.com/phpB ... ght=chairs







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[psychclass101]

Hello Lady Luck,
I read your post and I'm sorry for the pain that you are going through. It sounds like no matter what you do, you husband continues to pull away and it has progressed further. You described some of the behavior that he has exhibited like lying to you I do understand your concern about the situation and would like to offer my opinions and some advice to you. One of the first things that you have to ask yourself is do you still love him and trust him? When you ask yourself this question, its not if you love him the way he was when you first married but do you love the man who is there today?
According to my professor, people who enter relationships put on something like a mask and it can take up to two whole years before the persons real self emerges. It sounds like this could be the case with your husband. The birth of your first child could have triggered something like what women experience, post partum depression. In his case, it is almost like a midlife crises and he is trying to get back to the lifestyle that makes him seem younger and with less responsibilities.
I think that one of the things that you could do is ask him to join you in marriage counseling and another thing, is if both of you are not making your marriage a top priority and treating it as serious as you would a paying job, then your marriage is going to have problems. I think that you need to sit down with him and let him know how you are feeling and tell him what you need from him and if he is not agreeable then try counseling. If neither works, then as hard as it may be, you need to move on. you deserve to have trust in your relationship and to be treated right.