He says he is tired of me. He says I'm mean, call him names and abuse him.
I am just plain tired. I'm just worn out. His EA laid me flat on my face for 2 years. Then when I was beginning to feel better I found out he had been viewing porn. Recently he has been up and down emotionally. He was reading a couple of books that he said were making him fall in love with me all over again. He called me constantly, told me he loved me, that I was perfect for him, spoke words that sounded like poetry (very unlike him) said that he should listen to my advice and that he needed my advice on everythin, because I am made to complete him and to help him make decisions. He wanted to have sex more often than ever. I was not on the same page, and was guarded, but I went along with it.
A couple of weeks ago I was exhausted from a long day, and I couldn't have an orgasm he and he was upset. He blamed me for not being interested, and said I should have told him I wasn't interested. I was just trying to go along with him, because I knew if I said I was tired, he would have been upset...finally, after he was trying really hard to bring me to orgasm, and I knew it wasn't going to happen, I told him, "It's OK." I could have faked, and that would have avoided an argument, but I have never faked with him, and I didn't want to start then.
Sorry I'm rambling. My heart is breaking. I had worried he wouldn't be able to make it through R, or be steady. I know I was not steady and have had ups and downs.
He is so erratic lately. He is intense in everything...he intensly loves me, or he intensely dislikes me. I just need peace and stability, and a little room to get my feet back and trust the M. His erratic behavior makes me feel like I'm walking on a bog, not sure when I'll fall in a hole.
I never know how he is going to be, or what he is going to say or think I said. I feel like he is going off the deep end, even when he is needy and saying he loves me. He is so unstable and like a boomerang. I feel like I have to duck or I'll get knocked over. When he was so loving, I was just waiting for him to go back to the other way.
He had been gone for days on work and told me on the way from home called me on the phone. He said, "The guys called their wifes and told them this and I'm going to tell you: When I get home I want the house clean, dinner on the table, and you naked." I said, "Ooooohhh kaaaay?" I thought he was telling me the same thing the guys told their wives. I knew he was joking, but still, he said it...maybe even hopeful that I would do it all. Him, "The guy just miss their families and wifes. That is the kind of relationship they have. I think it is cute."
After we hung up I became increasingly upset. I had been shuttling our children back and forth to various classes, appointments, tests, and taking care of the home by myself. He had two days off when he was gone to the field. He spent two days with the guys going to a mall and to the movies both days. When he'd call home, he'd think I was home relaxing between shuttling, and many times I was in the middle of a new task with one of our children. It was as if he had no real idea of how busy I am while he is gone. We had already cleaned the house a couple of days before, and the joke to stop everything I am doing, clean the house,make dinner and be naked really insulted me.
I phoned him and left a message about how I felt. It all went to hell from there. He called back saying I had falsely accused him, he didn't say that to me, but was telling me what the guys said to their wives.
It has gone down farther since then. What makes it get bad is when he defends himself and blames me for being hurt. If he immediately apologized when he realized I was hurt it would be different. But his deflecting and finding a way to blame me for my reaction to what he does is what escalates me.
I told him today that if he doesn't even out, I don't know if I can even stay M to him until our youngest grows up. (She's 10) I had hoped to be able to stick it out until she grew up, and in the meantime our M and I could heal from the things my FWH did, and then we wouldn't D at all. When he is like this I don't know how I can survive 8 more years, I can't take any more surprises.
I'm broken and in tears. He is cracking up. His mom and dad abandonded their M's in differnent ways. They are both D and remarried. His Dad has treated his W in terrible ways over the years. My H didn't have an example of a secure M, through ups and downs. I am so traumatized by what he did to me and our children, and now he is bailing out.
I love our children so much. I am so sorry I brought them into the world, to come from a broken home. H had promised me he would never cheat, then he did. He said he'd never D, and he did that, once with OW, and now again.
If he is showing his true colors at last, I guess it is better now than in 5, 10, 15 later. My heart is breaking. God be with me and with our children...they do not deserve this. If I could turn back time, I would M him all over again, because of our wonderful children's lives. Where did my H go??? I felt safe with him when we were courting. I believed in him, I thought he was so wonderful, until he began to ignore me and my ideas for our M. And then when he cheated, my H disappeared completely, but was replaced by an imposter who pretended to be my H.
I'm so broken. He broke me.
[This message edited by HurtButHopeful? at 5:06 PM, April 26th (Friday)]
Don't hang in there until your kids grow up if you're miserable. I think staying in an unhappy marriage for the kids is worse than leaving. They will grow up knowing you weren't happy and only have the model of a bad marriage to go on.
I can feel your hurt. I'm so sorry.
I don't want our children to grow up thinking they can't really trust people, because their own parents, the people in the world who they rely on to keep their promises, broke their most sacred promise. D would tear their lives up. I can't see to type anymore, I'm crying again.
[This message edited by HurtButHopeful? at 6:25 PM, April 26th (Friday)]
You will figure out what's best for you if you can distance yourself from his crazy long enough.
Last night he was upset and looked down during most of dinner last night. The children and I had waited for him to get home before we ate, even though he told us to eat without him (after he and I had argued over his joke)...Our oldest daughter said to her sister, "Of course Daddy will say to go ahead and eat without him...he is a good guy. He wouldn't want us to not eat if he knows we are hungry." She was annoyed when I suggested that we do what he told our other to do, go ahead and eat. I didn't want her or the others to be upset that I didn't wait for Daddy, so I agreed to wait. When he got home he was angry that we didn't obey his words and eat. He said he would be more honored if we listened to his words and obeyed him. I actually was in a position that I'd be damned if I waited (him upset with me), and damned if I didn't (children upset with me, or thinking I was mean to Daddy...maybe he would be mad at me if he thought I was glad we were eating without him.) He just doesn't get my side of things.
As for our influence over the children, I know some conflict is normal in life. Maybe it is not so bad yet to mess them up. D would cause more upheaval for them at this point. Maybe I'll get back on AD meds and ride it out, giving him more time to get used to his newfound feelings, as up and down as they are, and find my own new balance with his newfound aggression and argumentativeness. He used to be PA but now he is aggressive (not physically, but by arguing,) and it is freaking me out.
Your "husband" sounds like my x. PA, now just in everyones face. She is just a bad person try'n to bring down as many as possible, cause ya know...misery enjoys company. Keep your head up, smile, and be as happy as you can around people, especially your kids.
I became very fearful (of being emotionally and physically abandoned and our children's lives being turned upside down.)
He began saying something that wasn't true, and I convinced him to go upstairs to discuss it with me since it was about sex and I didn't want to mess up the children by them having to overhear sexual issues.
Upstairs he told me what I had to do for him to not D him, and I wrote it down. I guess this needs to be in R, so I'll transfer it to that thread and get input there.
I agreed to all on the list, but expressed that I feel like I am vulnerable, jumping through hoops, and am now in the position that if I miss a hoop, or new hoops will now be endlessly put in front of me or face divorce, over and over. I know I could improve....a lot. However I feel so vulnerable, that there is always the danger of his dumping me. Nothing is for sure, there are no sacred promises I can count on anymore...they have all been broken and replaced with conditional promises.
Do not take everything so literally.
Next time he says a "clean house, cooked meal and you naked" comment, realize he's just hinting he wants sex - not that you work your ass off spring cleaning all day and making an 8-course meal. Frozen lasagne thrown in the oven and most of the housework out of the way so he comes home, and it's relaxing and sex instead of relaxing and washing dishes, sweeping, mopping floor, five loads of laundry. You don't even have to clean, you just decide NOT to clean that evening and let the laundry go until tomorrow. His words meant he wanted a fun relaxing evening, and not a household chore and exhaustion evening. What those guys were saying to their wives, in a joking tone, was "have dinner ready and lets have nothing else to do so tonight so we can get wild, baby, I miss you." .
No, you didn't have it easy while he was gone, but you're quite literal minded looking at words actually said, whereas he may see this as you being argumentative or difficult to please when he makes a casual, off-the-cuff remark, and after thinking about it for a day, you call him all upset, with him now knowing his homecoming is going to s**t and nobody's going to have fun or get naked - and him feeling as if he can't ever win, either.
Next time he says let the kids eat, realize that he will feel guilty if they go hungry if he arrives home after 7 - and that he will be seen as it being his fault that they are hungry and cranky that you held back dinner. My mother always did this to me - make everyone visting starve to death just because my job got held up beyond my control (nature of the job) and I arrived home to visit on the weekend when relatives were there at 9 instead of at 6, when I'd hoped. She would have the whole house starving and hating me, with a smirk to punish me for having the kind of job you can't control when you leave. (I'm not a surgeon, but it would be kind of like being a surgeon where you can't close up the patient if the surgery gets complicated and go home for dinner.)
Also, what's wrong with faking it? There are a lot of women like me who never have vaginal orgasms and the other kind are difficult to achieve in a blue moon - physical desensitivity - and we we can either make our husbands feel inadequate for the rest of our lives because of desensitization in certain areas, or we can fake it and have a happy marriage.
[This message edited by Heavy Sigh at 2:30 PM, April 27th (Saturday)]
Upstairs he told me what I had to do for him to not D him, and I wrote it down.
Wait...you are the BS and he is telling you what you need to do in order for him not to D you? Did I read that right?
If so, that is so, so controlling and abusive. Please think about what you are teaching your children by staying in a marriage like that. You deserve so much better. Are you in any kind of IC at all?
Married: 11 years, no kids
Character is destiny
Heavy sigh: It sounds as if you've both gotten to the point to where every off-hand comment becomes as complicated as a negotiated war treaty
Are you my IC stalking me? Yes, you nailed it. We are at that stage, both of us. Not sure how to back up.
Next time he says a "clean house, cooked meal and you naked" comment, realize he's just hinting he wants sex - ..... What those guys were saying to their wives, in a joking tone, was "have dinner ready and lets have nothing else to do so tonight so we can get wild, baby, I miss you."
I think you are right there too...I take things literally...very literally...I'm put together that way...I need to back up and see that others don't always mean thing literally, though.
When H called and said that I was harried, rushing back to the house because DD forgot the test we were driving across town to deliver. H didn't know how busy I was already, and that bugged me, then he said the comment that really bothered me. I stewed on it, taking it literally, and then left him a message about how insulted I was.
Also, what's wrong with faking it?
I don't agree with you on that one. I am able to have Os, but if I am exhausted or sick it is just too much work (for me, not for him...he'd never give up trying to help me have one.) I don't want to get into faking, or lying...I just don't want to do that to myself.
phmh: yes, I am in IC, but for now it is MC with H attending.
