To think my marriage is ending?

[Icecreamsundaee]

Hi, please be kind to me. Im not in a very good mental state (anxiety/panic attacks). Dont know where to post about marriage plus i kmow there is a lot of traffic here.

Just to give context, Its my 11 year anniversary in 2 days. We have 2 lovely little boys that we both love (we want more bit we can never be able to be on good terms for long enough to try for a third). DH does anything for our kids (private schooling for ds with language disorder, moving us abroad for a better life etc.)

The problem lies with our relationship, there are no major issues, infedelity, addiction, money problems, control issues, domestic violence or abuse. Nothing that you could imagine put a strain on ohr marriage in that sense.

But DS travels alot for business and i used to go with him sometimes, but ive started work to keep myself busy (helps with my anxiety) not sure if id even be invited anyways.

Dh doesn't prioritise spending time with me anymore and is always busy, he doesnt even like to go out much when he is home for work but will do anything but spend time with me. No spontaneous trips, no gifts no affection. When i confront him he says im rude to him and i tell him its because he doesnt show me any love. Im upset all the time.

I now cope by not speaking to him at all, he left for a week long work trip and i didnt even say goodbye. I also didnt message him while he was away except regarding the boys (pics and vidoes of kids etc). At this point we ade co parenting and it makes me angry i often lose my cool and say "why dont we get divorced as this clearly isnt f***g working!!!", he just tells me to leave him be and that gets me even more worked up.

I dont have any suspicions hes cheating on me, though we haave been marroed for 11 years im 29 as we were childhood sweethearts we got marriage very young, hes 31. Im not boring and keep my appearance up, im not sure where this disinterest in me stems from, please help.

P. S i do love him i just really dont like him right now and i havent for a while now. I somehow believe he loves me... Not that he shows it 😒

Sounds tough. Would he consider couples counseling?

If not can you pick calmly talk to him about how you are feeling?

You need to communicate, and that means listen as well as talk. Explain how each of you are feeling and what you can do about it. Date nights may be the answer, get a babysitter and take the time to do something together. It doesn't need to expensive or in the evening, for instance could you get grandparents to babysit whilst you go to a museum or art gallery and a picnic in a park.

Basically it sounds like you need to connect .

@DontBePassiveAggresive thanks for your response, we need some sort of counseling as we need mediation. When i calmly talk to him about how i feel he jjst responds woth "your always rude and disrespectful to me, and o dont like it so i rather not bother you" to which i ask for specific incidents and tell him i think hes far too sensitive, he shouldn't look for flaws all the time. And i do believe my attitude does stink because im miserable.

I feel like a child lashing out most of the time, when i do compose myself and be silentand cordial with him... It makes the distance between us grow more. Im sick of intiating a hug in the middle of the night because i need one and i know i need to put my pride aside. He wont ever ask me for one, i do sometimes notice him hugging me in the middle of the night and in the morning we are strangers again.

Wow, what you have described sounds very distressing for both parties.

He no longer wants to spend time with you which must be incredibly painful. Your reaction is to give him the silent treatment or blow up and suggest divorce, which must be quite painful back. The fact he doesn't agree to getting divorced indicates that isn't what he wants? But he is also not responding to your bids for attention, so you seem at a bit of a stalemate. I really feel for you OP. Especially as this sounds like your only adult romantic relationship, so all the more destabilising that it isn't working well.

Not sure the relevance of appearance.. Victoria's secret models get divorced.. no matter how beautiful something is, it will lose novelty between day one of looking at it and year 11. That's not to say he doesn't fancy you or find you interesting... just to say that it isn't your responsibility to keep him interested by looking pretty. People naturally grow apart, especially if they met when they were kids as so much growing up happens in our 20s.

@GettingStuffed we have tried, we have a very regular trustworthy sitter so childcare is never an issue, few weeks ago he needed his taken in for servicing and he told me to drive him there. I said okay and suggested we get breakfast while we were at it, he said sure!

It ended in me crying and saying i dont want to go anymore and him saying ill catch a cab to my car drop me home, within 15mins this happened.

OP, I’m so sorry - it must be so rough. I think you need to first check that you both want the marriage to continue - and that you are both committed to it, which will mean you will both need to find out what the other one wants, and sometimes prioritise that.

Perhaps make sure you are showing each other your love and gratitude when they do something, try to be calm when they do something they don’t, give the benefit of the doubt - all of that. And it has to be both of you too.

And try - if you both can and want to - to have lots and lots of sex to reconnect and show each other how much you mean to each other.

But my marriage has totally broken down so this may all be worthless advice

mainly I just want to say I’m sorry - you sound so sad

It ended in me crying and saying i dont want to go anymore and him saying ill catch a cab to my car drop me home, within 15mins this happened.

That's quite an escalation. How did it go from all good to you crying?

@Sunnyfeelgood thank you for you kind words, it is distressing and i do see it as a stalemate.

Sorry i just boight up appearance as i havemt changed if anything i feel good in myself lately (more rested, lost weight, cleared skin etc) i just feel comfortable in my skin is what i meant.

Sometimes when we dont love our self its hard for anyone else to do so, but because ive got mare time to myself lateive been ables to give myself more self care spiritually and physically.

Even Beyonce got cheated on thats true.

You have admitted that...

you are rude
you are angry and you lose your cool
you tell him he doesn't love you
you threaten divorce
you give him the silent treatment
you are upset all the time
you confront him
you get even more worked up when he asks for space
you tell him he is too sensitive
you tell him he shouldn't point out what you are doing that upsets him (like saying you are being rude and disrespectful)
you withhold all forms of affection
you lash out like a child
your attitude stinks
you are miserable
he agrees to spend time with you and you end up crying and say you don't want to go...

@EmmetEmma thank ypu for you kind words, very good advice ill try my nest to implement. I am sad as im emotionally drained and very confused. I dont know if he loves, i think he does but i dont know because he wont show me. I feel desperate for asking him ive told him in every way imaginable but he has yet to change, he asks me for "respect" which i tell him goes both ways. But in his defence he never raises his voice or asks for a divorce, i do. But he shows me he doesnt care in other ways for example not every trying to change.

I was crying out to feel loved and wanted and ive stopped now, i still hurt on the inside. Divorce scares me as hes the breadwinner and my kids need their dad and all he does for them. Im trying to ignore it all but i feeel worse every day. Hes back tonight.

This was similar to my relationship this time last year...we were co-parenting and cohabiting but nothing more. When we did spend time together it was unbelievably strained and I was having panic attacks out of the blue. We had been through some pretty dramatic changes in our work/home life and we just weren't connecting.

Couples counselling made the world of difference for us. We knew that we wanted to be together but we had just completely lost our way and needed help to find our way through. Things still aren't perfect, but we are at least on the same page and able to connect with each other again.

Ahhhh got ya! What would happen if you initiated sex? Would he reciprocate? Although, for me, there would need to be a certain level of emotional safety to do this and it sounds like you are a little rocky right now. Am sending you lots of love 🧡

@Freefall212 I imagine that the OP has behaved like that as a reaction to feeling rejected or like a chore.

Hurt people often don’t behave brilliantly - she feels unloved. They both need to find a way of communicating with each other - but stonewalling, shutting the conversation down and moving off, aren’t productive either

Im not boring and keep my appearance up, im not sure where this disinterest in me stems from, please help.

If you don’t speak to him and you lash out and are angry what difference does this make? Also how can you no he’s not cheating when you don’t talk and he mostly works away? It sounds like couples counselling is worth a shot but you both need to face up to the obvious things you are doing wrong here. Sorry to hear you are having such a hard time though OP.

I don't mean this nastily, it's meant kindly. You mention anxiety, are you on medication for this? Do you think you might benefit with some support for your anxiety/general mental health?

If you think this might be a route to try, then from my understanding of your posts your DH is still just about hanging in there, so perhaps if you said you think you have an issue and can he help you, perhaps he would help with getting a doctors appointment etc.

The communication has broken down, and maybe wasn't that robust to begin with. You met very young, had two children, moved countries and are dealing with the pressures of parenting.

Responding with telling him he is far too sensitive when he tells you that he feels you are rude to him isn't ever going to help.

Engage with a couples therapist and learn how to communicate better, which means listening to each other first. In terms of spontaneous trips, gifts and affection, you will both need to agree to put in what the other needs and make the effort to reconnect rather than asking for a hug, because you want one.

So you would be fine with her DH treating her like that list if he didn't feel she was loving him enough and in the right ways?

She would deserve all that anger and name calling and demeaning comments? That it is on her to love him right or else he is justified in treating her like she is now treating him?

He agrees to spend time with her and she turns it into another session of bashing him for not being who she wants him to be and flouncing off.

This idea that women can mistreat men and that is fine and that if he doesn't like it he needs to buy her lots of gifts and do whatever she demands to make her feel loved or else he deerves to be abused is sad.

Oh lovely - I am sure you can make it work. Counselling would be fab - and I hope he agrees.

I felt exactly the same as you - that my husband didn’t love me and didn’t want me. We now officially coparent and will divorce at some stage but we had such a frank conversation earlier today in which he said that he just felt unable to tell me how he loved me, that he felt frozen. Thinking back I think it would have helped if I had been calmer and more able to communicate clearly.

your husband loves you and cuddles you - you know deep down that he does love you, but somehow you both have to crack that communication.

you can only control yourself so start by telling him how you plan to make it better from your end (try to avoid lashing out if you can) make sure he knows that you are working on it but don’t demand that he does - he’s got to make that choice for himself

@Freefall212 I’m not saying that - I’m just saying your list was basically putting it all on her and out of context.

@Freefall212 I’m not saying it’s ok to abuse men - no one is!

@TeaKitten i lash out yes, im not on here to paint my self an angel and throw dh under the bus, after all i want honest advice from everyone on here.

As for cheating, its just my opinion, its the first thing you think of and i doubt it very much. I have all his social medi passwords access to his phone amd work laptop (i break my decices alot and use them whenever i need and vice versa even wjen we arent speaking) that doesnt mean he isnt cheating, but he doesnt give me that vibe at all. Intuition i guess.

My list was what she had said she had done. Yes, there is a dynamic at play, there always is - but her actions are a major problem.

You are validating her abuse of someone. Pathetic.

Neither man nor women gets to treat someone the way she is treating him because they don't feel the other person is loving them right.

You 100% have and are. Maybe you also think it is fine for a man to treat a woman the way she is treating him and to lash out in anger at her and do all the things she is doing. I don't know if you think it is just okay to abuse men or you think it is also okay for men to abuse women, but your support of her and her actions and your efforts to defend them as justified shows you absolutely think it is fine to abuse others. Abuse often happens in a difficult dynamic and context with the abuser feeling justified but being hurt doesn't mean you get to abuse others.

@Sunnyfeelgood surprisingly when we do have sex its very passionate and loving. We had an amazing sex life before our problems and even when either of us initiate sex its still amazing. Only problem is we will try to take about things after, agree to start fresh and nothing changes and then starts the new cycle of him ignoring me and me feeling crap.

But he doesn’t talk to you about anything other than kids when he’s away, doesn’t invite you away with him, doesn’t want to go anywhere with you when home, doesn’t like spending time with you… I think your intuition isn’t serving you well here. He may not be cheating but rather than beating yourself down you should be realistic about the possibilities. Yes your actions are wrong but it doesn’t mean he’s blameless either. Do you think he will be open to counselling?