I just need to get this out of my head somewhere. I am currently on the waiting list for face to face psychotherapy when restrictions ease about something different all together but this needs to be added.
I am having relationship difficulties with my husband. It all sparked off when I found out he had secretly been watching porn (nothing hardcore) but I realised he had crossed a boundary I didn't like. So, he agreed not to do it again - he was watching it so he didn't have to bother me he says - so doing me a favour. The problem is my trust then evaporated and so did my respect for him. I had not made the connection with a problematic libido and the peri. I also had a young dc at the time and put it down to tiredness. It wouldn't bother many women but it really did bother me, also the secrecy aspect. As soon as intimacy waned then any emotional support for me did too. I was faced with a health scare and had to ask my husband to hold my hand because I felt frightened. It turned out okay but I find it depressing that I had to ask for comfort and depressing how once intimacy stopped everything else did too - affection/emotional support etc. We have been together for 20 years or so and I expected our relationship to be based on more but perhaps I am expecting too much.
Now I'm recalling some other things he has said to me in the past which I put down to his security and just brushed off. I'm finding it hard to now. He told me that if I ever thought of leaving, he would quit his job, move abroad and not pay maintenance (I am a sahm). Another time we must have had a row about something or other and I said something about the children staying with me because I am their mother and he said he would tell the authorities I couldn't cope (I've had a history of anxiety due to a traumatic upbringing and suffered horrible pnd twice...I have no other family, so no other support and to be fair husband has always supported me with the children). But it is not true I have been a sahm and I have taken care of them - one dc has challenging behaviour but this seems to be improving. There have been one or two other things, I don't want to even write at the moment but will tell my therapist.
I'm trying to work out whether the perimenopause is exacerbating everything or whether in actual fact I am seeing things more clearly. I am not going to make any major decisions but in my head I seem to be working on an exit plan (in years not months.) I don't trust myself, I don't trust that because of peri. I am not thinking straight.