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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

don't what to do / long

10 replies

CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 18:50

I have posted before although very vaguely. I was reading some other threads and realized how bad I am. I think I may qualify now as an abuser. Sad I withhold affection, completely, and distance myself a lot from H. However, there is a lot of past. We have only been married a year but have been together nearly ten. 2 young DCs.

When we were younger, he talked to several girls about sex... I have no proof he ever met / did anything but have caught him several times in inappropriate conversations online/text. He swears he has stopped. I don't care enough to check anymore. Unfortunately, in my distancing I talked to an old friend of mine inappropriately (we were already having problems- serious ones), and he was hacking into my accounts and read everything (never done anything before this... nor since not that it matters - i am now just as bad).

I have said no sex, but he is still VERY touchy and if I do not respond back he, for lack of a better term, has a tantrum - stomps off to bed, etc. He says he isn't trying to have sex but what he was doing I don't see how it could be considered anything else. I do NOT feel attracted to him, at all. I had talked to him several times before saying no sex, lets focus on being friends, etc lets fix us, and never has he went more than 3 or so weeks without trying it - I am now at the point I can't see myself ever wanting to be intimate again with him.

We rarely talk anymore, I do not feel close to him and I am getting increasingly paranoid. He thinks this paranoia is because I am 'up to something' (and everyone here would agree - the way I act 'says' that, but I am not- well, I am, in the way that I said I deleted some accounts but still talk to close friends - I don't tell him because I am pretty sure he is 'watching' or checking up on me. I am doing nothing like cheating, though).

I feel so stupid because we just got married, and I should have realized there were BIG problems before; because we have two young DCs, I am in school and making almost no money (am across the pond) and want to do a further degree to make sure I am financially stable. People who are not close to us think we are perfect. I feel like I am living a lie but am ashamed to have just been married, etc.

Sorru this is so long. I do not know what i am asking, I just feel lost. I am fine when he is not around but it is tense, and will be especially since I 'refused to be close' to him again last night, and this will continue until he gets so worked up he 'talks' to me about it, at which point he will think we are perfect (?!?!) again - and back to the cycle. I am so worn out. In the middle of a lease and cannot go anywhere until Feb, and still just feel so stupid that I got married. I am starting to wonder if it is me. It probably is, but I don't know how to change, or if I can for this relationship or how to for the future.

OP posts:
CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 18:54

Obviously, there are other issues also leading up to this - not just the one thing, but I couldn't possibly list them all in 1 post.

OP posts:
ImperialBlether · 17/07/2012 19:09

I would be very upset if I was married and my husband categorically said "No sex." Nobody gets married hoping they'll just be friends. In fact, I would want to leave the marriage if my husband said that.

You seem to be as bad as he is regarding other friends. Is the difference that his interest with them was sexual whereas yours is emotional?

I'm sorry, but it sounds a really unhealthy marriage to me.

ImperialBlether · 17/07/2012 19:09

And please don't stay with him just so that you can gain higher qualifications. That's just using him.

CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 19:16

I am as bad. Sad His happened repeatedly with many different people in the past, spanning several years (never the same person - just seemingly randomly over several years and nothing long term that I know of) - mine happened very recently after we were already having serious problems, and only once is the only difference. I KNOW I did nothing, also. I KNOW he asked to meet up with people but have no way of knowing if he did. He lies, a lot. He lies to random people on the street about stupid stuff and I find I don't even believe anything he says anymore because I can't tell when he is lying. He has only ever admitted to what I have had hard proof for.

I tried to have sex for awhile with him even if I didn't feel like it but it has led me to feel 'dirty' so I have had to, for my mental health, say no. Our relationship was not good and I felt like it was all very fake. He didn't even look at me sometimes during sex, and I always felt horrible after. Originally, I wanted to work on us, but we aren't.

Like I said, there is a lot of other backstory. For a very very long time, I was the one who was always there for him and he wanted a little more space and it has just completely flipped. We moved thousands of miles from where I lived and I have felt alone ever since, have felt unsupported since having DC2 and had PIL problems (to an extreme) - which are now 'ok' but it all just means we have always had some type of 'problem'.

OP posts:
CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 19:17

I am not staying with him to get higher quals. My problem with this is that I will have to move in the near future and he has threatened that he would keep the kids (and I would need help to have them, anyway) and would refuse to move (even though he says he hates it here, too) and I wouldn't be able to be near them.

OP posts:
CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 19:18

He is basically saying "stay and I'll go, don't and I get the kids and I will do everything in my power to make sure this is true and if you try to fight me we will have a very bad relationship where I won't trust you" [his parents are divorced and this is how he sees it has to happen]

OP posts:
Offred · 17/07/2012 19:25

That's harsh imperial. I would not expect to be pestered for sex when I had said I didn't want it. If I did not want sex with someone for any reason I would expect even my husband to respect that. What the op asked for was to rebuild the relationship again from the roots and he has not respected that and instead pestered and alienated her. I don't think she is as bad with the friends either, he has, by the sound of it been deliberately seeking inappropriate relationships over a long period of time, she had one friendship which crossed into the inappropriate recently.

Op, I would step away from the friendship which has overstepped the boundaries, it wont help.

Really you know what you have to do. If you don't want to make it work anymore and nothing you have tried is making the relationship work then at some point you will have to leave. You sound pretty desperate Sad it really doesn't matter that you only married a year ago, the people who love you will understand.

Offred · 17/07/2012 19:28

Get some legal advice, don't take him at his word that he will "get the kids" as though they are some trophy/weapon. That attitude won't do him or them any good.

CliffBarnsby · 17/07/2012 23:15

Thank you. I know he has no 'right' to the children but seeing as I have no money and a poorly paid (but lots of responsibility!) job means that I couldn't afford to even fight it. I literally don't even make enough to pay for rent and would have to live off student loans just to live never mind anything else. I do not know about aid out here, but I do know just for instance, that there are families with children who qualify for aid, but do not get it because there is not enough allotted. It scares me, because to get aid I would have to move first to prove need, with no guarantee I would actually get it. Unless I am really misunderstanding it all.

OP posts:
Offred · 18/07/2012 12:52

Are you from the uk?

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