So confused and worried about my marriage - long

[ThistlePetal]

First ever post after lurking for some weeks. I?m so confused about my marriage and desperately need to work out if I need to end it. Sorry, this is long.

I?ve been married for nearly 13 years and we have 2 DC, 11 and 9. DH has always worked away from home for 2 weeks at a time, home for 2 weeks, I work part time. He is a quiet soul, quite unemotional, but very reliable. I am quite sociable, always up for a laugh or a new challenge, loads of friends, but I do suffer with low self esteem. I have always struggled with my relationship with my mother, and have explored this several times through counselling and bodytalk, and thought I had come to terms with it, although a recent bodytalk session revealed that I have not. I?m currently trying to take a step back from her so that I can?t hear her criticisms of me or my DD. From reading others? posts, I?m guessing that she is a narc.

Since having children I struggled to adapt from being home alone with the DC for 2 weeks, to having DH home. I had undiagnosed PND with DS, our eldest. Our family routine seems so much more settled when he?s not here, because it has to be, and it all seems to go to pot when he is home. I find myself being really grumpy when he?s home, short with him and short with the kids, and full of self loathing because of it. I also tend to organise things to do with my friends when he is home and available to stay home with the kids (weekends away, nights out etc), and have always justified this to myself and to him as my reward for being home alone with the kids for long periods of time. I truly thought my grumpiness was just an effect of his unusual working pattern, but since the end of last year DH has been working in an office-based job which means he is home every weekend and sometimes midweek too. Things have got far worse.

I?m now grumpy almost all of the time, to the point where I can?t even look at him without being sharp and critical, and don?t want to speak to him when he phones home. Because he is not home for any decent stretch of time, there are piles of jobs around the house that need doing, he spends any spare time he has on his laptop. I feel more lonely when he is home than when he is away, because he makes little effort to spend time with us as a family or me as a couple, and lets me sort out every aspect of our lives ? social events, holidays etc. He has also recently become even more withdrawn when we do socialise, so I end up doing all the talking all evening. And to be frank, social invitations have started to dry up. He tells me that the kids and both sides of our family think I go out too much and spend too much time with my best friend. He is right about that, my bf has a similarly unsatisfactory home life with an uncommunicative husband and we have come to rely on each other more and more over the last 6 years for emotional support and companionship.

I also have to admit here that I have been having an EA over the last 5 months. I didn?t go looking for it and I resisted for several weeks before being swept up by the flattery and excitement. I see it now for what it was ? and how close I came to making an even bigger mess of things. I have cut contact now (again, thanks to the great advice and support given to other posters on here) but I am missing the attention: I?m guessing only time will help with that, and with the huge guilt I am now feeling about it. 6 months ago I would NEVER have thought I'd have an EA or any other type of affair, and I am continually going over what changed to make me think that it was acceptable to do so. So quite a bit of self-hatred there now too.

About 4 weeks ago DH and I had a huge row about how our relationship had turned out, which ended with me saying that I couldn?t see me living like this for another 5, 10 or 20 years. I can see he is now trying to put some things right, he has opened up to me in a way that he has never done before about how he feels about me, and has been spending much more time with the kids and doing things around the house. He told me that he would do anything to keep me and couldn?t bear it if we split up, and that he might need to move away if we do as he couldn?t bear to see me driving past. I have asked him to give me a bit of space to process my feelings and decide what I really want to do here, but he has been continually pushing me to share my feelings, and he clearly just wants things ?fixed?.

Sadly, and terrifyingly, I am finding this sea change completely overbearing ? and I can?t help feeling resentment that it has taken him for me to threaten leaving for him to start being a more active DH and family member. Outwardly, to him, I haven?t shed a tear, I have only spoken calmly and clearly about my need to process my feelings. But I have been sobbing on my own or with friends for the past few weeks, every day. I should be grateful that he has seen a need to make improvements and I should be making changes too - but I can't seem to find the motivation. It's almost as if I'm letting my marriage slip away, as he has said that he won't wait indefinitely for me to work out my feelings. It is his quietness and lack of emotion that is causing me most distress for the future ? and I am wondering that if my mum hadn?t brought me up to make me feel quite so worthless, I would have seen 14 years ago that this aspect of his personality was never going to measure up for me. But I can?t tell him that because it is such an attack on his personality, and he doesn?t deserve that. And I should be focussing on what we've got and what we can build on - but instead I'm feeling not much at all except negativity.

I haven?t mentioned our DC much at all here ? but their happiness is a priority for us both. DS knows there are problems and is clearly stressed about the fact that we are not getting on. DD is not articulating it, but her behaviour has changed lately and I am sure it's because of us. DH is convinced that their happiness lies in us staying together. I am not convinced that I can be happy within our marriage, and that therefore their happiness may lie in having their parents living separately.

If you read this far ? thank you so much. I?d so appreciate your views on our situation.

Sorry, no idea why all my apostrophes changed to question marks....

Sounds like its too little too late here.

Why not go for a separation and attend coucilling together whilst separated to either end it or help you progress?

Thanks Miss F, we have booked an appointment to see a counsellor together. Can't help feeling that I'm just looking for "permission" to leave, but there's a part of me hoping that it will shine a light on something I've missed and we'll come away with something to work on.

Permission to leave is granted though too OP. An unemotional man is very hard to live with. I did it until I ended up practically hating him.

Good luck.

Sorry you are feeling so down.

Have you spoken to you DH before about not being happy with him working away from home so much? As he always done that since you were married?

Is this the first time you have mentioned it to him and how you feel? I can see how this is difficult for you - you must feel like you are a single mother most of the time but its not fair to blame this if you have never mentioned it before. I'm not making excuses but it is very easy to get a little complacent in a long term relationship and sometimes the other partner simply might not see the impact. That doesn't necessarily make him a bad husband.

Do you still love him, just not the situation? Do you think if he didn;t work away and was able to be home more that might actually be better and you could rekindle your relationship?

Only you can decide, but from your post it sounds like you also have alot of issues going on in your life to work through that are maybe not helping you or your marriage

My own DH is not great on feelings and emotion - certainly not outwardly vocal or expressive, but i 'know' he loves me so i dont need it.

I think you should go for the counselling - i dont see there is much to lose. It might help you decide whether you have anything left to save or give you some strength to leave.

A relationship should make you (broadly) happy

If it isn't, and you see no prospect of it doing so, then it is best to end it while you could still keep it amicable

wfh - Yes, he has always worked away and it has come up time and again in heated discussion - but it is a high paying job and we live in an area of high unemployment where a huge proportion of men have to work away from home. He went office based partly to try to help the situation but it seems to have made it worse.

I don't think he's a bad husband all told - he loves the kids and I know he loves me - but I am so worn down by being the wife and the man in all situations, by having to be the only driving force in the family, and I think I have lost respect for him because he has let me take this lead role. I'm so sad about that, and I just can't bear the thought of feeling like that for the rest of my life.

We will go to counselling though, for exactly the reasons you gave - thank you.

MNs - I agree, and that's really where I think I am coming from at the moment. However the comments like "I'd have to move away from you and the kids because I couldn't bear to see you drive past" are already making me think that he wouldn't do amicable :(. Thank you.

Yes, I think that comment about moving away if you were to split is a very unsubtle warning that he would play dirty

That's not a reason to stay with someone though...quite the converse in actual fact

Anybody that threatened me with emotional blackmail like that would go down a further few rungs in my respect table

2 questions.. What attracted you to him in the first place? Is there a spark you can rekindle? Presumably if he's so worried about you going, he's prepared to invest in working at relighting that spark. What would happen if you were to suggest a 'date' night- just the two of you out to dinner?

Also: what have you got going on in your life while hes away? You don't mention whether you work or not, and it's unclear whether some of your general malaise and dissatisfaction are actually centred on him or with life in general. You said you're sociable and like to do stuff , but I'm thinking more in terms of a job, or study or hobby which really stretches you in a different way?

Hope this doesn't sound like criticism; im just trying to get a feel for how much this is about being unhappy and unmotivated about him, and how much it might be about other issues

Definitely go for counselling. To me it appears that you are really confused about your feelings about your husband. Being quiet and uncomunicative is pretty average for the male, they are never good at articulating their feelings even if superficially chatty. When you made your unhappiness clear to him he responded in a way that makes it clear he cares and that he is willing to try to make some changes, so that it good. I sense given your history with your mother that you may find certain aspects of relationships difficult and a narcissistic parent does not provide a good model. It is also interesting that things became more difficult for you when your husband spent more time near you than when he was working away a lot. Maybe at some level intimacy is scary to you ( from your experience with your mother, perhaps?) so when he is closer it causes you to be anxious and you spend time with your friend as a way to escape from this? This is not at all to criticise you, but just an observation from what you are saying. I would be cautious about separation, given you have children until you have had some counselling and have a better handle on your feelings. Good luck!

If you'd written an OP about your marriage and your feelings for your husband before you had your affair, what would you have said?

You see, in amongst all the context you've given, I've picked up on a few issues.

You started an affair 5 months ago which presumably your husband doesn't know about, since then you have become hyper-critical of him and your kids, your husband and both sides of the family think you spend too much time with a woman who sounds like she could be a corrosive enemy of your marriage. You also say that 'recently' your husband has been quiet and withdrawn at social gatherings. You mention your frustration at the lack of family time together because of his job and yet you say that when he is at home and available to do something as a family, you go out with friends and for weekends away.

You don't say anything about previous attempts on your part to resolve things, but you do say what your husband has done. He changed working pattern last year and is now showing his feelings towards you.

So in the absence of any information to the contrary, I think you lost most of your respect for him after you had your affair - and that this has caused you to be hyper-critical and him to become especially lonely and withdrawn in company. I'm also wondering whether you are re-writing history a bit here and backdating a lot of your grievances to before your affair.

Also, will you be honest in counselling about your affair? If not, it could be a waste of your husband and the therapist's time. It's a pretty significant elephant in the room.

Thanks for all your replies.

MissF I agree re the comment about emotional blackmail, I recognise that's what it was and I also know that he is very stubborn - if I say it's over there will be no way back, but I hope that he would quickly realise that he needs to put the DCs before his own need to disappear.

Janey I do think that my DH wants to rekindle the spark, it's me who is putting up barriers to that at the moment, and if counselling will help me to lower the barriers then maybe we can stay together. I do work part time and have loads of hobbies - one of the reasons we have to come to this point is, I think, because I have made an almost entirely separate life for myself over the years, as has he, and now I'm finding it difficult to let him back in.

Moanranger That's really interesting re intimacy - I suspect that I was fearful of intimacy when I met him, he was "safe" because he wasn't particularly looking for intimacy, and he provided it at a level I was comfortable with at the time. Having worked through some of these issues with my mum, I wonder if I am now looking for more intimacy (or worthy of more intimacy?) and I am assuming that he won't be able to provide it?

Charbon I've noted your responses to others on this forum who are in similar situations and I'm pleased to hear from you. I recognise that I have become more critical of him in the past 5 months and I realise now why that is the case. I also know that I need to get this EA properly out of my head so that I know that my feelings about my marriage are not being coloured by it.

However I have been vocal about my grievances within our marriage for many years. I was the one who asked him to change working pattern, because our son was having difficulties and I thought it might help him. He has changed pattern once in the past (at his company's insistence) and we all enjoyed it. DH was not keen to do it this time but agreed with where I was coming from re DS. It hasn't worked out as well as we hoped this time, and DH feels that this is what is causing the biggest problem in our marriage.

My friend is, I feel, far from being a corrosive enemy to my marriage, someone who has helped me through various ups and downs in my marriage over the years. She has been the non-critical, non-judgemental mother-figure that my mum has never been for me and she has taught me a huge amount about how to deal with my emotions and with family conflict. I think all my family on both sides would agree with me on that, and DH regards her as a good friend too. The issue is with me running away from my family to spend time with her - that's always at my instigation and she always allows me to put my family first (as I do with her). And the fact that I have been doing that for years (at least 6, but more so in the last 2-3 years) makes me sure that my grievances are not new. I am now trying to address them, as I can see the impact it is having on my happiness, DHs happiness, and the DCs happiness.

There's no doubt that DH has become quieter over the last few months, and I know I have emotionally detached from him, and I am ashamed of that. He doesn't know about the EA.

Again, thank you all so much for your balanced and thoughtful replies, this is helping me so much to get my thoughts in some order.

I am hoping that we will both have one to one time with the counsellor, and I will declare it then. I recognise its significance but need guidance on what to do with it.

You seem very self aware and able to reflect on yourself and your relationship, so I imagine counselling could be really useful to you. (hope that doesn't sound patronising - just couldn't think of another way to put it!)

I agree entirely that it would be helpful to discuss your affair with a counsellor on your own before discussing it with your husband. I do think it's very likely that this experience is influencing your feelings about your life and your marriage and has magnified and even possibly created dissatisfactions with your relationship.

You said that your friend has similar problems in her own relationship and so unlike a counsellor who is trained to be objective, she might not actually be the best person to offer support in this situation. If you recognise yourself that you've been 'running away' to her to the exclusion of your husband and family, then you're acknowledging that this relationship, although extremely valuable to you personally, has perhaps assumed too much significance in your life. I'm guessing you've discussed your affair with her? What support has she offered in relation to that?

Thanks for clarifying that you have previously articulated your grievances to your husband, but one of the problems I can see is that as soon as he made big changes i.e. to his working pattern, you started your affair. I'm presuming that there was a build-up of sorts to this other relationship and that you didn't first meet the OM 5 months ago? So was this bubbling away before your husband changed his working pattern? The problem might have been that just at the time when your husband was available to be at home more, you wanted to hide away from him, so whatever he did was always bound to fail.

The affair might be significant, it might not. Only you know whether your relationship was as bad before as it is now; whether it was a symptom of a bad marriage or the cause of it or whether it's more grey in hue than that - a marriage that was neither happy nor unhappy, but is worse now because of the affair. The problem is that it's very hard to get that clarity about your marriage when your feelings are still embroiled in the affair, whether that's feelings for the OM or the ones that it gave you about yourself.

So the most measured advice I can give you is to take your time and get some distance from the affair, before making any final decisions. Assuming you are in no contact at all with the OM, you might feel differently in a few months time and after counselling. But if any contact with this man still exists, you are sabotaging that thinking time and your decision-making process.

BTW, I don't interpret his comment about the pain of seeing you driving around in quite the same way as others. I think this is a normal response to pain and loss. If someone has hurt us and wants to end a relationship against our wishes, it can be painful to see that person more than we have to. He's probably not thinking particularly rationally at the moment, because you will be forever connected by your children. However, it's not unusual for separated parents to have some initial distance between eachother when the hurt is still so raw so I think this is what he was referring to, but from a position of hurt and not clear-sightedness.

Thanks Janey, I've had quite a lot of counselling over the years and work in a profession where self awareness and reflection are encouraged, so I've had a bit of practice :). And I'm very hopeful that counselling will help this time too.

Charbon, my DH changed working pattern last October, the EA started in February after a chance exchange on a social network - I don't think there is a direct link. I knew of the OM before (he is in the public eye locally) but didn't actually meet him in real life until April. But now you mention it, it was around Feb time that my best friend and I started to spend a bit less time with each other because she had problems going on in her own family. I did broach the subject of the EA with her at the very beginning and she told me to consider how I'd feel if the tables were turned. I didn't share any further details with her because I didn't want to burden her with the knowledge, or the need to keep it a secret. No-one else knows either.

I take your point re getting some distance from the EA, and the distinction between feelings for him and feelings it gave me myself - it's definitely the latter that I'm finding most difficult to move on from. I didn't get to know him well enough for the former to be as big a deal. There will be no more contact - I will still see him from afar (i.e. on TV) but there is no reason for our paths to cross at all, and I've deleted all his contact details.

I will definitely be using the time it takes to go through the counselling process to fully consider my feelings and hopefully we can find a way forward.

We went for our first counselling session.... And having had time to reflect on it, I'm even more confused.

DH admitted that he didn't see my attempts over the years to address issues we had as particularly pressing, he didn't think a marriage should need nurturing, or even maintaining. That is how it has felt to me, but to hear him articulate that really hurt, and makes me feel even more angry with myself for not bringing things to a head sooner i.e. years ago. He said he had just assumed that things would get a bit better once the kids were older.

He also said that he'll do anything to make things right. I should be delighted by that, right? But I don't. I feel so unmotivated to do anything to make our relationship better. And I feel very sad about that indeed - what a mess :(.

I'm not looking for any advice here, just needed to write down my feelings really. But I'd be keen to hear from others in a similar position, I can see from this forum that it's really not that rare, sadly. I think I'm still hoping that I'll have a sudden realisation that working on my marriage is absolutely what I need to do for all our sakes, but I'm just not feeling it.

I haven't really begun to work out what will happen if we do separate - practically, financially, or whatever - and we have another 5 sessions to do, so maybe I should complete them before doing any of that anyway.

It is or was unfair of him not to give you time to sort out your feelings.
Has he or will he change his mind on that.You can do without that pressure.In fact,I think that is partly what you need.Time.
Could you go away for a few days/a week,by yourself,to sort out how you feel about everything?

I have asked him time and again to give me space and time, he wasn't dojng that until one of his friends said the same..... Another way in which I feel unheard, which makes me think that things will never be different... Thankfully we will both be busy with work over next couple of weeks (we will both be away at various points) so there is some enforced space. I know he just wants it fixed, but it is just making me close down even more.

Hoping that time will indeed be the great healer! Thanks million :)

he didn't think a marriage should need nurturing, or even maintaining

This isn't an uncommon view. For some it's a question of
find right person - check
marry them - check
have dc - check
while continuing to achieve other ambitions/check other boxes.

It seems to me that a marriage or relationship that's based on deep love and shared values/aims/ambitions will evolve and grow into something profoundly satisfying without need for nurturing or maintaining.

If a relationship ceases to enhance my life or becomes an effort, I end it.

Thanks Izzy, that's an interesting point. I can see that the relationship is not enhancing my life - but I'm so scared that breaking the relationship will damage my kids' lives. And when I think about that, I feel like I should be saying to myself "give him a chance to make changes / put up and shut up / I made my bed, I should lie on it...." Is it just very selfish of me to risk everyone else's happiness for a shot at my own? Or is that just me running away from the truth once again?

Presumably at some point the relationship you considered that the relationship did enhance your life or you wouldn't have married or had dc with him.

What you need to ask youself is when did it stop enhancing your life and why? And you also need to hold a clinically detached post-mortem to determine whether thoughts of the om are clouding your judgement.

If by having a shot at happiness for yourself you mean that you would embark on a quest for another man to shore up your fragile self-esteem with flattery and excitement, you're best advised to embark on a quest in search of yourself before you start risking the happiness of others.

If, on the other hand, staying in this relationship is preventing you from achieving professionally or academically or becoming all that you can be on your own, you'd be justified in ending it now.

But if you've had a tendency to be less than honest with yourself, the chances are that you're currently engaging in a tried and trusted method of running away from the truth.

However, it could be that the truth is that you're not cut out for monogamous and/or long-term relationships, in which case it's unlikely that any replacement will stand the test of time.

There's a saying that 'still rivers run deep' and it could be that your 'unemotional' h has a veritable maelstrom of emotional undercurrents beneath his facade of quietness.

Maybe you're so caught up in yourself you've lost sight of him, the man you once thought you couldn't live without, the unique individual you married, have had dc with, and live with.

Perhaps if you put him to the forefront of your mind and spend time rediscovering him, reacquainting yourself with his take on the world, and giving some consideration to his needs, you might be pleasantly surprised at what you find.

Thank you for that. I am currently doing quite a lot of work on my self, my biggest recent revelation being that I have continued to make choices in my adult life in order to try to gain the approval of my mother. I feel that that is what is making me really question my marriage, as I've done quite a bit of work on letting my mother's influence go.

So, was I honest enough with myself 14 years ago about my reasons for marrying him? I knew at the time that he didn't tick all my boxes - but I felt lucky that he loved me and wanted me.

Clearly I need to process the OM situation. I am tending to think it was more an effect rather than a cause of our unhappy marriage - we have been distant from each other for years and we've almost created separate lives for ourselves, save social events and holidays which I organise for us. The OM certainly wasn't a potential replacement though, and I wasn't looking to be found out. I also know enough about myself to know that I would struggle to start new relationships in real life.

Maybe the guilt of having maybe married for the wrong reasons, and all it's repercussions, plus the guilt re the OM, are what is preventing me from accepting DH's offer to change whatever needs changing to make our marriage better.

You're right - I am very caught up in myself just now.