Do you ever feel alone in your marriage?

[RollonSeptember2018]

And low on the priority list to their hobbies, interests, friends?

I have a career and friends, but I feel I prioritise my relationship. If my husband said he wanted us to do something, he wanted more of something I would make sure it happens because I love him. It doesn’t feel the same in return.

We have been together over a decade 2 DC, sometimes I just want him to notice me more, when I ask “do I look nice?” I want him to really look at me. I want to feel wanted and desired. I want to feel connected, emotionally, I want him to put his god damn phone down for 5 minutes and have a conversation!

Am I asking too much?

If he had his way he would spend a lot of his free time on his hobbies, with friends and check in for an hour a two a week to say “I love you” and carry on. His biggest gripes in the relationship are when I bring up anything that bothers me. He never actually brings up anything himself which implies he wants to be left alone to do his own thing.

Isn’t that just being single??

I don't know. Do you have any hobbies that you share (e.g. watching sports, fly fishing, blogging, making investments, writing on a book, preparing for a long-haul trip, whatever)?

Yes i was alone but it's only now we have split that my eyes are really being opened. I could have wrote your post. It's an awful feeling.

My DH "couldnt" even say I love you as it made him feel stupid!!

This is near on the post that I wanted to write after a weekend of being left almost totally alone so that DH could do his hobbies all weekend - then, the moment he came home, straight in the shower and then out again to go to the pub with the same friends he'd spent all day with!

We also have the issue where if I need to talk to him about anything that is bothering me, he can't handle it. I also feel not looked at, or wanted or appreciated.

It seems from talking to friends that this is something everyone goes through. But with no real way of getting a solution. There are anger and other issues which we have worked our way through, so in a way this seems a lesser issue, but to me I feel like I'm old before my time, not sexy, not wanted, and just plain on my own.

Emotionally, I am completely on my own as he has no idea how to "handle" emotion; talking, he realised he'd never actually seen his mum cry and deal with issues, it was all just brushed under the carpet.

So I don't really have a solution for you other than to introduce a weekly or alternate weekly date night. I think, to be blunt and crude, once he knows there's something in it for him, he might put his phone down and look at what he's got.

God it really is awful, and my DH is not an emotional person, we just talked on the phone and I couldn’t help blurting how I feel and then crying (which isn’t me at all)

He started by saying sorry he doesn’t want me to feel alone, and then when it doesn’t make me immediately better he gets a bit nasty, says unkind things, calls me names etc. It’s the same script every time, he turns everything so it’s my fault, he can never be wrong.

The irony is he loves to put pictures of us on Facebook/Instagram so everyone thinks we have a great relationship. People don’t know I spent two hours crying last night while he was fast asleep.

DH also follows the pattern of being nasty to me when I am talking about things that upset me. I have had to teach him (because he has had no such input from his parents, or every day life!) the difference between a conversation and a confrontation. If am telling him that something makes me upset, I am saying that I am upset by that something, not by HIM himself - it's important that he gets this distinct in his head.

But nine times out of ten he'll purposefully make me cry by being nasty so as to not have to listen to the conversation, and allow him to stomp off - I can then only presume he sees my crying as being my fault, not his. It's absolutely exhausting and I know he has to have some form of autism, I know his is dyslexic and is a whirlpool of frustration.

The only way I can get through it is by being strong, and trying not to cry, so shutting my emotions down; I'll say "you're not going to end or make a difference to this conversation by making me cry, it doesn't change the facts, this is the issue"...and then just keep trying. It's exhausting and very frustrating that he cannot communicate, and the nastiness is just plain cruel.

Why can't life just be simple?

If I so much as mentioned the fact that my family lived far away (not even that I missed them, just the fact), my ex would be angry with me for "making him feel guilty", as we lived in his country. I didn't move there to be with him and never suggested anything was his fault; that was entirely his interpretation. All I wanted was to occasionally talk about my family, and sometimes recogition that the distance could be hard on me.

Do you reckon your husband gets angry with you because he knows he's neglecting you, can't be arsed not to but doesn't want to be "made to feel guilty" like my ex?

Calling you names is not on, do you know that?

I was very much alone in my marriage. During the last few years l didn't feel loved, wanted or appreciated.

If l tried to say how l felt he would get angry and say "you know where the door is".

Every evening he was out running/biking. Every Saturday and Sunday till 1.30pm he was out doing the same.

We had no marriage, no relationship so it didn't come as a huge surprise when he left me for the OW - a fellow runner/biker.

He is now living the dream of EOW of having the children and being a single man inbetween.

As for me - nothing has changed except l don't have another person to pick up after and l now get "time off" when the boys go to their Dad.

I haven't met anyone else and l can't really see how l will but I'm not that bothered.

I'm not walking on egg shells anymore in my own home, I'm not having to work family days out around his exercise schedule. I'm not trying to think up things to tell him just so we have a conversation.

In our house everything works around the tides as DH is mad on fishing and sailing, it's his de-stress from our business; yes, fair enough, but we work round that by making his plans in advance, and then planning in date nights etc or even just a long walk somewhere, quality time, so that we aren't getting angry about him being out of the house. But sometimes, like this weekend, that comes unstuck as we were childfree and so I was completely on my own, sometimes this is great but this weekend I just felt lonely and unwanted.

So I guess what I mean is that we make our expectations clear in advance - but, in terms of the emotional stuff, when i'm upset, he needs to listen to why, help me find a solution, and realise that actually, I'm not being a bitch, I just need a hug and to be told it's going to be ok! And yes he did need this read out to him too!

Thank you all for sharing, your comments just make me feel even more like sometimes men and women speak a different language.

If the person I loved told me they felt a certain way I would care, if he said "I want more hand holding in this relationship" or "I want us to watch our wedding video every anniversary" or "when we are at a party or gathering I wish we spent a bit more time together as a couple"

It would happen!!!!!

Argghhhhh I'm not asking for much am I? I just want to know he gives a shit and I'm not just someone to help pay the bills to share childcare and housework with.

He gets everything he asks for.

You are being taken for granted. I am not sure you can make somebody care, so you either have to accept that is the way he is and how your marriage will be (too hard I would imagine), set him an ultimatum and leave the marriage if he carries on as he is, find somebody else to give you the attention, or just leave now and make a new start and a new life. He is emotionally disengaged, sounds like an immature waste of time. You are doing all the running, putting all the effort in. For what?

I suppose to keep the family together, for the embarrassment of telling everyone that we have split up, for looking like a failure that can't keep her husband.

I think the bottom line is you need to move on but I appreciate it isn't that simple.

I felt like this for several years after dc were born. His life carried on unchanged really but mine turned upside down. Suddenly his work, hobbies and social life were important but we weren't. He was never home. I talked and cried and negotiated but nothing changed. It nearly destroyed me. Self esteem in bits. I left. Best thing I ever did. Being alone in a marriage is 10 x worse than just being alone.

How did you get the strength to leave?

Knowing my husband and how an argument can turn nasty im actually scared how a divorce could turn nasty. He wouldn't move out, so I would be in the spare room. Then what? Two years of saving and sorting finances? Whilst ignoring each other over breakfast, how do you do it?