I’ll try not to drop feed so this might be long.
We’ve been married for 5 years – together for 8. Generally we have a great relationship, on the same wavelength – we just clicked from day one.
He’s been married before and has kids with his ex wife, I’ve never wanted kids so it works for us. There is an age gap of 16 years but this has never been a problem. We’re 43 and 59.
I’m self employed and work away a lot during the week – he works full time. We both earn a good salary but I probably bring home three times as much as he does. But as far as I’m concerned it all goes into the same pot and its never been my money and his money.
Anyway, we had a major argument on Saturday that seemed to come out of no where. We were watching the rugby and I was knitting as I normally do. He made a joke comment about his afternoon BJ (note this is a running joke between us) and I said “when I finish this row”. He was initially in a mood after this but wasn’t forthcoming. Refused to get in the hot tub which we normally do etc. Anyway, says he didn’t want any dinner and stormed upstairs.
I hate arguments and don’t believe in going to bed on an argument or letting things lie so I followed him to try to get him to talk about it.
And that’s when it kicked off. Turns out he feels ignored as all I do every minute of the day when I’m home is knit. I will admit its my default when watching TV but I thought it was just something I did whilst being there. Apparently I don’t talk, if I’m watching TV I just listen to it – got told its like he’s living with someone who’s ignoring him constantly. That all I want to do of a weekend when I’m home is sleep, knit and watch TV as an excuse for knitting. He wasn’t sure why I bothered coming home. And he is right, that is pretty much all I’ve wanted to do recently.
Said to me, how would I like it if I came home and he had his head in a book all weekend and everything was "just let me finish this chapter" because it was the same thing.
I think that was the trigger for it but then a whole load of stuff came out. How he is embarrassed by me these days since I’ve put on 6 stone (was already 4 stone overweight) and that whilst he’s losing weight I’m gaining it. Ironically I’ve lost a stone since Christmas. That when we do go out, I’m forever getting into arguments with people and I’m constantly judging people. That I don’t care enough about what I look like and most of the time I’ll go out looking like a bag lady. He is correct on all these points. I’ve always been the same but I think as I’ve turned 40 I care less about what other people think.
In general he does anything for me, is always the one to make sure I’m ok, put my needs before his and make sure I’m ok and I think I’ve taken him for granted. In fact I know I have. Its really easy to waltz in and treat the house like he’s my personal maid and I’m staying in a hotel.
Told me at one point that he wanted nothing more to do with me and that we were finished. That we’d put the house up for sale and I’d get “my fair share”.
Queue lots of crying and shouting. I phone my friend and his sister (who said she knew her brother and he was just being an arse etc etc) and ultimately I was about to go to a hotel to give him space (I Couldn’t be in the same house and do that).
When I was about to go, he said he didn’t know why but he didn’t want me to go but he was sick of trying to tell me. I am on the spectrum so I know I don’t pick up on the normal cues – I do remember him mentioning stuff but I thought he was joking about it. He said that I should have given him space when he went up to bed and not followed him up and backed him into a corner.
So yesterday we to the town where I stay whilst away to spend the night with family – he was going up to visit his family in Scotland until Thursday. When we stopped for a bite to eat he said “he still didn’t know what to do as you can’t just have an argument like that and forget about it”. I pointed out that I can’t go back and wave a wand and undo anything but I’ve taken on board what he said and I didn’t realise it was coming across the way it was.
He’s now on his way to his Sisters. He did tell me he loved me last night (although he added onto it that I’m a pain in the arse) and gave me a cuddle in bed but he’s still being really distant in general.
Part of me is saying to just leave it and give him space and trying to push it will make it worse. But I’m in bits and barely holding it together in work.