Hello everyone,
I am new to these forums; just joined today. I am dealing with a complicated marriage and I just wondered if anyone had thoughts on this situation:
First of all, a bit about me: I'm a 34-year-old female, married six years, no kids. My husband is 40 years old.
We met on a blind date set up by a mutual friend; we both worked in similiar professions in neighboring towns. We talked for hours on our first date, and at the end of it, he gave me a pink rose. For the next month or so, he sent flowers to my office every week. Sounds like quite the charmer, right?
After only 2 months, he proposed. I accepted but said I thought we should wait a year. It was a very 'whirlwind' romance, obviously. He had no objection, so we got to know each other better in that year and then married in 2006.
I should have known something was 'off' on the night of our wedding: A bit of an unusual twist to this story is we are both virgins when we married with virtually zero sexual experience with anyone else, not necessarily by choice, but because we were both loners who simply hadn't met people we felt were worthy up until that point. While I had a rather *ahem* active solo life in that regard, I found out he had never even pleasured himself in all the years before he met me (I don't know if this makes a difference, but he grew up in a conservative Catholic family).
Anyway, the night of our wedding was the first time we had been overtly sexual with one another and it didn't go well. It was awkward to the point of being comical, almost, except...it wasn't. I couldn't relax enough to let him in, and he got upset and threw the condom across the room and yelled at me, and made me cry. Then he stomped out of the room.
This set the tone for the next four years (yes, you read that right). We tried and tried to consumate our marriage, but I just couldn't relax enough. This was followed by more yelling at me and huffy exits of the bedroom, where he would go to another room and sulk. Sometimes I would follow him after awhile and find him sitting in the dark, pulling at his hair, sighing loudly and clenching his fists and gritting his teeth. He would tell me that sometimes he felt like we weren't even married, because married couples have sex. He said I was lucky he wasn't a jerk like other guys would doubtless be in the same situation, and that I was lucky that he chose to stay with me.
Finally, after four long years, we achieved having sex. This was followed immediately by his asking me if I wanted to try for a baby. I said I wasn't ready. He got mad again, saying he was getting older and he didn't want to be an 'old dad'. It's long been his dream to have children.
I have long had anxieties about being pregnant and giving birth (the physical aspects of this). I knew this at the time we married (he did, too) but I figured I could at least try for one biological child. Well, in light of all the problems we had been having, I began to worry about so permanently tying myself to my husband; I mean, he treated me with disrespect when I didn't do what he wanted, so why wouldn't he treat a child the same way? I confronted him with that and of course, he's all, "I would never yell at a child". Sure. Also, why is it ok you emotionally manipulate and upset your own wife, anyway?
This kind of behavior is something only I see, by the way. His family thinks he's virtually a saint. He's very agreeable and friendly in public: The kind of guy who gets labeled as 'nice' --he opens doors for old ladies, is all "please" and "thank you", and treats his parents like gold.
After the baby issue became an issue, we started going to counseling. During that, I decided that I simply couldn't handle, mentally and also physically, the reality of getting pregnant and giving birth (this could be in part because I was a preemie baby and barely survived and heard the story a lot growing up; I also have generalized anxiety and panic attacks, and it has centered on that issue). Obviously, this broke my husband's heart. I am not anti-parent, and said I'd gladly consider adoption, but his response was that it was selfish for couples who are, as far as they know, fertile (because of course there aren't enough adoptable children to go around). In the months since that statement, he's coming around a bit to the idea, but is also worried about the expense (we're not well off by any means). He keeps asking me, 'You're not going to change your mind on this, too, are you?' even though I was the one who brought it up first.
Also, last summer, we were on a vacation with the entirety of his family on an island for a week. During this time, his dad and I were alone in a room; he was napping, I was on my computer. He woke up from his nap, looked at me like I was an alien, and asked me point-blank if I was having sex with his son. He said that my husband wanted children and it had been 3-4 years since we had mentioned anything about kids in front of them. He said I made his son "very unhappy". When I mentioned fears about being pregnant, he said, 'Get over it." Then he left the room.
My husband found me crying my eyes out upstairs, and I told him what happened. He then went to confront his dad. He was gone for hours, came back said he had confronted him and that his dad was sorry and said, among other things, "I don't deserve to be a dad!" (This guy is 74 years old and father to five grown children). So, of course, the first thing my husband asks me, is, do I want to leave him? (I said, "I sure feel like it right now, but we can't because we're on an island!' and the second thing he asked is if I could ever forgive his parents. The gall! They had basically just reduced my humanity to my reproductive organs, and my husband expected I would just brush it off! I told him it might take a long time. Thankfully, the next day was the last day there. My husband's father came out to the car as we were ready to leave, and looked ashen. He said, "I'm sorry about what I said, and I hope you can forgive me and we can work through this." I nodded briefly and we left, and had a long, tense, 6-hour drive back home.
Since then (it's been close to a year ago) we've developed a civil relationship, though they never really did anything to express their sorrow beyond talking to their son on the phone and asking how I was, if I was still upset with them, if they could ever come visit us, etc. It still hurts me that they seem to see me as a womb and nothing else, though. I think part of that might be due to their religious beliefs: Women and wives are supposed to have children if they are married. I was raised Methodist and such thoughts were not explicity described in my religious upbringing. My parents never get after me, asking about grandkids (my sister has two kids, as it is). They said that it's my decision and they would respect whatever that decision is.
So, lately, my husband is blaming my parents (and my mom in particular) in telling me my own birth story over the years which created anxiety about it in my head. He only grugingly comes to my family events, though he decided that we needed to go his parents' place two-and-a-half hours away over Thanksgiving even though everyone there was coming down with the stomach flu! When we were on the road heading there and I worried out loud about getting the flu, he slammed on the breaks and pulled over the shoulder, asking me in a slightly threatening voice if I wanted him to just go home, then. I said, 'No, no, we can go ahead" and so we did; he was pissed at me and kept speeding up and speeding up, his mouth set in a grim line and his hands gripping the wheel, and then he'd slow back down to the speed limit again. We went, everyone felt horrible, we came back and both got sick with the flu. He realized then that it was a mistake for us to have gone and apologized for insisting.
Flash-forward to yesterday, Mother's Day. Since my parents only live about a half-hour from us, and since they invited us to a cookout, I said, 'Sure!' and was excited about attending. My husband, though, bitched and moaned, saying that Sunday nights were the nights he liked to be at home with me, because he had a busy week ahead and wanted to relax. I said I understood that; even my parents feel the same way about Sunday nights, but it's not like we go over to cookouts at my parents' place every week; Mother's Day is special. I said I would really like it if he joined me. He raised his voice and said, "I'm tired of caving!!!!!' I asked him what he meant by that but he didn't elaborate. The next day (Sunday) he agreed to go with me, and we had a good time (or at least I did; he played with my nephews, who love him and consider him their favorite uncle).
This morning, we were talking about the frequency with which we make love, which is currently 2-3 times a week, which I think is pretty normal. I asked him that if there was ever a night we had planned to do it when, for whatever reason, I wasn't in the mood, if would could do it the following night instead. That got him riled up; he slammed his fists into his lap in frustration and yelled, "Damn it! I do so much for you!!!' I asked him what one had to do with the other. He said, "Nothing, except that I pay most of the bills and I get stressed a lot and feel a lot of pressure on me." I said, 'Well, do you want me to leave; then you won't have to worry about paying for me on the insurance." He said, 'No, no...I just get stressed out sometimes." By this time, I was crying, and he apologized, saying he didn't want to make me cry. He said he had gotten upset about my comments because he was worried that one day without sex would turn into two days would turn into a month and etc., and we'd be back right where we were for the first four years of our marriage. I told him it's simply a matter of doing it the next night and that, even going through what we went through four years ago, that I wasn't doing it simply to toy with him or piss him off: I was having genuine emotional and physical problems.
So, this is where things stand right now. I'm so tired. I'm tired of always feeling 'wrong' all of the time. I've begun to realize that we are both dependent one each other and seem to bring out the worst in each other. Despite his saying otherwise, I do really think my husband sees me as a 'wife' in the same way his dad seems to view women: A collection of body parts designed to gratify him and give him children, full stop. I could be any woman, if that's all he wants.
I guess I just needed to vent and I wonder if anyone has gone through something similar. I know I do have my own problems, but my husband often acts like an entitled child and rages, sulks and/or pouts when I upset him in some way. I feel like he can't ever put himself in my shoes and consider my feelings.
