“Silent marriage crisis” advice needed

[Viki63]

can he even love me the way I want and need to be loved?

I would say not. No one can love us the way we want and need to be loved except God.
My marriage has 3 partners, me, my husband, and Christ. When it gets hard, I do it for Christ. But then we are low key people.

It sounds like he says very supportive things about you, but you just are cynical about them. Maybe try to appreciate what he’s trying to say.
Having survived an abusive marriage, I find it hard to relate to someone who feels that praise “gets old,” and you don’t like his efforts to make you happy.
So I will shut up.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

Another program I loved that was a huge help for my marriage was “The Choice Wine.” See if they are doing anything in your area.

Since he is willing to do anything it sounds like, and you don’t love being a soundboard, establish some parameters there. My husband got to where he was complaining about work for hours each evening and a funk descensed over us. I finally had to point out that I want to be supportive but his rehashing it each day isn’t even helping him it was just making both of us miserable. So we set limits for a while until it got better. 30 minutes of venting about work max.

What was your love language? Your hurt over cancelled plans makes it sound like it could be quality time. Is it possible to go on a vacation together soon? (There’s a do as i say not as I do)

What is his love language? Fake it till you make it is bad advice sexually but not in other acts of showing love. “To serve is to reign” and we find our deepest purpose in service toward others. Maybe if you had the check of a checklist mindset toward him for a while it could reset and rekindle whatever you feel is lost. I say this because it sounds like you aren’t sure what is making you unhappy. He won’t be able to fix that.

 

[Lou2U]

monicad’s answer poses the right question: can he even love me the way I want and need to be loved? I’m leaning towards: no. So would counseling still be helpful?

If you’re leaning towards no, does that indicate to you that there may be some hope he could love you as you want? I think you should try everything you can to get your relationship back on track, so counseling may be a help there. I would hope it would be a wake-up call for him to understand just how you feel. I think the old adage “there are three sides to every story, yours, theirs and the truth” works well here. You and he are seeing diametrically opposite at the minute, and what counseling would hopefully help with would be to get you towards “the truth”.

I have two trains of thought and they sort of contradict each other a bit - obviously I don’t know your relationship so I’m just hypothesising.

The nice way to look at it is that he either can’t understand or doesn’t want to understand your emotional needs, because he feels like he already meets them (buying gifts, acts of service) - and so when you tell him otherwise, he becomes defensive and says you’re ungrateful. It sounds to me like gratitude is very important to him, both showing it and receiving it. It may be that he thinks the best way of “repaying” your support over the years is through praise and material goods and so he genuinely doesn’t see why you would be unhappy. Maybe his defensiveness comes from a place of expecting gratitude from you and not getting it, because for you he ignores your emotional needs. But I do think it suits him to keep the relationship as it is because he gets to carry on as he his - doesn’t need to change at all. Is he often resistant to changes?

It’s really bad he’s working so much he doesn’t take into account your relationship at all. My other train of thought (much more cynical) is that he knows it’s not fair on you, and tries to make up for the time through demonstrating he knows your love languages. But he doesn’t really want it to change so he flip-flops between showering you with praise and calling you ungrateful to keep you in place as his sounding board.

As I say, I don’t know either of you so take this with a liberal amount of salt. It’s just the impression I’m getting from reading your posts. But I would advocate for counseling, perhaps for you both as a couple and for you individually to really get to grips with what you feel needs to be done for your relationship to be fulfilling.

 

[pensmama87]

OP, I have not been married as long as you have, but I’m familiar with the feelings you’re having. I wonder about counseling for yourself, possibly for depression. I mention that because I’ve most commonly (though not exclusively) experienced these feelings when I suffered from postpartum depression.

I think, honestly, that my husband means well, but when we get into this kind of rut I feel like he sees me as a machine and not a person. He greases the squeaky wheel, so what am I sad about? And then he sees expressions of need as accusations of failure on his part, which makes him defensive, so then we argue about whether or not it’s reasonable for me to have the feeling, which is pretty silly because emotions aren’t reasonable.

To some extent, I think this might be a male and female thing, because most of my close female friends have experienced similar treatment. We’re married to very good men, but it seems like our husbands want to just check off a bunch of boxes. If we deviate from the expected happiness level, we can’t expect them to change or try anything new, because they’ve already done the protocol, and don’t all the marriage books say women just want men to listen, not do anything? (I get that one a lot. )

(Of course, what’s tricky is that women are changing, all the time, to an extent that men don’t. Or when entering perimenopause or menopause. This is probably a big part of why men find women so unfathomable. )

I think it’s worth seeing what you can do on your own, but also it might be worth it to express to your husband, “I feel really disconnected and like we’re just going through the motions. Can we try something different? The old stuff isn’t helping, even though I know it used to.”

 

[Cruciferi]

It sounds like you should lay down some boundaries regarding work time not invading family time. Is it possible for him to cut back on hours/flexitime/find a different job?

A college professor of mine told the entire class, “During your career, don’t bring the work home. Your marriage and family will suffer for it”.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Have to disagree here. There is no way I want my husband to cut me out of the part of his life where he spends the most waking hours. Same for me, back when I had a “fancy career” and DH was staying at home dad, he was there for me every evening. I’d find my comfy t shirt and yoga pants/shorts laid out on the bed so I could change. He would then have a glass of wine or a cocktail or a cup of hot cocoa waiting for me. We would sit and talk for about an hour. I’d talk about my day, he will fill me in on the day with the kiddo. The boy would sometimes sit and talk with us, sometimes be off playing in the neighborhood.

Then, we would all sit down to dinner. Dinner talk was just regular talk, about news or a book or whatever. I was able to shed the cares of the day BECAUSE I could unwind the work day with my spouse.

Our spouse is our best friend. While we don’t want to get mad at our spouse because we are mad at work, cutting ones spouse off from a huge part of your life is never a good idea.

 

[Cruciferi]

My professor was warning against continuing your work at home. It’s one thing to talk about your day; however, it’s another to not spend time with your family.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Not everyone has that luxury. For the past 30 years I have been “on call” in one way or another. I have had to work Christmas, work from a hospital bed, work from my blackberry in the moments before a family wedding.

Back in the day, when a customer had an outage it was my job to get on the computer/phone and work that outage.

Today I work for a parish. When a parishioner calls me at home and they need something, I help them with it.

Most jobs that pay a solid middle class income, jobs that will support a family and allow one parent to stay home will require working when the work is needed. Same for small business owners, they will basically never have a “day off”.

People can work at home AND spend time with the family. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Things seem great in a classroom, in the real world, if you want clock in/clock out your career path and earning potential is limited.

 

[Cruciferi]

Most jobs that pay a solid middle class income, jobs that will support a family and allow one parent to stay home will require working when the work is needed. Same for small business owners, they will basically never have a “day off”.

This will not work for everyone and should be discussed prior to marriage. A friend of mine bought a pizza business and he was not prepared for working that much! Time will tell if he can balance the business and family.

People can work at home AND spend time with the family. The two are not mutually exclusive.

They can but there’s a point where it can become excessive and not everyone can manage that balancing act.

Things seem great in a classroom, in the real world, if you want clock in/clock out your career path and earning potential is limited.

Oh spare me! You can make a great living clocking in and out. Your assertion is absurd.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

I love your description of unwinding with your spouse. It inspires me to re-evaluate what kind of greetings I really provide when he gets home. Still, your beautiful loving scenario is not the only thing people’s unwinding can look like. Some people are toxic venters and have to be broken of the habit before positive unwinding habits can take place. It is hard to tell what situation the OP has going on from her post, but I love that we all bring our own experiences to help.

 

[Cruciferi]

Some people are toxic venters and have to be broken of the habit before positive unwinding habits can take place.

Exactly. I work with a few of those people. I find them annoying but they do occasionally have good points when they vent. Thankfully, I need not live with them!

 

[Xantippe]

Yes he says he loves me and that he couldn’t have married a more amazing woman, but if we have a plan and a client calls, guess who ends up on the back burner.

When he has deadlines he can work through the night, through the weekend and then he promises to take time off to spend with us, which he does, but then, he obviously, ends up spending most of that time sleeping.

It sounds like appropriate boundaries between work and family is a subject you guys need to hash out.

There are a lot of us who need to suck it up for particular times. For example, my husband is a professor, so when he was in the process of qualifying for tenure, he needed to floor it for about 5 years so that he could get job security, which means that he now has a lot more flexibility than he used to.

I think you need to have a formal meeting with your husband and present this problem to your husband (that you feel like you’re last on his list) and ask some questions:

1. What are the next five years going to be like? Does he have obligations that are going to let up at some point?
2. Are there times or seasons when he is more available? (For example, in my family, my husband is busier at the end of each term, but freer during the summer and winter break.) Plan to do more when he’s freer.
3. Is your husband delegating appropriately?
4. Does he have appropriate boundaries with clients? If your client calls at 6 PM on a Friday, is it really reasonable for the client to expect the work to be done by 8AM Saturday? (I do some editing, and while my employer does drop a lot of projects in my lap with no notice, our understanding is that I get the projects done within 72 hours–these are projects that take one solid working day to finish.) Of course, there are genuine emergencies, but your husband needs to start working harder at discerning whether or not these situations are emergencies, setting boundaries with clients, and planning the work more effectively.
5. Figure out a rule for which planned couple events need to trump routine work and how often work events get to trump couple events. For example if you guys are going out once a week, getting a date cancelled once a month is not a big deal–but if you’re going out once a month–it’s a huge big deal. Also, are family special events getting appropriate respect? (Anniversaries, birthdays, etc.)
6. It sounds like your husband says the right things, but I think you need to point out to him that actions speak louder than words. If he gushes over you but cancels dinner with you repeatedly–that says something.
7. When he cancels, make sure that he reschedules immediately.
8. Is he using time appropriately, or is he pulling all-nighters like a disorganized college kid?

One more thing, I think you might want to read this book:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/is-it-you-me-or-adult-add-pera/1100527112?ean=9780981548708#/

It’s about adult ADHD. Workaholism is apparently not uncommon among people with adult ADHD, as some of them find work and deadlines and pressure stimulating in a way that their families aren’t.

 

[Xantippe]

The nice way to look at it is that he either can’t understand or doesn’t want to understand your emotional needs, because he feels like he already meets them (buying gifts, acts of service) - and so when you tell him otherwise, he becomes defensive and says you’re ungrateful. It sounds to me like gratitude is very important to him, both showing it and receiving it. It may be that he thinks the best way of “repaying” your support over the years is through praise and material goods and so he genuinely doesn’t see why you would be unhappy. Maybe his defensiveness comes from a place of expecting gratitude from you and not getting it, because for you he ignores your emotional needs. But I do think it suits him to keep the relationship as it is because he gets to carry on as he his - doesn’t need to change at all. Is he often resistant to changes?

It’s really bad he’s working so much he doesn’t take into account your relationship at all. My other train of thought (much more cynical) is that he knows it’s not fair on you, and tries to make up for the time through demonstrating he knows your love languages. But he doesn’t really want it to change so he flip-flops between showering you with praise and calling you ungrateful to keep you in place as his sounding board.

It sounds like one of the OP’s main love languages is quality time, and that her husband is striking out badly in that area.

 

[Xantippe]

Same for small business owners, they will basically never have a “day off”.

I’m from an entrepreneurial extended family, and I’d say that if you are a small business person, you need to figure out how to give yourself an appropriate number of days off or you’ll burn out/wreck your marriage/alienate your kids.

Now that my parents are older, they manage to get to church on Sunday (they used to miss an embarrassing number of days) and to take a 10-day trip to the southwest in the winter. They do some work stuff on the SW trip, but it’s at least 50% leisure.

Also, my sis owns several businesses. She pops in and out, but there are large stretches of the year where she is managing the businesses remotely (they’re several hours away from her main home base). She can do that because she has a core group of trusted long-term employees.

 

[Cruciferi]

It sounds like appropriate boundaries between work and family is a subject you guys need to hash out.

Target Acquired!

For example, my husband is a professor, so when he was in the process of qualifying for tenure, he needed to floor it for about 5 years so that he could get job security, which means that he now has a lot more flexibility than he used to.

Sometimes you gotta bite the bullet

It sounds like one of the OP’s main love languages is quality time, and that her husband is striking out badly in that area.

My mother is like that. She MUST have coffee with my father before he goes to work!

Also, my sis owns several businesses. She pops in and out, but there are large stretches of the year where she is managing the businesses remotely (they’re several hours away from her main home base). She can do that because she has a core group of trusted long-term employees.

That’s something my friend better learn!

 

[BlueMantle]

I could have written much of what you said here. H travels for business. Our marriage has become emotionless and stale specifically because I’ve stop talking about my feelings and trying to have an emotional connection.

Our phone calls and texts while he’s away are dry and perfunctory. He talks about work all the time. When he’s not traveling he works from home and we are often interrupted due to phone calls. He has repeatedly suggested I tag along on a business trip here or there … but I’ve had plenty of experience with him not being around, or being on the phone to know that a tag-a-long business trip just isn’t worth it. (Plus we’d have to pay additional for all my expenses and I’d be spending most of each day, likely 8 hours or more, by myself).

What has really disappointed me is that like your H, my H seems like he has no need for the “real me.” I’m just filling the space as “the wife” and he also has told me I meet all his needs, but I feel like I’m supposed to be a robot.

I’ve been a housewife and mother for over 27 years. The kids are grown up and we have the empty nest but without much in the way of real time to spend together. My H tells me I need to go out and get a “passion” in my life. I guess if I had more to do I wouldn’t care about our lack of emotional connection. I’m kind of stuck because we live in a very small town, rural, and there is just nothing around that I want to do. I also haven’t had a job in all those years so other than liquor store clerk or fast food … there’s not much in the job department.

I am depressed. I know that. My sense of self and autonomy has been reduced a lot in the last few years. My son married and had a child and moved away and I am missing out on being a grandmother too and that makes me sad.

But my H is probably right that I have to “get a life” and then I’ll leave him alone with my attitudes and needs for something more.

God Bless, I hope you figure it out.

 

[Mtatum1958]

But my H is probably right that I have to “get a life” and then I’ll leave him alone with my attitudes and needs for something more.

My heart aches for you and I will just have to let my disgust (maybe not the correct emotion) flow by. I’m a man, and a husband of 35 years. We have been through many stages in our relationship, some great, some not so much. One think I have kept in mind is that it is a covenant, and not a contract. It’s a 100%/100% commitment, not 50/50 or anything like that. I hope some of the above posts are helpful to you also, and I will say a prayer for your marriage.

 

[BlueMantle]

I returned to add that these lasts few years have taught me to look to Jesus and Mary more and to pray more. My Faith has grown. I believe God is teaching me not to make my H the center of meeting my emotional needs. I’m just not where I should be yet. I don’t know if or when the “feelings” of attraction and warmth will return, but as this has been characterized as the Dark Night of Marriage, it could be next week, or never.

So, I just wanted to say that to the original poster. Pretty much all our struggles are spiritual ones and that means they are between ourselves and God.

Thank you for your prayers. They are always welcome and always needed.

God Bless

 

[Dolores]

Indeed, somehow it feels like it’s beyond both our control. But trust me, I know what my marriage vows are, I am not compromising them. I just cannot pretend to be happy with what he does, when the context is, usually, so wrong.
My question was about intimacy. I do not want to be intimate, at all, due to the emotional disconnect. He doesn’t see the emotional disconnect, so what do I do, just pretend and go along?
P.s I don’t know how to post and reply to more than one person and it seems there’s a limit on how many times I can reply in 24 hours and then I get an embargo

 

[Dolores]

Thank you for an excellent answer! 3rd and 4th paragraph really nail it.

Fortunately, I am not depressed because I’m naturally a very high energy person, the children Brian me so much joy, I am very involved in projects outside the home and my daily commitments and interactions keep me active.

Your closing advice is probably the best approach. Most of the time I avoid bringing it up (but then I get into passive-aggressive mode) simply because I don’t even know how to word it in such away as to avoid a complete blow up.