Depressed and lonely in marriage

[monorail]

Ah, good. I am sorry I jumped to a conclusion, it sounded as though no one was in the bathroom with your son.

No worries, I know you were coming from a good place.

I am a young man, inexperienced in such matter, so I have no practical advice for you. I will, however, offer my Rosary for your intentions tomorrow. God bless you, dear sister.

Thank you so much my friend, you and everyone else who has said a little prayer for me. It means so much to me.

I have been praying too and I think I got a bit of an answer today. I’ve been volunteering at our church nursery where one of the employees recently got divorced with four children. She’s a lovely girl but it’s causing her a lot of hardship and I think God wanted me to meet her so I could see how hard divorce is on the whole family.

As far as chiropractic care, that is an interesting idea that I will bring up to my ob/gyn next time I see her. Thank you.

See your priest about your marriage.

I have. I talked to a very orthodox priest who suggested that I need to do find “some way” to be “close” with my husband, even if it doesn’t result in intercourse. He added that’s advice that he wouldn’t normally give except in my exceptional circumstance where we’re clearly not trying to avoid pregnancy, and because the health of our marriage is so very important. But he added primacy of conscience comes first, so if it feels wrong to me, I shouldn’t do it.
Anyway, this advice didn’t work for me because every touch feels like a razor blade and everything just felt so wrong and kind of shameful.

My heart goes out to you. I could have written that post many years ago myself. The fact that you have a high needs child makes it even harder (I had the same). It is really hard when your husband tunes everything out (and yes, I agree with whoever said many men do that–my husband sure did and still does at times).

It is reassuring to hear that others have similar problems but have pulled out of it.

Rolls his eyes, as in showing contempt for what you’re saying? Ouch. Well, at least the check-list lets you know that you are not being over-sensitive. …]

Yes, exactly. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking on egg shells around him because he gets sooo frustrated with me over things I can’t predict. Like I didn’t understand why our zip code didn’t match up with the city we live in. (I mean, our postal address says “Austin, TX” but he said we didn’t actually live in Austin. This blew my mind, to his annoyance.) And then he talks to me like he has to talk to an annoying toddler – unwillingly, disdainfully, like it’s something I shouldn’t even have to ask about because it’s one of those things you just know. He’s a really smart guy, much smarter than me, and I think I don’t fulfill his intellectual needs. I really am a total dingbat. It’s kind of embarrassing.

Have you confronted him about leaving a mess? I started leaving notes for my fiance, and it really helps him. Sometimes I will send him an email during the day, “Hey, just to remind you today is trash day. The trash needs to go out tonight. Love you.” kind of thing. I also got a dry-erase board that I wrote a “Honey Do” list on- and then when he gets time he looks at the honey-do list. It took a long time for us to figure out a system that even semi-worked and it’s nowhere near perfect. But we keep trying!

It’s kind of funny because I told him I was going to stop nagging him about his paper clutter and just pile all the papers he leaves laying around into an inbox for him. I don’t think he’s looked at it once. There are bills that are months old in there. We even tried the whiteboard, but as things kept getting added to the board but never erased, he stopped looking at it entirely. He won’t keep his own to-do list because he says “then I have to remember to look at it. You see my problem.”

There have been a lot of great suggestions and kind words on this thread, even if I didn’t respond directly. Thanks everyone… I am feeling less sad in general, because I got to talk to other actual adults during the day. Y’all are right about the importance of seeing other moms in the flesh. But I’m still worried about my marriage. We had a big fight at dinner…

After reading all these responses, I am going to go to counseling and start going to church again with my son even if I feel like I’m not getting anything from it. A lot of you have stressed the importance of getting involved, somehow, with other moms and members of my community. I am trying – we go to storytime 2x/week, we go to some other meetings that meet only once a month, we try to make it to playgroups when he’s not napping. I haven’t tried the YMCA but I will look into it. And thanks for the MOPS link! I’ve never heard of that but there are chapters near where I live so I’ll definitely check that out!

 

[EasterJoy]

…he talks to me like he has to talk to an annoying toddler – unwillingly, disdainfully, like it’s something I shouldn’t even have to ask about because it’s one of those things you just know. He’s a really smart guy, much smarter than me, and I think I don’t fulfill his intellectual needs. I really am a total dingbat. It’s kind of embarrassing…

Would you even talk to a toddler in such a manner? Who would? I can’t imagine talking down to someone and feeling good about that, can you? That is more like an adolescent’s way of dealing with a person who doesn’t know the same things he does. He may have done well on the GRE, but emotional intelligence is as real as academic intelligence, and often a lot more useful. Possibly, though, he’s worn out. Depression can cause regression, too.

I hope you can see a marriage counsellor, or a personal counsellor with experience in family and marital dynamics. You deserve some help in figuring this out, and you’re not getting enough from within your marriage. The two of you may easily have a bigger problem than anyone ought to expect you to cope with alone. I’m sure your husband is very frustrated, but if he has a good excuse or you have a good excuse or you both have a good excuse, that doesn’t keep your marriage from folding up from the damage done by behavior justified with believable excuses. If you get help, maybe you can get past looking for why things are failing and possibly find how things might be improved, instead. Success comes not just in knowing what is wrong, but in having positive goals and seeing ways to pursue them. If a person is having trouble getting to the stage of identifying goals and the means to pursue them that fit the situation in a way they can feel enthusiastic about, then outside help is often very much worthwhile. I mean this: don’t beat yourself up. Get help. We all need it, sometimes. (Even priests have spiritual advisors and confessors!)