Marriage problems

[Isabel_08]

Are you familiar with the term “gaslighting”?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Yes, which he loves to try. Half the time I honestly don’t know if he’s doing it, or he’s actually gotten that good at convincing himself that his version is the right one (but I go with him knowing what’s what). It’s like watching a contortionist try and fit themselves in a box when he tries so hard, and sometimes the switch in his stance is so immediate, I can actually repeat verbatim what we both said just seconds before, and where he decided to backtrack because he realized he was wrong. In the case of pretending like I never told him about the martial embrace menu, he’s got no way out. It’s in black and white, had he had the guts to look at the Church’s teaching like he’d challenge me to study.

 

[Xantippe]

Yes, which he loves to try. Half the time I honestly don’t know if he’s doing it, or he’s actually gotten that good at convincing himself that his version is the right one (but I go with him knowing what’s what). It’s like watching a contortionist try and fit themselves in a box when he tries so hard, and sometimes the switch in his stance is so immediate, I can actually repeat verbatim what we both said just seconds before, and where he decided to backtrack because he realized he was wrong. In the case of pretending like I never told him about the martial embrace menu, he’s got no way out. It’s in black and white, had he had the guts to look at the Church’s teaching like he’d challenge me to study.

How can you live with somebody you don’t trust and that either persistently lies to you or has no sense of reality?

 

[Isabel_08]

And you married him knowing ALL of this???

Keep in mind, that HE has to want to give up the bad behaviors.
Good that you go to Al-Anon yourself for the clarity it will afford you. But I get the impression you think that if you just do better yourself…then he will change. It doesn’t work that way. I hate to sound so negative but you sound like you just wish it will change.

***Do this:
Go back and read all of your posts like they were written by your little sister.
What would YOUR advice to her be? ***

Yes. Like I said, we had actually been making a lot of progress and were in a pretty good place, with some stuff we were actively working to iron out, but the major issues we were arguing were addressed. Or so it seemed. We’re back in the rut.

Funny how that works, huh? I’d given my friends the same advice many times over the years.

Yes, I’d like it to change. I don’t think that if I just do better, he’ll change. To stop his drinking, that’s all on him. To change his way of thinking and arguing, also on him. But I do know that if I want anything to change, I can’t be waiting for him to initiate it, not in this case. It’s convenient for him right now, so it’ll take forever. If I change for the better and he follows, great. If not, then I’ll have to take more drastic measures.

 

[Isabel_08]

How can you live with somebody you don’t trust and that either persistently lies to you or has no sense of reality?

Good question. Maybe because it tends to come up “only” during arguments. Rest of the time, he’s pretty good. Very smart, actually, which makes it worse,and all the more frustrating.

 

[Xantippe]

Good question. Maybe because it tends to come up “only” during arguments.

Married couples have to be able to “fight fair.” We have to be able to be civil, fair and truthful even when we’re disagreeing.

I know you’re a busy, busy girl, but a lot of people like John Gottman.

theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/

"For example, say that the husband is a bird enthusiast and notices a goldfinch fly across the yard. He might say to his wife, “Look at that beautiful bird outside!” He’s not just commenting on the bird here: he’s requesting a response from his wife—a sign of interest or support—hoping they’ll connect, however momentarily, over the bird.

“The wife now has a choice. She can respond by either “turning toward” or “turning away” from her husband, as Gottman puts it.”

“These bidding interactions had profound effects on marital well-being. Couples who had divorced after a six-year follow up had “turn-toward bids” 33 percent of the time. Only three in ten of their bids for emotional connection were met with intimacy. The couples who were still together after six years had “turn-toward bids” 87 percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, they were meeting their partner’s emotional needs.”

“By observing these types of interactions, Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples—straight or gay, rich or poor, childless or not—will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity; or contempt, criticism, and hostility?”

The standard marriage advice is that you need 5 positive interactions with a spouse to neutralize 1 negative interaction. So, if you have 1 negative interaction and 5 positive interactions, you’ve just broken even. Negative interactions are very, very expensive in terms of the cost to the relationship. And you have described a lot of them.

I suspect that if your husband grew up in a horrible home, he has very little idea what a good home life looks like and how spouses should talk to each other and disagree with each other. If that is the case, the two of you will (under the best of circumstances) need substantial professional help to both learn what a good relationship looks like.

With regard to him getting “better,” be careful that you aren’t mistaking the cycle of abuse for improvement.

hiddenhurt.co.uk/cycle_of_abuse.html

Best wishes!

 

[Isabel_08]

Thank you, Xantippe!

Those are very interesting studies, I think it’d be good for him to see them too. Especially the way we argue. I’ll check the link about the cycle of abuse later, that sounds like something we may have been dealing with a lot. Once I get myself better situated mentally and emotionally, like with the depression and anxiety since…middle school?, and better equipped, I do think it’d be a good time to start some sort of counseling together. Of course, with a push that he seek some individual guidance for himself, too.

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Get a divorce. Get an annulment. Get out now.

What the other poster meant by intent is that one of the things you had to agree to to have a valid marriage is that you would be “open to life” and not use contraceptives, etc.

If he never had any intent of living up to that, then it was an invalid marriage and you can get it annulled on that alone (never mind the abuse).

 

[Sunbreak]

This is not normal newlywed stuff. If this marriage has so much stuff at the beginning, it’s not going to get any better. Usually what happens is that people become accustomed to the sick dynamics and it just goes downhill from there.

 

[pianistclare]

Good question. Maybe because it tends to come up “only” during arguments. Rest of the time, he’s pretty good. Very smart, actually, which makes it worse,and all the more frustrating.

Sounds like both of you believe that you a re “smart” but yet you both are making really dumb choices.

Leaving a child with a person who abuses alcohol is about the worst thing I’ve heard.
That’s like the people that just “oopsie forgot the kid was in the carseat” and went to work. nobody INTENDS to do that, but these people have issues. Pre-occupation with porn, drug and alcohol abuse, secret lovers. All kinds of stuff that cloud judgment.
If you want to look the other way to all of these red flags that you chose to ignore before you married him, well, I guess that’s just bad judgment. But staying with an infant around?
Colossal mistake.
Get out.
This is not some something to trifle with. Hey, if you walk out, and he decided he’s got to change and then DOES? Great.
I’m guessing that won’t happen.
It’s not just about the mind games the two of you play. There’s a child involved. And it gets worse. You are now tied to this guy for at least 18 years. How many years are you going to look at that child and say, “well, but daddy doesn’t mean to be bad, and besides, I love him.”
Trust me, that kid will be scarred, and you’ll live a life full of regret.

 

[Augustine]

Dear sister,

I’m very sorry that you are finding so many problems this early in your marriage. As others said, some of these problems build up over years, not weeks into a marriage.

You mentioned changing him, but this is just a female fantasy coming out of your maternal instinct. He is not your son and you must not treat him like a child, starting with giving up the idea that you can change him. Only he can change himself.

You and your husband need to seek professional help, like couple counseling, ASAP. It will not get better with time, only worse. Seek help now, for the sake of your child, for, as society is founded on the family, the family is founded on marriage, and without respect, the marriage and the child suffer. If he hesitates to seek help, be strong and insist firmly, but don’t bluff.

Be strong and prayerful.

Pax Christi

 

[ynotzap]

Maybe this belongs in Prayer Requests, but I really feel like I need to vent. I hope this is okay. Been married for 4 months and, man…

Got married Dec., conceived our 1st child 1 mo later. Then in Feb., my disabled MIL moved in with us.

Husband drinks often. This has been a problem long before we met. He gets mean and says horrible things. He knows where it hurts. Then, he either doesn’t remember the next day, or he justifies it because I: don’t keep a clean house (dirty dishes in the sink last time), didn’t make him dinner (he says he doesn’t like to eat when he’s “relaxing” with beers), or, I “rejected” him sexually. Which brings me to my next point.

He watched porn. A lot. This was also a known issue before we got married (bad discernment, I know. It looked like we were making improvements in our problems. Again…I know.) If he’s bored, he uses. If I’m “out” due to studying for a test, nausea from morning sickness, asleep at 3 am, etc., he uses porn. And it’s my fault. Even when I let him know it’s just a little while, rain check in 1/2 hr or as soon as my stomach settles. He used porn the days leading up to our wedding!! and we had…some difficulties. Oh, did he get scared then, swearing he would never even glance at porn or masturbate again. He used porn before our 1st appt. with the OB to see our baby. I was livid, if memory serves correct, I initiated and found out. I admit many times he initiates now, I react by shrinking away/getting annoyed. It may be the “flirtatious” way he touches me, like in public or around his mom, the way he asks (very demanding “give me, now”), I’m studying and very stressed, or he’s waking me up in the middle of the night/REM AGAIN (for some reason people love to do this and get offended when disorientation and amplification of any noise & stimulation for the next 10-15 mins gets me very ornery). It might be he’s drunk and acting like a a-h*le. I WANT to be intimate, to be able to relax and enjoy it, but feel like I can’t say “not just now” because he stalks off angry, or, if he takes it well, I’ll just find him in another room with his porn. All after I think “How sweet! He understands. I’ll hurry up and finish here.” When I do go initiate (hw is done, MIL is in bed, morning sickness has passed, whatever, I’m now able to think about intimacy) he’s usually drunk or “done”.

He blames NFP for many things, calling it feminist bs, insists it doesn’t work, he just KNEW we’d get pregnant quick. Though he was fine for a while during marriage prep, and we WERE aware of being fertile when we conceived. He wants me to use the Pill so we can be “responsible adults”, but he is adamant about not having to abstain, and when I point out that he can use a condom if he loves contraception that much, he gets defensive. Somehow, it’s way more hassle/demeaning than having your body chemistry all screwed up. I just fixed an old hormone imbalance, too, so religious reasons aside, I’m not eager to have them messed up again. He’s also always wanting to engage in acts not open to life, both as an alternative to abstinence during NFP, and in itself. Toned down a bit after a bad incident. One thing that hurts me is his past, which he does not appear to be repentant of, and I feel like it fuels the justification in his heart/mind that certain acts are owed to him. After all, everyone else in America does it.

Your marriage, like many marriages got off to a wrong start. When your married, how much of your marriage did God have? Marriage to be what It is suppose to be, a loving , uniting relationship, knowing human nature absolutely needs God. Human nature is weak and Satan is real, I know. He will take advantage of human passion weakened by original sin, we are all affected this way, no one is exempt. Many do not know this and are working at a disadvantage when trying to resolve a marriage problem. It’s our love for God that guarantees our love for our partner in marriage. If Christ is not at the center you can expect trouble. If He is not, you are just going around the real problem. You and your husband can not give each other what you do not have, you both need the grace of God, you need Christ’s intervention in your marriage. He is the ONLY one that can produce a real change in both of you, other means will provide "symptomatic " relief. Ask Christ to come into your marriage, pray and do all you can to seek His help, that’s why He came, you must believe this, otherwise you will be fooling yourself. I will also pray for you as others have.

 

[Mummsie]

Isabel, lots of advice. But even better, lots of people praying for you. Do you both attend mass weekly? That can go a long way to bringing Christ into your marriage. Have you gone to an Al-Anon meeting yet? They are great!!! A spiritual based program with some super people who have gone through or are going through your same battle. I strongly recommend the program. It changed my heart and increased my trust in God. It also taught me my most favorite prayer:

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can, and
the Wisdom to know the difference.

My husband’s drinking went on for 7 long years before he “hit his bottom”. Being honest, it was very rough on me and our children. I didn’t believe in Divorce and new nothing about valid or invalid marriages. We are now married almost 46 years, 39 of them in Sobriety. I’m so glad I stayed. But only you can make that decision. Pray and God will give you the answer.

God Bless You, Your Husband, and that beautiful Child of God you are carrying.

 

[Magdalen2013]

Get out – now. No baby deserves to be exposed to this kind of environment.

You cannot change him, counseling will not help unless and until he is willing to admit that he needs help. Your being there enables him to continue drinking and treating you like a doormat – and YOUR actions are enabling his dysfunction.

The only way this man MIGHT change is if you walk out and let him hit bottom ALONE. By staying, you are telling him that his actions aren’t “that bad.”

And the porn addiction – means he doesn’t really respect you at all. A real man doesn’t need that. You both know the Church’s stance on contraception – his insisting on your using contraceptives should show you just how much he respects your marriage, which is to say, not at all.

Get out – the life you save may be your child’s.

 

[DakiniArtist]

I can relate more, much more, than I feel like sharing openly.

This will only get worse. This is indicative of the type of father he will be be. If I knew you in real life, you could ask my older two what it’s like to have a soon-to-be stepmom who went to school with them. Ask them about being co-raised by a porn addict. Ask them about when their classmates started “developing” and their dad started looking at them lasciviously. Ask them about boundaries and talks and messages they’ve gotten from their dad about how to be a man (my son) and what kind of man to be with (my daughter).

I could spend hours on this post. I have nothing to say that hasn’t been said so well by those above. This will get even worse. Extricate yourself from him before you have Stockholm’s Syndrome to boot.

You. Do. Not. Deserve. This.

You cannot fix/save/change/are not responsible for this man.

You have my strong prayers.

 

[Isabel_08]

Isabel, lots of advice. But even better, lots of people praying for you. Do you both attend mass weekly? That can go a long way to bringing Christ into your marriage. Have you gone to an Al-Anon meeting yet? They are great!!! A spiritual based program with some super people who have gone through or are going through your same battle. I strongly recommend the program. It changed my heart and increased my trust in God. It also taught me my most favorite prayer:

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the Courage to change the things I can, and
the Wisdom to know the difference.

My husband’s drinking went on for 7 long years before he “hit his bottom”. Being honest, it was very rough on me and our children. I didn’t believe in Divorce and new nothing about valid or invalid marriages. We are now married almost 46 years, 39 of them in Sobriety. I’m so glad I stayed. But only you can make that decision. Pray and God will give you the answer.

God Bless You, Your Husband, and that beautiful Child of God you are carrying.

I read your post a while back but couldn’t log in after I forget my password and had trouble resetting it…

Faith was a point of contention for a long time, but we grew closer and began to understand the need to have God in the center, the closer we got to our wedding. He seemed to have a major ‘a-ha!’ moment that I didn’t push on him… My dh had drifted away from the faith for years before his renewed desire to return. but like was said earlier, Satan will attack, and we KNEW we were under spiritual attack. We do attend Mass together weekly (Confession a couple times, too) he’s done it somewhat begrudgingly but nobody’s forced him to go!

On Good Friday, I went to check out an Al-Anon meeting. Nobody was in the room (they were all late I guess) and I accidentally ended up in the AA one next door. Which was fine by me! It did help, tremendously, and I plan to go again as soon as I get my driving anxiety under control again. Dh was mortified that I would “make it public,” as if he’d been named or everyone around him, family/friend, was oblivious. Finally, he’s decided he needs to start going to meetings again, finally get a sponsor, the works. And that’s just as a start. He found a meeting for Tuesday, another possible one tomorrow. Let’s see.

Oh, we brought up my depression with the obgyn last week, and today I made an appointment to see him again about treatment options, because it’s not getting better on its own. Next week we’ll be busy for sure.

I am so glad you and your husband were able to get through it! It gives me hope. It’s not easy, at all.

 

[Isabel_08]

Your marriage, like many marriages got off to a wrong start. When your married, how much of your marriage did God have? Marriage to be what It is suppose to be, a loving , uniting relationship, knowing human nature absolutely needs God. Human nature is weak and Satan is real, I know. He will take advantage of human passion weakened by original sin, we are all affected this way, no one is exempt. Many do not know this and are working at a disadvantage when trying to resolve a marriage problem. It’s our love for God that guarantees our love for our partner in marriage. If Christ is not at the center you can expect trouble. If He is not, you are just going around the real problem. You and your husband can not give each other what you do not have, you both need the grace of God, you need Christ’s intervention in your marriage. He is the ONLY one that can produce a real change in both of you, other means will provide "symptomatic " relief. Ask Christ to come into your marriage, pray and do all you can to seek His help, that’s why He came, you must believe this, otherwise you will be fooling yourself. I will also pray for you as others have.

You are spot on! He didn’t have a good relationship with God for many years, but before we got married he had a major aha moment and saw who the enemy was. Finally understood that spiritual warfare is real. And that’s when we were really able to start working on getting God in the center of our relationship, praying together, going to confession… Because we knew we couldn’t do it alone. Of course, keeping Him front and center’s not so easy at first if you’re not used to putting God first…

Thank you for your prayers!

 

[Isabel_08]

Are you familiar with the term “gaslighting”?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

Though I haven’t gotten the book yet, I’ve been reading a good amount of excerpts online from “Why Does He Do That?,” which I saw recommended. Wow. The “gaslighting” especially as described in there is spot-on.

He’s decided he needs to restart with the AA program and actually take it seriously this time. His family’s got my back. I’ve got one foot out the door. I know change doesn’t come easy, and AA won’t be enough, it can only be part.

 

[Mummsie]

So happy to hear you (and eventually him) went to an AA meeting. Hopefully, you can continue with the Al-Anon meetings. And I’m overjoyed that you go to Mass together and have put God first.

Hope the new meds help with your depression/anxiety. Continued prayers for you and your husband.

God Bless You.