Marriage with a know it all

[godspiritmom]

I’m glad you asked. We met at work.

I knew we were meant to be together the first time I saw him. I didn’t love him then. When he walked in the door in the middle of about 6 people around my desk, I felt this relief like I had been waiting for him.

About a year later he asked me out on a date. He was so kind and attentive and just so easy to be around. He did nice things for me - he thought ahead at what I might need and was there with it. I had never met a kinder man in my life.

I come from foster homes. He was abandoned as a baby by his mother and a few years later by his dad. We seemed to understand the world through the same lens.

It just changed after we got married, like a timer went off.

He is a good man. He just behaves so badly. I have a big heart for him. We understand what it is like to be in the world without another living soul. I aged out of the system at 16 and was immediately on my own. He at the age of 18. (He is my junior by 1 year).

My first husband was looking for a son and I didn’t know it. I was his third wife. He is with what was his best friends wife. He’s a good guy just in need of lineage. He adopted her son. His parents coddled him. Any dispute was me and him and his parents on two phones. It was a lot different than this for sure.

I guess I went about this all wrong here on the forum. I was feeling desperate and just let myself go. I needed a hug and someone to tell me that it was going to be ok. It’s hard to let go of something you want again,(the group thing is where this all started), I didn’t realize I was asking for something more at the time, not until I found it.

I have learned a lot and am glad to have a different perspective. I was able to come at things for him. Instead of using old language patterns, I told him that ‘I am here and I am never going away. I love him.’ We, like all couples, have had times when I was the only one standing in his corner. He knows he can count on me. So I asked him if he would trust me to take him to a happier place in life, in our marriage, and in himself. He said he would like to really be happy inside. We talked a long time. He feels good about this and that is new. Change is hard for him.

He wants the therapist to help him stay on track. Parsing it so he feels like he is getting others to **help him **instead of being helped by others made a big difference.
I realized I was living in a tiny little world. The posts on the other thread really hit me to my core. I have so many friends back home. They call me so I don’t get in trouble. I guess that has sounded so normal to me, I didn’t see how absurd it is. I needed to lift my head and see the world again.

I guess I understand the argument that I let him bully me. I guess I did. It was a long process, not a one time choice. If you have never been in an abusive situation, I don’t think you can really understand.
When I told my friend here, she said ‘I suspected’. We talked and she said it looked good but she always felt something wasn’t right, she just couldn’t put her finger on it. Her and her husband are going to come over now. I think having people around will help things a great deal. He won’t like it at first but he will see he needs it. I don’t know if you understand Small Church Group, but that is what we are joining through her and her husband.

 

[godspiritmom]

It’s hard to put everything that has transpired in 6000 characters or less. What I put here is the shorthand version.

I realize I am not out of the woods, but I think the most important thing learned was - I’m not standing in those woods alone anymore.

 

[Liberanosamalo]

The marriage obviously doesn’t nurture either spouse in an emotionally and spiritually healthy way, but a healthy person won’t marry and stay with an unhealthy one. So we can urge separation. Yet what use separation for someone unhealthy enough to make the choice of an unhealthy spouse to start, then harbor years of resentment, cultivating thought patterns that lead inevitably to separation or divorce?

Sometimes healthy people marry someone who APPEARS healthy. Then they change or their real self comes through after the marriage. Unless you’ve lived it, you don’t understand the transformation. And why do we stay? Because we made a VOW! And we keep trying to keep that vow even when the unhealthy spouse uses that vow against us!

Yes you resent it. You didn’t sign on for it. You pray, you try to put up with it. You offer it up. But that person is like sandpaper wearing you away piece by piece. Sometimes separation or divorce is the only way to get out before there is nothing left of you.

Coming in and judging people like that isn’t fair. It’s like the frog in the pot of water. You realize the water’s boiling when it’s too late to get out.

 

[Island_Oak]

I have heard you. I have listened.

…I have begun to formulate my plans.

…I had a long phone conversation with him and as he said many of the same things as the past, I informed him, he needed to find a therapist TODAY. And HE has.

…I have someplace that I will be going if the deadlines we set are not met…

An answered prayer. May you restore peace and balance to you home life, you deserve it.

 

[moen]

He feels our marriage is perfect and that these issues are mine alone. He even took me to the doctor to have me analyzed and a therapist as well. Both told him I was a rational healthy woman.
In years past I have been quite open and honest about my feelings but that often got thrown back at me. I came to the conclusion after paying for the Retrouvaille (I thought that because it was already paid for he would go rather than lose the money), that perhaps I was hardening his heart against me.
I worked on keeping quiet and would only be persistent about things I felt were important. Such as overdrawing the account, or attending Sunday mass. Those items are still a struggle. He feels that I am finally learning to behave. He feels that me being silent and out of the way is good behavior.
He called a priest to the house one day. He had a dental appointment that he called and made for himself. He kept asking me what time the appointment was and I said I didn’t know. It somehow enraged him and I ended up running into the yard to avoid him getting physical. I think he thought the priest would take me to task. The priest just kept asking him why he was so angry. It was good in that the priest asked him if he had it in him to not physically and verbally go at me.
It was good. He hasn’t done it since.

Hi, I haven’t even finished reading all your posts, and I’m overcome with empathy/sympathy, or whatever you want to call it…cuz I see myself in your life. I have been married 26 years, and been alone from the start. IT’s a long story…but I will pray for you. I feel like I know exactly (tho that’s not truly possible) what you’re saying.

I have learned something, as you have, that pat answers are excruciatingly hard to hear. Some pat answers are plain truth, and others are like darts being thrown at the wounded. blah, blah…

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

He wants the therapist to help him stay on track.
…
When I told my friend here, she said ‘I suspected’. We talked and she said it looked good but she always felt something wasn’t right, she just couldn’t put her finger on it. Her and her husband are going to come over now. I think having people around will help things a great deal. He won’t like it at first but he will see he needs it. I don’t know if you understand Small Church Group, but that is what we are joining through her and her husband.

This sounds like an excellent plan to me. This will shine light on the situation, it will force it in the open. In front of a third party, your husband will no longer be able to claim that all the problem is in your head and with you, and that there is nothing wrong with situations like the ones in which he gets so angry that you have to run to the courtyard to prevent him from getting physical. Love him, yes, but please, please, do not put up with abuse!

 

[moen]

You need to deal with your anger and aggression first. Leave your husband alone. Clearly neither of you possess the tools for a nurturing marriage. But stop focusing on your husband and your marriage for now. If your current marriage survives matters far less than if you learn healthier ways to manage your emotional life and cope with intimacy and relationships. Marriage counseling will not help you until you learn healthier ways to manage your own anger, passive-aggression, sabotaging and fear of emotions. Get your own therapy, preferably through a Catholic provider.

This, I find, extremely insightful—though not at all “warm and fuzzy.”

Through years and years of prayer, marriage counseling, doing this, doing that—I now see the truth in the above. I am praying completely differently now then ever before, more like “Lord, please unravel the big, unslightly knot in my soul/his soul that for some unhealthy reason magnetized us together in our overall unhealthy mess.” make sense?

Like OVIS says in a later post, for THAT reason you ended up together, and until that somehow gets straightened out in each of you (speaking personally also here), things may change on the outside, but inwardly both still have the “radar” that is looking for the wrong things.

I have no answers, and have a bit of my own mess here that continues to get worse. In prayer I felt strongly that God would have me “Let ‘it’ Be”----don’t keep jumping in to try and fix “it.” Also to trust the process, and to take care of myself. I know that I know until I myself get whole (no matter how my marriage works out) that the entire mess will continue to follow me, because I’m carrying it around. Does that make sense to anyone?

 

[JnnBev]

I hear you. I must be married to your husband´s brother. Don´t change him. Let the Holy Spirit get to him. Stop suffering for your husband. It is not redemptive for you to carry his weight. Whatever drives your husband to act the way he is belongs to him, NOT to you. I have been married for 17 years to a hard working, responsible, outwardly high-achieving male. He has grace sufficient to gain Heaven. I cannot carry his cross. YOU cannot carry your husband´s cross. I live in Groundhog Day (if you have seen that movie, yey – if not, rent it and watch it!). Let God handle your husband. Breathe. I´ll be praying for you every day. Please write back to me any time – I´ll check this forum often (just found it this evening, in a moment of weakness, but here was your plea and lots of well-meaning responses, none of which hit the mark.) Please pray for me too. And ask our Blessed Mother, along with St. Rita to give us a helping intercessory hand! God bless, JnnBev.

I was not asking for marriage advice.
I am not intimidated by intelligence.

He thwarts my activity with a simple No. No you can’t have the car. No you can’t be gone then I need you. No you have other things you should be doing, etc.

I was asked to lead by the Legion of Mary leader. The suggestion to have the priest talk to him was a refreshing point, however that would embarrass him and we would end up leaving to go to another parish.

I am not a simpleton. I am however aware that I cannot get around him.

Example: He does not keep me from mowing the lawn. He broke the lawnmower and will not fix it. That doesn’t keep me from mowing the lawn, I just have to figure out how to do it without the mower.

Get a pamphlet from www.retrouvaille.org and give it to him. Of course plan on actually going on a weekend- get babysitters etc. You have to figure out how to get his attention.

They are a very good organization and I have several fliers. He has recommended them to several people but does not think we need to go.

I am aware that the only person I control is me. The only person I can change is me. I have learned to give all that I have. I don’t ask for marriage advice because what I get is a bunch of people telling me to do this or that and refusing to accept that I am where I am.

He believes he knows all and since his needs are met there are no problems to be solved.

I feel it is better to continue to love him with Christs love (the all giving kind) than to be in constant turmoil. It was better for the children when they were home. He was absent and still is for most family gatherings and so everyone has no idea.

I cannot leave him. I cannot change him. It has taken me years to come to a place of acceptance and to live as I do. Those years were full of me changing and trying and begging and pleading. It made him angry and abusive.

In prayerfully listening to the response I have been given, I decided to go ahead and bow out of things. He will lead the rosary on Sunday. I will continue to live my contemplative life.

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[Serap]

This, I find, extremely insightful—though not at all “warm and fuzzy.”

Through years and years of prayer, marriage counseling, doing this, doing that—I now see the truth in the above. I am praying completely differently now then ever before, more like “Lord, please unravel the big, unslightly knot in my soul/his soul that for some unhealthy reason magnetized us together in our overall unhealthy mess.” make sense?

Like OVIS says in a later post, for THAT reason you ended up together, and until that somehow gets straightened out in each of you (speaking personally also here), things may change on the outside, but inwardly both still have the “radar” that is looking for the wrong things.

I have no answers, and have a bit of my own mess here that continues to get worse. In prayer I felt strongly that God would have me “Let ‘it’ Be”----don’t keep jumping in to try and fix “it.” Also to trust the process, and to take care of myself. I know that I know until I myself get whole (no matter how my marriage works out) that the entire mess will continue to follow me, because I’m carrying it around. Does that make sense to anyone?

This makes perfect sense to me, but we do not know the state of the OP’s mindset b/c she is a stranger on CAF. It’s really up to her to take each person’s (name removed by moderator)ut and to truly assess her own situation.

She will know deep down if she is really healing herself in the process.

Good points though.