eeriechallenge said:
“Of course it’s her fault. She’s in rebellion against her husband, is breaking her wedding vows, and is revealing herself to be a dishonorable and unworthy person. If the original poster doesn’t have kids, he should think seriously about a separation.”
The OP has a track record of bad decisions: dropping out of college unnecessarily, a lot of job changes, porn. He also mentions that he has been “stupid” and a “jerk” to his wife. His changes of religion were undoubtedly good things, but for his wife, it all forms a pattern of him impulsively jumping around making bad decisions and dragging his family through hell.
I think the OP is capable of being a better person and learning to make better decisions and have a good marriage, but he’s not going to get full credit just for good intentions and it’s not going to happen overnight. He needs to establish a solid track record of good, solid, thoughtful decision-making.
A good marriage is not going to mean switching over from her making all the decisions to him making all the decisions, but switching over to a more cooperative, collaborative style. If they learn to do that, they’ll then have the benefit of both of their insights, not just his or not just hers.
Example: In my family, my husband cares NOTHING for how things look. We recently bought a house that was pink, pink, pink because it was a good deal. I did that with the intention that we would renovate as money became available. I thought that was VERY clear–I do not intend to spend the rest of my life living in Barbie’s Dream House. My husband, on the other hand, thinks everything is fine and he thinks we should save for the kids’ college first. Well, as our youngest is 1, that could easily mean 20 years of living with pink kitchen countertops. Now, we should have been clearer with each other when buying the house what we each envisioned. I thought I was being very clear, what with my piles of home design magazines and talk of renovations. My husband, however, somehow imagined that I was going to be able to renovate the entire house using my $30 a month blow money, whereas the actual renovation will probably cost mid-five figures–$40,000 is 30 years of daily lattes, by my calculations. We had a number of fairly loud talks about this. Ultimately, after doing some actual math about the kids’ college, we came up with the following compromise: we will attempt to save $10,000 a year for college, and any surplus in excess of that will be available for renovations. Now, we may not hit that $10,000 (we’ve never managed to consistently save that much before), but I’m OK with the plan, as it means that we don’t have to spend the next 20 years saving for college and only then start doing anything about the 20±year-old pink carpet on the stairs.
Your disagreements will be different than ours, but the general principle is that both of you need to get at least some of what you want, on a reasonable timetable.
Best wishes!
