Sometimes I really dislike my husband!

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1ke:
Greg Popcak, a Catholic marriage and family counselor, has a great book-- For Better… Forever-- that I highly recommend. He discusses these very behaviors, why they happen, and how to change.

Also, if you don’t already do so-- start praying together regularly as a couple or an entire family (hold hands with your husband while you do so). Perhaps go to Adoration together or pray the rosary at night before bed or in the evening with the children.
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this book is great! he’s even got a chapter on “red hot lovin’. how to keep a marrage strong wthen arguements heat up” or something like that. it’s got the 15 commandments of arguing with your spouse. I find them very helpful because I have a nasty temper.
 
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jules11:
I was going to confession weekly or at least fortnightly when I could. But my husband has a problem with trust and jealousy (which is another story altogether) and he would wonder what I had to confess… he used to think I was having an affair and that was the only reason that I would go to confession so regularly.
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Does your husband go to confession? I have the same problem where me going to confession makes my husband very suspicious. He has NEVER been though, so he does not understand the value. I try not to be judgmental, but he will some times miss mass just to upset me, so I know that he does need to go.
 
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dulcissima:
Does your husband go to confession? I have the same problem where me going to confession makes my husband very suspicious. He has NEVER been though, so he does not understand the value. I try not to be judgmental, but he will some times miss mass just to upset me, so I know that he does need to go.
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Yes he does, eventually, when we’ve made up. He will not go if we’re still arguing though…it’s like its admitting to me that he’s actually done something wrong…
 
Your situation also sounds like my marriage did but I had to change the way I react to my husband. We use to fight or argue and it would be a cycle also, but one day I decided not to yell back, not to call him names or go down to his level. One of you has too. I have read most of the books listed in this thread. In my situation, I can not apply most of the advice, even though great, for my husband ended having Borderline Personality Disorder. I did not know it at first, but found his anger to be just too much. He would also goes months being fine and we were happy, but there would be something stupid to get him anger and there we were fighting again. It got to be so bad that I would also feel light I would faint due to my blood pressure and heart rate. I prayed a novena to the Holy Spirit to help me stay calm and even though I wanted to talk back and prove I was right, I did not and still don’t. I just let him vent and it stops if there is no one to argue with anymore. I also bought a book on his disorder and this helped. He also was jeolous of my time or anyone I was with. He tried to get me to chose between him and my family a lot. He would have gotten upset if I spent time with my parents or friends. He is much better now. He doesn’t care if I visit my family now. He has changed a lot, but he does go weekly to confession, for he loses his temper weekly, almost daily. I don’t know the whole situation in your marriage and you are doing the right thing in going to one of the daily Mass, hopefully, daily. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist will give you the strength to stay quiet even though you want to speak, boy do I know that one. What I would do is say what I wanted to say, but to myself. I don’t know if that would help you or not. It is true, it is so hard to keep quiet when you are being wronged or cussed at, but you have to change for yourself and just pray and be an example of Jesus to your husband. I had a priest tell me once to stop talking to my DH and just show him the love of Christ in words and action. Yes that is easier said then done, but it will make you a holier person. It is so easy to be holy with easy going people, but very difficult to be holy to a difficult hard to get along person. And yes, I too dislike my husband at times. I love him but I don’t like him, especially when he demands respect and is yelling at the top of his lungs at me. 😦
 
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nana3:
Your situation also sounds like my marriage did but I had to change the way I react to my husband. We use to fight or argue and it would be a cycle also, but one day I decided not to yell back, not to call him names or go down to his level. One of you has too. I have read most of the books listed in this thread. In my situation, I can not apply most of the advice, even though great, for my husband ended having Borderline Personality Disorder. I did not know it at first, but found his anger to be just too much. He would also goes months being fine and we were happy, but there would be something stupid to get him anger and there we were fighting again. It got to be so bad that I would also feel light I would faint due to my blood pressure and heart rate. I prayed a novena to the Holy Spirit to help me stay calm and even though I wanted to talk back and prove I was right, I did not and still don’t. I just let him vent and it stops if there is no one to argue with anymore. I also bought a book on his disorder and this helped. He also was jeolous of my time or anyone I was with. He tried to get me to chose between him and my family a lot. He would have gotten upset if I spent time with my parents or friends. He is much better now. He doesn’t care if I visit my family now. He has changed a lot, but he does go weekly to confession, for he loses his temper weekly, almost daily. I don’t know the whole situation in your marriage and you are doing the right thing in going to one of the daily Mass, hopefully, daily. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist will give you the strength to stay quiet even though you want to speak, boy do I know that one. What I would do is say what I wanted to say, but to myself. I don’t know if that would help you or not. It is true, it is so hard to keep quiet when you are being wronged or cussed at, but you have to change for yourself and just pray and be an example of Jesus to your husband. I had a priest tell me once to stop talking to my DH and just show him the love of Christ in words and action. Yes that is easier said then done, but it will make you a holier person. It is so easy to be holy with easy going people, but very difficult to be holy to a difficult hard to get along person. And yes, I too dislike my husband at times. I love him but I don’t like him, especially when he demands respect and is yelling at the top of his lungs at me. 😦
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Wow, thanks for this post. What you described sounded so much like my husband. I did a search for “borderline personality disorder” and it absolutely describes him. I found some books designed to help those living with someone with BPD.
 
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nana3:
. In my situation, I can not apply most of the advice, even though great, for my husband ended having Borderline Personality Disorder. I did not know it at first, but found his anger to be just too much. 😦
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How did you know he had BPD? Did he get diagnosed? I mean did he see someone that told him he had it?
What are the symptoms?
How does one act if they have it?
My husband would never ever admit that he had any kind of mental illness!
 
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jules11,

How does your husband feel about all this disruption? Does he see that it is a problem the way you do or does he think that your arguments are normal spats?

My advice to you would be that you sit down with your husband during one of those times when you aren’t fighting. Tell him that you want to improve your marriage and get along even better than before. Let him know that that you feel the fights are disruptive and you want to find a better way to voice disagreement.

Then, you need to work together to come up with a plan going forward. You both need to contribute to it, agree and commit to changes going forward. Don’t use this as an opportunity to rehash the past or place blame on anyone. That’s not what it’s about because you can’t change it. You want to make changes going forward, which is something you have control over.

I would suggest that you agree not to yell, swear or name call. That you commit to sleeping every night in the same bed and resolving conflict before that. That you never talk about separation or divorce during an argument. This is a chance to voice what you need and hear what your husband needs.

My husband and I have an agreement with all of the above. As soon as he raises his voice or swears, I tell him, “If you are going to speak with me that way, we will need to finish this conversation when you are not so angry.” I make sure to say it in a calm voice and let him know that I am serious about rescheduling the conversation.

I hope the suggestions help you figure out what to do. Know that I will pray for you and your family.

God bless you.
 
It does appear that you are having trouble with your husband cooporating with things that could help your marriage.

From that on I will give the advice I gave my grandma.

My grandma has been in a marriage for more than 50 years and she doesn’t even know if she ever loved her husband. She has a lot of built up resentment toward him which typically tend to be little things, but they build up into one big thing.

For instance, grandpa has a habit of exagerating his skills and will try to make repairs and talk like he knows what he’s doing when he actually doesn’t. She’s been real upset because his trimming of trees has actually killed some trees.

I do know there are some deeper issues there.

But the problem she is having spiritually is that she doesn’t know how to forgive him. For years she thought it was just to bite her tongue and not react to how she was feeling. But that is not enough. She was merely burying her resentment and he called her a little mouse for the way she would react toward him.

She’s the type of woman who has told me that when she’s frustrated with him, she will look at her crucifix and tell Jesus “See what I have to deal with.” That’s actually quite ironic as its an image of our God tortured and crucified. When I first pointed this out to her, she broke down into tears because she thought I thought ill of her.

But this is why I say that you can’t just handle this on your own. You have to completely rely on God and hand over every single one of your sufferings over to him. About a year after I explained to her how to offer your sufferings up, she called me up saying she had taken my advice and that it had helped some.

If you can’t get to offering up your sufferings with that candle with your spouse, its still a very good practice to do it yourself for your own spiritual well-being.
 
Gregory Popcaks book is great. I like how he explains the different types or levels of marriage. I found it very enlightening. You can pick your type (or level) out and also those of others you know well.

I also agree that finding ways to control your reaction to him is important. Its not getting you anywhere to yell anyway. And if your goal is to prove yourself right, or prove yourself not wrong, and he simply doesn’t want to see it that way, then nothing you say is going to make any difference anyway. So you are only hurting yourself with yelling and uncharitable comments.

And oddly its possible that you aren’t hurting him at all. People with some personality disorders feel validated by being able to get someone that upset, or hurt or shocked.

I guess i am thinking of Narcissist Personality Disorder, which my husband of twenty years turned out to have. ( I didn’t know this till the end, because he was seemingly normal in many ways). Like Nana, I read most of the books here on marraige in my effort to make one out of the great confusion I lived in for twenty years.

NPD’s think they are fine and everyone else is crazy (or makes them mad) so this is not something that could be treated (it is rarely if ever cured and psyhologists don’t like working with NPD’s). NPDs cannot relate in a relationship although they get around in the world fine. They use people but are good at getting away with that.

I would have stayed married anyway. Shortly after my conversion to the Catholic Church, by God’s grace, the problems came into focus and I was able to see. And with God’s grace i was able to handle the shock of what I could see. With professional help I began to calmly stand up to verbal abuse, control and manipulation (by saying things like “Stop that” or “I don’t like that kind of talk”).

This imposed changed in our dynamic was too much for him. He began to secretly look elsewhere and then when a relationahip was establised and their plans were being made he sprung the end ouf our marraige on me. I was shocked because I was trusting.

It was hard too because I waited on God all those years to do a miracle in our marraige. A good lawyer told me the time to stop waiting was now. A good Priest helped me let go of waiting on God by explaining that though God does miracles He never tells us to expect one. It was like I had to unpry my fingers from a death grip (on my long expectation of a miracle) after I had so long hung onto that hope for dear life in the face of the impossible.

Free will is something God doesn’t seem to violate often, if at all. My husband was happy with how he was and didn’t want to be any different. I think of how Judas did not change, even though he had the best teacher and Jesus praying for him all the time.

If I had a choice, i would do what Nana did and stay in my marriage with my disfunctional husband. Because I married for better or worse, and I figure i just got worse. But I did not have a choice.

That was my impossible case. Hopefuly yours is not! Even so, you may be dealing with some kind of disorder, which a good counselor could diagnose. Hopefully not NPD. Something treatable!

Clearly something is not right. No teacher needs to be up till one and two in the morning just to plan. It almost sounds like he is trying to avoid you. And your persuing him is only making him fight or keep running from you. If you step out of the fight and observe rather than react, perhaps you can begin to make some sense of the problem. By stepping out of the fray and into your own quiet, you have a place to seek God’ wisdom. And He gives it in full measure when we ask.

Also if his goal is to keep disengaged from you, even the nicest ways of trying to engage him will be rebuffed. I hope thats not the case with you.

And what others have said here is right - rely on the riches of the Catholic Church to help you lean on God and not on yourself or your husband. Masses, rosary, and time by the Tabernacle are your first line of defense. Also, pray the St. Michael prayer regularly, wear blessed sacramentals if you are not already, and bless your house and yourself with Holy Water often.

God bless you.
 
Boy, you must be overwhelmed by now with all this advice! :eek:

A lot of good stuff, though, and I might just add that people don’t change people, God changes people.

Prayer is your best bet. But as one person quoted from Matthew…you must have forgiveness in your heart before you bring your petitions to the Lord. So if you must, PRAY for YOURSELF, first!

**Pray that God would soften your heart for your husband and renew your love for him in immeasurable ways ** (HE’LL DO IT!).

Pray for wisdom and patience.

**Pray for discernment ** (knowing) as to the way to best LOVE your husband. We all have different “love languages” …some respond best to words, others to gifts, others to actions…

As the one male post suggested: Men need their wives respect.
THEY LIVE TO BE OUR HERO! They want to always “go back for the girl!”…but they need to know the girl is waiting desperately for them.

Goto: laughyourway.org for an amazingly humorous yet helpful ministry for marriages, called “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage”…it’s fantastic!

Let him know you desire his heart and that any distance between you hurts.

(The devil LOVES to trash our marriages, and the cycles happen because the devil knows our weak points and uses them against us to cause division.) Rebuke the devil and he shall flee from you.

**Be an excellent wife. ** That means devoting your marriage to the Lord. Everytime you do something for your husband think of it as serving God. For the Lord commands you to:
  1. Love your God and obey His commands
  2. Love your Husband and be his perfect help mate
Remember you are doing this for your child as well…God can make your home a blessed place for that sweet baby!

God designed you specifically to be every bit the woman your man needs. Pray that you are given the grace to be just that, joyfully.

You’ll be amazed at how blessed your marriage can become. **The “Honeymoon” period doesn’t have to end when God is in the driver seat! ** Really…He designed us to be united as one. Imagine that?! And God’s designs are perfect.

My husband and I almost split up after our first year of marriage…I realized that I really couldn’t change him or myself, and we struggled with these same hateful battles…

Finally, I visited with my pastor and turned everything over to the Lord. That was 9 years ago. We now have 5 beautiful children and we send love notes on the email often. We go on dates. He’s my white knight! A wonderful father, and all the hero I’ll ever need next to Christ! 🙂

I pray for you great blessings. Devote yourself to the Lord…seek first His kingdom and all these things shall be added unto you!

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give (show) you the desires of your heart!

**Don’t expect your husband to change, but win him over by the peace you have in Christ. ** Serve him lovingly and most of all:

**KEEP NO RECORD OF WRONGS!!! **
And just watch God make him fall in love with you all over again.

I promise, you will not be disappointed…because **“He whose hope is in the Lord will not be disappointed!” **

God Bless You!
D.
 
QUOTE=Eliza10]Gregory Popcaks book is great. I like how he explains the different types or levels of marriage. I found it very enlightening. You can pick your type (or level) out and also those of others you know well./QUOTE]
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I cannot find that book here in Australia. But I will keep looking
I also agree that finding ways to control your reaction to him is important. Its not getting you anywhere to yell anyway. And if your goal is to prove yourself right, or prove yourself not wrong, and he simply doesn’t want to see it that way, then nothing you say is going to make any difference anyway. So you are only hurting yourself with yelling and uncharitable comments.
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I have said nothing in the last few days… even though I want to. He has been going to a mates place every evening so as to avoid arguing with me.
Free will is something God doesn’t seem to violate often, if at all. My husband was happy with how he was and didn’t want to be any different. I think of how Judas did not change, even though he had the best teacher and Jesus praying for him all the time.
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Fortunately my husband has changed many things for me. He wants to be a good husband… when things are good between us. He just doesn’t seem to cope with blame very well and if he thinks I am blaming him he gets very defensive (I suppose as we all do). The other day I told him I was feeling a bit depressed, for no reason I could think of and he got upset and told me I had nothing to be depressed about. I wasn’t asking him to fix it or telling him it was his fault… just wanted him to listen to me.
Clearly something is not right. No teacher needs to be up till one and two in the morning just to plan. It almost sounds like he is trying to avoid you. And your persuing him is only making him fight or keep running from you. If you step out of the fight and observe rather than react, perhaps you can begin to make some sense of the problem. By stepping out of the fray and into your own quiet, you have a place to seek God’ wisdom. And He gives it in full measure when we ask
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.

He is in his first year of teaching and I have been told that this is common in their first year as it is all new to him. He has his own class all year and has to prepare lessons and mark work. I think he puts in too much effort, which is another thing. He will put in endless hours for his work but not for his marriage. I guess he thinks I’ll always be there so he doesn’t have to work too hard.
Also if his goal is to keep disengaged from you, even the nicest ways of trying to engage him will be rebuffed. I hope thats not the case with you.
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I don’t think this is his goal most of the time but it certainly is when we are fighting. The problem is, I try to make amends, get rejected, then I get angry. I feel like he is playing power games with me to see how much I will grovel. When it’s the other way round and he wants to make up, I accept instantly. It all seems to be up to him.
I just hate waiting for days until he drops it. I flare up quickly but calm down just as quick. He lets it go on for days.
And what others have said here is right - rely on the riches of the Catholic Church to help you lean on God and not on yourself or your husband. Masses, rosary, and time by the Tabernacle are your first line of defense. Also, pray the St. Michael prayer regularly, wear blessed sacramentals if you are not already, and bless your house and yourself with Holy Water often.

God bless you.
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Thankyou for your post… I will try to pray more and offer it up for our marriage.
 
Another thing that is strange about his behaviour is that as much as he loves our son, he has very little to do with him when we are fighting. It’s almost like he sees him as mine and does it to hurt me.
Usually he plays and talks to him. He absolutely adores him but rarely even looks at him at times like this. It’s the same with his mass attendance. He won’t go if he’s mad at me or he will go to another church. I just don’t know why things have to go this far!
It seems so ridiculous to me!
 
Mate’s place is a friend’s house?

It sounds like his manipulative and controling behavior are a real problem at these times when he is angry. A book on how to respond to controlling behavior, controlling people, or verbal abuse might give you some skills to get through those times.

If he is in fact playing power games to make you grovel, as you say, it is important that you stand up to this and a good book will show you how. You don’t want to reward that behavior with the hoped-for results. What a terrible life-lesson for your son to learn! Plus, really, by not standing up to it you are “enabling” - or encouraging your husband in sin. The more he gets away with sin in this way, the more it becomes a part of him. So for your sake, for your children’s, and for your husband’s, its important to stand up to it and preserve your dignity. Your husband should be preserving your dignity, but since he isn’t, you need to.

Its not right if you have no forum at all to say what bothers you since he is oversensitive to criticism. I had the same problem. So I eventually put up with everything that came my way in order to preserve some peace, and still every day walked on eggshells. At my Protestant church it was assured that my submission would “melt his heart” one day. They made me feel i was being a good, submissive wife and that that pleased God. (Now I do not think that is what God wanted of me, though my consolation is that He knows I thought it was). I waited faithfully for that day his heart would melt - even though i could see that overtime my mild reactions made him more and more controlling, not less. When my son was born I began to change a bit, at least standing up for things that were in his best interest. It was that helplessness of a baby that helped me do that.

Your husbands behavior towards your son is supposed to be punative to you, but your son will take it as a rejection of himself and these wounds will go very, very deep. 😦 I am sure this is your concern, too, so thats part of what makes this such a desparate problem.

It sounds like a lot is wrong here. Counseling is expensive but its way, way cheaper than a divorce. You could find out how to defend your son. You could get a professional opinon about the state of things and what hope there is for change.

Greg Popcaks book is good for evaluating the state of things. Its helpful to begin by seeing where you sit on the scale of marriages - and what you need to aspire to. He does phone counseling too.

His book can be got on half.com. I see one for 4.35 plus shipping. Or new on Amazon. Also, usually your library will order a book for you from another library that they don’t have on their own shelf. You can call your library and see if they will do that.
 
I also want to say I respect Doreen’s opinion here and I am glad for her that her marraige has turned out so beautifully and they have five beautiful children. Clearly, a good marraige takes hard work and commitment; they generally don’t just happen. The work is hard but the fruits are great.

Now in the wake of my marraige that failed in spite of every possible effort on my part as well as years of prayer and hope, I do take consolation in the good marriages of others. It offers me hope that other marriages aren’t as disfunctioanl as mine was, and that two regular people, with the grace of God, can together make a truly extrodinary thing - a good marriage.

But honestly, take it from one who has been thru a struggle like Jules (whose struggle hopefully will come out better than mine) hearing of your success in the face of a struggle like Jule’s can be hard to take. Its like that Proverb that tells you not to say too happy a “good morning” to someone too early in the morning. I’ll have to look that one up. I remember it surprised me when i read it. But it makes sense. It also reminds me of the scripture that tells us to cry with those who cry, weep with those who weep.

And the advice “Be an excellent wife” was oft-repeated advice that wore on me after many years of making this my chief aim in the most difficult of circumstance. It came from optimistic women in good non-abusive marrriages - places that were not difficult to be excellent. I am telling Doreen this so she can be sensitive to how difficult that can be to hear when one is under such an oppressive struggle and one’s efforts at “excellence” bear no fruit year after year. I can say for certain, that being an excellent wife alone cannot save a marriage. And being an excellent wife combined with prayer, hope, and fidelity doesn’t always save it either.

Maybe Doreen was just trying to offer hope - her struggles resulted in a great marraige. But realize we all work with different materials. My priest told me in the end - “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” And more importantl than the “material” we are working with is the will. The other person has to have goodwill towards the spouse and towards making a marraige work. Without that you are nowhere.

I hope Jules finds that there is at least goodwill.

I had high hopes for a great marraige too and I went to any length to get there. I didn’t give up hope till the end - and by that time my hope was in a miracle only. But truly it takes two. I honestly thought that one person could hold onto a marriage especially if they made it their very top prioity, their whole life. But no - in fact, one person can single-handedly take a marriage down and there is nothing the other spouse can do about it if that is what the one spouse determines to do.

A professional counselor can tell Jules if she is on the brink of such a disaster and possibly help her intervene. It sure looks like the brink of a very big problem to me.
 
Eliza10,

I am very sorry for the painful situation your marriage was and sorry that it is ending.

However, I don’t think it is fair for you to project your own experience and feelings onto the original poster. I can understand why you don’t find much hope in the words of posters who overcame difficult struggles in marriage, but Jules may find the information helpful. I know that if I were struggling in my marriage, I would want advice and support from those who had struggled and come through difficulty to now have a happy marriage.

We can cry with those who cry and still encourage them. Even if Jules does not find these posts helpful, I am confident that the posters meant them to be so.

God bless you.
 
ElizabethAnne,

It is good to hear from people who have been able to work out their problems. I think it is also good to hear from people like Eliza, who realize that it is possible that a wife (or a husband for that matter) can do everything possible to make a marriage work, but if the other spouse won’t admit to having any problems, or takes satisfaction from hurting the other, then there does have to come a time when you stop putting up with and enabling this behavior.

I agree that we don’t have enough information to know what the state of things is for the OP. I can identify with a lot of what she is going through, because my husband has a lot of the same behaviors. I am not going to assume thought that her marriage is as doomed as my marriage apparently is. I hope her situation is not that bad, especially since she has a new baby and this is her second marriage. I think it is good to hear stories of hope, and it is also good to hear that some situations are unacceptable.

I may not be the OP, but I personally have gotten a lot out of Nana and Eliza’s posts. It is comforting sometimes to know that you are not alone.
 
Thankyou once again to all. Eliza, I can emphathise with you with your situation. My first marriage was much like that. I can honestly say I was a much better wife to him, one much less deserving, than i am now. He was someone with no morals, no conscience and no idea at all what marriage was about. He was like a 15 year old boy in a mans body. He was never around, would never discuss anything and would leave me for months on end. Every problem we had he would see as my fault. He lived like a single man with his friends and his motorbike racing (he took this up after we were married and had 2 children) He had no comprehension that he couldn’t sleep with whomever he wanted, although he was married. At one time he left me for a few weeks and he mentioned a girl he’d met and I asked if he’d slept with her and his answer was “of course, what do you expect?”
But still, I would have stuck to it til the end, with all the abuse and heartache. I would never have left. In the end, he left me for another woman, so I guess he did me a favour by leaving.

I don’t think my situation now is hopeless. My husband is a completely different person. He does want to be a good husband but sometimes finds me a little demanding. I am aware that we do have big problems and I’m not trying to make excuses for his behaviour but I am also aware that I haven’t helped things. I do have a bad temper and when I think I’m right, have a hard time letting it go.
Saying that, I do get over things a lot quicker than he does and I do not see the point in carrying something on for so long. I just cannot understand why every disagreement gets dealt with this way. We fight and then don’t talk to each other for days. He doesn’t tell me when he’s going to be home or what he’s doing. He doesn’t eat. He just smokes more and drinks coffee. So i know he hates these arguments too, but we don’t know how to break the cycle.
I think after the humiliation of my first marriage, I feel like I am never going to let another man treat me that way. I am definately not the same person. So, in a way my husband is paying for what the first one did to me. I don’t back down very easily and argue the point,EVERY point, so I have not tried to be the wife I know I should be.
I am over this argument now, and wonder why he isn’t.
He would say that he is over it but still not happy and that he is trying to get through the week with his teaching. He seems to be only able to cope with one thing at a time.
But I haven’t brought it up and I know that if I don’t, this could go on for another week and that’s when I tend to lose my temper. I wait and wait patiently until I can’t take it anymore and get angry about the childishness of it all!
We have tried many councellors and I am sure that he would not go again. He would say that ‘if you did such and such… we wouldn’t fight…’ which I know is not true.
I know that I have to pray and leave it to God and I also know that if I were the best wife in the world, it wouldn’t mean that we wouldn’t argue. I know that this has to come from both of us and we both need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make this a happy marriage.
He’s a little simplistic in his thinking… that is… that it’s all up to me.
The only thing I can do is wait until he’s ready to talk and then try to have a calm discussion about it all. But all the advice from people here has been wonderful. It has certainly helped me cope with it this time and not try to force a discussion when he doesn’t want to!
 
If you can gete ahold of Popcaks book, For Better - Forever! you will find it enlightening. (He also wrote The Exceptional Seven Percent which is a secular version of the same book).

Having read the book I can tell you a little about it. There are different kinds of marriage relationships which he describes, i.e., “Deadly”, “Shipwrecked”, “Conventional”, “Storybook”, “Apprenticeship”, “Partnership”, “Romantic Peers”. I can’t remember what the order is aside from the first three. You don’t have to stay in the same category all your life (although some people do). You can work your way thru the categories like climbing a ladder. Assuming you both want to. It nice to see where you are and where you can go, and Popcak gives you hope you can get there. I would love to read testimonies of couples who moved from one type to the next along the pathway. I remembrer one interesting fact was that the friendships you choose as a couple tend to be people in your same category, or one above or below it. Interesting.

You will have to read it yourself to see where on the pathway you are. I was able to spot myself in “Shipwrecked” when I read it after 17 years of marraige, exhausted from the solo effort of years of tyring to tow it into the “Conventional” category. My parents were one of the higher types, and many of my friends, and also my brothers were in much higher types. I knew what I had was not right.

From what you said, my unprofessional, amateur guess is that you lived in a "Deadly"marriage before, and now you have moved up a whole category to a “Shipwrecked” one. You will have to read the book yourself to see if my guess is correct. Shipwrecked is a great improvement over Deadly, so you would be grateful for the difference. But Shipwrecked marraiges can’t hang on, and if thats yours, its a state that needs improvement. Popcak could surely steer you into “Conventional” and maybe better someday. If my husband was willing i would have loved to take Popcaks advice on doing that.

If you read the chapter on “Relationship Pathways” in* "*For Better, For Ever! that details the different types, you could ask your husband to read the chapter and tell you what kind of marriage he thinks you have (and why). That would be an interesting conversation starter for you two.
 
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