Yikes...this is incredibly long. I have had so much going on in my head the past couple weeks and nobody to really talk to. You are a saint if you read this all...I will not be mad at anybody for bashing me or "tough love." I'll suck it up and deal with it.
I've asked this of myself a few times over the 4 years of my marriage. Never seriously contemplated, but just something at the back of my mind. I'm no victim...I was not tricked or forced into marrying. I was stupid.
I grew up in a single-mother home. She was a good mother, but I had basically no model of how a marriage should look (good or bad) from firsthand experience. She married once after divorcing the sperm-donor and that quickly ended after 3 months because she had rushed into marriage to have a father for her kids and he was just a manipulative jerk (she seems to be attracted to that type for some reason...I don't know).
Anyway - I was raised in the Mormon church in Utah, so pretty near every girl's dream is to grow up and get married to start a family. I was led to believe that a woman's true value came in being a wife and mother (and let's not forget the numerous church callings, too). In spite of all that, I did have an independent streak that told me I was good enough without a man and don't bother getting married(or was it my mother telling me that? Hmm).
My dating experiences are extremely limited. As far as REAL dates in HS that were not part of going to a dance...I think there was ONE, maybe two. I had one "boyfriend," but that was pretty much limited to hanging out at school or immediately afterwards. That lasted about a whole month. By the time I was 22, I had only kissed two guys and was still a virgin in every sense of the word. I came across a predatory guy that pretty much would use up a girl until he could get no more from her and then he'd move on. I was too stupid to see a player for what he is. Oy. He knew where to push my buttons...talking about marriage and children and nonsense. When I would do pretty near anything but have intercourse with him, he moved on. I was hurt...he was my first...uh..."serious" boyfriend. OK...go ahead and roll your eyes. I do realize now that he was not a boyfriend, but simply a roving male.
Anyway...met DH at a new job. I had the attention of several males there...it was a first for me. I think I had found a new sense of confidence and that made me visible for the first time in my life. I have no idea. I'm seriously not being cocky because I can hardly believe it myself (can you say blind and naive?) but there were several males that wanted to date me. I supposedly "flirted" with one all day long and he asked me out...my response? "Huh? I thought you hated me." He says, "Are you kidding? We've been flirting all day long." Umm. Okay. So hit me with a brick - I can be pretty oblivious when it comes to social cues sometimes.
Anywho...DH and I started hanging out at lunch time and break times. People got jealous. He was ONE of my "kind of" supervisors, so people cried foul even though he had no pull over any kind of promotion, positions, or pay. We got separated. We continued to see each other before and after work. I fell madly in love with this man. He is 15 years my senior. People freaked about that. I've heard the whole thing about younger women looking for older men for that "daddy" figure in their lives. I must say part of me fears that may have been a very small factor in this whole thing. I can't stand my own father - he is emotionally abusive and a sexual deviant...I had many times I was scared he would rape me if he got angry enough. I cut off contact with him when I was 17. But really, DH does not SEEM 15 years older to me, IMO. He does not act daddyish (oh, I would so smack him if he tried - he knows that). He tends to be immature when it comes to his own life dealings sometimes.
I know this is a long post already - bear with me.
DH was in the Army Reserves. They activated him and he got stationed in Colorado. I got a temporary duty assignment with my job to go to Colorado. I would drive every weekend out to see him (4 hours one direction). My TDY assignment eventually ended and I went back to Utah. I couldn't take it after a month (we had been dating a total of 5 months, so the fire was still there), I quit my job and moved out to live with him. Ok, weak female moment and I still feel like such a chump for doing it. But really, it wasn't a bad decision. We did quite well together. We got along well and were having a lot of fun. We finally got married 8 months later. That's when everything went to hell in a handbasket.
About 2 months into being married, DH decided to start up some online affairs. Hanging out in chat rooms, picking up women, having cybersex. I knew well before we got married that he had problems with sex-addiction (that effectively ended 2 of his previous 3 marriages), but in the 14 months before we got married, he hadn't exhibited a problem. Maybe getting "trapped" in a marriage scared him. We supposedly dealt with it by discussing it with the Chaplain of his unit (MC) and I thought it was handled. The Army ended up sending him down to El Paso, TX. I followed after many promises from him that he would not do it again. A few months into being down there, I had to go back up to Colorado to take care of some personal business and while I was gone for the 2 whole days, he started up his online **** again...this time with a very good online friend of mine. I kicked him out for a couple weeks...he slept in his car. I eventually let him back, but ended up leaving him and going back to Colorado. I want to say we were separated for 2 months.
He did some intensive work on himself by way of a life-training program (similar to Est, Lifespring, Landmark, etc) and made some improvements. He did a lot to show me what I meant to him and took certain steps to keep him from straying off the path again (to include banning himself from Yahoo...it's now been 3 years and he still refuses to touch YIM). We did some MC.
The thread running throughout our marriage is his inability to keep his word. He'll say he'll do something and then it never gets done. I do not nag, I'll just simply ask if he's had a chance to do such-and-such. Eventually if he doesn't do it, I just take care of it myself. What frustrates me is that I have told him again and again and again that if I ask him to do something and he doesn't want to do it - just tell me! I prefer honesty. Because then at least I don't sit around hoping he'll keep his word this time. Really, I don't know why I ask him to do anything for me anymore. The only thing I can think of and here's a moment of true honesty and I'm really embarrassed...but maybe it kind of shows me that he cares if he's willing to do something for me.
His last marriage was 13 years of what sounded like pure torture for the both of them. They hated each other. They still hate each other. But they have 5 kids together, so they get to deal with each other on a constant basis.
Our first 2 wedding anniversaries went by without much ado. I think I may have gotten a card and that's it. Nothing planned. I gave up by the 3rd and planned something myself. He finally got a clue and planned something on our most recent anniversary, which was 3 weeks ago. But just 2 days prior to our anniversary is my birthday. I didn't get a card or a gift...he took me to a bookstore and told me to pick something.
The anniversary he did pretty good. But he lied. Here's another problem - the man is OBSESSED with his job. He is a regular performer of grabbing the ankles and letting people have at him (figuratively, LOL). He'll do anything for this stupid company. I used to feel the same way, but over the past year it has started to piss me off that this stupid company infiltrates every part of our lives. Here's the lie - he swore to me the company cell would be turned off the whole time. No way - he ended up handling scheduling conflicts and client concerns several times. I think the phone might have been turned off for one 1-hour period and that's it.
In the past 3 weeks since our anniversary, I think I have spent a total of a couple hours with the man. He'll tell me he'll be home by such-and-such a time and then HOURS pass after that time and I'll finally get a call from him saying he's headed home. I don't control his time - he can do whatever he wants - but if you tell me you're going to be home at a certain time and that time is fast approaching and you know there's no way you'll be home - CALL ME. It's very insulting. Let me add, too, that the couple hours I have spent with him have been peppered with work phone calls. The marriage is suffering big time. There is no time spent on the marriage.
I make my own money, I have my own job working 48 hours a week. I have my own interests. So it's not like I'm sitting home all the time pining away for him - I'm not. But would it kill him to make a little contact with his wife??
About the gifts thing...around Christmas time I bought myself a guitar because I was looking for something to pick up as a hobby. He took it from me and told me it was one of my Christmas gifts and stuck it under the tree.
I did get it for Christmas, but I haven't touched it at all because it lost it's appeal after he stole it from me. One of his other gifts? A $50 Visa gift card. Did I mention I make my own money? Ooo, ahh, 50 bucks.
I'm sorry - I am a little bitter about the gift thing.
I guess to wrap this whole thing up...the reasons why I wonder if I should be married are a few: I didn't get to experience much before DH when it comes to dating and I kind of regret that. Over the years I have built up my self-confidence and feel that I would be able to cut loose and have more fun. I wonder what the single life would be like. I never really got to be a stupid college student (not that I want to go back there - I'm a bit old for that). I'm an instant step-mom for 5 kids and their bio mom hates my guts and tells the kids constantly how horrible I am (no, she does not know me personally), so they emotionally keep their distance sometimes...I think they're afraid that if they start to like me, they'll disappoint their mother. And lastly, I do kind of tie too much of my value up in my DH. When he ignores me for days at a time (meaning we hardly see each other, any phone calls I get from him are business-related, etc), I take it personally. I feel like crap. I can be really insecure. I hate that about me, but it's true.
If I were to get out of this marriage, I do NOT want to get into a serious relationship. I doubt I would let myself get married again - I just feel like I'm too emotionally undeveloped to be productive in one. We've done MC a couple times...it kind of helps for a bit, but once we stop going, things fall to crap again. I did IC many times before DH - I can't say it has ever helped. I have been on a couple of different anti-depressants and I can't say they have helped much, either. I just don't know what to do. I also want to add that we can't afford to do constant MC just to keep things together - we do not have insurance, so it would be out of pocket.
Am I supposed to keep putting up with the crap in this marriage? I can talk to him until I'm blue in the face and he'll apologize, but nothing changes. I can't say I'm perfect - I've mentioned some of my own problems above. But I just think I deserve better and I'm sick of settling.
Thank you for reading all of that junk. Feel free to kick me in the ass if you must. I just don't have anyone else to talk to.
Linear Mode
