falling out of love?

[leaann]

I have been with my husband for three years. before we met, he had been in prison for 5 years for drug use. he was a drug addict for over ten years, and had a really bad relationship with his ex wife. his family has disowned him from the second he started using drugs, and have never supported him. about 6 months before we got married he began to relapse, and got pretty bad. we were living together at the time, and i made him leave. a few weeks later we started talking again, and he said he was gonna get clean for him no matter what i wanted to do, but that he wanted to be with me. he came back, but i told him not another drop of alcohol or drugs or i was gone. he hasnt had a drop to drink since then, and only had one minor mishap with drugs. i dont blame him for it though. i mean i know it was his fault, but i know that slip ups happen. he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he had his guard down. but just that once, it was a month long binge or anything like that. he works hard, has a good job, goes to work everyday. he tells people all the time that if it wasnt for him meeting me, he would have been back on the streets doing drugs along time ago. he has never had someone in his life that has supported him even when he slips up, that loves him like i do, and who hasnt turned their back on him for screwing up occasionally. but here is deal. i have a full time job also. i come home, cook, clean, wait on him hand and foot, i have a daughter and my disabled mother lives with me, so i take care of both of them as well. before we got married, he said he wanted to help me. that he knew this was a packaged deal, and he wanted to help take care of me and my family, and be a father figure to my daughter, since she had no one. we have one vehicle, he takes it to work, i get a ride from a coworker. i have to take off work to take everyone to the doctor, and still gotta come home and cook, clean. he never says thank you. never helps. the only thing he does around the house is take out the trash and mow the yard, and he usually just pays a neighborhood kid to mow. we dont cuddle. we dont hold hands. we barely kiss. if i say i love you too much he says im needy. he shouldnt have to tell me "a hundred times a day" that he loves me. anytime we argue or even joke around about me leaving, he just says i dont care. go. when im sick, he doesnt want me around him cause he dont wanna get sick. he doesnt help me out or even ask if i need anything, and complains when i ask for something. since we have gotten married, i literally have no friends anymore. he never wants to do anything with me, and if i leave the house without him he is blowing up my phone keeping track of me, even though he claims he doesnt mind me going and doing things without him. i tell him if i wanted to be alone all the time i wouldnt have gotten married. when we get in arguements he gets very hateful and says very hurtful things to me, but when i get upset about it he gets mad at me, and he never apologizes for what he says. he just expects me to sweep it under the wrong like he never said those things. i can spend the entire day cleaning the house, but the only thing he says anything about is the one thing i didnt do, like clean the windows or something. we have been to the movies once the entire three years we have been together. lately i have started "putting my foot down" i guess you could say. for instance, every day after we eat supper, we sit on the couch and he puts his feet in my lap and i rub his feet for him. he walks around constantly at work and when he gets home his feet hurt him. well, at my job i have to wear a hard hat and look down pretty much constantly, and my neck gets really sore sometimes. not once, i repeat not A SINGLE TIME has he given me a neck rub. i have asked him countless times. he always says no, his hands hurt, or he is too tired, or some other excuse. so i thought about it, and decided i wasnt gonna rub his feet anymore. and when he realized i wasnt going to, and i told him why, he said fine i wont do anything for you anymore. i wanted to scream. thats the whole point! you dont do anything for me now and i do everything for you! so instead, he stops doing the one thing he does for me-in the mornings he pours me a cup of coffee and warms up my breakfast sandwich. before, we would fight, well i should really say he would yell and scream and cuss and i would calmly try to calm him down so we could talk about it, and i eventually walk away cause he wont let me talk, then when he sees me crying cause he hurt my feelings, he gets mad at me, and we dont talk. eventually i would be the one to break, cause he could care less if i talked to him or not, as long as i did my cooking and cleaning. but i hate the silence, so i would break and apologize, even though i did nothing wrong, just because i was tired of the silence. but lately, thats not the case. last week we had an arguement, or i should say he over reacted to something, started yelling and screaming and saying mean things, i tried to calm him down, he wouldnt let me talk, kept interupting, so i walked out and slammed the door. we went two and a half days without speaking and he was the first to speak. because i didnt make his lunch for him to take to work, and i cooked but didnt make his plate and drink and bring it to him. i didnt wash his clothes. but still, when he finally talked to me, did he ask what was wrong? no. he said "are you just not gonna make my lunch anymore?" anyway i've rambled enough. let me get to the point. im worried im falling out of love with him. im worried thats why it is getting easier to stand my ground. over half the time, i feel like the only reason i dont file for divorce is because, he has had so many people turn their backs on him in the past, and let him down. and he is doing so good, better than he ever has in the past, i dont wanna turn my back on him. or worse, send him back to drugs and drinking. i guess what im looking for is advice from someone other than family.

[Exit]

Starting at the end of your post, you can't blame yourself if he ever chooses to go back to drugs or drinking. That is a personal choice and even if you guys have to split up, that does not mean you put a drink in his hands or told him to cope with losing you by using drugs. The fact that you even said that gives us a little bit of a hint about your mentality towards relationships. You take the blame and the responsibility for everything. It's time to stop that. When you think about leaving him, don't even entertain the thoughts that it might push him back to using drugs, that would be his choice, not yours. Addicts have to want to save themselves. If he decides to start going down that wrong road again, that's on him, not you.

 

You have put up with a lot in this relationship and it's starting to sound like it is time for you to go. The only thing I'm not sure whether or not you have tried yet, have you told him all of this? Not to generalize, but in my experience, many women bottle things up and only tell their partner about it when they are ready to end the relationship and it's too late to do anything. Women like to hold out and keep waiting for the man to read their mind. It doesn't work that way. Communication is a two way street. You mentioned the small ways you have tried to send a message to him, refusing to give him a massage when he won't offer you one in return, not preparing his meals, etc. But, have you ever really laid it all on the line with him? Frankly, you just need to say it as plainly as you wrote it up above. Tell him each and everything that that is driving you nuts, and ask him if he cares enough to try to fix it or if he wants to see this fall apart. This is not so much about doing him a favor by warning him as it is about doing yourself a favor. If you do not tell him clearly and you decide to leave, the guilty and the responsibility for your decision will fall on you. Whereas if you give him a fair warning, it is up to him to make this work or not. Put the responsibility where it belongs. Put it on the person who seems perfectly fine with letting this relationship fall apart. That's how their trap works. They make none of the effort, but they sure as hell aren't about to end the relationship. They'll make you do that dirty work, so in the end, it will look like you were the one who gave up and left.

 

If you have already clearly told him how much all of this bothers you, then you can already skip that step, and I think you should head for the door and find a way out of this. You sound like a servant more than a wife.

 

You did not say "I hate this man and I want to get as far away as possible", you showed that you still have some feelings when you said "I am worried that I am falling out of love". Makes it sound like you wish this could work out if only it weren't so miserable. And that is why my advice to you is to please just make sure you have spelled it out in absolutely clear neon letters for him. Sometimes we think it's not worth getting what we want if we have to ask for it, because we wish the person we love could figure it out by themselves. But again, that's asking for mind reading, and most times it doesn't work that way. Tell him what bothers you. Tell him how absolutely serious you are that if this trend continues, you feel like you will need to leave.

 

If you in any way think he would react violently or start acting crazy because you tell him these things, obviously do not do it in person. Leave him a letter and ask him to call you if he wants to give you a response. Go somewhere safe. You say you spent two and a half days apart before during an argument so maybe you have somewhere to go stay.

 

It is crucial now that you stop your bad habit of taking responsibility for everything in this relationship. Pass him the ball for once. Explain to him what is happening, how you feel, and let HIS actions dictate what your decision will be. You will have a much firmer foundation to base your decision on if you can base it on his actions rather than your feelings. Let him decide which direction this is going in. If he says he is willing to make a hell of a lot more effort, you can try to judge if you think he really means it, and then you see if he really follows through. If he doesn't, you should be able to walk away without any guilt. And if he doesn't even offer to change in the first place and just gets angry or acts like he doesn't care, again, you'll have your answer.

Edited November 10, 2012 by Exit

[leaann]

you should try accepting him. Accept what he gives. Your expectations are your problem. I see many married friends complain about their husbands meanwhile their husbands are in fact there, doing something, just not what they want.

 

see thats the thing. when i met him, i was a single mother taking care of my disabled mother. but i have a very successful, high paying job. i didnt need help financially. but he seems to think that is the only thing he is supposed to do is work and come home, and sleep. but thats obviously not why i married him. money never was an issue for me. i need him to do for me what i couldnt do for myself alone. take care of me when im sick, share the weight of dr appointments, errands, etc.,cleaning, someone to have fun with, someone to help support my daughter with things-not financially but emotionally. liking going to school events, etc. but he does none of that. and when i bring it up, his reason is always," if i didnt wanna be here, i wouldnt be. i come home everyday dont i? " but i always think to myself thats not enough to show me you want to be here. we live in a nice home, full of nice things, he has a live in maid/servant (me) and never has to worry about money. why would he leave? i do whatever he wants. i am always pleasing him, he never even tries to please me. and anytime i attempt to tell him whats bothering me, or what i need from him, he always says well if thats what you wanted you shouldnt have married me. most of the time, if we are having a conversation, its him telling me something about work or something. if i have something to say he is usually not even paying attention, or tells me to be quiet because he is watching tv. i know this is gonna sound terrible, but its almost like i want him to relapse again, or bring home just one beer. so i will have a good solid reason to leave.because honestly, i cant think of anything i would be missing out on if i was alone rather than with him. i mean, i wouldnt even miss the warm body in my bed, because we have a king size bed and he complains if i even brush up against him in bed, so we sleep far apart. so its like he isnt even there. even sexually, on the rare occasion we actually have sex, its all about him. no foreplay, ever. my actual sexual satisfaction happens on saturday mornings, after he leaves for work and before my daughter wakes up. i guess i feel like without a good solid reason like relapsing or drinking again, i would be giving up without trying. and more than anything, i dont wanna be another marriage that ends in divorce.