nstari Posted May 26, 2013 Posted May 26, 2013 I feel like I made a terrible mistake getting married so young. First things first, I'm 21; my husband is four years older than me and we been together for over six years. We have two small children. We are both in college atm and he works part time at a desk job making pretty good money compared to other people in our city. Now for the issues I'm currently dealing with. Our relationship started going down hill a year into it. I've come to realize I'm a jealous person and I have control issues I'm trying to work on. I do say mean things way too often to him. I try to hold my tongue but the stress I deal with raising two kids practically alone, without outside help, while attending college full time, and trying to keep a house livable inside and out is too much for me to handle alone. I have no friends or family except for my mother to talk to about anything. I have pretty major anxiety and issues with being alone. I have cheated on him a few times during our relationship and I feel so terrible about it. He knows about it and I was open with him. He's distant in every way possible except for physical distance. He can't tell me how he feels about me, never touches me, and doesn't ever talk about feelings or our relationship. This has been going on for years. He gets mad when I ask him to talk about our marriage because he says I never want to talk about random things (small chat) with him; it hurts too much to hear him only happily talk about his games ever. He's never happy to be around me and when I ask him to do things with me or with our kids he gets annoyed and ignores me or comes along and ignores us. He's been out of school for two months? and maybe works 8 hours even though our kids birthday is in a few weeks. He spends his days playing games or laying on the couch watching tv. He thinks quality time with me is watching a movie sitting beside each other and not talking or touching. I tried getting into his hobbies with him (games mainly) but I don't have time. He doesn't hardly help with the kids and when he does he doesn't watch them or interact with them. He forgot mother's day and our 3 year anniversary. He didn't say he was sorry and after I told him it was mother's day he bought me a card and a dog; which I have said at least 100 times I don't like dogs especially not inside dogs. On valentine's day this year I caught him looking for inappropriate porn photos on google. I'm not against porn but he was looking up crossed the line with my morals. I went nuts on him and he confessed he's had a porn addiction for pretty much our entire relationship. He's lied to me hundreds of times about porn. He's lied about stupid things. He lies all of the time. It seems like his mentality is that I don't deserve to know anything. I will never understand how he can say he loves me when he's lied about so much. It's so hard to deal with no affection and no openness at all. He thinks me wanting us to be open with each other=me wanting to know his every step. I forgave him for everything and the first week after was so amazing. After that week things went right back to square one. I asked him a little while back if he was still looking at porn and he says he hasn't; it's impossible to believe when we have sex (maybe) once a week. He did start going to counseling last month but I haven't seen any changes and he's still closed off completely from me. The hiding, lack of affection, and communication isn't ever going to be okay with me. I can't understand it. I'm a very open person, not just sexually but in general. I talk about my feelings, tell him how much I love him, try to do new/nice things, give him space, more attention, do more around the house, and nothing EVER changes. So how do I help things to get better? What do I need to do to end this misery? Separation isn't an option because I have no where to go. It feels like I'm killing myself doing everything I have to do. I'm constantly sick and my body is always in pain from over doing it (which I have to do). It feels like I'm stuck here with no relief. Advice would be amazing.
Balzac Posted May 26, 2013 Posted May 26, 2013 Child support payments are his cheap ticket out. My advice is to prepare yourself. Reap what you sow. Sorry your life is miserable. It's doing you no good to live in a miserable marriage.
subversive Posted May 27, 2013 Posted May 27, 2013 Was the distance always there? Or did it happen after you cheated? What I have read leads me to believe you two should have never married, but it sounds like you want this to work, and I have never been a big believer in divorce. You cannot change him. You can only change yourself. I think counseling would be a good start. There's a good book called The Five Love Languages. The basic premise of it is that only you can do something about this and hope that he begins to respond, though it's not something you do just to get a positive response or something you stop when you aren't getting results. It's about choosing to love, guarding your words and actions so that you aren't tearing him down, showing him love in the ways that he understands it. If he is action-oriented, for example, you show him love by doing things. Worst case scenario, since there was adultery, would be to divorce. I hope you can avoid that, but your relationship sounds damaged. He sounds damaged. I can't blame him for being closed-off if it is a result of multiple affairs. He has his own issues as well, though; this isn't all on you. It's good that he's going to counseling. Overuse of porn is damaging. As for the communication issues, most men are not very verbal. Things aren't going to get better after a month. It may take years. You both are still growing up as well.
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