BelCanta Posted June 6, 2014 Posted June 6, 2014 I am new to this forum. I am feeling like I need to talk about my marriage because it has been plaguing me for some time. This post was triggered by something my husband posted in his blog--it was an innocuous post about the month he is spending in a big city, and how he'd tried to something similar when he was younger and was too broke and scared to enjoy it. What's crazy is that I never knew any of this. Not that he spent 10 days in NY when he was 20 but had planned on spending a month; not that he was taking his current trip to make up for that time (25 years later and significantly more money). I read it on his blog. There is so much he does not share with me. He regularly takes these summer trips and will go alone for the first month; I usually meet him where ever he is for a couple of weeks. I don't like to be away from home that much and I also have a very intense work schedule during the summer. So it is hard for me to leave for an entire month. The blog itself is not that big of a deal, really, but it represents a larger fact of our 14 year marriage that I struggle with. He doesn't share with me; nothing about the book he's writing (don't even know the topic); nothing really about how he feels about things. Maybe I've been watching too many romantic comedies, but I feel lonely and sad in my marriage. He is very shy and very introverted; he never comes to parties or wants to socialize with me and my friends (although he goes out with his men friends now and then). How independent is too independent? We live very separate lives, and do try to spend time together once a week (date night), but it usually involves going to a restaurant or maybe a movie now and then. Here he is in another country, by himself, for a month, and I learn that he is going to films and festivals and enjoying the city by himself; we could do all that here, but he never wants to. He loves me and he is supportive of me and my eccentricities (which are many)--he's a decent partner in that he is my best friend. But as we grow older, I feel an intense sense of loss around not having a deeper relationship with the man I live with (PS: Our sex life has diminished to practically zero over the past 6 years--maybe once or twice a year. I'd like it more). Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe I'm not capable of it. Maybe he's not capable of it. I know I can't ask him to change. I'd like to work on my marriage, but I also find myself thinking about other men, and wondering what relationships would be like with someone different--whether I'd just recreate what I have here, or whether there's a more sharing kind of love out there. I don't think he'll go to counseling, although I plan to broach the subject when I join him later this month. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
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