What Makes Marriage So Hard? A Reader Question

Shockingly our marriage didn’t end our first year, but I give thanks to my sweet husband and his determination for that. I think what mostly began to destroy our marriage during the first few years was that we struggled deeply with the roles assigned to us.

Though I wanted to be a stay at home wife, I had never been taught how, so I struggled with getting up everyday, keeping house and cooking food. I would become completely irate if he didn’t mention how wonderful the house looked (even though I never praised him about his job) and anytime I got bored with the house and went out to find a job, subconsciously he would become bitter about it because deep down he felt that he was no longer able to properly provide for me.

Add a mixture of some high dose hormones from birth control pills and we were on the crazy train!

Once off the pills, I calmed down a lot. It took a lot of practice to get to know eachother, and our new selves. We weren’t just who we used to be, we were now a husband and a wife, and that changes you.

Untypically Jias last blog post..Someone Kill a Cow for Me

If I had a nickel for all the times I threatened divorce in the first few years of marriage, I wouldn’t owe anything on these student loans.
Once I realized I wouldn’t allow divorce to be an easy out, we started solidifying our relationship. Twenty years later, we’re still going strong.

Is This Mike On?s last blog post..Why this is a good day

We didn’t have a hard time in the beginning at all. We’re finding it harder as we get older and change in our personalities and interests. What do you do when you’re not married to quite the same person you married? It’s much harder once you add kids.

It’s crucial to learn how to communicate, how to not take things personally and how to not rely on your spouse for your self-esteem.

Failing that, I have no answers for Bob, made clear by my last post.

Natashas last blog post..When life is boring, hard and disappointing– what do you do?

You have to leave and cleave. That was a major problem. You also have to be an individual while being a part of a couple. A good book on differentiation is called “Passionate Marriage” by David Schnarch. While it has some intimate details on his clients lives, it really teaches you how to be differentiated.

Many people believe that given enough time, they can change their spouse. It’s simply not gonna happen. As soon as my wife and I understood this fact, things were much more pleasant.

Mocha Dads last blog post..What Not to Wear

I found you have to really give up on everything before it can work. Your spouse isn’t there to reassure or build you up.
I have to remember there really are no rules and there is no plan to follow.
It get’s very difficult sometimes, low self confidence and verbal abuse from the spouse make a constant uneasy feeling, and a false attraction and need for eachother. You have to be able to fully emotionally support yourself, not rely on anyone, not even for love, you have to love yourself and remind yourself of it.
It becomes difficult when you don’t know the spouses intention, if they are playing a mind game and trying to hurt your feeling for psychological reasons. When they say their life and marriage is miserable, that you bore them, you wonder if that is venting or real, a trick just because they enjoy seeing you in pain and heart-broken, or a real problem that needs to be worked out. I always want to figure things out, so I create plans of making lists of things to make life better and more fun. I gotta remember there are no rules, and you have to rely on yourself.

I too am an only child and used to having my own space. My wife is the oldest of five and used to having people around all the time. Not a big point of contention, just took some getting used to. I do want to say how much I admire and appreciate your honesty. You help people out the most when you tell it the way it is and what you learned from that. Thanks for sharing your experience.

B. Wildes last blog post..Making a Fool of Myself in Front of Ann Cannon

I was in a way heartened by the depressing comments above about how in marriage you’re on your own and you can’t count on your wife to reassure or build you up. Heartened because perhaps I’m not alone.

My wife and I are coming up on 20 years together. And for most of those years I’ve struggled daily with the sense that she does not love me. I love her with all my heart. And I’ve tried very hard to be a good husband and to try to understand whatever may be going on with her. But after 20 years I just don’t have a clue what to do.

So I struggle now with the issue of whether it is true: does she really not love me? We have several beautiful and still young children. We focus on them. She stays at home. What free time she has she does not spend on me. At the risk of sounding selfish, I observe that she can spend a lot of time on personal interests and throw her time and effort into them with passion. But I and our marriage don’t seem to fall into the category of one of her interests.

Through the years I’ve tried to engage with her to talk about improving our marriage, communication, etc. Those attempts are met with indifference and sometimes hostility. In her view seeing a counsellor would be a waste of money and not be beneficial. I picked up a fairly good marriage coaching book years ago and tried to get her to participate either in reading, discussing or trying some of the ideas in the book with little to no success. At times she’s even hid the book. Most recently, I finally had to ask her where it was so that at least I might see what I could get out of going back to it. She reluctantly produced it but expressly stated she would not stand for having it thrown in her face (something have never literally or figuratively done).

She expressly rejects affection. She will reluctantly mumble that she loves me (although it’s not really clear whether that is what she is saying)

So after years of essentially unrequited love, I don’t know where to go.

While I love her dearly and want to spend the rest of my life with her, this relationship seems very unhealthy for each of us. While I believe the status of our feelings are hidden to a great degree from our children and our families, I’m sure that the children, at least, pick up on the true nature of the relationship (e.g., oldest daughter is very disrespectful and is resistant oftentimes to basic, civil politeness with respect to dad–but perhaps that’s just a teenager).

I oftentimes think that for wife to acknowledge her lack of love for me is a risk she is not willing to take: perhaps negatives of separation in her mind outweigh negatives of staying together.

So I struggle: I absolutely don’t want separation. On the other hand might she be better off on her own or finding someone else? Wouldn’t it be nice to be in a relationship in which the person you loved loved you too? These concerns seem trivial when I think of the effect of a divorce on the children (yes, effect on children of watching a distant spouse regularly reject attempts of loving spouse make a marriage work can’t be all that exemplary either). So do I tough it out til death do us part or just until the kids are off to college?

Each one of us, bring into our marriages, more differences that we can ever know, until we are in the thick of the relationship, and family life. Just when you think you have worked through one challenge, low and behold, life throws another curve ball.

It takes serious work, to have a successful marriage. Wouldn’t it be nice, if love was all that was necessary?

I believe that there are some very specific elements, of successful marriages, that if applied - will ultimately ensure a happy marriage.

tDMg
LdsNana

Successful Marriages last blog post..Comment by LdsNana-AskMormon

Wow, 20 years married, too overwhelming to think about. I am only 3 years married, no kids, and I can only see it getting harder and harder. I really recommend therapy, and I have found a really good resource, only $35 an email, send her paypal payment and send her an email any length and she will adress it. It really pulled me out of feeling terrible and suicide. The site is http://www.lzcybershrink.com/.
I think there is zero wrong with being fulfilled in yourself don’t worry about selfishness, be confident and happy and withdrawn, women will go to that, if your in your own cool party they will do anything to join you. Best never to initiate anything or get confirmation for anything, best to completely withdrawl and become fulfilled and love yourself.
Sometimes I have to say there is no way to win, and times only get worse, if I don’t find something to appreciate I will have had nothing. I tried many ways to get my wife to therapy. Two nights ago I told her she is verbally abusive and she is miserable and she needs therapy. She said never say therapy again, promise not to say it. I told her if I saw you had a broken leg, I would drag her kicking and screaming to the ER no matter if she didn’t want it.
I found affirmations help, like a mantra to constantly repeat to yourself, because when you don’t have someone to safely bounce ideas off, all you have is your mind, and the mind will only drown you in paranoia of being unwanted and unloved. Everytime I notice anything goin on I repeat to myself at least 10 times, sometimes in the mirror “I love myself”, something that is really difficult to say, and just speak and listen and be fulfilled.
I don’t think there is any chance for my wife or your wife supporting or giving foundation. I think if she saw me under a rug she would pull it out from under me, right when it would hurt the most just to see me fall. Best to build your own foundation, build it out of concrete, build it on yourself.
Believe it or not this solves jelousy, paranoia, all that. It is really difficult to change and to let go. I am very prone to jelousy and I am working on it. My wife likes to brag to my friends how she went on an overseas trip and got wasted and can’t remember things and how everyone there was cheating and someone said they were going to take her home and shag, and went to a strip club with a guy. Hardest part for me is she sleep talks, and one night grabbed me and said I love you ( which she never does ) and kissed me and called me the guy she hung out with’s name. I asked and she said she didn’t sleep with anyone, I am going to have to trust that.
I believe that you are born and die alone, I learn to live only with myself, and to find true love and happiness there. It’s the very best gift I could give to myself, and as it turns out is the very best gift you can give to others, as it turns out putting others before you helps nobody.

Wow am I glad I found this board.

My wife and I have been married almost 25 years and I have been the sole provider for the last 19 years. I am retired at 48 and we have three kids in college. We are empty nesters now.

It seems now that the kids are out of the house that her interest are now the third party in our relationship. She LOVES to kayak, I couldn’t care less about it.

Recently she planned an overnight camping trip with one of her girlfriends and I was fine with that. I told her I was going on a motorcycle trip while she was gone and she let into me that I was just doing that because she was taking this trip.

I told her that was not so but I canceled my trip and stayed home, two of the kids came by from school and I never even got to throw a leg over the bike.

Last year (07) I had planned a trip to see the Northern Lights, something I’ve wanted to do for years. She let me know right quick that she was planning a trip to the Green River in Utah to go kayaking with her friends so she could not go see the Northern Lights with me. I was very upset that she had planned this trip this far in advance and had not even told me.

It started out as an all girl trip then morphed into a trip with two couples (not married) and two single guys. I told her I was very uncomfortable with this. She told me the trip was scheduled around her time (she does not work, hasn’t in 19 years) I am not saying raising kids is NOT work, just that she hasn’t had a formal job. So since the kids have left the roost, her entire calender is free.

By her telling me the trip was planned around “her time off” I begrudgingly said Ok. I said this even after I had severe reservations about her being in the wilderness and I am talking real wilderness here, only sat phones work, helo rescues, etc.. she was fine, everything was on go. She seemed oblivious about my feelings. All she was focused on was her trip. My feelings and thoughts were never on her radar best I could/can tell.

I then told her my REAL feeling that “when” not if word got out that my wife had been kayaking with a group that included single men conclusions would be made about the single men/women out in the wilderness. True or not, I would be made to feel like a chump (we live in a small town, word WOULD get around).

Perhaps I am off base here but I sure would see the potential for hankey-pankey as an outside observer even if it weren’t my spouse we are talking about here. I have no doubt rumors would flow and I’d feel like a fool. Until I revealed my true feelings she really didn’t care or was unaware of how the trip would be perceived locally once word got out.

I felt it rather strange that she would place the disappointment of a group of strangers by her not going over my feelings of betrayal of our relationship and my standing in the community. My son and I went out west for his high school graduation (just a father and son thing) and even he, at 18, realized that this just wouldn’t look right. I asked him if he had told his mother this, he hadn’t but shared it with me with no prompting whatsoever from me.

After I told her how I really felt and she canceled the trip. She just got back 3 months +/- ago from a 6 day all girl trip on a river here in FL. She has been gone the past 5 days on another trip and is planning another 6 day trip for spring 08.

She did all this after us having a long talk and me telling her that I came to the conclusion that kayaking was the third person in our marriage and she had free reign to do what she wanted in that regard. At this point I have completely acceded to her kayaking.

Boy did she jump on that, now the Green River trip is back on for 2010, all girl this time so far.

I DO NOT like being alone for days at a time and she knows this yet she goes anyway. I have no real hobbies except for reading, riding motorcycles and traveling. My wife and I have traveled a lot and we get along well while on the road.

However, I really don’t like to travel alone and don’t like large groups of people. I am not one to wallow in my pity. I am just sad that she KNOWS that I don’t like being alone but chooses to go anyway.

I have come to the conclusion that I will just have to start doing things alone. None of my friends can take off on a whim, they have jobs. My wife and I can and do, but she kayaks a lot without me. So far I have just stayed home and puttered around.

Not anymore. This past weekend I went to a party while she was gone and was rather surprised at the smiles a well dressed middle aged man could garner at a local watering hold. I have/had no intention to cheat, I just flat out got tired of reading, watching the tv and fooling around the house, I had to get out.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble. I am just kinda sad that my wife has put her hobby on par (or above) with our relationship. We still do things together and I do not suspect her of infidelity, however, from what I have read, if a marriage is rocky and you have two people that share the same passion (like kayaking) that is a recipe for disaster if they are put into certain circumstances and I can’t think of one worse than the Green River trip. I can only hope for the best as we have both committed to our marriage for life.

I could go on and on but enough for know.

Thanks for letting me vent.

RM

Oh, I might add, that our 25th anniversary (I know I said we have been married 25 years but it is 24 years and many months) and I had planned a trip to Prague. She went last year and raved about the city as have other family members.

I had planned to go there and renew our wedding vows for our 25th anniversary. When I found out about the Green River trip I told her about my plans for our anniversary but that I had canceled them.

She brought up going to Prague for our anniversary last week. I flat out told her that was NOT going to happen.

Am I being too harsh? I am still annoyed about this third person in our marriage but realize I cannot change her.

RM

Hello Cory:

We go lots of places together, in fact we are out of town around 50% of the time. I realize everyone needs their own space from time to time but it is the duration of her trips. A day or two, fine. But planning an 11 day trip 6 months in advance without even telling me..sheesh.

I/we (sometimes me alone) am seeing a therapist, we started this when she told me “she loved me but was not in love with me” a classic line so I hear. Anyway, she says she loves me now and I believe it but I sure get lonely when she is gone for an extended period of time.

I have made up my mind that when she goes, I am going to “get gone” too, whether it be a local hangout or a trip to to Alaska, I simply am not going to have a pity party for myself. A friend of mine called tonight wanting me to go to a local watering hole with him. I said no. As the saying goes: “opportunity knocks once but temptation leans on the doorbell”.

We/I am scheduled to see the therapist in Jan, her going is optional, I am going to leave it completely up to her.

Thanks for your reply,

RM

If your spouse won’t go to therapy with you, go by yourself. I got a ton out of counseling without my hub. I learned so much about me and made changes in me. It was my changes in me that caused my hub to start making changes in himself. We are now in a much, much better place. there is hope, don’t lose it. Go get counseling if not together, then by yourself. It will still be a great thing!

@Rob Would you and your wife consider seeing a mediator? Marriage therapists are great at helping to reveal underlying issues but they are less helpful to couples who have to negotiate new rules for a marriage.

Having someone trained in listening, questioning and being neutral will allow you and your wife to concentrate on identifying key issues like why kayaking is so important and then create a plan for how to manage them in your real life.
You can learn more about this at http://www.mediationtostaymarried.com Laurie Israel, a colleague of mine, is a pioneer in this field.

Here’s hoping you find what you need.

Dinas last blog post..Thanksgiving madness and The Gratitude Project

My husband does not care. He threatens divorce several times. I have asked for forgiveness from him even aftter beatings but he still will not forgive me.Though he is also at fault.

He is beating you? There is NOTHING that justifies him laying a hand on you. You need to contact a woman’s shelter right now. You must value yourself and make yourself safe. Google women’s shelter and then your city to get the number or call your local police department. Again I say YOU SHOULD NOT BE BEATEN. THAT IS NOT LOVE THAT IS POWER! HELP YOURSELF AND IF YOU HAVE KIDS, HELP YOUR KIDS!!!!