A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:I married my husband thinking he is a man I can live with and lead a confortable life. When I was young I used to secretly love a friend who always considered himself just a friend. I had hopes until he got married with somebody else. I never fel inlove again. I had a daughter at age of 26, with a handsome neighbour. After I had my daughter we split up and he didn't recognise officialy my daughter as his child because his mother didn't let him. I didn't want hear from him again and anyway he never showed interest to know his daughter. I dídn't have any relationships, not even occasional sex until I met my husband, 7 years ago, when my daughter was 8. My husband work abroad and I hardly see him, maybe a couple of months cummulated in a year. I had hard times and good time together, we have great sex, even though I never felt physically attracted by him. We kept moving home from Romania (I'm Romanian) to Edinburgh Scotland(my husband is British), to Brussels, Belgium wher our house burned and my mother died, to Australia. Now in Australia we bought a nice house, I've got some friends and a job, so things seem to settle down for me. Since with my husband I've always suffered depression, away from family and friends and my husband being away too. Now I feel better about myself but I feel trpped in this marriage. I don't want to hurt his feelings and I wouldn't tell him about all these things. What can I do? And besides all this I feel attracted by another man but of course nobody knows about this, not even the man concerned.I think I know what the advise would be: to talk to my husband, is anybody who has other ides?
View related questions:
neighbour, split up, trapped Reply to this Question
Share |
Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
reader, anonymous, writes (29 April 2008): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you all for your advice. Yes Suzan and Baby-Duck, my husband is not the problem, I am the problem. The attraction for the other man might be just because of his strong personality, calmness and the impression of a very experienced and intelligent man. The relationship between us is strictly social, sharing the same interest, marine biology, and having common friends. He is older than my husband and my husband is far better looking. Probably being with my husband just for a cupple of weeks at a time didn't help either. Spending more time with friends than with my husband, (since we moved here in Australia, because this is the first time when I've got some friends, while being with my husband)makes me feel closer to my friends that to him. I am enjoying being on my own when my husband is away and I get nervous when is time for him to come back. I think the main problem is that I have to always play as mediator between my teenage daughter and my husband. He had on a few occasions violent reaction against my daughter and I threatened with leaving him. My daughter might be a bit spoiled, being my only companion since we left Romania but she is in no way a bad child, I never had any problems with her. The last fight was because she brought a cat home, my husband just returned from a trip went to force the door on my daughter's bedroom to kill the cat, scaring my poor girl who was holding the door from the other side. We could just have talked through and persuade her to give the cat away as we did after, when things calmed down and he appologized, he had no justication to behave like that and that was not the first time. Another thing is he makes promises to her and he changes his mind leaving to me to tell her that he is not going to do as promise and trying to not make him look bad, finding plausible reasons for him changing his mind. I know he loves me and he will be miserable without me but I find myself wishing that he cheats on me, so I can have a serious reason to leave him. But he always appologizes and my heart melts. He has been very supportive when my mother died, he takes us in nice holidays and have good time too. On the other hand, because he earns the money he takes all the decions for everybody, what furniture to buy or where to go in holiday, or what pets we can have, etc. About pets, my daughter and I are huge cat lovers but my husband's mum who will probably visit once a year, is allergic, so we can't have a cat. He considered a big crime my daughter bringing home a kitten and me allowing this to happen. He came from London very upset and decided to kill the kitten. I manage to solve this sending the kitten away of course, but next day I was feeling sorry I didn't leave. Now he is away again and I am on my own having a life for the first time since I married him, enjoying it, even though I didn't choose it, he decided that we move to Australia me being to upset grieving for my mother. When my mother died, in Sept 2006, she was visiting me in Brussels. My daughter, my nice and I went to the supermarket leaving my mother and my Newfoundland dog at home. When we returned (after aprox 1,5 hours) the house was in fire and fireman and ambulances there. they found my mother and my dog holding each other. Apparently was an electrical fire from the ground floor, my mother being at the first floor. She has been in a coma for two weeks and she never woke up again. I suffered in silence and I'm still in pain, I don't know if I will ever recover after this, but maybe this made me appreciate life more and increase my self awerness, wanting to understand myself better, to know who I am and who I want to become, to have a life worth living.
I hope what I wrote does make sense. Thank you again for your answers.
Mihaela
A
female
reader, Susan Strict  +, writes (28 April 2008):
 When you marry someone, you make a promise to stay with them for life and ideally that's what you do. When things go wrong, it's always worth trying to keep that promise - and work out just what's going wrong and why, and then try to put it right. Breaking up really should be a last resort, although far too many people are far too ready to throw it all away as soon as things start to become a little difficult.
Having said that, you may reach a point when nothing you can do will put things right - in which case it's far better to go your separate ways than to continue in misery. I wonder whether you have reached that point? I suspect not. From what you say I don't think you have really found the true cause of your unhappiness, and I think you need to look further to see if there is something that can be changed and improved.
Is there someone else you can talk to about it? Ideally someone who knows you and your husband, but someone who is not so close that they can't give impartial advice. You will need to talk to your husband about it at some time, but maybe not now, not until you have it clearer in your own head. If he is away a lot then he will have great difficulty in understanding what you feel when you are on your own. Of course the perfect situation would be to tell him first, but unless you know exactly what the problem is then all that you will do is confuse him and make him unhappy too.
Your daughter is now 15? Before you take any irrevocable steps you have to talk to her about it all. She's nearly an adult, and her feelings are important. Although, obviously, she's too young and inexperienced to be the first person you turn to for advice, she may surprise you by being far more supportive than you would ever have expected.
Be very careful about other men that you find attractive right now. It may be an infatuation or no more than a reaction to your unhappiness, and if you don't get to the causes of that unhappiness then any future relationship is probably doomed to failure.
...............................
A
reader, anonymous, writes (28 April 2008): If your marriage has run its course and you are attracted to another man (as you never have been your husband) then perhaps you do need a good long heart to heart with your husband, see what improvements can be made and how you can be happier if you plan to make it work, If not and you want to start over, it has to be honest, so dont tell the guy about your feelings until you have ended the relationship with your husband. If you end your marriage, you will be free to see whoever you want...but the main thingis try to be happy yourself and if the depression sets in, please see a doctor. Take care x
...............................
|
