A
female
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anonymous
writes:This is why I'm a jerk.My husband and I have been together for 8 years, married for 4. He's 31, I'm 27. For the first 4 years, he was a graphic designer. For the last 4 years, he's been a Marine. For the first 5ish years, he was a depressed mess - we had lots of good times, but he also was a compulsive cheater. He's been with 20-30 people over our relationship (if not more). He used the Marines wisely, and got good psychological help, spent some time in a psych ward after a suicide attempt, but he's doing a lot better now. He hasn't cheated in two years. That's not to say that he still doesn't do exceptionally stupid things. For the most part he's a good husband and a good partner. I know that sounds crazy, but really - he is. He doesn't call me names, we don't have nasty fights, he does his share around the house and he puts me on a ridiculously high pedestal (sometimes way too high). He'll be a great father too. I'm due in November. This baby wasn't so much planned - she was a pleasant surprise. The thing is, over the last 4 years that he's been a Marine, I've lived across the country from him, finishing up my two degrees. I've enjoyed visiting him from time to time for a few months here and there, but I've really grown accustomed to my independent life. My husband is EXTREMELY clingy and needy, and I'm the opposite - I am not nearly as affectionate - though I like fun and flirting - but not to his liking. He always insists that I'll "get used to it". The truth is, all the neediness, the overwhelming dependence he has on me, over the years it's pushed me away. He's coming back in 5 weeks and to tell the truth, I'm DREADING it. I love having my privacy, I know that when he comes home, he'll be all over me all the time, he'll require so much attention and affection… oh Lord. I'm 6 months pregnant (which honestly is merely a good excuse. I know I'd feel this way even if I wasn't), and I really don't want to do the hugging and the touching and the sharing of a bed. The sex is great, but I can't say I'm really into it. I don't feel a whole lot of passion or chemistry. I fantasize about straying, but I'd never, ever do it. I'm just not that kind of gal. His affection can smother me - I mean, he's like a koala - so often physically attached to me. And if I ask for space, if I squirm at all, he gets so hurt and pathetic, he mopes and turns into a depressed mess until I pretty much give in or apologize or whatever. I know that this is a total manipulative move on his part - even though he doesn't even realize he's doing it. I feel like I married a really great friend, or even a really great boyfriend. But I don't think I married my soul mate. I know that friendship lasts. Maybe that's what's important.What do I do when he returns? He has no friends here except for mine - how do I maintain my privacy, a comfort zone when it comes to affection and my own life when he will feel so rejected if I ask for space? What the heck do I do? Am I a jerk? I feel like a jerk.
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female
reader, YouWish +, writes (21 July 2013):
 This post has me intrigued, to be honest.
You come across to me here that you talk about his cheating with 20-30+ people with the same feeling as a woman describing her husband's clipping toenails in front of her.
Yet what has you here before us isn't your husband's serial cheating (you talk about his not cheating for 2 years as a good thing!), which would send most women straight into divorce court, nor his suicide attempt, which is a traumatic thing to be sure, but his clinginess to you as being the thing bothering you most.
Why is that? His serial cheating doesn't devastate you, but his clinginess and need for constant affection from you bothers you and has you dreading his return. Usually it's the other way around - women devastated by a husband's infidelity and deciding to make it work tend to long for a doting husband who has seen the error of his ways and come back with a love and gratefulness that their wife didn't throw him out into the cold.
I think there's more than meets the eye here. It sounds like you no longer love him. That you're pregnant, but not even remotely in love with him. I don't get that you're still resentful of his sex with other women, or that you're punishing him by loathing his presence in your bed or life. It feels like you do not love him and are only with him out of a sense of duty to him and your unborn child, and a fear that he will harm himself again.
That's no way to live, you know. You're not a jerk...you just don't love him. You may not have ever loved him, but I'm just guessing that due to your pragmatic reaction to his multiple straying on you. I love my husband, and if it came out to me that he was a serial cheater without my knowing about it, I'd be gone, and it would shatter me heart and soul. You may simply be a "just the facts" writer, but I don't sense that shattering when you relay his massive amount of cheating. Simply that you never have and never will, and that you're worried you'll seem like a jerk.
You're not a jerk, but you have a choice. Live a dutiful life avoiding smothering affection from a man who you don't love, or leave him amicably, give him access to being a devoted and engaging father to your kid, and move on with your life for a guy that you are madly in love with.
This one intrigues me. It's like you've taken a "we need to treat the mental illness' caretaker stance, treating his cheating like symptoms of obsessive sex addiction, and in so assuming the role, have totally opted out of any love-feelings for him.
I get it, but what a prison!
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