A
female
age
41-50,
*7yrstoolong
writes:I have been married since highschool. I have only been with my husband for 17 yrs. I used to be happy. I used to love everything about our lives.However lately I feel so emotionally demolished inside. 2 yrs ago I suffered a major blow to my health and have been stuggling to get better since. This is when the problems began. He was very cold with me in the recovery. Did not even come to the hosptial to see me before I had massive surgery. He decided during my recovery to move us away from our happy town and change our kids schools. I was devastated but not working and too weak to really argue. Since then all he does is pressure me to work again. I have not been cleared my an MD and after being a stay at home mom for the last 10 yrs I do not even know what to do. Its constant. I have no problem working but his pressure is making me nuts. I can't take his lack of support anymore. I cannot take his pressure anymore. I don't even know what or where I am going to go but I feel like I wanna scream and run for the hills right now. I had a perfect husband, perfect life, and since I got sick I live with a cold unemotional monster who is trying to make me into someone I am not. I cry everyday. I am miserable all the time. What do I do? Reply to this Question
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male
reader, drb1966  +, writes (10 September 2010):
 It does seem that your husband has thrown in the towel on the relationship. Have you asked him what he wants from your relationship? Has he answered with something more than 'I don't know'? Does he think that there is still a chance to make the relationship better? I'm sorry you had to deal with going into surgery alone, no one should be placed in that position. And I would like to think that he does not being there with his kids and being more a part of their lives even the two of you are going through a difficult time. By making a move to another area did it achieve anything financial? Like cheaper rent or mortgage? Or was it an increase? Now this is only me thinking like a guy, but if my problems were with money then I would move to some place cheaper. If I moved some place that cost me a litle more I could justify that move by being closer to work and saving money on gas or and I hate to bring it up but to be closer to someone else. If it is someone else that becomes much more complicated. To generalize, men are very basic we like food, beer , sports and sex. And not always in that order. If he is seeing someone else which could account for him being so cold. Mentally if he cuts you out it allows him to not feel so guilty for cheating. And thus creates a division between the two of you. If you really want this to work out them you will need to be the adult in the relationship because he won't it is too much responsiblity. He just wants to stop playing with one toy and play with another.As I mentioend before, my wife had to go into jail for 30 days. I had already been away from her for almost a year. While she was away although not intended or planned I reconnected with my high school prom date. We still had feelings for each other and it felt fresh and new within the month I had convinced myself that I was 'in love' with her. By the time my wife got out of jail I was already 'playing with another toy' so I wasn't interested in the 'old toy' so to speak. Don't get me wrong I still loved my wife, but I was not in love with her.Anyway, several months after my wife's return I told her about my relationship with the other girl thinking that if I was just honest with her I could go on my merry way. Well, as you can imagine it crushed her and I felt horrible. It took time and a few more months of me being a jerk to realize that I was not 'in love' with another women I was 'in love' with the newness of the other women and it was a sexual relationship more than anything. My wife's persistence and willingness not to just quit is what kept me from walking away. As I said I still loved her. We began to make changes in our daily routines and as I mentioned before we started working out together which gave us something else to add to our conversations. We are doing much better, but it did take time.It is really a matter of where his head is at and how he feels about his marriage. You have a tough road ahead of you, but know that you can get through it even if it going to hurt some days worse than others. You made it through your surgery all my by yourself even though you were scared you did it. Good Luck
A
female
reader, 17yrstoolong +, writes (10 September 2010):
17yrstoolong is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks so much for the help and sharing so much.
I can totally understand your stand point drb1966. The last thing I want to do is be a burden and things have been so tough financially for us right now that my working would definately help.
What changed for him? To be honest I don't know. He took on a new job and it put a lot of strain on us because he was working from 7am till 10 pm. I tried to be supportive but I was deeply frustrated at the lack of Daddy time our sons were getting. It all seemed too much and it left me basically being mommy and daddy. We argued a lot during that time.
The coldness came the same day I went into the hospital for emergency surgery. What I thought was a horrible stomach flu was actually a ruptured appendx to which I had in my system for over 9 days without even knowing. The infection was so bad they called a priest into my room before surgery. I called him at work to tell him the severity and he did not even budge. He told me to hang in there and good luck and he hung up. I was devastated and I did not even know if I would ever see him again. I went into surgery alone. Scared and thinking my marriage was over then.
Since then, I have not felt the same. I admit that. We've tried to talk about it, I've tried to forgive him. I've tried to move on. I can't. I slip in and out of depression now as well.
I think this is all just us perhaps drifting apart.
I just want you to know I am not opposed to helping financially I have ran a small part time online business for 10 yrs and bring in small amounts of money to help , the same amount a part time job would bring me. It just does not seem good enough. He also moved us to a very french speaking community and I don't speak a word of it and that is also a worrisome thing for me.
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A
male
reader, drb1966 +, writes (9 September 2010):
You have to admit I have been in the same situation, but I am the other side of your story. My wife and I have been married for 22 years now. I was getting very frustrated with my wife for not helping financially with the bills. On top of the fact that she would go in and out of depression. Two years ago I had to leave my family in Arizona while I moved to Las Vegas for work. In the year that I was living here by myself I have to admit my life was much more simple. I had the freedom to go where I wanted and do what I wanted...don't get me wrong it wasn't a big party, but if I wanted to go sit at a book store and read for 3 hours I could. I would still pay all of the bills and make sure she had the money she needed for the kids. She was still a stay at home mom with two teens. Shortly before I was able to move them out to Vegas my wife ended up getting a DUI. And in Arizona it is a mandatory 30 days in jail. I became very angry with her for being irresponsible and now I faced close to $10,000 in fines, classes and an alcohol interlock system in her car. I moved my family out here to Vegas and my wife return to Arizona 2 weeks later to serve her DUI sentence. She was gone for a month and did the daily chores around the house and went to work and it all got done. And I dont' say this because it's a big deal many men and women do it everyday. My point is I began to feel like she had nothing to offer to our relationship that I couldn't take care of myself. After picking her up from jail I really had lost a great deal of feeling of love towards her and saw her more as a third kid I had to take care of in the house. Which might be what your husband is seeing. He doesn't see you as being in need of healing or recovery, he sees big dollar signs.
Long story shortened I told her how I was feeling and yes it hurt and there was talk of leaving each other, but we agreed to try and rebuild the relationship. For us, I had decided workout and get in shape. She decided to join me so every morning we got whether we wanted to or not and we worked out. We pushed each other. We had something we were doing together. It gave her self confidence and she began looking for work.
For me it was and has been about her contribution to the relationship from a financial standpoint. As of today she still does not have a job, but she is trying and to me that is want counts. She has also been out of the workforce for a long time and its not easy to just go get a job.
This may be totally unrelated to your situation as to what turned your husband from being a loving man to a cold jerk, but I know the stresses of supporting a family can get to you.
Good Luck and don't lose hope.
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