A
male
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:Wow, where do I start? My wife and I have been married a long time, and its been challenging since the start.We both come from unhappy childhoods, and it's affected us in different ways. In her case, her father was a total prick and treated her badly. In my case, my mother was a monster; we haven't spoken in perhaps 10-12 years.My wife has many great qualities, she truly is a good person, but is extremely, pathogically unhappy. No matter what, she's profoundly unhappy about anything and everything. I'm not certain that she's really in touch with the reasons why anymore; she's just massively cynical about life, and I just seem to be a very convenient target for the anger. Nothing I do to inject a shred of happiness into the relationship makes a difference.Whenever I have a success at something I'm doing at work, or whatever, there is always a critique..."well, you coulda/shoulda done this that or the next thing" (kinda like dear ol' dad used to do). A few days ago, I shared with her a HUGE success that I'd had that very day, and her ONLY response was, "well, how's the business doing?", completely changing the subject. It was a completely inappropriate response. When I challenged that behavior, she responds by turning on the tv and completely ignoring me and refusing to communicate in any fashion. I packed up, went to the gym. When I got back I was challenged because I dared leave without saying good-bye.While this behavior happens regularly, she also does do nice things for me. Last nite, she went shopping after work, and brought home a nice pair of gym/running shoes for me.I have to admit, I'm definitely not perfect. But who is? If it'd make any difference, I'd change in a heartbeat. But it doesn't, nothing does, and I've pyschologically challenged myself over the past 2-3 years to pursue my own personal activities in life to the extent possible i.e. I'm training to compete in the ironman triathlon for example.Like I said, we've been married a long time, most of its been miserable. But I do take marriage seriously, and I feel a commitment to care for her. I question the wisdom of walking away, just because your spouse is dealing with 'issues'. If everyone solved marital issues like that....I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't change this. I've spent years trying that. I've pretty much ruled out ending the relationship.So I'm perhaps looking for any suggestions, insights, and support I can get.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (26 December 2010): "we've been married a long time, most of its been miserable. But I do take marriage seriously, and I feel a commitment to care for her. I question the wisdom of walking away, just because your spouse is dealing with 'issues'. If everyone solved marital issues like that...."I think you're confusing marriage commitment with co-dependency.You take marriage seriously, that's for certain. But does your wife also take marriage as seriously as you? sounds like she doesn't. Sounds like she is taking advantage of your commitment, because you let her, because your 'commitment' to your marriage means there are no consequences for her bad behavior, there is no incentive for her to do anything. On the one hand you state how miserable you are and always have been, how you've tried everything. Yet now you're trying to minimize the problem as a way to justify staying in a marriage that is clearly hurting you.You say "if everyone solved marital issues like that" i..e., walking away from a marriage....well guess what? By staying "committed" to someone who is not being committed back, is not solving any marital issues either!! Instead you're prolonging the problem, you're enabling her to continue destroying your marriage by continuing to accept everything she does or does not do no matter how hurtful it is to you, and for always being the one bending over backwards while she gives only half-ass attempts. she's destroying the relationship but you're letting her do it or even encouraging her to do it.She clearly has 'issues' she needs to work through. Is she sincerely trying both for her sake and for yours? it's selfish of her to not work through her 'issues' when they clearly affect you, her husband. Where is HER commitment to the marriage? It takes two to have a relationship. And guess what, no matter how committed you are you can't make her 'issues' go away for her, not with any amount of patience or kindness or love or understanding. And when your wife doesn't deal with her issues, it causes YOU to develop 'issues' of your own, which you obviously have now i.e. co-dependency.Sometimes the tough love approach is needed. Sometimes you have to say I'm not going to be your crutch anymore, if you don't stand up and take personal responsibility for your own life's problems I am going to leave you. And then you have to be prepared to follow through. Some times only by leaving your partner, by no longer being their crutch, will they finally have no choice but to learn to take responsibility for their problems like an adult because you're no longer doing it for them. Only then can they start to heal and grow as a person, by being cut loose from their crutches. think of your wife becoming a better and stronger person in the future, someone who has worked through her problems and is in a healthier place mentally and emotionally. Don't you want that for her?? Now, what if you are holding her back from getting there under the mistaken assumption that you are being committed to your marriage by trying to accept her the way she is now rather than really challenging her to deal with her problems.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (26 December 2010): Why did you even marry her in the first place??Seriously. was she like this all along, or did she only become this way after you married?I feel really bad for you because I'm in the same situation. I am very unhappy in my marriage because my husband has always had a lot of unresolved baggage that he brought into our marriage. My marriage was a mistake. I saw the warning signs going in but I was so young and I thought it wouldn't be that bad...I regretted marrying him soon after we got married. But I stayed married, because of a sense of commitment. I tried everything I could to deal with it, to help him, and now 11 years later I'm more miserable than ever and seriously contemplating divorce.being committed to marriage is honorable. But I don't think you should place your marriage commitment above self preservation. Would you tell a woman whose husband was hitting her, to stay married because of commitment to vows? No.Your marriage is wearing you down. It is toxic. It is emotionally damaging you. This is bad for you. You have tried everything in your power to help your wife and it's not working because she won't help herself. Why should you continue to stay in this marriage? What good does it do to either or your wife?It's admirable that you are trying to not let her hold you back and are living your own life. That is what my therapist told me to do because I went into a depression because of the marriage I was in. So I refused to let my husband drag me down and I also went out and lived my own life, that is how I coped with my marriage. I lived my life without my husband. This worked for a few years, it kept me from spiralling back into a depression.BUT it's NOT a good long term strategy. It's a good short term strategy for when you're waiting for your partner to wake up and deal with their issues and "come back" to you and rejoin you. But if your spouse never does that, then all you're doing is coping and avoiding the problems and your marital relationship doens't improve in fact it will probably worsen even more.Because living your own life, without your spouse, means you are growing even further apart than ever before, with you living a life that doesn't include her. This is not a marriage. This is a roommate situation. That's where I'm at now. You are essentialy divorced in heart and mind, but still entrapped in finances and logistics. This is a HORRIBLE place to be in, emotionally and psychologically.Yet what else can you do? Not go out there and live your life? Stay at home and wallow with her in her misery? Obviously this is not healthy either.This is why they say it takes two to make a marriage work, but only one to destroy it.I'm sorry to say but I think for your emotional health you may want to consider separating from your wife. She is not pulling her weight in the marriage and you have tried everything to no avail, you are miserable and now you are here asking for tips on how to cope. Well, coping works short term, but long term just leads to more problems.Yes she has "issues'. But you know what, that is not an excuse. You have issues, as an adult it's your responsibility to deal with them so you don't drag your spouse down. She is not doing that. My husband didn't do that thus to cope I went out and lived my own life, on my own. The result has been disastrous for our marriage because I essentially became a single person in mind and spirit but was anchored down by a deadweight. Eventually I met someone that I fell in love with. I wouldn't have fallen in love if I wasn't single in heart and mind to begin with...But I was married to the deadweight. The same could happen to you too if you insist on going out and living your own life and not letting your wife drag you down. Yet what else can you do - allow her to drag you down into her misery??This is why I believe that since marriage is a CONTRACT both spouses are under obligation to uphold their end of the contract and meet each other's needs. If you don't uphold your end of the contract, there should be consequences. Without consequences, there's no reason for her to change. If she wants to wallow in her own unresolved baggage that's her personal decision. But by choosing to become a MARRIED PERSON she gave up the right to do whatever she wants. By getting married you now have to consider how your own actions and behaviors affect someone else - your spouse. She is not doing that. She is behaving as if she doesn't have to consider anyone except her self. Oh sure she went and bought you running shoes - nice things like that. But that is not enough. Yes, it is NOT ENOUGH. YOu don't get to emotionally abuse your spouse one day and cancel it out by buying them flowers the next day. Psychologists say that for a marriage relationship to be healthy, there must be FIVE times as many positive interactions/thoughts/feelings as negative ones. If the ratio is only one-to-one that is not enough. If there's only twice as many positives as negatives it's still not enough to create a healthy happy fulfilling relationship. We can become 'enablers' to our spouses by allowing them to get away with doing nothing to help themselves. I realize I have done that with my husband. I take full responsibility for that, and thus I'm refusing to do it anymore. By allowing him to wallow in his "issues" because I thought I was being patient and understanding and giving him his space, but he was unwilling to do the work to deal with his issues he just wanted to run away from them or let them sit and affect his life and my life. So to cope I went and lived my own life, which meant our marriage became even more of a sham because now I was emotionally and psychologically separating from him (by going out and living my life so as to not get dragged down by him) yet without the guts and decency to make it formal and legal. Finally when I realized how what we have is not a marriage and hasn't been for a long time, finally I admitted it and asked for divorce. That scared him and was his wake up call and we went into marriage counseling where now he is finally facing his personal issues, the ones that drove a wedge between us in the first place over a decade ago. It may be too little too late because by now I've changed. I've grown into a completely different person in the years when I lived my own life. But for him, he needs to do this whether or not I'm going to stay with him. He's still lapsing back into his old patterns of wallowing in pity and not working on himself.Sorry for rambling but I really feel for you. And to summarize i just want to say I understand where you're coming from and that you're trying to honor your marriage vows of "for better or worse"...but realize that this has to apply to BOTH spouses, not just to you and you only. If your wife is continually refusing to uphold her end of the marriage contract, you are left with no choice but to develop coping mechanisms. coping mechanisms do NOT solve the underlying relationship problems it just lets you and her avoid them for longer and allow them to build up. Long term coping and avoidance will probably lead to emotional distance in the marriage. And this is really dangerous for a marriage because now you are becoming separated in heart and mind but not legally free to pursue a real truly separated life. In other words your coping mechanisms can lead to unforeseen negative consequences further down the line. Your wife NEEDS to wake up and take responsibility for her marriage!!!You can't change someone, they have to want to change themselves. All you can do is choose to not be in the situation anymore unless and until it changes.Don't be an "enabler". Hold her accountable to her marriage. If she refuses to be accountable, ask yourself is it worth it to stay in this marriage when it is no longer a real marriage? Will it create problems further down the road to remain tied to someone that continues to drain your life energy and the only way for you to survive is to live your own life without them? If you do that, are you in fact separating from your wife anyway, just not doing so formally? Will that create future problems?
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 December 2010): After the dust has settled and you’ve teared down the walls in your mind and have understood what so many reject out of fear, your left with the perception of pretty much nothing at first and its understandable to feel that way. At this point you can easily see why we need religion, without religion its almost as if you can’t see, you’ve lost a great deal.
Life itself at a glance, in this state, seems pointless and almost unemotional, empty when infact it is very much the opposite, but before i go into detail about what is left and how much let me try to explain how much we need a belief.
We use symbols and icons everyday, we remember and we honor them, in some cases things like mascots are used as a public image because we need to put a face to something, something that’s larger than life and is easy to see and sometimes hear, and its these symbols these icons that we use, in part to rally people to a cause.
This feeling, this energy that invigorates our soldiers, this thing that fills us with pride is the very essence of a belief system that embraces, Reason, Understanding & Fanaticism.
No army that has been breed and slept in the embrace of the higher reasoning’s, that have been subjected to scrutiny publically by the very same reasoning’s, could ever hold a standard that represents an ideal that seeks to undo centuries of progress that has lead us to our world, here and now.
Any army that does is a threat to your freedoms, your society and mankind’s future.
Now back to the original starting point which was the realization…
So lets just say that you believe and your ready to go! So what’s in store for you out there? A new direction and new foundation to base yourself, a new beginning. Id say the first stepping stone is to understand the nature of your race and embrace the fact that we are not made perfect but that we should aspire to be the best of whatever we are or hope to be.
You should attain a high self awareness, be aware of your surroundings, from the bottle of milk on the table to the latest developments of the world. You don’t have to be an expert in every single thing but at least try to understand things that interact with you, and that includes people.
There will be murderers and criminals, there will be corrupt people in positions of power, there will always be forces in this world that you cant control or that you don’t agree with but you can work to understand them, you can work to gain knowledge about them.
Don’t kid yourself about this world, don’t make an grandiose illusions in an attempt to disguise the ugly truth, you will never ever move on if you are struck in an illusion, you’ll remain static, you’ll be set in old ways when there is always another way.
We, the people need beliefs, I won’t deny it but I will deny that we need an imaginary belief; I would say that we need a belief that makes sense but above all else, we need one that is honest; the truth may very well be a relative thing, what if there is an apocalypse… what if in there amongst the chaos of the event we are all confronted with the evidence that there is indeed and always has been a God.
I think many people would fall to their knees and pray, many would be scared and so they should.
You have to understand that at this point reader, it doesn’t matter if God exists, it doesn’t even matter if every single line in the bible is true, we are a race of people whom since we began recording time have struggled amongst ourselves, to better ourselves, to cooperate, to reach and to build. All that is slandered, all of our achievements, all of all who have come before us who have helped in their own way to shape the world you’re in now.. all of their struggle and all of their effort will be secondary, it will all be apart of a lesser remembrance as soon as you fall to your knees.
Suddenly it all wasn’t in the name of mankind it was all in the name of an entity who is almost alien to us.
The whole perception that God is around us and that he loves us, when you look at, it seems awfully skeptical to put it mildly. My reasoning, since we’re made in his (Gods) image, is that we are made in his image and so our emotions work in the same way, he loves us and a good proportion of our race seems to love him.
But can I ask you to anylyse this, can I ask you to look deeper.
Long distance relationships don’t work, they fail, this is why the majority do not or would believe in God as much as the dearly devoted.
Now there is a reason why long distance relationships don’t work out, no physical and/or intimate contact. Now that’s not to say that there is no love at all and it just fades away its just that the relationship never develops further, never grows.
Now this leads to – God should have realized that this was an obvious flaw and that if he really wanted us to believe in him more and to have love for him etc etc, he should have omitted this particular trait.
Morally, It is wrong to create a situation of entrapment where, in this case the only way out is blind faith and not reason.
Id like to think that God is reasonable. Perhaps the cause alone was enough to suspend reason, I can see that very reasoning, sometimes mankind has suspended beliefs for a higher purpose - say murder and killing in war.
But he is not a man, he is not learning, he is God, and it is evil, Its is evil to taunt your children for thousands of years, and time to us is linear, it is very real, we can literally feel a second tick away and in that second we can feel our own life fade, For God there is no time no ageing.
Perhaps the above was out of anger, and so it should be as it anger me and anyone who is thinking to know this, you cannot sugar coat it and say that it was for the cause because God is supposed to be above that, above petty rationalizations in order to justify himself and his actions, above petty practices.
Reason is the very thing that has built our society and helped to establish the very freedoms we have today. Soldiers fought for the people and as the people grew and utilized reason we have gained so much.
All religion is a creation of man, only early men from years ago could have made the misguided mistake such as this. I will refuse to believe that God, if he at all dose exist, is as cruel and as repulsive as is apparent in the texts above.
You can call God and the religion whatever you want, you can mislabel things to suit whatever sick and twisted perception you have, rapists call rape sex, Hitler called genocide doing the world a favor but in the end, its all a sugar coat a sweet before savory affair, not many people like the truth, they don’t like the story if it doesn’t have a happy ending and even thought you might not want to look at the truth right now, your going to later on.
Sufficed to say, You might not want to pray or kneel during the apocalypse around me, ill walk upto you and give you two options, either fight the unwinnable fight for your race or get a bullet in your head.
It sure as hell don’t matter if God exists or not, you have to pick a side if God is hell bent on genocide and who do you want to be? The kind that helped Hitler or the ones who opposed him – Justice, reason, the law etc etc they win in the end.
Now that you have read it all, from a 3rd person point of view, dosent it all sound like a good book… a good piece of fiction.
I don’t care if mankind doesn’t wake up to itself in my lifetime, the balls already rolling, the very fact im typing this out is an example of that and im not the only one whos thinking like this… it just sucks i aint gonna be here to see it but truth be told id rather be at the middle of the journey than at the end.
Denim and Lace 44
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 December 2010): Hi
The running shoes i could make a wise crack ...but i won't.
You are right you can't change anything....however your wife CAN if she wants to.
Does she need to seek special outside help?
Does she want to make things better?
Does she use her past childhood to mould her whole life?
....of course there are shadows from a bad childhood if in your wifes case they are so bad then Maybe therapy would help release these.
Arts therapy/ Dance movement therapy/ music therapy or the good talking and listening ...but only your wife can release her chains....
Personally i would not feed her emotional pain or yours...run into the future and ask your wife to come with you!
Happy new year!
Spunky monkey:)
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A
male
reader, ljhenhmla +, writes (22 December 2010):
I know how u feel I was in a relationship where no matter what I did my gf was not happy. Some people just have issues that they have 2 resolve with themselve first. U can't make a person happy they have be happy for themselves. U realized that u have a problem and are teying to deal with it. But she really has to seek help her self. U telling her will not work she has to do it for her self. It really a hard situation u guys shoild speak to someone together maybe u can get her to go by saying it will help u let go of the hurt from ur past. Good luck
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