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anonymous
writes: Me and my daughter, aged 2 at the time, left my husband because of domestic violence. At the time I was friends with a guy I used to work with. We would telephone each other and spend time together when we could. The friendship grew stronger and stronger. After a year he left his wife and we eventually became an item.Two years on we had a baby girl on Boxing Day 2004. Since I have given birth and the pressure of caring for my first child who is disabled and the pressure of looking after the baby, and with housework, washing and ironing, cooking etc, my feelings have changed towards my partner. We haven't had sex in over a year we don't kiss or cuddle anymore. We even find it hard to talk to one another. I keep asking him if everything is OK but all he says is 'I am fine'. I feel so alone and don't get any support from him or gratitude. It's got to the point where we hardly say two words to each other.I really don't know what to do...... I have been thinking of leaving him but I love him so much. Please help me.
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (29 March 2005):
 With all the home responsibilities on you at the moment, and the pressure of caring for two very young kids, you're probably much more tired than you think! Exhaustion can have all sorts of repercussions in your relationship, not least of all, irritability and snappishness and that may be what you're partner is picking up on.I'm sure you wouldn't be intentionally mean to him, but if you're very tired, you could also tend to be more resentful and less prone to general forgiveness of your partner's faults than you'd be if you were well-rested. So it may be that he's just "leaving you alone", so he doesn't risk setting off an argument.Have you also considered the possibility that you might still have a lot of frustration and anger to resolve from your previous relationship? Again, never meaning to suggest that you'd consciously take out your anger on your current partner, but there may be a certain element of "men are all such swine" lurking in the back of your mind, tarring your current partner with the same brush as your previous, abusive one. You may want to examine if there are any similarities in the way you respond to your partner's faults that resemble the way you acted with your abuser.Somehow, you need to get your partner to talk to you about what's really bothering him, and "Are you OK?" isn't cutting it. Is there some way that you can get his full attention for a few hours, so you two can talk without distractions? Could you get the kids minded by a family member or a friend? You need to be able to talk without interruption.You need to draw him out. Try a different tack with something like "We've had hard times before, but for the last year I've felt like something's really wrong. I need to know why you're so angry, so we can work on it, because I'm afraid it's destroying what we have." Maybe your phrasing is completely different to mine, but the point is that you need to specifically ask him to TELL YOU about the problem. Men communicate differently to women; they don't intuit as much as we think and they don't take hints in the same way we do, so you need to be direct.It really sounds like you two need to get to a neutral third-party and talk about the way you deal with the challenges in your relationship. Put it to your partner this way: The way you're both dealing with problems now isn't working. You need to try something else. There are free and very low-cost counselling services, if you check the phone book. Tell him that you're so unhappy that you've been thinking that you want to leave, but assure him that fixing the problem is your first choice. If he won't go to counselling with you, you can go by yourself and you'll find that will still help.Good luck, sweetie and be strong!
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