Can you go back in time and pinpoint when the dramatic change took place? Or maybe it's been an insidious process...
It has been a very slow and insidious process that has occurred very gradually and slowly over time. I can pinpoint a few key events and changes that seemed to accelerate things.
1. The first change started immediately after we said "I do." I chalked that up to the fact that we were both young and had never been married. That changed involved a lack of true physical intimacy. Basically, that is when it became clear that he seemed to prefer porn and self pleasure. There is more to life than sex so I didn't see it as that big of a deal.
2. More changes started around the time our oldest daughter was born. That was about 3 years in. There were a whole bunch of really big changes at once. He got a new job. We bought our first house. A month before our daughter was born and two weeks after we bought and moved into our first house, a major flood hit and we got 36 inches of water in our house. We spent the night on the side of a freeway. I think that it may have been around that time when the trauma bond formed. It seems that after that, I was always pretty easy on my husband, meaning that I didn't really insist on much. He pushed himself harder than I could. In my mind, I had him on a bit of a pedestal at that point but I did sense that things were changing. I chalked that up to being new parents and dealing with the aftermath of the flood.
3. Around the 5 year mark, he was forced to resign from his position at work because he got looking at porn on the job. I was ready to walk away at that point. But, our oldest daughter was around 2 and she really loved her daddy. He was a pretty good daddy to her at that point. He played with her and the three of us did all sorts of stuff together. I had a great little family and I was afraid to do anything to jeopardize it. So, I swallowed any and all of my discontent and committed myself to helping my husband and supporting him. I agreed to be his everything. He went to one SAA meeting and came home and said he wasn't like those guys, blah, blah, blah. Both of us were really arrogant and naive. We thought that we both strong enough as individuals and as a couple to overcome all of it on our own. Also, I think that is the point when I started keeping my feelings to myself about a lot of stuff. I was afraid of making my husband feel guilty or bad. That was the point when I started asking him stuff but agreed not to react no matter what the answer. That is when the major repression began for me.
4. There was a lot of little stuff between the 5 year mark and the 9 or 10 year mark. I am thinking it was 2007-2008 when the next really big shift occurred. That is when he and I were both really kind of depressed. Our third daughter was born and there was a lot of unrest. He got a job in his home state by his parents. It was a really prestigious job. Anyway, long story short is that we ended up living with his parents for 4 months. A complete disaster as his mother nitpicked me and the kids to death and he was hardly ever there. It was a foreign state. I didn't know how to drive on the ice and snow and nobody would really help me learn or encourage me to learn. I felt more trapped than I had felt in my entire life. My mother in law treated me horribly and my husband just sat back and said there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't find us another place to live. He couldn't ask his mother to be nicer. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't. I snapped and told his mother off once we moved out of there place. The new job didn't work out, our house didn't sell, and I found out we were pregnant with our 4th daughter so we went back to my home state and tried to pick up the pieces. After that fiasco, I felt ready to divorce him because he showed me and the kids that he did not really care about us. My oldest daughter talks about living with her grandmother as a huge turning point. She says that our lives would be so much better if we had never lived with his parents. Really, I think that is when the huge decline began. I think that is when he stopped giving me gifts, stopped paying attention to me and the kids, and really started to check out.
Have you consistently walked your talk?
Up until a year or two ago, I can say that I feel like I walked my talk. I have been a really strong proponent of not nagging. I have always made it a point to try to pay attention to my husband and his needs. I was a daddy's girl growing up and my mother was very negative and nagged a lot. I swore that I would never be like her. I wouldn't nag. I wouldn't sit around and find all of my husband's pitfalls. I wouldn't try to turn the kids against their dad by continuously saying bad things about him. I made a promise to myself that I would never withhold sex from my husband. Basically, I wanted a very spiritual marriage where I was dedicated to my husband and our family and life together. To that end, I feel that I walked my talk. I could sense when I was getting off track and I would read and read and would find ways to try to get back on track. I read so many articles about how to woo your husband and get his attention. I feel like I did everything I could to walk my talk.
I apologize for bringing up this subject, the one of both of you stepping out of your marriage in search of other sexual partners. Were you being true to who you are while that was taking place? Are you still in contact with the guy?
Don't apologize. I think I really need to sit and think about this one a bit more as I still find it very confusing. On one hand, I was being true to who I am because I was trying to find ways to please my husband as well as myself. On the other hand, I was not being true to myself at all. I am a one man kind of woman. I don't want to share my husband with anybody and I don't want to look at another man while married. I spent 15 years without being tempted to do anything. There was one incident when we were first married that I beat myself up over. It involved lots of alcohol. And, it was a red flag that I didn't see because I was too busy feeling guilty.
Yes, I am still in contact with that guy. That relationship has issues of its own. I don't even think that whatever is there with that guy is what I would call a relationship. It is just more one sided BS that I need to find a way to stop. It will never go anywhere. The guy is uncommunicative and likes to push my buttons. I have no idea why I still talk to that guy other than it feels good.
So, my point is... . he might not really know who you are. I didn't know who I was, or didn't know how to really get back there; mixed up!
Hmmm, that is definitely something to think about. In all honesty, I don't think he has ever truly known who I am. But, I was too oblivious to know it or realize it. There are so many red flags that I can see looking back. My actions and my words were very much in line for a really long time. I had done everything I could to get his attention and give him attention. I even went and read a bunch of religious materials about how to submit to your husband. One of the things that caught my attention during that reading was that a husband must be worthy of being submitted to. It was so odd for me to come to the realization of how one sided things had become when I was reading about submission of all things.
Yes, lots of dark confusing days full of mixed up stuff. I do think I need to figure out who I am and how to get back there. I don't know if I am cut out for the open stuff or not. There are too many other issues at play that totally skew things.
Thanks for asking the hard questions Phoebe!
