AboutAzure Expertise can answer all relationship questions involving unhealthy, addictive, or otherwise unhappy arrangements, except those involving the legalities of physical abuse..
Experience see bio under "general dating questions"
Expert: Azure Date: 3/12/2008 Subject: I need help...
Question I have been in a rocky marriage for nearly 6 years now. We have a 3 year old
daughter. My husband will be 39 soon and I will be 26. There is a ton of
problems in our past, for example; he was/is an alcoholic (took 3 years for
him to stop), he's had me thrown in jail when I restrained him from driving
drunk with our daughter and tried a second time by punching himself in the
face and calling 911. I have left him twice and during those two times (even
after we worked things out) I found Instant Messages about him inviting
someone over to have sex, yet he claims that he never when through with it. I
do not see my friends because he gets jealous and upset when I do.
And now he is working 7:10 hour shifts. I get up every morning before him
at 4 am, make his lunch, get a quick breakfast together, and get the rest of
this stuff ready for his day. I clean the house and I have dinner ready for him
when he gets home. When he gets home, I make sure that his clothes are
washed and dried for the following day, and that anything that needs to be
done is done before tomorrow. I clean up after dinner, get our daughter to
bed and I go to bed, normally after him because I still have things to finish or
else they will not be ready for the next day.
We only have one car, which he takes to work and we live 8 miles out of town
in the country. A friend (a girl) had called me and wanted to hang out for a
while. So we took my daughter to the park and feed some ducks. I played it
down, knowing he might freak out. And he did. He accused me of cheating
on him with this girl. Accused me of not caring enough about him, told me
that I did nothing to contribute to this relationship.
I made the mistake of making hotdogs for dinner last night, when the rest of
the nights I've cooked salmon to perfection, made bison burgers, oven
roasted a whole chicken ( and I am hardly a creative cook). And now since I
made hotdogs, all the rest of the things I've done have melted away and now
he's told me that "I don't think he's important". Like a guilt trip for making
hotdogs.
I get up this morning to make his lunch and apparently while I was at the
store last night he ate all of his lunch meat. He didn't bother to call me to tell
me we needed more, he even when as far as to hide the empty lunch meat
bag in the fridge. I had nothing to fix him for lunch. He told me he didn't eat
any lunch meat last night, then tells me he did eat it because he was starving
because I failed to make a proper dinner. He told me again that "I don't care
about him" and what a terrible job I'm doing.
I am not allowed to see my friends, lectured when I see my family, my
hobbies made fun of, my job not good enough.
The terrible thing is, I have put up with this. And now I don't feel like I can do
this anymore. It's like he's playing mind games on me. He calls me selfish for
wanting to enjoy my life. Is it selfish?
I love him so much, that it is heartbreaking to think about divorce. But I feel
like I am going crazy. I really need advice.
Answer the question is, do you really want to spend the rest of your life in "slavery", and for someone who is self-absorbed, controlling, abusive, and generally uncaring?..if yes, no need to write--if no, only YOU can do something about it; the advice: where is it written you have to "put up" with this?..you call this "love", but my guess is this is more addiction, fear, insecurity that is being covered up by the L word, as i don't see what the loving behaviors ARE; you can INFORM him that ALL of this nonsense is no longer acceptable and needs to change, or you're out, but i doubt he's ready/wiling/able to change; that leaves leaving, or a miserable life of quiet desperation....your choice..
