Vincenza is completely right having "real" conversation is so important.
I am reminded about some advice my parents said to me. My parents have been together for 40 years now and I really look up to them as an example since I feel they have an amazing relationship. I asked my dad what was the one piece of advice he could give me and he said to NEVER stop talking. He said the couples he saw that didn't work out was because they stopped talking and then became strangers. Whether it is to tell your spouse how much you love them or how unhappy you are just talk about it! When I asked my mom what advice she would give she said, "Don't aim for perfection aim for progress" She said relationships are always work and you will always have something to work on. I find this advice very valuable so I thought I would share.
It really strikes me that you have not talked about the relationship for 8 years. I can see how you would feel totally cut off from your husband. You have every right to feel angry and feel like you want to end it. I read in another thread that you seem to be decided in what you want to do. Is this the still the case? My one suggestion is to wait on making any final decisions until you talk to him. What do you think?
Thanks for sharing in your reflection. I'm glad to hear through other threads that you were able to open up to your BF about what is happening in your personal life at home. I hope that the right opportunity presents for you to be able to also open up and share how you've been feeling with your husband.
Remember to be honest and true to yourself - it's the best way to have a 'real' conversation.
Hi Ashley and thank you for offering your guidance, I really appreciate it. You're right I do feel very alone in this and I hope to tell my BF about my situation in the next few days, but for now I'm asking her to give me some space and I hope I haven't offended her.
What feelings do I have for my husband? Well I care for him as a friend but I also feel disdain towards him for having that drug addiction which caused our marriage problems. I still look at him as an addict and I suspect he's using again, I just can't prove it. I respect him in the fact that he's an awesome father and he will do anything for our daughter. He's a hard worker and a good provider. The lack of trust I feel is pretty strong though. Anytime he gets a call from someone that he doesn't regularly hang out with, I think it's a drug dealer. I am very suspicious and bitter about that. I want to ask him if he's using again but I am sure he'd say he isn't and then I'd point out all the signs and he'd find ways to explain them away.
Honestly the last time we talked about our relationship was when he finally revealed to me that he was an addict....boy was that a shock to me, I had no idea. My daughter was only maybe 1 year old so that's 8 years ago. I was going to leave him but he went for treatment. We had one session together with his treatment psychiatrist and the doctor suggested I stay to help my husband through this, that if I left, he'd likely not continue getting treatment. So basically the doctor put the responsibility on me to make sure he was successful in the program. Geez now that I think about it, that really wasn't fair of him to do that to me....and this was a psychiatrist that ran the outpatient facility. Nice. Anyway since that confrontation 8 years ago, we haven't had any discussions about our marriage. We have zero communication unless we're talking about our daughter or our dogs. Otherwise we are pretty much silent. Sad isn't it? I am reaching my breaking point and really think its time we sit down and have a heart to heart. I'm just not sure how I should go about initiating the conversation and how to confront him about the drug issue. I guess so many years of silence has made me forget how to have a real conversation.
I'm very glad you decided to post
so we can help you work through your thoughts. Some of the realizations
you have made are very, very big but I want to stress that it is
extremely positive that you have recognized this and are working towards
finding a solution.
First, I want to be
clear that I am not a marriage counsellor; if you feel counselling around
your marriage would be helpful I encourage you to find a counsellor.
Seeing a counsellor to work through your thoughts in person could be very
useful.
My first thought while reading every
thing you wrote is how alone you must feel in this. You have only talked
to one person about this very big choice and I can only imagine how
much harder it is not being able to talk about it. Keeping all of these
thoughts inside must be so hard. Know that you can come here whenever
you want to vent whatever thoughts you are having. It's so important to
let things out and often helps to put everything in perspective.
I
also think it is great that you and your husband have a respectful
relationship. This is often what is lacking in marriages that end.
Respect is the foundation to any relationship. It is not easy to
maintain when you are unhappy either so I want to highlight this is a
very good sign. Kudos to you and your husband for being able to maintain
the respect. In addition to respect what other feeling do you have for
your husband, good or bad? Do you still feel affection for him? I know
this is a personal question but it is an important one. Only share if you are comfortable.
I
am curious, how have you talked to your husband about your relationship
before? As respect is the foundation to a relationship communication is
what keeps it all together. Being able to openly talk about both
positive and negative thoughts is essential. When was the last time you
openly talked to your husband about how you both feel in your
relationship? What are your needs that you feel are not being met in this relationship? What do you want more of? What do you want less of? Do you think this type of discussion would be important? How would you feel hearing your husband answer these questions?
Ashley....as discussed I am creating a new discussion to discuss my marital/drinking situation. I mentioned in the other thread that I'm very unhappy in my marriage and trying to decide what to do. I know that life is too short to be unhappy like this and I think that I'd drink a lot of the times to make myself feel like all was fine in my relationship. My husband and I do get along fairly well for the most part, but recently we have this uncomfortable silence between us and I'm thinking that maybe he feels the same way I do and that we are both waiting for the other to open the conversation. If I do decide to suggest to him that we end things, I want us to end amicably. I don't want our daughter to suffer anymore than she has to with the loss of her family unit. A bitter separation would devastate her.
I haven't told anyone except one friend who lives 8 hours away from me, and the people in our discussions on this site. My BF doesn't even know. I want to keep it that way until I know exactly what is going to happen. Everyone thinks we have this wonderful marriage....boy do we have them fooled.
I have no doubt that my drinking is a direct result of the stress on my job and being so unhappy at home. I want to change my drinking, and I'm working hard on that right now, but I wonder how successful I'll be if I don't make the other changes in my life that make me so unhappy that I end up drinking to forget about my sadness. I can tell you that since I've been abstaining, I am seeing things more clearly now and the realization came to me today that yes I was drinking to make myself think I'm happy in my marriage.
Det er et stykke tid siden, du var aktiv på denne side. Forlæng venligst din lektion nedenfor
Du er logget ud pga. manglende aktivitet.
Log venligst ind igen!
We use cookies to help us learn about how our platform is used and how we can improve your experience. To
learn more please see our Privatlivspolitik og Vilkår for Brug.
