H making relationship hard to live w/

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-02-2004
H making relationship hard to live w/
Fri, 08-27-2004 - 11:17am
i don't know what to do, really. things have been rocky for the four years we've been married. for the last year i have been considering divorce as an option, i have tried counseling, taken him to therapy sessions,watched my phraseology when i talk to him so as to encourage communication, and nothing seems to make a dent. he won't actively seek divorce, but he won't work to save our relationship either. when i tell him of things i am willing to do to make it work and then ask for his input on what he might be able to do, he just shrugs and says, "i don't know, i can't change anything," and then walks off. we have a lot of issues that never get worked out, and the biggest ones right now are money and our immediate future. he doesn't want to plan for anything, ever. this means that when there are emergencies they are exacerbated by the fact that we have no savings, no plans, and no communication. right now we are down to one car (mine, and i won't even go into this right now) and he has it most of the time since he is military and must be at his job. i am trying to be ok with that. now the finances thing is making everything worse. he just got off a 6 month deployment, and when he returned the pay went down $700 a month. this is a big blow for a one-income family. i agreed to start working again to cover our needs and help put aside savings. he agreed that i would have the use of the car when i needed to work, and to watch our 3-year-old. i landed a job working nights and saturdays, then he tells me he is going to be gone 1 to 3 weeks out of every month for the next five months. i said ok, then let's find a babysitter while you are gone so i can keep working. i work my first day(6hrs), and then he tells me i need to ask my manager for fewer hours because "this is the navy and my hours could change". and he starts talking about me quitting the job, how big an imposition this is on him, etc. so now i'm wondering why i even bothered to get a job to help out, if this is the way he feels about it. and why didn't he say something earlier. is this just his way of trying to control me? it feels like he just wants me to stay home 24/7 and be his doormat. unfortunately i can't do that, or our family would not survive. i feel helpless to change anything about my situation, he used up the money i had saved on his deploy a month after returning. if i decided to leave i would have to go into debt to do so. there is so little left between us that i am mostly staying out of fear that leaving will be worse financially. i never wanted to be like this, and am doing my best to keep from hating him, but it gets harder every day. also my chronic back pain from an injury several years ago is being aggravated by all the stress. i have a gym membership that i can't even use right now because of the car situation, and am starting to gain back the 20 lbs. i lost while he was gone. his solution to all this is to tell me i have no legitimate reason to be stressed, and should just stop it and get better. i can't even begin to understand how this marriage became so painful, and i just what to know, how am i to get through this? what should my actions be?