I need everyone's input

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2004
I need everyone's input
6
Sat, 12-08-2007 - 1:33pm

I have been lurking all over IV for quite a while, but I have never posted or replied to anything until now.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-03-2007
Sat, 12-08-2007 - 1:52pm
My husband and I are pretty much attached at the hip, and we like it that way. However, we do have to do some things apart . It is normal and healthy. People need to have some independence. While it is nice that he wants to spend a lot of time with you, I wonder if he is using it to keep you in check, especially since you mentioned he thinks things done apart after dark are rife with the possibility of "wrong doing". I don't know if he is a manipulator or just insecure because he might have been hurt in the past but his view is odd and very old fashioned.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 12-08-2007 - 8:17pm

You are two individuals, not one. As such, you both need personal time, time with friends, etc. This is normal and healthy. Being together all but his P/T hours in which, I assume, you are working, too, is not healthy.

Does he have a history of someone betraying his trust at some time in the past? Sometimes that can cause a person to think this way. They, somehow, think that by being together ALL of the time will stop their partner from betraying them. What it does, instead, is drives them away.

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I am unable to give legal or medical advice. My opinions are based on my experiences and my personal research.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-22-2005
Sat, 12-08-2007 - 10:39pm

Oh Halo 826 - it is not even remotely healthy to make one person the sum total of your existence. We all need friends - we need girl time

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2005
Sun, 12-09-2007 - 7:57am

I would say his views are very old-fashioned except for the fact that they're actually mostly controlling values. Those kinds of beliefs honestly point more to the person themselves than to anyone else. He seems to have a general mistrust of people and situations, especially the ones he's not directly involved with, hence the attached at the hip syndrome. That's also a definition of a manipulative person. He may not even be aware of that trait in himself. Some of it, like the "after dark" stuff, sounds like the stuff my Mom used to try to convince me of growing up, to keep me in line and in check and out of the clinic, if you get my drift. Even at 17 I knew that wasn't right.

Thing is, I see him treating you more like a child, unable to make her own good decisions, than as an adult, fully capable of knowing right from wrong and acting responsibly. Unless you've given him true, absolute and quantifiable reason to do so, then that is unreasonable simply by definition.

A grown woman in a relationship, whether she's working or not, should be able to go and have the dinner with a girlfriend, go shopping, etc., and if she and her partner have developed a good relationship, if they've each chosen well, her partner will understand and just know that what she's doing is on the up-and-up. If that's not the case, then probably the relationship is truly not a good one. The very real danger in a situation like your own does not lay out there in the big bad world and what could happen out there, but rather, right there at home and what IS happening without you both even realizing it: Stagnation and Resentment. It's already growing, and when those two things grow in a relationship, nothing else does.

While it's nice he wants to spend evenings in your company and do activities together, the way he's going about it and his motives behind that are suspect. You know, I was married to a man who was quite older than myself as well, and all his issues were similar to yours and related to jealousy and his fear of getting older and not being attractive to me. Only problem was, he was very attractive to me until he started up these foolish jealous antics. I wonder if your SO has the same issues? You may want to talk to him about that, see if you can determine his fears and maybe assuage them. I will tell you that I am divorced now from the man I told you about and I don't miss him.

One last thing: With all these old-fashioned values he seems to have, I'm wondering where the Big One went? Namely, you've been together 5 years and yet you're only living with him? Is that a decision you both made together?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2004
Sun, 12-09-2007 - 9:07am

"One last thing: With all these old-fashioned values he seems to have, I'm wondering where the Big One went? Namely, you've been together 5 years and yet you're only living with him? Is that a decision you both made together?"


I suppose I should have added that little tidbit.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-22-2005
Sun, 12-09-2007 - 12:31pm

He's not going to change.