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| Wed, 02-18-2004 - 8:27am |
I was married for 19 years to a man who didn't want sex very much. I went without it for almost 9 years - the last 9 years. I finally realized, after counseling - separate and together - and begging, crying, yelling and pleading that nothing was going to change. He admitted he had problems in this area, didn't know what they were, said he had "things" he needed to work out and it was left at that for about 2 years. We finally divorced.
I then met a man, 3 years younger (I was 48 at the time)who made all my bells ring. We had great love making, he was fun and the complete opposite of my ex. Two months into the relationship, he told me he was being transferred to another state, did I want to move with him. I was so caught up in the thrill of a new life, especially at my age, that I agreed, I took the risk and what I call a leap of faith. We moved 6 months into the relationship. In my case, I moved away from a town I'd lived in for 30 years. He's always moved around quite a bit and never really had any "roots."
A month after the move, and after making love every night since we met (!!) he told me we didn't HAVE to make love every night. Ouch. That hurt.
Two months after the move, his youngest daugher (14) at the time came to visit and told us she wanted to move in with us - she didn't like her stepdad, her mom was paying her no attention. I freaked a little bit, I have no children of my own. We mulled it over, I expressed my personal concerns "inheriting" a child when I had none of my own but my boyfriend and I decided it could be the best thing for her and we agreed to have her come live with us. Three months later, his oldest daughter (16) at the time came to visit and we spent the 2 weeks she was here looking at houses to buy that would accomodate all 3 of us. Every house we looked at was looked based on what the daughter would like, not what I would like. He ended up buying a house we couldn't afford and then his daughter changed her mind and said she was staying with her mom.
Okay... we got thru that (altho' we struggle financially with the huge house payment). I've cashed out my 401 and every penny I had during our time together to keep us afloat. He has another child he adopted from a previous marriage so at one point he was paying child support on 3 children. His biological two are done as of last month and the third one's mother just took him back to court to increase support now that the other two are off. One more stressful thing.
He has always paid support on time, no problem, so I do admire that.
We've stayed together. Over the next two years, I dealt with him smoking pot (which I knew he did before I moved with him), drinking to excess on occasion and embarassing me in front of family and friends when they came to visit and learning more and more about this man I had committed myself to.
Things that slowly leaked out of him over time that weren't the most pleasant things to know. I didn't like the drinking and it's normally not excessive to the point where I would think he has a problem and pot smoking but I knew that about him when we met so I figured I had to put up with it.
Over the years, he's critized my sexual knowledge, the way I do or don't do things FOR HIM. I think he's one of those guys who wants a whore in bed but a lady otherwise,which I didn't realize for a long while. I'm not totally naive when it comes to sex, I've had my experiences over the course of my life but I'm having trouble with his yo-yo. He tells me "we make the best love" just before he critizes something I do or don't do.
He's always pumping me up to pull me down.
On Valentine's day two years ago, he had a business lunch, drank too much, went to a jewelry store, bought an engagement ring and in a half-assed way, asked me to marry him. I said yes. I know... why did I do that? Because I truly love this man and I truly believed there was much about him to love and that together we could make a good life.
He has had a very difficult life, abusive adoptive parents, bad relationships for one reason or another, bad ex wifes to deal with (2 I knew of at the time) and I truly felt that somehow I could show him a better life and that together we could attain that. I spent 19 years in a soul less relationship with my ex because I had committed myself to that person and felt I had to honor that comittment. Only when I knew for sure that nothing could be done, after trying everything I could think of, did I realize that I might find a better life for myself.
Anyhow, we got married in October, a year and a half ago. We went to Vegas, had a very nice ceremony, stayed a few days with some friends who flew out to be there and came home. I spent the night before our wedding crying because I gave him a last opportunity to tell me "all" and he didn't.
Why did I go thru with it? I don't have a clue.
I say tell me all, because before this I had begun to have a funny feeling that he hadn't been honest with me about his past marriages. I then talked to a person who knows him very well and has for a very long time and found out a couple things. He HAD been married when he was 18 for 3 years, which he never told me about. He had also divorced and remarried his 2nd wife, which I didn't know. So, all in all, he had been married 4 times before we got married which meant he also lied on our marriage application.
I let this stew and stew inside me for a while, gave him hints and opportunties to "tell me all" again and again and he finally did. His reason for not telling me was that he "preferred to forget about it" This has been his method of operation for a while. I ask him something and he says why should I care about that, it's in the past or he doesn't remember.
I've told white lies in my life, I'm not perfect, but I do it usually to avoid hurting someone. He knows every little detail about my life which has never been too exciting so there's nothing for me to hide and I wouldn't anyway. I always felt that honesty is normally the best policy.
Over the last year I've had some medical problems, nothing major but just one thing after another. Up until then I have been lucky to be pretty healthy. I had a lump in my breast that turned out benign, foot surgery, a colonoscopy, am now post-menopausal and treating it naturally (no HRT), shoulder surgery... stuff like that. Still recovering from the shoulder deal but, all in all,things have turned out okay but all this has caused a lot of additional stress.
He takes me to my operations, brings me home, helps me for a day and then I'm on my own, back to doing things I shouldn't be going after a surgery.... It's like he's concerned about me for a 24 hour period and then "his" life becomes more important. I actually split my stitches open after foot surgery because his Mom needed help so we traveled 13 hours, I walked around too much and made a mess of my foot. It got infected and took twice as long to heal.
He is very very self-centered and most of our life together has revolved around him and what he wants. He also lost his job and had spent the last 3 months looking for another one. Finally got one that starts later this month for $26,000. less than his previous job so that is scary too because I don't see how we're going to make it financially.
I had my own business when we met that I had spent 8 years building up. When we moved, my customers "back home" stayed with me but I have been unable to increase my business in the new town no matter what I've tried. So my business has basically dried up and the little money I was bringing in isn't coming in anymore.
I used up every penny I had on his lawyer fees (when his exes take him back to court for whatever), down payment on the house, food, furniture (bedroom set for the daughter who never moved in) so now I have more debt than he does.
I've tried to talk to him over and over and he always says he doesn't "get" what I'm saying. How unhappy I am, how all his "baggage" has affected me and each piece he adds over time just adds to the burden.
I talk to MYSELF, asking myself why I let myself get where I am. I look in the mirror and see a person I don't know. I've always thought I was a pretty strong person but I've left myself get in a position where every moment of my life is spent on someone else and I don't know why I do it and I keep doing it.
I am resentful and bitter now to the max. Our sex life is in the dumper for a number of reasons. All the crap I'm dealing with and menopause has done me no favors. He has tried to be supportive in his own self serving way but thinks I'm making it up most of the time when I say my hormones have dropped and it has effected my libido. He thinks I can just convince myself I want sex or flip a switch or something. He doesn't take into account that all the other crap has affected how I feel about sex too. He doesn't get that sex for a woman, at least me, also has something to do with love, and my head and my heart. He makes fun of me about it in front of other people even tho' I have asked him not to.
Three months ago, his oldest daughter, now 20, who married a man she knew for 3 weeks and moved away with called crying and wanting to leave HER husband and move in with us. She had "made a mistake" and her six month marriage was a mess, her husband was into pornography and she didn't know what to do because it was affecting their sex life! My husband told her that was wrong and she didn't have to put up with it. So another go around on that. She quickly decided she didn't want to move in with us because she would have to live under "Dad's rules" but it was pretty stressful in between. She only calls when she's in a crisis of one thing or another so that's always happening as well.
Then the final straw... my husband keeps all our digital photos on his computer. We have a new kitten so I wanted to e-mail a photo to my Mom. Guess what I found? Yep, lots of pictures of big breasted women with everything they had literally hanging out. LOTS of pictures. I was shocked. Not that I'm naive. I know guys look at stuff like that, big deal. What shocked me was the extreme graphical nature of it and that he had condemned his daughter's soon to be ex of the same thing he was doing.
I confronted him about it. At first he said it was no big deal, a friend sent them. Then when things escalated, as they always seem to do lately and quickly, he said it was my fault because he wasn't getting as much sex as he should and it was because of my menopause! I tried, again, to explain that this menopause thing wasn't my choice and that I knew, as we'd talked about before, that our sex life hadn't been the best for a while because of it but we had been doing our best and I thought he was with me on it. Then he said it's because he's "a guy" and that's what guys do.
I got so upset over everything that I left and spent the night in a hotel. I came home the next morning, he was still sleeping. He got up at 10, asked me if "we had a problem" and that just threw me into tears.
I'm trying to get thru all of the crap I've had to deal with since I've met him which has been way too much, menopause problems, surgeries, his kids constantly upsetting everything, moving twice, his job loss, him, period.
He has quit smoking pot which I think he only did because he knows his new job will want to test him. I feel he'll go back to it after his new job is secured.
Actually, the final straw was last night when I sat on my couch and truly felt like it would be so much easier to have a couple drinks, take a couple pills, go to sleep and never wake up. When I tried to express how everything over the last 3 1/2 years has finally caught up me and I was finding myself incapable of coping anymore, he said I should look on the Internet and find out how many pills I needed to take to do the job. Then he asked if he should call someone to come take me away and lock me up for a while.
He also informed me that maybe he was incapable of showing care and compassion for someone. Which is not true, I've seen him show it to his kids, his mother, his friends, just not to me.
I have spent too many hours crying in the shower over way too long a time. I am barely able to function anymore. I feel I have made the worst mistake of my life, that I should have stayed with my ex, who despite the sexual problems, always treated me with respect and kindness and never made me feel less than a person as my husband does.
I have cried myself to sleep so many times I can't count them all. He does nothing to comfort me. I am so bitter and resentful I don't know to get past all of it anymore. Every time something new crops up with him, I take it on, try to deal with it and move on and believe that things will get better. I don't think anymore that they will.
I have no money so I can't go anywhere. I feel desperate and weak because I'm too much of a coward to just end it and then I won't have to deal with it anymore. I feel that part of my desperation is that this is NOT me. I have always been the one to "deal" with things, to believe in things, to treat others as I want to be treated. He has made fun of my "ideals" because his life has been full of so much bitterness.
He doesn't seem to "get" that all his baggage, his comments about our sex life, his kids, his job loss, his lies, has had a profound affect on me. He doesn't understand that part of love making involves a person, not just their physical parts. He blames me for menopause and what it's done to me and doesn't see that EVERYTHING has had an effect on our sex life.
I know this is way too much information and hope anyone reading this will understand that just getting it out might help me. I don't want to end my life, I want to live my life with some happiness but I feel like I have no reason to go on. I bet my whole basket on this relationship and I feel used, abused and used up.
I have not seen a therapist because I think it would make me look weak and I know that's wrong. Maybe one would help me at least cope or help me realize that I can recover the good person I used to think I was. I'm like an old shrew now, mean, bitter and resentful and I hate myself and I hate that I've let another person make me feel so bad about myself. I've had my share of ups and downs like anyone but I've never felt to hopeless and weary. If I wasn't here, I couldn't let myself be abused this way, no bills to worry about, no sex life to worry about, nothing to worry about.

I just read your post, but I am running late for work. I will write more later. I just wanted you to know that I read it. And welcome!!
Take care
Pamela
(((((((((((((((((((((Oh sweetie)))))))))))))))))))))))))
I am so sorry that you had to go through all of this.
(((((((((Honey))))))))), I am so glad you found our board and hope you will continue to allow us to walk through this with you.