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Old 2nd August 2016, 10:55 PM   #1
madori79
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Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

I am desperate for insight or thoughts on what I feel is a battle that I am not winning. My husband and I have been married for almost 7 years but together for 10. We have a 6 year old daughter and things started really going south about a year ago. My husband admits that he gave up on the marriage a long time ago. Our separation was told to me by him to be something that would make us appreciate each other and bring us closer. I found him on this for months trying everything from talking, trying to get him to go to counseling to work books. Nothing seemed to spark anything in him and I started to become angry at him toward the end.

Now we live in our own places with our daughter living with me about 85% of the time. He is a work alcoholic and has always been. It is life and what gives him purpose and he has always had a hard time even going on vacations as a family because of it. It is even worse now and he only seems to make time for our daughter (which I am grateful for). I have been going to counseling myself and really realized a lot of hard truths of things that I did to help bring the marriage to where it is. I feel that I have started to take baby steps at becoming a healthier person but that I am still not seeing him wanting to even start working on our marriage. We will do things from time to time on weekends, but I feel like I am being used. He does not call me to just talk, or text or even email. I have been trying to express my respect to him with words or encouragement but it seems to have little effect. I used to be the typical woman calling and crying and pouring out my heart. I realized that these things actually pushed him away so I stopped. But, it is has gotten to the point where I wonder if I am just a stupid girl believing that he meant what he said months ago? Is he just using me to fill the time when he is not at work? Do I force the issue? Please help me ;(
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Old 3rd August 2016, 11:30 AM   #2
TJW
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

At some point, you simply need to cut your losses and move on. As to whether that point has arrived, only you and God can decide.

The fact is, you cannot change your husband. All people reach a "point-of-no-return" where they completely lose interest in pursuing the relationship. They have "cut their losses and moved on".

Once a person has "moved on", it is very rare that they do a turnabout and return to the relationship with any kind of "plugged in" attitude. In fact, many married people "move on"
while remaining physically in the home. They just "tune out".

Quote:
Our separation was told to me by him to be something that would make us appreciate each other and bring us closer.
Your husband seems to be quite the politician. No rational thought process would deduce that separation "brings closer". This is a statement made to self-justify his separation in his own conscience.

And I would never agree that you are a "stupid girl" for believing him, it seems to me that you simply have a situation in which you want the marriage and he doesn't.
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Old 3rd August 2016, 01:46 PM   #3
chosen
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

Could he have someone else?
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Old 5th August 2016, 11:33 AM   #4
Raymond
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

Sounds to me like he doesn't know how to be a husband and places too high a priority on work. I think it is a case of staying together, toughing it out and learning. Many reach that place but come through it. It really depends on whether he wants a good marriage or not. Is he using this time to check out or otherwise? Now is a time when both of you will be thinking about your marriage and therefore open and learning more about it. I hope this is the case with him but who can know? So long as he is not being unfaithful I don't see why it cannot work.

With regard to talking things through maybe it will work in small bitesize chunks until you can really get to the crux of things. Spending hours in talking and getting nowhere can be discouraing. That's what I found anyhow. My wife often cried about things in the early days and I often felt bewildered as it wasn't obvious what I could do about it short of becoming a completely different person overnight. It can take decades to understand your wife fully but one can get there little by little. And one can change little by little as well.
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Old 9th August 2016, 04:11 PM   #5
madori79
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

I thought that he might had someone else but he is a slave to his job and he works with a male staffed office. At the end of day, his work is his passion which I really do not think will change. I know that at some point I will have to decide what the best thing will be for me and if I can handle the family not exactly being given the time that it is deserves.
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Old 9th August 2016, 04:18 PM   #6
madori79
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

I used to try to fight it out but realized that it really did not get us anywhere. He would just stonewall which only pushed me further. We ended up talking for a bit this past weekend which allowed both of us to get things off of our chests. Now the week is here and already feels like the progress we made has slipped back as he is consumed with work.
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Old 10th August 2016, 03:57 PM   #7
TJW
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

Quote:
his work is his passion which I really do not think will change
No, it won't. For a man, his basic need for respect gets met there. A man has to become unselfish to spend time with his family, because there are no "rewards" to be found in his home, except one..... his wife and her respect.

There's an excellent book called "Love and Respect" written by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs which
describes "the crazy cycle" - don't know how much bearing this might have on your situation but it came to my mind as I read through.
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Old 10th August 2016, 05:25 PM   #8
Raymond
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

Quote:
Originally Posted by madori79 View Post
I used to try to fight it out but realized that it really did not get us anywhere. He would just stonewall which only pushed me further. We ended up talking for a bit this past weekend which allowed both of us to get things off of our chests. Now the week is here and already feels like the progress we made has slipped back as he is consumed with work.
Regardless of how good a job a man has he still needs his wife. You cannot supply what his work does and his work cannot supply his marriage needs. I can't think that he doesn't need you because of his job. More that he doesn't see his need of you. It is good that you talked a little. Bitesize talks?

It is not a negative thing to have a good job and be interested in it. Presumably your family is living off of what his job supplies? The problem is focus and the undermining of the importance of his marriage and you. Our wives are the most important relationships we have. Perhaps he is taking it all for granted? No man on his deathbed has ever said I wish I had spent more time at the office.

I would suggest you have those little talks and take the opportunity to tell him how you feel. Don't say you ought to or phrases like that. I think he is playing with fire personally by not keeping your love tank topped up but preaching to him will have the opposite effect. I don't think living seperately will help the marriage as things need to be worked out on an ongoing basis together. If he is not interested in saving his marriage then I don't see what you can do. He needs to work on it as well as you as the marriage is in danger of collapsing as it stands.
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Old 16th August 2016, 10:36 PM   #9
madori79
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

I have been drinking more then I should lately and Saturday night I let him know what I was really feeling inside. The next morning, without a prompt from him, I decided that the last thing I needed right now was to be drinking. But, it appears that for all the good that my choice was (even though I did not tell him), it only took one instance of true weakness to erase the last 2 months of work that I have been on myself.


****Last weekend was an eye opener for me, I thought things were getting better and I realized that people don't change- we can't change and maybe you are using me as a crutch and maybe I'm not moving forward because it's easier to just do nothing instead of doing what we need to do. I've done a ton of thinking and I'm going to prepare the papers for legal separation in the hopes that we both realize this is real and we aren't healthy together in our current state and we need to work out stuff individually- even if it's just to be happy With ourselves. I'm not pointing fingers here, I know I have issues and have added more in the past few months and I acknowledge that but this isn't just about us- this is about our daughter who shouldn't see her father angry at her mother or her mom passed out or crying all night. I was very shut down the past few days and I realized it was because I knew we had to take this next step and it scared me- who knows if you would take *****or just end it all like you told me on Sat night and I knew if I did nothing, nothing would change and I'd have to accept the guilt and consequences but I'm not going to stand by and let ***** think this is how relationships should be.
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Old 18th August 2016, 11:21 AM   #10
Raymond
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

It does look as if you have reached a stalemate position. Yes people cannot fundementally change (without God) but doing the right thing does enhance a relationship and a marriage. Living apart might just be sweeping things under the carpet from his point of view, who knows.

Working on oneself is a good thing to do and the only way to change the other I think. One can only work on their end. I'm not sure about a legal seperation and have to leave that to you. It might be a mark in the sand to outline where the marriage is heading if nothing is done and I can see your point there.
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Old 21st August 2016, 08:28 AM   #11
shaybib
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Re: Separated for almost 4 months...do I give up?

it sounds like your husband doesn't make any step in your direction. he doesn't go to counseling he doesn't try to improve the marriage. it seems unlikely that in this terms something will change
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