Couples Coping

Wow Girly you are a very strong person to sit there and continue to deal with his s*#%!LOL sorry don't mean to laugh because I know it is hard as hell but if you 2 have no kids then no strings attached so all the better !hey it's up to you if you should stay or if you should go but why let him to continue to f*%$ you over !take care be strong and best wishes to you!

Do not let him put this on you. He is the one acting improperly. Tell him to get right or get the **** out!!

Anon,
Do not allow him to continue with disrespecting you. You need to back away from him physically and emotionally. He will continue to make you depress and stress you out. Give him time to think about his actions.

Pray and prepare yourself to the changes that are going on in your life. If it is meant for you and your husband of 10 years to be together, you will be together. However, sometimes things are brought to the light so you can see what is going on around you . This allows you grow emotionally, spiritually and pyschologically,

He is blaming the situation on you? Remember your vows, it doesn't include anything about being in any romantic relationship with someone other than you. Marriage does mean being there for one another, with or without sex. While you were working on your issues, your husband created another. You know your husband. If you believe him work on your marriage. Consider all the facts.

Well, I am sure I will get a lot of negative feedback for this one... but here goes.

I am currently remarried to my best friend in the whole world. I was once on depression medication and I couldn't get the engine to turn over in bed. HATED IT!! It was messing with what is so beautiful between myself and my husband. We had it in the beginning and we have always had it. I wasn't going to let some medication tear my marriage to bits in the bedroom.

Some questions to ask yourself: Do you love him? Does he love you? What are the reasons you are on meds? Can you find a different way of handling your depression?, ie, working out, diet, therapy? I was on meds because of some serious stuff my preteen had gotten into and she moved away from me to live with her father. The sadness is temporary and then you learn to get past it.

What I am getting at is I couldn't function in the bedroom on the meds... huge problem. My marriage was more important so I tried to find a way to work around it. After a week of dropping the meds, the orgasms came back...thank you Jesus!!
One thing is for sure.... not be sexist, biast or anything like that.... men need sex. Not just for sex but for love.... it is a CRUCIAL part of them...very important. I am in a very happy marriage and when it goes a week or so.... things start to build, it is an unseen frustration. I want my husband to come to me when he needs it.... this is where we began.

Where did you begin? Can you get back there? If there have been underlying problems from the get go and this is why you are on meds.... then yes, evaluate your situation. But if you and your husband haven't had sex for as long as you can remember.... then the ball falls in your court sweetie. He needs you....
AND GRANTED.... it is not a reason for him to cheat, verbally or physically.... but this is why he is reaching to others.

You need to talk ... both of you.... if you sincerely took an effort on "your" part as well and he could see that you "wanted" him.... "needed" him and that "he" was important to you.... you might see a huge change.
Maybe he is looking for that "ray" of hope as well. Is he doing all of the nice things...? are you expecting him to do it all? When a marriage fails... it takes 2 parties... I had a failed marriage once..... it is awful. I was also a guilty party.

So, don't misunderstand... but if there was love in the beginning... and there is still love now, you will "both" have to take steps forward to get it back.... this is not a one way deal.

AND YES.... he needs to CUT HER OFF....PERIOD!! It is only getting in the way of putting this back together. But you have to try too.... he can't do it by himself.

GO GET HIM!!! Don't let somebody else take your man from you!!!

Much love!

When what she wants is more important than what you want... it's over

You have almost described the end of my marriage. I think this is a very common thing at this point in history. When bored, either party can go online and merrily have an "online affair" which is emotional cheating .. whether they want to call it that or not. No one can tell you how to feel or what to do - but if you heard what all I went through ... before : during : after my diagnosis of breast cancer - you'd be sickened! The most painful event in my life .. worse than getting cancer, was the feeling that there must be something wrong with me for him to discard us so easily. We were actually told, we had gotten him as far as we could take him (career / personal) and now we had outlived our usefulness.

These type of people are generally (IMHO) only concerned with how they feel and what they want. Every marriage has problems - our sex life however was never the problem. So, good sex life or not .. affairs happen and when people are looking - there is always someone to fill that gap.

I am very sorry you have had to go through this, but my advice to you would be to cut your losses early on and get out while you still can. Cheaters do not change .. and most likely he will cheat with the "new" woman as soon as the relationship becomes boring.

In my opinion, part of the problem with our society is that everything is "easy" and that no one takes responsibility. We are stuck in social adolescence versus the evolution and maturity that comes to those who grow together.

I say get out! RUN! and take the time to build your life without the necessity of a man. That way when the time is right and you are ready to meet someone who will uplift and cherish you, you will be ready!

Love & Light to you,

deZengo

Be prepared when you ask for advice. Most likely it is NOT going to be what you want to hear but WILL be what you need to hear.

End your marriage. No man is worth what he is putting you through. He has no remorse and may be incapable of it.
He is also trying to make YOU the guilty party. Enough is enough. Being alone is MUCH better than being a doormat. Trust me Sweetlady. I KNOW what I am talking about. I went through the same thing.

Staying together for kids, finances or fear of being alone are NOT reasons to stay in a marriage.

A divorce will give you the emotional distance you need to heal. It will also force him to begin respecting you again if he is capable. Maybe he never did, that I do not know.

You will heal from this.

There is a great book out there by Melodie Beatty...Codependent No More. I suggest you read it and re-read it. You will not like it when you recognize yourself in the pages...but it will help you to see the whole picture a little clearer. That will helop to give you the leverage you need to create change in YOUR life.

You will not heal overnight but if you make the decision now that you can....you will feel a difference once you commit to standing your ground.!

Do NOT give him anymore chances. YOU move forward and BE STRONG.

You are enabling him to pull you into his problem. Wash your hands of HIS problem and focus on yourself, your family and your future and making all three of those areas the best you can.

Make a decision to seek counseling for yourself...leave him out of it altogether. ONLY talk to your counselor or Preacher about what you are going through. Leave your friends out of it.
Only you can help yourself.

If you and your husband are meant to be together it will happen. You need distance now; Not him or any other man for that matter.
And...despite what he says....The other woman has no plans to step away from him and he does not want her to.

Trust me...you will feel whole again and that pain will vanish. YOU WILL ALSO FIND COMFORT IN TIME. Time heals!

As I said, I have been through it all.

I do hope things get better for you. However, as I read through your post, it struck me hard when you said, "I had him sleep on the couch." What's with that? Do you truly have that much power and control over your husband? I'm wondering if that might be why he is looking for "comfort" elsewhere.

Hey girl. First of all this man will never change. If he's doing this to you after Only 10 years of marriage, imagine how he'll be down the line. You see I'm speaking from experience. My significant other that I've been with for 29 years decided that he needed to get away for awhile. Even though we had been talking about getting away together. So off he went to supposedly visit his brother. Oh, I knew what was going on before he left because I also checked his cell phone. I told him before he left to make sure she was worth losing everything for, " According to him he had nothing to lose ". This so called woman was a friend of his from school. They were both 67 years old when this happened. SSSSoooo age has no limit of being unfaithful. Well, when he returned all h*&&*ll broke loose. He lied about her name even though I knew what it was, you see, I hired a DETECTIVE before he left. LOL !!! Needless to say he promised to have no further contact with this woman even after telling me I WASN"T SUPPOSED TO KNOW ABOUT HER!!! Well about three to four days later he wound up in the hospitral, NO not from my doings, but for health follow ups. While he was in there he called her , SAID HE WANTED TO LET HER KNOW HE WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. My question was WHY??? Again another go round between us. After PROMISING AGAIN to have NO contact with her, upon his release HE called Her again from a pay phone. BIG mistake because he used the house phone calling card, well I view the bills online. STUPID!!!! DUH Again another go round. So now with all he put me through, I see a phychiatrist every week along with a therapist. I used to take only advil for headaches but now I am on 12 different medicines. I have been diagnosed with SEVERE MANIC DEPRESSION AND CLASSIFIED AS BEING HOMICIDAL. He showed No Remorse. And Yes we are still living together but that is as roommates. He sleeps on the couch and I in the bed. He is aware that this relationship cannot be salvaged and that when MY finances are in order I WILL BE MOVING ON. He still keeps his cell phone from me and even mows the grass with it on his person. SSSOOOO???? So as it goes A LEOPARD DOESN"T CHANGE THIER SPOTS. Get it. And if he does change he will blame you for making him change. Don't worry bout the sex part, MEN DON'T NEED IT like the other reply stated. Men think they can do what they want because a woman loves stronger than a man and they think that YOU need Them no matter what or how they act. Mine admitted that he wouldn't be able to stand seeing me on the arm of another man but yet he also said that if I did to him what he did to me , He would have left. Yet he doesn't want ME to leave so what's good for the goose IS good for the gander. So let the fool go. It will be his loss. If he can't understand how you're feeling and not think about your health and why you need those meds then he never will think about how you feel about him and this woman. Yours is just thinking that you don't have sex with him so it's ok for him to look elsewhere. Now it's the internet and texting but yet he tells you that it's hard on this woman with going through a divorce, well what about your feelings? What's to say he won't take it to further steps? Mine told me to just deal with it and that she has nothing to do with this. HAh!!! Mine has now realized that he will be alone when I leave because even our 2 kids and HIS daughter have nothing to do with him now. Get away from this man, no relationship is worth what he's putting you through. This happened three days to me AFTER mother's day. Hey Happy Mother's Day to me. So your feelings don't matter to him. That was more than three years ago. Well in the end I got my satisfaction, the detective I hired had located her house and family and well to make a long story short, I had a nice LONG talk with HER husband. I felt If my life got this messed up then why shouldn't hers. But you got satisfaction in knowing that her husband divorcing her. Follow suit!!!

I feel your pain. My fiance is not giving anyone gifts or receiving them because he is a scrub but I understand 100% where you are coming from. Its like why do they continue to lie to our faces saying they love us and want to be with us yet they do this kind of crap behind our backs. And if the tables were turned, we would be nailed to the cross. I really don't have a good answer for you but I wish I did. Heck I need someone to tell me what I should do. Its probably best to kick them out, and teach them a lesson but we never really know if its the right decision or if anyone can change. Hang in there. The answer is probably that we need to love ourselves and to ask ourselves is the pain, aggravation and depression really worth it or should we put ourselves first because we deserve better?

It sounds like you are the only one wanting your marriage to work. You are the only one agonizing over the status quo in your marriage. He's not the least bit concerned. You have given him every opportunity to secure his place in your life and he's chosen NOT to take those opportunities. You husband has suffered no adverse consequences for his actions and you allow him to continue to blame you for his inadequacies. So what does that tell you? You don't need Dear Abby or anyone else to tell you what you already know you need to do. You ever wonder why and when you started taking antidepressants? My guess is you've always known that your husband was unfaithful and doesn't matter whether it was physical contact or emotional. You need to face up to the realities and get yourself together. It's all about you and your survival. When you finally made your husband suffer a little consequence by sleeping on the couch he started taking walks with you. He needs to know for certain that you will no longer accept his excuses and behaviors. He needs to know that you are stronger than he thought and someone to be reckoned with. Don't idly sit by and allow him to make major decisions about your life. You are enabling him to continue on his path and dragging you along with him. Stand up, take charge, be the woman you were always meant to be and remember, he can only play this game with you if you are a willing particpant. You can do this! God luck!

Wow - I would say you have given him enough chances to change his behaviour and sorry to say but I believe he has completely checked out the relationship. Emotional cheating is just as damaging to a relationship as physical cheating. Men for some reason don't seem to think they are doing any harm because they base everything on the physical and not on emotions. Men feel as long as they actually haven't had sex then it's not cheating. However, when one person in a relationship is doing something that they know their partner would not approve of and hides it from their partner, then that's cheating regardless of whether there was physical contact or not. Emotional cheating is extremely damaging because your partner is investing more time talking and sharing with this other person than with you. And you know it would just be a matter of time before that happens. Get out, hold your head up high and leave this bum. Or get a court order to force him to leave based on the phone records you have on him.

I think you know the answer to that - nobody is worth the pain, aggravation and depression that you're going through. You will only make yourself sick and end up with many health issues. Nobody is worth being sick over. Trust me I've been through that and trying to make it work when the other person either has no interest or has their own issues is just not worth putting your health at risk.