My life has been a whirlwind of stress and drama lately. I recently spent around $1400.00 on repairs to my car after finding out that my frame was bent, apparently the previous owner kept some secrets, which messed up my suspension. So straitening my frame, new A-arms, new body springs, and labor.....uuuggg = a big bill and a loan from my dad.
So the big issue in my life is... my marriage. There really is no other way to say it other then its in trouble. My husband and I have honestly had some trouble off and on most of our relationship. During most of our relationship I have felt neglected and ignored. I have spent most of my time and energy over the last five years trying to give him everything he needed and wanted. I feel that I have tried so hard to to take care of him, love him as hard as I could, be his friend and his partner, I have tried to be the best for him that I could be. I realized about a year ago that through all of this I stopped taking care of my self. I stopped being me. My life revolved around my husband. I knew I had been unhappy for a long time, I felt like I was doing almost everything for him and was getting nothing in return. During these past 5 years I tried to tell him that I was unhappy and that I needed help around the house, I wanted to actually spend a bit of time with him, and that I couldn't do everything myself. I had sunken in to depression over and over. Yet my pleads for help and care in return have often been left unanswered.
My husband really is a good man. He can be kind and funny and is one of the smartest people I know yet he seems to have one fatal flaw. His narcissism. He has a great love for himself and his opinions. While my world revolved around him, so did his. Due to this personality trait, he can often be mean in his attempts to share is opinions (which he seems to feel are fact and that people need to know), he believes he is better then most and treats others as such, and basically if something doesn't serve his interest then he doesn't find it important. When we first met he treated me like a queen. He sacrificed sleep to see me all day while he worked graveyard, he bought bouquets of flowers worth $100, and he spoke to me like and equal and a friend. We were inseparable best friends as well as partners and lovers. At times we have gotten along wonderfully and had tons of fun together. As time went on this person that I knew has disappeared. He slowly has become this person I see before me. As this grew I made excuses to my self and others for his mean words or selfish behavior.
As time has gone on between us his narcissistic behavior spread to him telling me I wasn't doing my part because going to school full time wasn't enough, or that he made more money than me so he should be able to have more then me, or while I have been working that I wasn't doing anything with my life and that I never follow through with anything. Never seeming to notice that I basically take care of everything else in our lives. I do most of the cleaning and laundry, make sure the bills were paid and that our finances were in order, taking care of basically all of the car repairs and upkeep, I could go on but I am assuming you get the point. The point is that he made me feel bad, worthless, and that he thought of me as less then himself. He made me feel as though I wasn't his partner in life. I often wonder if this was a way for him to feel better about himself by putting me down. He has told me in the past that doesn't understand we I can't be responsible for his happiness, that he believes that he is god, and that when he is lonely that I need to be needy for him. He lies about stupid things that have even put in not so great situations at work as well. Example: one of my tenants brought flowers to me while I was not home. He took them and claimed that he got them for me with a story on how he bought them off one of those people who sell flowers out of the bucket on the side of the street. Low and behold I am doing inspections on my units a few days later when one of my tenants asks me "so how did you like those flowers my wife brought over to you?" Immediately realizing what had happened I said that I loved them and thanked him and asked him to thank his wife. The tenant also mentioned they were from the farmers market they had worked at the weekend. Funny thing is I thought they were from the farmers market and asked my husband if that is where he got them and that's when he gave me the line about the street corner vendor. Of course I call my husband to ask him:( this isn't the exact conversation but pretty damn close) me- "where did you get those flowers again?". Him- " from someone on the side of the street." Me- "Really? Are you sure?" Him - (with hesitation) "yeah, why?" Me- are you sure they weren't a gift from the tenant in unit###?" Him - "oh, well...yeah they were" me- "you put me in a bad place. I would have thanked them when I went into their unit today if I would have known. You made me look like a bad person and you lied to me and that's not OK". Really why would anyone do this. Is it just me or is it wrong to take credit for other peoples kind deeds just to make yourself look good.
I must also mention for full disclosure that there has been infidelity on his end that despite my best effort I can't seem to fully let go of. Especially because it happened twice. He kissed a girl didn't tell me, brought her into our home, then kissed her again. He never told me about it either . We at one point split up for a month. I went to talk to his sister after he told me and found out from her that it had happened. I did eventually get the truth from him and it took months to get out that there were to separate occasions rather then just the first one. To give insult to injury during this break he slept with another girl. We were still sleeping together during this time and the only reason I found out about this one is because his roommates/ my very good friends told him that if he didn't tell me they would. I have done what I can to forgive and to try to forget and trust him again but it is very difficult and honestly never truly going to be possible. I just don't understand why lieing is an OK thing to him. Now this did happen before we even got engaged and I did did choose to continue with the relationship. I did however tell him that if he lied to me again I was done. The flower incident however was only about a year ago, I realize in comparison claiming flowers is a much smaller offence, but it was still another lie. This makes me wonder how many other lies are floating out there.
As I said I have tried to be honest with him about how I was feeling. When he attempted efforts and helping me they often only lasted a week or two. It seems just long enough for me to feel hope and stop asking for his help in being an adult and partner.
All of this hurt, sadness, depression, and disappointment has killed our friendship and caused resentment on my end that I find hard to let go of. I finally told him that enough was enough that I wasn't going to live like this anymore. That things must change or I have to leave this relationship. He finally began to hear me started sporadically helping around the house and taking care of small things like getting the oil changed in his car. But our arguing increased and I found myself becoming more and more distant from him. Staying out with the few friends I had left or made in the last couple of years so I wouldn't have to be at home and fighting. We began marriage counselling about five months ago in hopes and getting help for our problems. Since then a few thing have come out such as the fact that when we began dating he intentionally chased away all of my friends. An act I find makes me ill just thinking about it. That because he didn't like the people I hung out with he decided to save me from them. People I cared for and that cared for me. Many of his reasoning's come form tidbits of conversations he over heard or didn't know the back stories or inside jokes he didn't understand. Thinking of this hurts me, he was willing to let me be alone and depressed thinking that I had done something wrong that these people didn't like me anymore. Knowing that for years I was sitting alone at home while he was out with his friends and family, sad and lonely and he was OK with that. Of course I now understand why all of my friends hated him and didn't want me to be with him.
About a week and a half ago I asked him to move out. While the marriage counselling has helped our communication a bit other things have gotten worse. We both have become unhappy when we were apart and even more unhappy when we were around each other. We have both put up walls to protect ourselves which have caused us to become so distant and angry with each other that if we spend more then a couple of hours alone together we with bicker or fight with each other. I had no other ideas to fix this relationship then to ask him to go. Give us the chance to figure out what we need and want. How to fix this or end this. How to be happy individuals with a relationship that adds to our lives rather then takes away from it. For the next three months we are basically only going to communicate through written letter/e-mail and we are going to go to marriage counseling every other week. After our three months are up we will start to see each other and talk and get to know each other again in hopes that we can rebuild a relationship.
In the meantime we are going to try to work on ourselves. He is going to get his own apartment and learn to live by himself. I hope in someways this will teach him some appreciation for the things I have tried to do to take care of him. I on the other hand have gotten a roommate. My little brother has been living with me for a while but I am letting a friend who was in need stay with me for a while. It wasn't originally what I had in mind but after my conversation with my husband about how long we are going to be apart I knew I would need help paying bills until I could get some extra income coming in. So for me and the new roommate it is a help for both of us. I also have started to make a list of things I would like to do for myself during this process. I may post it later. Wish me luck in finding the right path.
14 years ago
