Hey Hey,
Your insight into what my marriage is like is very close. I am not offended in the least.
I do believe in marriage that two 1/2's become one but I don't think it is selfish to keep a part of yourself. You cannot lose who you are. I believe the best parts of two people become even better and that together you work on the faults. It's alot of compromise but in a loving and accepting way. In a good marriage between 2 decent people it should kinda go that way.

All my feelings do have to do with him and the things he has done and the way he has treated me and more importantly how he has made me feel. I was never like this before. He is very supportive IF I am doing what HE thinks is right. Otherwise he is very condescending and judgemental.

When I am here in the evenings yacking with people I get this look from him that's makes me feel like I am an idiot because my friends are online. He doesn't realize that my friends are online. That is the way it is. I have a few freinds here but they are pretty busy. I don't get to see them often and I make the most of it when I do.

My feelings are a bi-product of of my over all bad feelings. You see I came here a happy and whole person. So in love and so prepared for a challenge. I gave up everything I had and left everyone I loved to come here to be with him. When I had just given up everything I could, he ripped everything I thought I had away. I was left with nothing and noone. His hurt took me to the brink of suicide and madness and he still didn't stop.

When I finally broke from the confusion of what was happening I got angry. He had finally gone too far. When I got angry he stopped being mean. Then he was just him. Generally selfish and uncaring.

I don't get anything from him to boost my confidence and I don't have the ability to do things like get a job and succeed at that, things like that arent available to me. He backs me 100% in my Mary Kay business but that isn't going very well.

He made a big mistake when we got married and our first years together. His friends loved me. I knew I was gonna have to work to be part of the gang and it was up to me. Then suddenly he didn't want me around anymore. They were his friends. They didn't know what was going on. He never told them that things were bad with us. He made little comments like "I made a mistake getting married" and then not exlplaining. Then he stopped going out with them. Soon I was the *****y wife who married him and wouldn't let him do anything. It wasn't my choice. I just wanted to be included in his life but instead of doing that he gave his life up.

He recently has told people that things were bad and tried to clear things up a little but it's too little too late. His friends will always think of me that way and the ones who dont, the ones who think he is a real jerk for what he did dont think about me to include me in anything anymore. I've been labeled. I am really uncomfortable around them. They are uncomfortable around me.

I have tried to include him into my group of people here. He wants nothing to do with it. I invited 18 people and there spouses from language school here once for a party and he spent most of the evening sitting in the next room talking to whoever might wander in there. He wouldn't go with me to the gatherings they had.

The bottom line in all this is he does not fullfill my needs physically or emotionally at all. He wants to, he loves me but he doesnt know how. He has tried but he just isnt capable. He has his life and I have mine. We share nothing together but a home and a dog and even the home isn't mine.

I don't know where I am going. I want to go somewhere safe where I can be me and feel loved. I don't know where that is.

I don't mind being alone and I am not often lonely, more hurt.

You talked alot of sense and you got alot from my vague posts to figure it out. You are smart and caring.
Thank you. I will be ok. I am in a much better place than I was a year ago. I will survive this. He isn't mean so I can tolerate my life but I choose to live I just am not sure how or where right now.
Heidu

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
John Ruskin