[wounded1]

Hi all, been a while since I've been on, and I apoligize for not being more supportive of those here! Once again, it is I who must seek advice...

I don't know how to make this long story short, so here goes: Two and a half years ago, my husband started a small business. He is the smartest, most talented man I have ever met, but certain things about his personality have made the whole endeavor a disaster. He is the type of person who organizes everything on paper, and expects things to work exactly like that plan. He is very inflexible, and will try to "fit a square peg into a round hole" until his hands are bleeding. He has a huge ego, and I've always told him that how strangers/staff perceive him is more important to him than what his own wife thinks of him. I was in business (in management mosty, plus having my own small business for a bit) for over fifteen years before we even met, so I have talked with him numerous times about how he could approach things differently, things he could change to make the business work, and yet he still continues to do things the same way. I have stayed at home raising our three little ones for most of the last seven years, doing a bit of freelance writing here and there, but I have gone back to work part time three times when our family was in financial trouble. I now have to go back to work full time because my husband has driven us into the ground financially. We are at the lowest point we have ever been at - last night I scraped together change just to buy milk! We have borrowed money from everyone in both our families, have shorted employees, I have sold or pawned everything I could...it's embarassing already.

Why didn't I go back to work earlier? I just had a complete hysterectomy this past February after battling severe endometriosis for fifteen years. My health is finally at the point where I feel comfortable that I can go back to work full time. That, and I believed my husband every time he said "this month will be different." I don't need much, I am not the kind of woman who has her nails and hair done, I am OK wearing second hand clothes, and dollar store make up works just fine. My kids however deserve the best, and by that I mean to have a fridge full of food and a home that isn't so full of tension you could cut it with a knife.

I just turned forty last Friday. My husband knew I was stressed about it, that I was feeling down because I wasn't where I wanted to be in life. We have always fought about my birthday, he comes from a family where birthdays aren't special, and in my family they are each person's "big day". I came from a single parent mom who had no money, but she would make my sister and I feel special (like making our favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner or doing our hair etc.) from the minute we woke up on our birthdays. In my husband's family, they are all about money and expensive gifts. If his mom and dad don't have the money to buy a big gift that year, they don't get anything on their birthday, they send money later when they have it. In nine years, I have never gotten a birthday card on time from them! Back to my 40th - I got sick a few days before, a really bad cold that kind of knocked me on my butt. I got up in the morning with a fever, my husband was sleeping on the couch (he works nights but had been home for a few hours), he rolled over, looked at me and went back to sleep. I woke my son up for school, got him ready, my two year old woke up, so I got her ready too and off we went, walking in the cold. Fast forward to just before lunch, my husband gets up, hugs me says "Happy Birthday" and goes about his day. It was my son's school's birthday that day too, so my mom, my husband and our other two kids and I got to have a picnic lunch with him at school, which was wonderful. Later that evening, my mom and nephew, some friends and their kids came over for dinner. My mom bought dinner that we ordered in, brought me awesome presents, and had even bought me a gorgeous necklace "from the kids" (she called my husband a couple days before and told him she was doing this because she knew we didn't have any money - his response was "Why does she do that, just to make me feel bad?"). It was a special evening, but by the end of it, I was livid with my husband. During dinner, he handed me a card, a very sweet "I love you, Happy Birthday" card, but that was it, the rest of the time he just moped. I have talked to him dozens of times over the last nine years about how on special occassions I don't want or need "big" gifts, I just want him to show me that I'm special to him. We were broke on his last birthday, and yet he says it was the best one ever! The kids and I made him cards, and a cake from scratch, bought him his favorite chocolate bar, and I booked him a cheap round a golf at a later date, when I knew we would have money. Before we got married, he made me a gorgeous pencil drawing, he used to write me love letters, I have told him over and over again that those are the things that mean the most to me. My fortieth birthday was a big milestone, and he was too busy feeling sorry for himself to make me feel special. And it's not the first time, there have been many occassions like that.

How do I stop being angry? At this point, I don't even know if I want to stay with someone who never puts his wife's needs or wants ahead of his own. There are too many instances of his selfishness (including booking a round of golf two days after I found out I had miscarried) for me to mention. Do I want to stay with someone who's incapable of swallowing his pide for his own children's welfare? I have absolutely no respect for him at the moment, and I am sooooo angry.

What do I do?

Hello, wounded1. Since making decisions when upset is not good, perhaps you might start by calming down. When calmer, you might think about how the marriage could be made better for both of you and the children. Does he understand how hurt you are about the birthdays? Does he realize you have business experience that he could use? Would he be willing to go to counseling? Perhaps seeking counseling for yourself would help? It appears you need need to make it very clear you are not happy with him.

If he does not seem committed to making changes, you might want to ask yourself the Ann Landers question: "Am I better off with him or without him?"

I wish you well.

[Rhiannonsmoon]

Hello wounded1,

He needs a wake up call, a serious one. Large egos are crammed full of "self" importance and rarely takes into consideration the thoughts and feelings of others.

That is why a wake up call is usually the only thing that gets through to them. Because within an inflated ego there is true horror if they are shown or made to think that they have not done anything perfectly.

I really wish you luck with this. I had to live with a man with an inflated ego for 28 years, only when I left did he do anything about his drinking and he stopped whoring. Too late for the marriage but he did it so he could say to me "I could've done it all along but you weren't worth it". Never let your own self respect be a reflection of someone elses behaviours.

.

[sunrise]

Wounded, I think marriage counseling might be able to help the two of you. Have you and your H ever considered that? When Rhiannonsmom wrote, "too late for the marriage," I really connected with that--I've ended a marriage within the last few years myself. There is a certain point beyond which a marriage cannot be helped. If too many years of hurt pass, it becomes too much and the hurt one stops caring for the sake of self preservation. So I urge you not to wait too long before really making it clear to your H how unhappy you are. Invite him to counseling. Maybe he will go. Try to find a really skilled couples counselor. I would also ask you to consider finding a male counselor. Your H sounds like someone who has trouble taking advice from a woman (he has ignored your great business advice for many years), so I think he will be more likely to listen to a man. And there are a lot of great male couples therapists out there. Even if marriage counseling ends up not improving the marriage, it can help you learn to communicate with each other (say the "hard things" in the presence of the counselor) and get clarity on what each of you wants from the marriage and what each of you is and is not getting. That can help you make your decision as to stay or not.

I would also suggest going to see some sort of financial advisor/counselor together. Your H needs a wake up call, and again, it sounds like he cannot take advice from you due to ego problems. Maybe he is not suited to being the boss of his own business. Maybe he would do better working at a company with a strong supervisor who can harness his talents yet keep him on track.

Good luck.