After 18 years?

Not sure how much longer I can deal with my marriage problems! My husband and I have been married for 18 years and have 2 children. We have had problems for many years and I have always been the one to think positive, but now at least once a day I think about divorce. I keep telling him I am unhappy and we need to get some counseling, but he just disregards my feelings and at the most says I love you. This is the extent of our communication, and now he is having health and mental issues that are causing problems in the bedroom... i am feeling so un-loved and devalued by his actions and in-actions. We just seem to be so incompatible on so many levels and I never thought I'd get to this point in my marriage. I'm just not sure where to go from here... I want him, but I want him to be able to meet my needs and provide a happy, healthy life together with me for our children; yet that has not happened and not sure it ever will

Hi Italianma,

18 years is a long time to be together.
Is the lack of communication because your husband is generally withdrawn? Are there others with whom he communicates? Do you ever fight and argue?
It does sound frustrating on your side of things. Your feelings are completely valid. A relationship takes 2, of course so he has to be open to hearing what you have to say. I hope that he can hear you when you say it is counselling or you need to check out. Counselling can be a great help. But he needs to be there for it. It takes two to tango as they say. I am sending supportive thoughts your way.

Elana

Thank you for your support. My husband battles depression and I'm not sure that this is his only issue. He spends most of his time being angry or depressed and involved in his own thoughts. We had a very short separation a while back and the plan was for each of us to seek counseling on our own, then seek marriage counseling together. Well, he went to 1 appt. and has not yet went back. He seems to just want to push things under the rug as we have done for years and I'm trying to tell him I can't do that anymore. I guess the most difficult part for me is that I am educating myself, and seeking counseling for the first time in my life and starting to realize.. life should be better.

((Italianma))

It is hard to just keep pushing the problems under the rug & pretend as though things are "normal". It's good to see that you're educating yourself and getting counseling to help you through. It takes two to tango. People do learn and accept at different levels.

Just try to remember that you two have shared so many years together. You've had two children together. You may want to talk about how to help your hub become more accepting of therapy with your T. Perhaps he/she has some tangible ideas to help you.

My sympathies. My wife and I had a similar situation after being married 28 years. Only after years of my suggesting counselling, did she finally agree to do it. She only did that after I had threatened her with divorce and we both got lawyers. We went through 12 weeks of counselling, taking tests, etc. At first it seemed to help. However later she accused me and the counselor of "ganging up on her." Now, we have been married 46 years and still have most of the same problems. I am just resigned to "riding it out" at this stage of my life. I wish I had gotten divorced when I was in my twenties. The moral of all this is: if both partners aren't motivated to get counselling and have a good attitude about it, I doubt it will do any good. Good luck.

Thanks for sharing. I guess this is my fear. Riding it out and living a unhappy, unfilled life. I especially think of what will happen when the children are gone, then what will we have? The truth is my husband is unstable and I fear how he may react if I even threaten divorce. Not all of our days are bad. When we have had good days, they're good, but our bad days are the worst. Needless to say our life together has been a roller coaster ride and I'm not sure I want to be stuck with regrets the rest of my life.

This is so descriptive of my situation it is unreal. As you said, not all the days are bad; we have had good times as well. It has also been a roller coaster ride. She is not necessarily unstable, but she has a volatile temper and we are just opposites in many ways--sexually, athletically, etc. etc.. Our children are grown and we have one grandchild. Those are the reasons we stayed together. I think we both knew at the two year point that we should not have married (we had been shacking up for almost three years in college). Neither one of us has ever had the guts to follow through on a divorce. Good luck to you; hope you do what is best for you.