People my age are having sex like animals

Look, you give him blowjobs because you feel bad for him for his having to live with you. That is by far not the most direct way to address your feeling bad for him.

Leaving him would be the most effecttive way, for sure.

Hamster,

hmmm...true.

Tinyrabbit,

I never knew that about the foster animals...something to think about. (as well as everything else you said).

Not that I have a direct experience, but to the best of my general understanding, *****s perform sexual acts motivated by monetary compensation for their time and effort. I have never heard of a ***** who was motivated by her desire to (temporarily) alleviate her feeling "bad for him having to live with me".

So I think that *****s are far better off than you are.

There is help out there.

Here's my two cents. I believe that God can fix anything. But there is also a scripture that says not to tempt God. I don't believe God would want you to be abused.

This is excellent advice.

Kate, you basically have several processes that are either running or need to be running:

1) preparation for leaving, as described by tinyrabbit (let us add getting legal advice to the list of steps)
2) continuing sexual activity you do not enjoy
3) rationalizing divorce
4) recovering from your eating disorder
5) recovering from sexual abuse
6) being subjected to verbal abuse and humiliation by the husband.

Let us analyze the processes in terms of dependencies.

(1) and (3) are independent. You can start (1) while continuing to run (3). You are already running (3) by being on this thread and getting advice from people on how to fit divorce into your system of beliefs. I think that you are getting great advice from all angles and I estimate that it would take you one quarter, max two, to finish process (3). Then, you will be well on your way with process (1), as advised by tinyrabbit. It is much more time efficient to run (1) and (3) in parallel rather than sequentially, i.e. rationalizing first, practical steps second. So get going with (1) now, right away!

(2) blocks (5). (2) needs to be stopped.

(6) probably blocks both (4) and (5). Yet,

(6) will continue until (1) and (3) have fully run their course. Since you cannot change your husband, you will be continually subjected to verbal abuse until you end the marriage, which requires (1) practical steps and (3) rationalization.

I cannot draw a diagram here, but you can draw it for yourself and see that (4) and (5) come LAST. So your talking about working hard on recovering from eating disorder etc. does not make much sense. You need to do what is minimally necessary to survive but you need to put most of your energy and focus into processes (1) and (3) because that is the only way for you to be on the critical path (= the sequence of stages determining the minimum time needed for an operation).

I hope it helps.

Hi Kate.

Bless your heart...you've so much on your plate.

I admire you deeply for your commitment to your faith, and I respect your desire in your original post that you don't want to deny God His power. But do keep in mind...the Lord works in a lot of ways. I'm certainly not in authority to speak for Him, but I know He wouldn't want this for you Kate. Your husband is incredibly unsupportive as you are trying to overcome your eating disorder, and his treatment of you is incredibly disrespectful at best. You deserve much, much better than what he's giving you. I echo the sentiments of your T.

I do understand your feelings about people and sex, and I share your sentiments, in a way. I understand what you're feeling there, though I wish I could offer you more advice there in regards to what to do about it.

Please know you are in my prayers, and I hope things get better for you.

Hugs, and all my best,
Harley

Someone mentioned churches running programs to help rescue abused women.

I think that sends a clear message that it's okay to leave.

Hamster...I am drawing out that diagram now. Then I will spend a lot of time mulling it over and I will probably end up taking to my T.

Harley...thanks so much for your comment. It's somewhat relieving to know that I am not alone and that someone understand (as much as I don't want that pain on anyone else, if that makes sense)

I have so much to do and work on, sometimes it gets overwhelming. I feel like a am being stretched in all different directions and yet they are all connected somehow, like a spider's web. Oy vey. You all might just have to bear with me while I sort this all out. I thank you all so much for your feedback and for caring enough to take the time to write. For one of the first times, I feel like I can actually spill out my thoughts and feelings without being condemned for them. ((hugs to all))

Kate, applying professional project management approaches further, when you are done with the exercise that you are already going through, you need to go back and do a "root cause analysis" (also caused post-mortem, in other words, " an examination of a corpse in order to determine cause of death"), in order to draw what is called "lessons learned".

From what you have already said, it seems that one of the lessons learned is not to marry any random guy who proposes, just "going along" with whatever any random has to offer.

Another lesson learned is that a guy's being "perfectly fine" with your body is not enough. I think a guy should be positively excited about your body rather than just being neutrally fine with it. It is definitely not a sufficient condition for a successful marriage - not at all - but I do believe it is a necessary condition. "perfectly fine" is not sufficient.

I am sure that there are many more lessons learned that you, your therapist, and other people on the thread can draw from your experience.

When you extract the lessons learned, it makes it a little easier to stomach the realization that you wasted so much time. There is some positive outcome then - the lessons learned and a hope for a better future.

Hamster,

Thanks for all your advice. I know what you are talking about with the "root cause analysis" I have done these frequently with the ED, but I never have considered doing one about my marriage. Thanks for the tip.

Wow, and I had not idea that it would be applicable to eating disorders, too.

Wikipedia: The majority of Americans (73-76%) identify themselves as Christians

Everybody knows: divorce rate is 50%.

Do you think that the divorce rate in America, which is still largely a Christian country, could have possibly reached this high a number without a very HEFTY contribution from Christians?

You cannot argue with the numbers.

And abuse alone cannot account for that, so Christian people must be divorcing for a wide variety of reasons, just as everybody else.

good point...thanks for the stats, you really have me thinking

just like everybody else, sorry

OK, understood - so you can do it as a mechanistic exercise. Fine. But the point of your wasting your time remains, right? If you just do it to get it over, that means that you are wasting your time.

So basically you are in a hamster wheel - you feel bad, you give him blow jobs to temporarily alleviate the feeling bad, but it does not solve the problem, so you feel bad again, resort to blow jobs again, again they do not solve the root cause (your living with him), etc. etc. - an endless hamster wheel run.

Exactly how I feel- I am definitely on the hamster wheel.

I was meaning to tell you, on Saturday I decided I had had enough. I packed my things and loaded the car. Did I make it out of the driveway you ask? No. Ugh. I suck in life. But, at least it was a step. I have never even come close to doing something like that. The problem is, not I am unpacking I am such a failure in life.

You do NOT suck at life. You got closer than ever before, you started going through the motions, you took steps along the path. NO FEELING BAD. I WON'T LET YOU.

That was an act of courage. You went farther, much farther, than you ever did.

Exactly this!