Non Speaking Husband

Unless people get very nasty with each other arguing over every item, I don't think there is a need to treat everything as an asset and splitting everything. If they were only married 2 years and he bought some items with cash that he made then why can't he keep them? By this token he can demand back college tuition he paid for her. My masters cost a lot of money, I'd love somebody to pay for it!

In such short marriage and with one person being main contributor I would not start splitting every item. I'd take stuff that is mine and what I need to start new life.

I don't think Seeya is divorcing him though so this is all talk on our part

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He is doing this to "fill a void" somehow, it's a compulsive behavior that he practices to try to "ease his stress". It's just an attempt to have a sense of control somehow. This is filling "his" needs and he is clearly not even thinking of "any" of your needs at all. Sometimes, these patterns can actually be due to bipolar, not always, but sometimes as in a manic phase a person can actually go out and spend money irresponsibly like this. However, this can also be a sign that the individual is actually overwhelmed with stress and is trying to self reward in an effort to combat the stress they are under.

All of these things you have expressed should be shared with a therapist, so "you" can understand what you are dealing with and how to best protect "yourself" instead of being hurt somehow. It can be painful and confusing to watch someone behave this way, I have lived with that myself and it was very hard on me. However, my husband handled it with turning to alchohol, and while he eventually did stop, it took him a very long time to grow up and learn how to manage himself better. I call these stages he goes through Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. I have learned that when Mr. Hyde comes out, there is nothing I can do or say that stops this mindset.

I don't plan on cleaning him out. I'm not like that and don't plan on taking anything but whats mine (clothes, and a couple other things)The items that were gifts I don't want. I finished school and now just need to do an exit exam which is due by the 25th. A lot of my Masters I or my parents paid for. Yes, he did pay for some as well. This is something that we agreed to. I didnt come into this marriage and blindside him with things. I dont even go into our account and use money.

Nice to hear from you Seeya. I can see you have no intention of cleaning him out and in all these pages I don't see you ever saying you would either.

How are things going?

Sometimes just getting out of a bad marriage is the best thing...know when I left, I left everything behind after 33 years. There are a few things that I really do want but moving things 2100 miles isn't that practical either. It is hard having accumulated things together over 33 years & then just walking out on it but my sanity & my well being are worth more than things....but sometimes that's the easiest thing to do also....

Just to make a totally fresh start..leave the baggage & the memories behind

Things are good. Grades posted and I got straight A's. He's still being difficult. He hasn't asked if I finished school or has he said anything. Of course it hurts my feelings but I keep going. I've applied for some jobs that don't require my teaching cert. Im hoping to get a job real soon. There are a lot more to apply for as well. 25th is coming!! I'll keep you posted.

Ok, good, and are you going to see a therapist? This is to help you so you can have support if you "do" decide to end this relationship.

I think you have had a lot to think about here in your thread and now you can observe him and think about him perhaps in a different more knowledgeable light.

Yes, keep us all posted.

Seeyalater,

Here is a good article for you to read, perhaps you can copy it and have your husband read it too.

Therapy for Men's Issues and Problems

it is good to listen to those above

Thank you for the link. I will read it. I'll copy it and hope he will read it. He is so against any help. I see a therapist tomorrow. Finally! I will keep you posted.

Good luck with the therapist! I hope you're able to have a good session

Thank you so much. By discussing my issue and getting feedback from everyone it means so much to me. There are people out there care. I still have my exam I'm writing. 30 pages doesn't come easy to write with only one question that needs to be answered. So my extra time is focused on that. Tomorrow is my first appointment. I know its going to take more than one appointment but its a start.

33 years is a very long time. I couldn't start to imagine. My moms grandparents were married 62 years and stayed married. Your move was far and who wants to take things that were in a home that wasn't happy? When you walk away sometimes its best to leave it all behind.

Unfortunately I put a lot of ME into decorating that house & buying furniture with inheritance that I got from my grandmother & all my craft things & I still have cloths that I left & even things that I brought into the marriage from my childhood & then I had all my mother's furniture on top of ours after she died right before I left him.

Ironically it was my inheritance that allowed me to leave him.....funny because she was the one who talked me into getting married to him in the first place after I had seen all these red flags before the wedding & wanted to cancel the wedding.......it got so bad the last 13 years of the marriage that I was literally seeing red every time I had to deal with him. Financially I had been trapped there those years but it was a large house so I lived in my side of the house & he lived in his....LOL, that's one good thing about having a large house.....but it's hard to avoid contact when living under the same roof & that was where the anger just kept building

So was there any happiness at all in the 33 years? You mentioned that you seen the red flags before you got married but you still got married. That is such a long time to not be happy and to have just a roommate. I'm in a large house as well but like you said there will always be contact of some sort.

Red flags were personality issues. He worked for a bank while getting his degree & expected them to GIVE him a job in the programming department because of that...but they had no interest in him because of his GPA.....he kept saying that GPA doesn't show how intelligent or how good you will be on the job.....but I pointed out to him that it wasn't intelligence they thought it pointed to but rather attitude. He had told me that he got a bad GPA in classes he thought he was smarter than the professor in or classes he didn't like & I pointed out that no one wants to hire someone who won't do the job because they think they are smarter than the manager or goes off & does whatever they think should be done because they don't think management knows what they are talking about & that was exactly what he did with his education & in his case, low GPA was an indication of an attitude problem, not a problem with intelligence.

I was ready to bail after that & after seeing him with a few of his friends....but my mother said....oh, he'll grow up & become responsible when he has to. I thought education would make sure that no one was like my dad because I wanted to make sure I didn't marry anyone like him......so I got talked into going ahead with the marriage....not trusting my own gut feelings because I wasn't sure enough of myself.

Then I got married & the first thing he started doing was using sarcasm to put me down....I don't think he was doing it before the wedding....I just remember it happening after & it started to get to me so I started throwing it right back at him. Went on for over 6 months & I had ENOUGH....so I told him to either STOP or he could GET OUT. It took him over a year of constant reminding him for him to mostly stop......Respect NEVER GREW because there was NO seed for it to grow from.

Then he really blew it when I got pregnant. I had made it known before we got married that NOTHING was getting in my way of my degree & having a career (which was why I didn't want to have kids)....the first option out of his mouth was for me to just take 5 years off of getting my degree & go back later.....that was WAR!!!! & honestly it never stopped being war.

My good times were when we went to Italy with his job our 2nd year of marriage. We were supposed to be gone only a few weeks so I thought I would just take a couple weeks off school & catch up when I got back but we ended up being there 5 weeks.....my good times were when I was wandering around the town ALONE. Our winter skiing vacations were great because we met a older ski instructor in Jackson Hole & he taught western swing so I got to dance because H would never dance (2 left feet). My good times were because I was doing what I liked to do & H would just tag along.

Getting lost in my career for 15 years, I was able to work when H was home & be home when H was working most of the time. I worked 60-80 hour weeks to avoid being around him. I would go to our daughter's activities & sometimes he would go also...my engineering career hours were very flexible as long as I got my job done I could make my own hours.

After career ended, that was when I felt totally trapped. House was upside down so there was no way to get any money out of the marriage in a divorce & he started getting us into bad debt because with the major depression & anxiety I ended up in, I wasn't able to be in charge of the finances any longer....so he destroyed us.....there were no assets to divide only debt.......so there was no where to go & no direction to turn until my mother died. There were times when I left. Lived for a few months at the ranch where my horse was. Stayed at my mother's for awhile especially when my pdoc wouldn't let me go home after hospital stays (usually from suicide attempts).

It's important not to allow yourself to ever get to that kind of place. I should have gotten the divorce while I had my career. Hind sight is always 20/20. There were times during that time also that I was really sick from medication reactions & migraines that wouldn't stop (I still am dealing with that) so I wasn't even sure if I could physically take care of myself. H would make food at times or I would do a frozen meal.....It's a hell of a way to live (if that's what it was called)

The problem also was that anger grew & grew until at the end I was seeing red every time I had to interface. When things are bad, unless the other side is willing (or capable) to change, things ONLY get worse.

It wasn't until last year (after leaving him 7 years prior) I started reading on Asperger's & come to figure, that was what I had been dealing with all those years. It started making sense out of all the behaviors...would never go back to living with that, but at least it's helping with my anger level. It was the anger that grew during that time of just living in the same house on top of all those other years of fighting.

Tolerating it while I could get out financially created being trapped when I financially wasn't able to......just be mindful of what's going on in your marriage...looking back I see my situation more clearly...in ways that I couldn't when I was in the middle of it.

After reading your post. I don't even know what to say. Please don't take offense to this but your years of living with your H was very sad. I was so busy through the roller coaster ride that I didn't have a lot of time to sit, cry, be sad, and dwell on the problems. I did catch myself dwelling on the excuses I was getting. In the beginning I cried and thought, but because I was traveling with students I was focused on them. I look back now and think that is what saved me. I had to stay strong for the students. I went to my first appointment. Being it was the first visit I knew I wouldn't get a lot out of it. She did say that I have put up with a lot and have been through emotional/mental abuse. I have set weekly appointments. Now, I wait for my exam to get accepted or denied (I'm sure It will be accepted). In the meantime I have applied for full time jobs that just require a Masters in hopes I can get some interviews.

no offense taken

You are right by staying busy & keeping focus outside of the problems doesn't mean they aren't seen, it's just that the lack of focus allows some level of toleration because there just isn't the ability to do anything much about it when we are busy & distracted by other higher priority things in our life. It's when that goes away or lessens that we can really look at what was going on & realize just how bad it is in reality.

Dwelling on the excuses a lot of times is because we want to give them the benefit of the doubt....but then their excuses lay blame on us when we know we aren't to blame we can also start to wonder about ourselves. For me, I fought with my parents, so when I was fighting with my H also, I started to wonder if it was ME that couldn't LOVE or care about other people but always wondered why I didn't have the same problem with other people I dealt with.

After my parents died & I left my H, I realized that it wasn't ME....but figuring out abuse verses dysfunction was tricky for me. I realized that both parents & H were dysfunctional & that the abuse I was feeling wasn't intentional on their part. It didn't make it hurt any less & it didn't make me want to continue tolerating it at least I understood the reason for their behavior & I also learned that there was nothing that I could have done to change it nor was it anything I did or didn't do that caused it & finding out that other people would have reacted in the same way I did really helped me the most....I think that's what therapy is also important for because it does validate the reactions & the feelings toward their behavior that we are feeling.

So glad to hear that you are going to weekly appointments. No time like the present to start a NEW phase of your life from graduation to job to learning more about yourself through therapy. Sometimes we find out that that new person we are becoming is pretty darn good & we start to find out what real happiness can really be.