frustrated wife

Gerilee

why does life suck?
so I married a workaholic, and am now finding out that I am way down on his list of priorities. I'm not high-maintenance, I don't demand expensive gifts (neither of us have the money anyway) , I cook / clean / mind the baby / help him out with money / listen to his problems, and yet the response I get from him is minimal. All I want is maybe a sincere 'I love you' or 'I really appreciate you', and all I get is 'is my dinner in the microwave?'
We're 2 years married and our recent wedding anniversary was a joke. He arrived home late and had raced into a shop on the way and bought a CD of someone I hate. It wasn't about the price of the gift, I just thought he would have maybe made an effort romance-wise. A take-away would have even been welcome.
As for our sex life? It doesn't even exist.
Yes, I knew he worked hard before we were married, but I thought that our relationship would be more give and take. Instead of that I feel like I'm giving all the time. I don't want to be a doormat. I want a way to make this work. I've stamped my feet before with him to try and shake the relationship up, and he promises he'll make more of an effort with me. Guess what? It never happens.
I work part-time for myself since having the baby, but I'm pretty much isolated in the house the rest of the time. And this makes me feel more powerless in the face of his indifference. I can't just head off.
I'm now crying which is something I've done a lot of recently - can anyone advise? And I also feel bad for crying - other people have much worse problems than this.

davyjose

You are right, other people have much worse problems than this; the thing is, they would seek a way out. Are you prepared to do that? I'm not saying you should leave your husband, but if you had to, would you?

Nevyn

Suggest relationship couselling and see if he will.

SarahSassy

Well maybe other people have different serious problems but this is your serious problem at the moment and you deserve to be listened to......

There is nothing more painful for a woman than feeling alone in a relationship. When women are annoyed with each other they make minimum effort, dont respond in a nice manner and dont show affection to each other. Men can act like this towards their friends / partner and not realise how is comes across to a woman - that he doesnt care for you. Men just do not understand how their cool / indifferent behaviour can isolate / hurt their partner. I finished with my fiance for the same reason when it became clear that was what my life would be like going forward.....

You have valid concerns here. He is taking you for granted. He is not cherishing you as his wife and he should be. You both have busy lives. Him with his work and you with yours and your involvement in rearing your child.

This is not a lost cause but you need to try to show him how devastating this way of life is to you and how seriously unhappy it is making you.

Im sure you, like I did, feel so frustrated and its not the way you wanted your life / relationship to turn out.

I suggest you take some time away with your friends or even better all alone. Book a weekend in a hotel and tell him you need time to think about the relationship, where you are going and that he is babysitting that weekend and do it!!!!! Dont talk about it - just go!!! While you are away think the situation through. About how much more you are willing to put up with and what your actions will be if he doesnt change. You need to go home, get a babysitter for the child and spend the evening talking to him about your conclusions. After the weekend away you will be more relaxed, you will have your points decided beforehand and you will sound more rational and not over emotional.

I dont doubt he loves you nor that you love him but he is not paying you enough attention and while men on the boards may laugh at this comment there are many women here who will fully understand.

Good luck.

free2fly

Don't feel bad about crying OP. It's frustration and anger and hurt. Crying is better than keeping things bottled up inside. It sounds as if he is taking you for granted. Perhaps you need make it less easy for him to do that. If you want to PM we can talk further.

Wibbs

SarahSassy wrote:

I dont doubt he loves you nor that you love him but he is not paying you enough attention and while men on the boards may laugh at this comment there are many women here who will fully understand.

Normally I'm one to go Bah! no way. But I agree with this. Generalisation ahoy.:D Women do seem to need more emotional attention then men. More reinforcement. We men generally can be quite distant with each other. I have male friends that I love dearly and the feeling would be reciprocated, but good God woman it wouldn't be mentioned! One of the blokes is gay and very open about it yet he wouldn't acknowledge the real love that dare not speak it's name.:D Generally it's actions not words that reinforce blokes relationships. With women actions are the most important, but sometimes the words and being seen to be doing the right thing has a lot of weight.

I say all this to agree with SarahSassy, I'm sure he loves you. You need to sit him down and try to explain how his actions are affecting you. I also think her advice to bugger off on a weekend of pampering for you and you alone is a good one.

Esel

Gerilee wrote:

...I married a workaholic, and am now finding out that I am way down on his list of priorities.....Yes, I knew he worked hard before we were married, but I thought that our relationship would be more give and take....

The classic 'Aisle Altar Hymn' scenario.

Most of the time, poeple don't change. Unless they have a very good reason. You have been putting up with this for along time now (presumably before you got married as well). So he thinks his behaviour is acceptable.

You have to let him know how you are feeling. He may be passive-aggressive (the silent, moody type), so to avoid that type of 'response', phrase your statements as follows: "When you don't show me that you love me, I feel....." "When you obviously put very little thought into our anniversary, I felt...(unloved, unappreciated, whatever).

Ask him open-ended questions: "What do you think we could do to improve our relationship" rather than closed ones: "Do you think we have a good relationship?". Open-ended questions are much more likely to get a meaningful response, rather than a yes/no type of answer.

Why is he a workaholic? Does he need to be (business startup or similar)? What is his family background like? It's possible that he is behaving like his own father did.

Does he have a good relationship with his child? Does he share the childcare duties (nappy-changing, bathing, dressing, feeding etc)? If not, is this because you enabled him to behave like this, or are you blue in the face asking for help? Same goes for housework, gardening, shopping etc.

It is plain that you are very unhappy. You owe it to yourself to do something about this. If you can't have meaningful discussions with your husband about these issues, you will have to consider putting it to him that you think that you both need to attend relationship counselling. If he won't go, then go yourself.

There are basically two ways things can go from here - status quo, with you getting more unhappy and possibly depesssed, or an improved, more caring, loving relationship.

If things don't change, then at some time in the future you will realise that you no longer love this person, and do not want to be with them anymore.

You could benefit from buying and reading a good self-help book on the subject of relationships. If you have access to a decent bookshop, they should have a selection. If not, maybe your library would have some, or could order in for you. Do some research on the net as well.

You should not feel bad or guilty about crying. If nothing else, it is a good stress-buster. Realise that you would not be crying if this issue did not mean a lot to you. I can understand how upset you are.

Talking to someone about your problems can help a lot, if you can trust the other person to respect confidence. Verbalising your feelings somehow helps you to understand them better.

However, to really benefit from 'talking', one needs to talk to a professional counsellor. Your GP would be able to give some names in this regard.

You might find it very helpful to discuss your situation with your GP (or another GP if you would feel awkward with your own).

I am sure you will tackle the situation, and hope that things will improve for you over time, whichever way it goes. Chin up!

Beruthiel

Great post esel.

OP
It's possible that your husband has no idea of the seriousness of the situation. I imagine that if he did a real effort would have been made on his part by now. I'm betting when you mentioned it before he just put it down to you having an off day or whatever.
As others have suggested, a professional is the only way to go at this point. If you are both willing, then I don't see why ye couldn't sort this.

Yes, I knew he worked hard before we were married, but I thought that our relationship would be more give and take

This stuck out for me, people don't change over night just because they got married. Walking into a marriage expecting something that is not there already is naive. You married him as he was, can you think back to why you did that? There must have been something there that made you want to marry him, with work, you can get back to that.
You need to sit down and talk seriously and calmly to him about this.
He maybe a workaholic, but if his family aren't there to share his life with him, what's he doing it for?
As Sarah suggested above, find someone to babysit for the weekend and take a couple of days alone together to work this out and follow it through with a professional. That will work, if you both want it to.
Best of luck.
A

SarahSassy

Gerilee wrote:

'is my dinner in the microwave?'

And cos I am bad minded, for the next 2 weeks when he says the above I would reply with a resounding 'NO', open a bottle of nice wine for YOU and sit eating a box of chocolates moaning about how full you are. He will soon get the message.

LegacyUser

'A boards regular but i will go unreg for this for obvious reasons.

I was/am that workaholic and it took too many kicks in the arse from my wife to make a change. I am just so glad she stuck with us but to be truthful it came damn close to falling down.

So from a guys perspective...

1. Its damn hard to change. Being a workaholic is as much about habit.
2. You feel you are putting all the work in for all 3 of you to make a better life.
3. You feel frustrated about your wife's seemingly lack of support of you working for both of you.
4. You see a clear solution to all the problems when the business starts taking off and its so damn close to doing so. If you just stick your head down for a couple more months and fight through it everything will be rosy.
5. You are always so supportive of your wifes dreams and helped build her confidence to follow those dreams. Why cant she.
6. You are still madly in love with her, why does it change for her so quickly? It doesn't make sense, she must just be dramatics.
7. Again you are so close to success, why can she wait a little longer.

Thats the guys thought process. Its all bollix of course. He doesn't realise that women need different things out of a relationship and he doesn't see the bigger picture.

It has gone too far. You need to seriously kick his butt. You need to take him to a councillor (he will get angry at this, his pride will be hurt) and you need to make it clear to him that you are seriously about to walk out. Only then will he realise the seriousness of the situation.

After that its a slow road to recovery. You need some strict rules on family time and work time that cannot be broken for anything. You need a date night. You need fun. And you need to check with each other every WEEK how things are going (don't say they are fine but only slightly better then last week) until this set up becomes the habit.

You need to do this now.'

LegacyUser

'to unreg_husband, I admire you for taking the time to reply to this thread, I am in the same situation as the OP and have been begging my husband to come home, spend time with the family, spend time with me, talk to me about things unrelated to his work, come home, etc etc. I have to ring him every evening to tell him his dinner is ready and we are all waiting for him to come home so we can eat together and catch up, he invariably says he will be home in a few minutes (he works 5 mins drive from home) and two hours later he will stroll in the door for his dinner, he will eat and then more than likely leave again for an hour to do a job for someone or himself. this goes on every day of the week - I just want to ask you what it was that made you change, what was the one thing that made you decide that you had to change your ways, I have been begging my husband for ages and nothing seems to work, I am now at the stage where I am seeking counselling myself as I am doubting myself now as to whether this is the norm and there is something wrong with me - or that maybe I am not worth spending time with.'

smartypants

yis wouldnt all be frustrated wives if you didnt just sit at home all day minding the kids and doing the housework. Get out and get a job, part time even.

I'm not married but it would DO MY HEAD IN coming home every evening to listen to the wive ramble on about her useless boring day watching "this morning" or some cheezy day time talk show and how shes fed up. In fairness what the **** else will she have to talk about!!

People theres more to life!!


P.S men need some "me time"!!!

ali.c

smartypants wrote:

I'm not married but it would DO MY HEAD IN coming home every evening to listen to the wive ramble on about her useless boring day watching "this morning" or some cheezy day time talk show and how shes fed up. In fairness what the **** else will she have to talk about!!

I believe the OP had a part-time job along with a baby (seemingly alone from the sounds of things) to take care of a job in itself (it was probably too boring for you to read). Dont put down women who chose to priotiorise their families. Kids need time with both their parents, full time care-givers also need time with other adults. Just because the OP works part-time and takes care of a child does not mean she spends her day watching cheezy day time tv, from the sounds of it she doesnt have time. Oh and everyone needs me time, including the person at home minding the child

Its hard i think from both sides tbh, communication and honestly really are the only way forward. To the other lady well you have the patience of a saint:eek: , if i was in your position his dinner would be in the bin

meglome

smartypants wrote:

yis wouldnt all be frustrated wives if you didnt just sit at home all day minding the kids and doing the housework. Get out and get a job, part time even.

I'm not married but it would DO MY HEAD IN coming home every evening to listen to the wive ramble on about her useless boring day watching "this morning" or some cheezy day time talk show and how shes fed up. In fairness what the **** else will she have to talk about!!

People theres more to life!!


P.S men need some "me time"!!!

You must be a big hit with the ladies. My own girlfriend is fantastic and when she pressurises me it's usually because I'm being crap. So she's not being a nag even if I don’t want to hear it.

It's a vicious circle the wife is basically being ignored and applies pressure on the husband to make some changes but then the husband feels nagged so withdraws a bit more, so the wife then pressures a bit more and so on. Partners seem to forget that being at home with the kids is not all fun and games. Seriously would most men want to or even manage to do it. It's sad but the OP is going to have to take action or be prepared to be miserable. Time for councilling i'd say.

smartypants

sorry if i sound harsh, but i think people need to start as they means to continue, if you let it get to the point where your frustrated then its your fault for letting it happen in the first point!

Marksie

smartypants wrote:

sorry if i sound harsh, but i think people need to start as they means to continue, if you let it get to the point where your frustrated then its your fault for letting it happen in the first point!

Life is never that black and white.
Pressures can gradually increase and go unnoticed if you are not careful. Before a couple knows it they are spending most of there time apart, as external influences put a squeeze on finances for example (huge mortgage/high interest rates as an illustration). So the guy, working all the hours available, may very well think he is doing his best providing for the relationship in the real Euros and cents way, without fully realising that a realtionship also need nurturing in an emotional way as well.

It often comes as a shock when this very issue is raised.

The work/life balance that you hear is important. Sometimes it is necesary for both in the relationship to take stock and reassess what is truly important

LegacyUser

hi

am also a regular on the boards but will go unregistered for this.

my wife & i are going through a bad spell for the last while now. we have a 2.5yr old son. i work in dublin but have to commute from north-tipp. i am lucky enough to work 2-days a week from home. my wife works locally (5-10 drive away).

basically, we were not talking. she pointed out a few things to me.

1. i never talk to her anymore.
2. i never agree with her on anything.
3. i only talk to her, cuddle her if i want something.
4. i needed to do more around the house, help out etc etc.

so anyway, we went and talk to somebody (professionally). it helped...for a while. i help out a lot more around the house. on my days working from home i always managed to get things done (laundry etc etc). my wife comes home for lunch so i have a cooked lunch/dinner waiting for the 2 of us when she get home. we take turns with the cooking on the weekends. we take turns getting the little lad ready for bed, baths etc. we all go swimming every sunday morning (the little lad loves it). basically we are trying to do more things together as spare time we have.

plus i try to talk to her now every evening. guess what? she will not even make an effort to talk. i ask her how her day went, did she get a chance to listen to "the last word" on todayfm, we both like that show. but i basically get very short answers. i have to keep driving the conversation. if i do not then the conversation never takes off or just stopped there and then.

we did talk the other day and she said she did appreciate all the help etc.
she even asked me why i do not attempt to cuddle her anymore. my reply (said trying not to sound pi**ed off) was "well, if you want to cuddle then you cuddle me". i know this last comment will probably be turned against me now (maybe by female posters) but sure i said it now. anyway, she never makes any attempt for cuddling etc etc so at this stage i cannot be bothered, i just turn over and go to sleep.

sorry for ranting but it feels good to say a few things. if i say them to my wife she simply has an answer straight back at me. maybe i am not very good at expressing myself.

i know people will come back and probably find a few things to argue (discuss ) with me on but sure thats whats boards is all for. if we all agreed with everything the world would be a very boring place.

EcoGirl

A couple of things hit me:

1. Could you be suffering from post-natal depression? (As well as the real issues regarding your husband).

2. You absolutely need to get company; this is essential. Women are not designed to spend long periods of time alone. We are sociable and need company. If you're breast-feeding you could join La Leche League which tends to be very sociable. In either case try to find a mother-and-toddler group to go to, just to get some company. Even if you're not suffering from post-natal depression, you will get depressed (or more depressed) if you spend too much time alone.

I'm afraid I don't know what to say about the situation with your husband; many of the other suggestions were good.

Good luck with it - I'm thinking of you and rooting for you.

vorbis

generalisation alert
women tend to become more dependent on their other half for entertainment than vice versa. You need to develop a life of yours separate from your husband. Certainly, he needs to improve his workaholic lifestyle but why must everything be done by him. Whats stopping you organizing a holiday somewhere, a day out or even a trip to the movies?