Jump to content

Struggling with my marriage


Recommended Posts

Right now I feel totally alone and need someone to vent to and possible receive feedback.

 

I want to start of by saying my wife is one of the most amazing people I have every met. I owe everything to her as I was an absolute train wreck when she met me and she saw through all the BS and came to love me for who I was not what I was being. No matter what happened she stood by my side and gave my strength to overcome all problems.

 

I grew up in a horrible household and while it may not be the worse childhood in the world it was a nightmare for me. My mother and father fought constantly when I was young and they became more violent over time and one time my Father held my mom up against the wall by her neck and she stabbed him in the hand with a fork. I witnessed this as 4 year old and can vividly remember this fight. They separated after that and one would think that would have made life better but with the exiting of one issue brought on another.

 

I stayed with my mother because my dad financially couldn't support me and my brother(who was adopted to save the marriage, we all know how that worked). My mother became (or already was) an alcoholic and my father I believe follow close suite although I wasn't exposed to that as much as my mother. Over the years my mother grew worse and worse and meanwhile the divorce stretched out for 8 long horrible years. During those years my mother played horrible mind games with me and my brother trying to turn us against my father and then my father would question us when we visited him about my mother. Both were looking for ammo for the horrible divorce.

 

It got so bad with my mother that she became paranoid my father was spying on her and taking pictures from the surrounding fields (we lived in the country) and would literally run out of the house in the middle of the night shooting a 22 rifle off while drunk claiming to be scaring away the "bad guys". Keep in mind this was happening constantly through most of my early childhood. She would be so drunk that I would literally have to take care of my younger brother, including cooking meals, bathing and putting him to bed.

 

As I grew older the paranoia of my father turned to me as she was thinking I was playing sides and telling my father's family she was drinking. She would go up to my brother's room (right next to my room) and loudly talk about me and how I was plotting against her. I would try and break it up and claim my innocence but that only made it worse for me and would typically lead to a horrible fight and me trying to get away and running outside to be locked out of the house (sometimes for hours in the middle of nowhere in the dark).

 

Luckily for me when I started 6th grade I screwed up horrible in school and halfway through the year my mother sent me away to a military boarding school. The reason I say "luckily" is because I was finally away from it but then I was away from my brother and I knew he was stuck with just my mother with no help. It broke my heart to know I could no longer be there for my brother especially when they tested him and found he had high functioning Autism/Asperger's. the divorce was still ongoing at this point but reaching its peak until finally they ordered me and my brother in the court room and the judge brought us both to his chambers and basically flat out asked who we wanted to be with.

 

Now one would think that after all this I would choose my father but I knew financially he would not be able to provide for me and my brother as my mom would. I also knew my brother was going to stay with my mom no matter what so I felt like I had no other choice but to say I wanted to stay with my mom. That absolutely broke my father's heart and our relationship was never the same after that and in fact at this point (20 years later) we talk maybe once a year and only if I call him. So long story short my mother kept custody.

 

Flash forward a few years and of course the drinking continued to get worse until I was 18 and she met someone who turned out to be as big of a train wreck as she was and they both made each other so much worse off. I left home at that point and started (trying) to live life on my own. I fail miserably several times.

 

Finally I financially was able to support myself and my mother moved to the virgin islands with my brother, my father stopped talking to me and everything became peaceful. Except I basically threw all caution to the wind and became financially in debt hardcore (200K, don't ask).

 

I met my know wife along the way and for awhile she didn't know about the debt and after 2.5 years the camels back finally broke and the dam blew wide opened and it was revealed. She didn't falter once, I mean not even a blink and said she cant live this life without me. It was that moment I knew this was the one. She loved me enough to look over the mistakes I had made and still loved me for me. It was about a year later I proposed and a year after that we got married.

 

Now, if you had asked me then how I felt I would have told you hands down this is the one. I felt like nothing in this world can stop us and we only made each other stronger. I loved her unconditionally and there was no question in my mind. that was about 6 years ago.

 

We struggled for the first 4 years financially and always found a way to make it work. I worked hard at my job and worked my way up the chain and each promotion meant more income and would soften the debt woes.

 

About 2 years ago we started trying to have children. After about 6 months we realized something wasn't working and went to the doctor to find that she had a growth in her uterus and we had that removed but were warned it may be hard having children. I will admit I was disappointed, actually really disappointed but I never told her that because I knew she would feel guilty and I didn't think it was needed to throw that in her face. I always told her there are other ways to have children and maybe we should just adopt or foster children. I loved the idea of fostering children and actually still do but there is still a very large piece of me that wants my own but we can not financially afford those treatments.

 

Now at this point if you think that not having children is the reason I'm struggling then I hate to tell you that's not entirely it. We are still financially strapped and the likely hood of getting out of that debt soon is relatively low and I would imagine I'll be debt free in 10 years. She has great credit and we put her name on the house and her on the mortgage and a HE loan involves both of us. She is also on both car loan even though I pay all of the mortgage and car payments out of pocket.

 

But now that the debt has been consolidated in a way that makes it affordable for me to handle on my own I noticed I am feeling different. At first it wasn't much but a passing look at another girl or a random thought but they are growing each day. Now before I continue I want to state I absolutely love my wife and a feel like the biggest piece of **** for even thinking these thoughts an feel like I should feel like an ass. She is an amazing person but I'm starting to have random thoughts of not being happy and for the first time I'm noticing other women and that scares the absolute **** out of me. My temper is getting shorter with her and while I still feel the love it feels, different... I fear I'm falling out of love and don't know why. I don't have a specific reason I feel that way but its making me freak out. The entire life picture I have seen for the last 6 years is not what it used to be and the thought of children now makes me so fearful because the last thing in this world I ever want to do is to make my child grow up in a divorce.

 

I need serious help. I feel like my entire world is falling into a lake of fire and burning before me and I feel like I'm a completely selfish SOB.

 

I haven't told me wife any of this and if I were to I am not really sure what direction it would lead. I know that there are peaks and valleys but this doesn't feel like a valley, it feels more.

 

I cant help but feel like its connected to my childhood and fear of commitment, but would the fear of commitment randomly come out of nowhere and why now?

 

I appreciate any suggestion or advise.

Link to comment

People do have roving eyes and wandering thoughts here and there. It's not uncommon.

 

What you do makes all the difference. It's really a very simple choice.

 

You can use your past and current circumstances as an excuse to cheat, but it won't remove the consequences of your actions. If you focus on what you didn't have, don't have, or should have, you diminish the value of what you do have. That could be a terrible mistake. This comes down to a simple matter of what you value. Maybe it's not fear of commitment that you suffer from, but a failure to appreciate what you have.

Link to comment

that's the issue, I don't want to cheat and before I ever would I would leave my wife.

 

I'm more so concerned that for the first time in my marriage I'm actually looking and that tells me there is an underlying problem and I'm trying to figure out what it is. I would never cheat on my wife, I absolutely love her, but I feel like the love I once had is different now. I feel like she is more of a friend over a lover and I think that's the problem and I'm not sure how to get that back.

Link to comment

That's actually a really good idea and I appreciate your suggestion.

 

I know I sound like I'm whining about my situation and people are going through much worse but I honestly feel like I'm battling myself on the inside constantly. A large part of me loves my wife more than I have ever loved someone and the other part of me is questioning everything and depending on the day depends on who is winning and its scaring the every living you know what out of me. I also feel like I can't really turn to anyone because I'm afraid it will get back to my wife that I'm struggling and I'd rather fully understand my struggle before bringing her into it as I won't have any answers for her until I figure it out. So with that said it really means a lot to me to be able to come somewhere and just vent my struggle and try and work out my feelings.

Link to comment
That's actually a really good idea and I appreciate your suggestion.

 

I know I sound like I'm whining about my situation and people are going through much worse but I honestly feel like I'm battling myself on the inside constantly. A large part of me loves my wife more than I have ever loved someone and the other part of me is questioning everything and depending on the day depends on who is winning and its scaring the every living you know what out of me. I also feel like I can't really turn to anyone because I'm afraid it will get back to my wife that I'm struggling and I'd rather fully understand my struggle before bringing her into it as I won't have any answers for her until I figure it out. So with that said it really means a lot to me to be able to come somewhere and just vent my struggle and try and work out my feelings.

 

That's great idea so far. Carry on!

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...