Unhappily married

[Alexis09]

Sorry to hear this. Is this an arranged marriage where you are required to produce children or face the consequences? Are you in a culture/country that does not condone women working? If that is the case is fear why you are so passive in this?

Not an arranged marriage, I got married considerably pretty young and my parents were like oh he's the first guy that ever seems so serious to have a relationship with you so go get married next week. I was just trying to be compliant to my husband as stated by our religion and culture. The society we lived in was very ruling and judgemental so that it's almost impossible for a couple to have no children because once they get married, they MUST. And all the women in his family never worked or had a career outside family so he's really looking for up for them. Well the thing is those women are fully supported financially and emotionally by their husbands and they're raised for not having any talents at all so that they could be just housewives. Just the total opposite of me.

And no, I haven't been passive at all. I tried so many times to quit but as that many times too he tried to stop me and blaming me for always wanting to quit. Omg I've been so stupid I should just walk out the door with the kids and live at a hotel.

[Wiseman2]

Sorry this is happening. Is there a way you can seek counsel in your culture/religion with your religious or community leaders? It doesn't sound like walking out the door or divorce are options for you. It also sounds like you moved away from your culture and are now confused about what's around you and your traditions.

The advice you may get here is often from westernized women, so it may not apply to you or help you. Ask other women in your religion/culture what options they have for unhappy marriages or ask your religious leaders. In the US/Europe you can't "just walk out the door and stay in a motel", you have to get legally divorced or face all sorts of kidnapping and abandonment charges. Talk to your community leaders for viable options.

my parents were like oh he's the first guy that ever seems so serious to have a relationship with you so go get married next week. I was just trying to be compliant to my husband as stated by our religion and culture. The society we lived in was very ruling and judgemental so that it's almost impossible for a couple to have no children because once they get married, they MUST.

[Alexis09]

Sorry this is happening. Is there a way you can seek counsel in your culture/religion with your religious or community leaders? It doesn't sound like walking out the door or divorce are options for you. It also sounds like you moved away from your culture and are now confused about what's around you and your traditions.

The advice you may get here is often from westernized women, so it may not apply to you or help you. Ask other women in your religion/culture what options they have for unhappy marriages or ask your religious leaders. In the US/Europe you can't "just walk out the door and stay in a motel", you have to get legally divorced or face all sorts of kidnapping and abandonment charges. Talk to your community leaders for viable options.

You made perfect sense of the things your pointed out. I know exactly what they'd say though, they would be against anything related to separation of a family regardless how unhappy I feel. Like I said, at the end it'll be my faults, I'm the one to put the blame on because I can't be the ideal housewife according to the religion and culture. I have no issue of being a wonderful, compliant housewife if I can just love my husband. Period. But thanks for your advice.

[DancingFool]

If divorce is a viable option, then do it and do it specifically for the sake of the children. They are living in a toxic environment with two parents who basically can't stand each other and they feel the stress and the tension of that. They are not oblivious to the dysfunction of this and it's causing them life long harm because toxic is what's being modeled for them as an example of human relationships. They will be affected in their own relationships from this. Better to part ways and show them what happy parents and loving relationships look like, including that sometimes you have to make hard choices and leave what's not working out.

You aren't a bad person and likely neither is your husband. However, you both made the mistake of marrying each other while completely ignoring the glaring incompatibilities of who you are as people and how you envision marital life. You've both cheated on each other. That's a whole other can of worms, but let's say the relationship has been completely dead for a long long time. Incidentally, please stop cheating and then get a divorce and start your life clean.

Basically, your husband and his family are not your tribe, not your people and likewise, you and your family are not his tribe, not his people. Marriage is not about trying to change each other to be someone else, or about you becoming a compliant wife on par with a kitchen appliance, it's about finding mutual understanding and compatibility. You two have tried long enough to be clear that's not going to happen and probably never existed between you. You aren't alone in making this mistake, but don't keep compounding it. Free each other and show your children that there is better out there.

[Alexis09]

If divorce is a viable option, then do it and do it specifically for the sake of the children. They are living in a toxic environment with two parents who basically can't stand each other and they feel the stress and the tension of that. They are not oblivious to the dysfunction of this and it's causing them life long harm because toxic is what's being modeled for them as an example of human relationships. They will be affected in their own relationships from this. Better to part ways and show them what happy parents and loving relationships look like, including that sometimes you have to make hard choices and leave what's not working out.

You aren't a bad person and likely neither is your husband. However, you both made the mistake of marrying each other while completely ignoring the glaring incompatibilities of who you are as people and how you envision marital life. You've both cheated on each other. That's a whole other can of worms, but let's say the relationship has been completely dead for a long long time. Incidentally, please stop cheating and then get a divorce and start your life clean.

Basically, your husband and his family are not your tribe, not your people and likewise, you and your family are not his tribe, not his people. Marriage is not about trying to change each other to be someone else, or about you becoming a compliant wife on par with a kitchen appliance, it's about finding mutual understanding and compatibility. You two have tried long enough to be clear that's not going to happen and probably never existed between you. You aren't alone in making this mistake, but don't keep compounding it. Free each other and show your children that there is better out there.

This must be the voice of my common sense. Thank you for bringing it up, DancingFool.
I agree 100% with you about the toxic environment we are now giving to our kids. They're the reason why I doubt -because of their vulnerability and being young to deal with so many changes already-, as well as the main reason why I need to leave this marriage because they deserve to feel that warmth, the love and affection like I once learned from my parents. No matter how hard I try to compensate or balance things off, this is just not a normal living situation for their emotional growth, indeed. And certainly not a healthy life for me as I can't help not to cry almost every night for no reason at all, other than just to clear my mind off then feel slightly better afterwards.

I will definitely put your thoughts on top of my consideration right now. This has been really helpful, all I need is a real action.

[bluecastle]

What a spot-on post from DancingFool.

Many of us, on the journey of life, get involved with people who are wrong for us. And we try to force it—because of love, because of youth, because of cultural expectations, because of craggy human psychology. It happens. It is not a crime or a sin, but human folly, the best and most precious thing about ourselves—our vulnerability—slipping on a few banana peels. And sometimes these unions produce children. That's okay. Children are wonderful, and highly resilient. They respond much more positively to love than to social norms, and right now you are providing a jagged, highly limited example of love to your children—one that, from your own description, is not even love but a web of deceit. Free yourself of this—yourselves—so you can free them.

For what it's worth, one of the best things that ever happened to me—and it happened quite young, at age 5—was my mother leaving my father. It was a choice made out of love—of me, of herself, of reality over fantasy, truth over deceit. A wonderful model of human potential and fortitude that helped make me me. I love how I was raised. It set both a very high standard for love and very high standard for integrity. I've slipped on some banana peels myself—because, like you, your husband, and your children, I'm a human—but I've had a good inner magnet to right myself. No way that magnet would be what it is had my mother stayed in her marriage.

Hard times, I know. Action is scary—and yet, you've already taken action in your affair. I'm not going to harangue you for that, but you're wise enough to know it's not the action that will right the ship. It's just more waves in rocky waters. I say see all that for what it is, and take the needed steps to forgive yourself and move on, to stiller, calmer waters. Your kids will thank you later. You will thank you later.

[Wiseman2]

Sadly you are unwilling to improve or change your situation. You are cold and shut your husband out and he does the same to you. You talk a lot about "deserve" but not at all about doing anything to that end. You are 50% of the problem but refuse to help yourself, sadly.

The only thing that stops me from ending this marriage is our kids. I do care about him as the father of my kids but not more than that. I can always sign up for a counselling but I don’t know if it’s worth the effort if I can’t love him anymore.

[Alexis09]

Sadly you are unwilling to improve or change your situation. You are cold and shut your husband out and he does the same to you. You talk a lot about "deserve" but not at all about doing anything to that end. You are 50% of the problem but refuse to help yourself, sadly.

I'm becoming his mirror, I do exactly what he does and I've been doing this for about 1.5 years after giving up all the efforts to make him be in love and lust with me. You're absolutely right and didn't I say I contributed as much to this broken relationship? It always takes two and I don't blame him for that because he has his own expectations and idealism of how a wife should be.

Who says for not willing to change my situation? That's all I'm thinking everyday and without the support from people who really matter to me that I'm doing the right thing to get what I really deserve, I'm just not that strong enough. I care much about the effect, people I potentially hurt, my mom, his family, they will be broken to see us apart. My mom understands that I haven't been happy but now she's trying every single day to make me love my husband by sending all those texts and quotes about marriages, taking his side that men are naturally like that so even if I quit, I'll still be dealing with the same situation in my next relationship, in a nutshell. You see, nobody in my circle tells me that it's ok for me to be unhappy and leave. Up until now, I still don't get the concept of self-love vs selfish. Because they're all the same. I can't love myself without being selfish.

[Wiseman2]

Perhaps with all the pressure you are getting from your family, you could go to therapy privately and confidentially instead to get better and location-relevant advice and viable options to improve your level of happiness alone or married.. That could be a step in the right direction instead of trying to force yourself to love your husband.

[reinventmyself]

I was somewhat like you at one time.

Staying for the sake of kids, until something changed and I realized I need to leave for the sake of the kids. I didn't want my sons to grow up and think it was ok for men to treat women like the their father treated me.

I wanted them to experience a strong, responsible and confident woman, but my ex wasn't having any part of it. My hope is my sons would choose their future partner wisely and treat their partner as their equal, not some one down, hysterical female, as my ex portrayed me anytime I opened my mouth.

I realized they were watching us and from my own experience with my own parents, I knew they would go on to replicate the example we were showing them.

I wanted better for them and yes, I was the bad guy, or I felt like one. But in the end my ex thanks for me for having raised two very good sons. His family, though his blood, understands why I did what I did. They will always stand by him, as it should be. But they understand.

It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do, but there are sometimes it's just necessary.