unhappybride

I really appreciate all of your input. It really, really helps to hear all those voices out there. I guess that's why I jumped on again. I was at work and my mind was just churning, churning and I needed to hear more input to be at ease. I am very confused. And I think I am confused because it is really not ALL bad. It is difficult to set it all down in a short post and really explain it all. A big problem is that he tells me EVERYTHING that passes through his mind - like he forgets that I am NOT his "buddy" - I am his lover. He is really good to me most of the time. Affectionate, fair, caring, concerned. It is just that, these few times, when he starts to get another woman in his mind (and its triggered by very brief interactions) I can see that he is fantasizing about life with her, not just sex! And these fantasies seem to last a day or two or three - and then they are gone. He has depression in his family (so do I) and I think this is a kind of self-medication. His father was an alcoholic. Instead of drinking, I think my husband might be addicted to the high of falling in love with a fantasy figure. I think part of the reason that he hasn't had real relationships is because he can't get past the initial phase of infatuation. But I'm not a therapist...so maybe it is bunk. He wonders, also, if there is something "better out there" and I know it is because he fetishizes younger women. I am eleven years younger than him (and, because I have olive skin, I look younger than I am), but I am 36 and it won't be like that forever. He looks young for his age too. Why I don't just dump him: 1) it is all pretty new and confusing. I am only starting to think about it now. It was only last weekend that I recognized it as a pattern and a problem. 2) he DOES love me and i can feel it...he is more persistent in demonstrating it than any other guy I've been with. But no one is perfect. 3) the dating scene in New York City is absolutely brutal. Everyone lives in extended adolescence and there are tons and tons of gorgeous young women to compete with. It is really hard to find someone single like my husband. He's got a lot of great, great things about him. And he is very persistent in trying to hold onto me. 4) biological clock. I am 36 and want a baby ... and he really wants children too. 5) he is trying, and trying hard. he is in therapy. And I know that - right now at least - that I am stronger than he is. I think it would be harder for him if we broke up than on me. (In the future, it might be a different story). 6) I have issues too. I think the reason I didn't dump him 2 months into the relationship (like the other women) is because I am (1) in my mid-30s and (2) insecure and didn't know if I could attract and keep someone who would treat me better. I know its wrong - and, most of the time, I feel confident and great - but people are programmed a certain way, and sometimes I become that insecure girl who thinks she is "not good enough." There are tons and tons of women who are like this! They are the ones with eating disorders, depression, etc. He probably senses these clues - and treats me (once in a while) like a doormat because of it. I think I have to get in therapy myself to learn to assert myself better in relationships with men (something I plan to do this week). This past weekend, I told him "You know, divorce would be easier now than later. I want you to go to the country, THINK about what you want and, if necessary, we will split. I don't wind to wind up divorced at 40 with a 4 year old." I was even prepared to go home to my mother's house for the week to test out a separation but he was adamant that this not happen. He was despondent when he thought he might lose me. I don't know how it will all turn out but I will keep you posted. This past weekend seemed to have a big effect on him. I am going to wait and see... Maybe it is just the adjustment of being in a marriage. More than anyone I know, he is a creature of habit and discipline... and my sense is that I should give him more of a chance to let his new life as a married man sink in. I am definitely waiting (for now) to have a baby. You are all so right about that! Thanks so much!!

I am 36 and my husband is 46. We have known each other for 1 1/2 years and have been married for one month. It is the first marriage for both of us. We live in NYC and both have good corporate jobs. I am thin, have always been considered very pretty (always had plenty of guys after me) and younger than him. I cook for him every day, have sex with him every night. But it's all still not enough! I have some self-esteem issues but I am not an insecure mess. Ever since we were married, he seems to always be looking for "something better" (younger? prettier in a different way? (I am dark haired and he, lately, has been hankering after blonds). He is very, very visual and seems to be very shallow. It started on our wedding day. After the ceremony, at the dinner, he started asking me about and chasing after one of my bridesmaids. Should i dump him? He's been a bachelor for sooooo long. Does he just need time to adjust to marriage? I really don't think he will cheat on me. The pattern in his life has been this - he chases after women who are "out of his league", jumping from new infatuation to new infatuation every few months or so (keeping different infatuations going at a time.) He has been alone almost his entire life. Shyness keeps him from doing anything. He is amazed that things worked out between us! Things have only worked out because I was much more patient and understanding than the other women he had chased in the past... He is great in so many ways, good looking, stable, etc. He very much wants to be a family man and we both want kids in the worst way. He very much wants things to work out but, every one or two months, he forget and starts hankering after some other woman. I made him spend the weekend away from me so he can see what he would be missing if he DID leave for someone else and he came back really missing me. This desire for other women... Is this going to get better?.... or worse?... Please help! Especially appreciate input from men here...

Thank you all so much for your very helpful input! We have been trying to have a child but stopped last Thursday when he told me (after sex) about the girl in the elevator (and mused in an indirect way about divorce and about the three wives that his uncle had). I didn't sleep that night and, the next day, called in sick to work. We usually go away every weekend to his house in the country but I told him, for once, I wanted to be alone and that he should go himself so I could do some thinking. I stayed in the apartment in the city. I only realized that this could become a real problem this past weekend. In the past, when it happened, I just got upset and let it pass. We talked a lot over the phone this weekend. He knows he has a problem. That is why he is in therapy. I guess this is why he hasn't had relationships in the past - the women dumped him early on when they detected his problems. He told me that he hadn't been able to get women in the past because they were all crazy like his mother and that I was the first "nice girl" he had gone after. I finally realized yesterday that the problem (in the past) wasn't the other women - the problem had been him. "You do things that make women run away from you." I said, and he finally realized that this is true. I am not ready to give up on him though. My South American mother told me I had to stick it out, that he was such a good man in so many ways, and that I had to give him a chance to adjust. He's changed a lot in small ways for the better since I first met him (on his own initiative - I didn't have to ask him to change at all). I think, though, that we are going to hold off a few months on the baby making attempts. My mother thinks I shouldn't really talk to him anymore about it though because he will take it as nagging and I agree with her (he started to indicate his exasperation with the topic last night). I have to just let it lie and wait and see. If it happens again in a serious way, I plan to seek couples therapy. Thanks again for your input. It helped me so much! Feel free to post more replies, please! (especially appreciate input from guys since you have a different perspective). It is really so helpful and I am really grateful!

At 36 years old, after wasting five years with the wrong man, I met someone new and am finally a bride. I was just married one month ago to who I thought was the love of my life. It is the first marriage for both of us and we've been together for just over a year. He is kind, considerate, hard working, good looking, extremely intelligent, funny, masculine, stable and sexy. He is eleven years older than me and tells me he loves me constantly. Both he and I have good corporate jobs though, with the age difference, he makes much more than I do. Here is the problem... since I was seventeen years old, I have always been in long-term relationships that, for some reason, never led to marriage (which is pretty common in New York City). He, however, has never been in a real relationship at all. Since his early teens, he has lived an unrelenting pattern of chasing and falling for women that he could not have. Women who were out of his league - models, starlets, the most beautiful girls in school who had boyfriends. He has had very little success and, as a result, at age 47, has had little sexual or relationship experience. I am the longest, most intense relationship he has ever had. When I met him, he was a shy, intense computer geek who was overweight but still tall and attractive. There were red flags in his behavior from the beginning but I ignored them. I have wanted a family for awhile and he had so many great qualities. Plus, he seemed to adore me. From the beginning, he was persistent in pushing toward a serious relationship. He told me he loved me often and proposed fairly early on with a big diamond ring. I couldn't believe I had found such a great guy. I felt blessed beyond belief. I still do... to some extent. We live together and are attached at the hip when we both get home from work. We have sex every night and are aiming for pregnancy. He is my best friend. But, now that he has me, he sometimes acts like he doesn't really want me anymore. One of his traits is that he has no internal filter - he tells me everything that is on his mind. It is just the way he is. And, every three or four weeks, ever since our engagement six months ago, he develops an intense crush on a strange, new woman and muses, almost unconsciously, on the possibility of breaking up. I am always so shocked with pain, it usually takes me a day or two to cry about it and a few more days to get over it. When he sees that I am hurt, his attention turns to reassuring me and he promptly forgets (I think) about the other woman. This is becoming a pattern. Things will be absolutely wonderful - and then he will swing his emotional mallet and conk me on the head. He once spent two minutes chatting innocuously with a pretty, 25 year old on the elevator and spent the whole next three days in fantasy-land with her. I know when he is in fantasy-land because he grows distant from me and seems to look for faults, as though searching for reasons to break up with me. A 25 year age difference does not deter him. He does not realize that he has no chance in hell with these women. That is the pattern he has spent his whole life living - and, four weeks into the marriage, he has started integrating this pattern back into our cozy home. My best friend thinks I should just divorce him. Things are further complicated by some additional facts which I don't dare tell my friends. Both he and I are high achievers who come from fairly dysfunctional, upper middle class, Northeastern families. We are both well-read liberals who care about politics, art, literature and culture. I am the dark-haired, olive skinned, multi-racial child of immigrants. I have always been considered a beauty but, growing up in a tony, white neighborhood, always felt a teeny bit alienated and, I guess, developed some self-esteem issues as a result. He comes from a white, red-state family and, much as they try to hide it, some of his relatives are - I can't deny it - a little bit racist. He tries so hard to be an open-minded, good, noble soul... but has he just been too deeply programmed by his past? Does he keep falling for these other women because I am not "white" enough? Because I am not elusive enough? Because I am not young enough? He is so fascinated by women in their 20s and is almost misogynistic toward women who are in their 30s and older (I am an exception for some reason, perhaps because I look young). Is that what is going on here? Am I making too much of this? Some people might think that I should "stick with my own kind" but that is hard to do. From the cradle, I have spent my entire life in the company of middle class, left-leaning white people. I am used to being the exotic flower in a field of white lilies. I don't really know any guys of "my kind" and, since I am multi-racial and multi-ethnic, don't identify at all with any one immigrant community. He is really so wonderful in so many ways. He is trying so hard to make things work out. But, the more time he spends with me, the stronger he gets and I am afraid that he will one day do what he seems to want to do - leave me for someone he REALLY likes. For health reasons, he has started a diet. I cook for him three times a day. He has learned how to make love because he has been practising with me and the sex is only getting better and better. The few times we have had arguments about his infatuations, he became despondent and worried that I might dump him and did everything imaginable to win my heart back. He went to a grade school for troubled boys and, every time he messes things up between us (remember - he has no internal filter - he says whatever passes through his head), he becomes that same little troubled boy, trying his hardest to be his best. He has been in therapy for years and he wants very much to be a husband, a father and have a normal life. I love him very much but I am afraid of what lies ahead. We are trying to have a baby now and I am afraid that, one day, he will feel strong and confident enough to act on one of these infatuations and leave me. Should I listen to my friends and bolt before it's too late? Is he addicted to the chase and the emotional highs he finds in his fantasyland? Or is he just having trouble adjusting to married life, having been a bachelor for so long? Maybe he just needs time to shake old, hard to break habits. Maybe I am being too sensitive. Maybe men think these thoughts all the time but don't act on them and my husband just never learned to keep these thoughts to himself. I feel, sometimes, so confused and hurt. I approach the mirror in the morning with questions in my eyes. What does he see? Am I not attractive to him anymore? Maybe he's "just not that into me." As the pattern in the relationship emerges, his constant "I love yous" seem increasingly hollow.