Engagement Issues

[noirx]

I am getting married in about three months. I have been with my fiance for about a year and four months, having gotten engaged about a year ago. We started having problems, almost from the get go, because I am very romantic and she tends to be emotionally closed off. She says this is because her mother was always judging her/was not affectionate and past relationships have not worked out for her. So, these things have made her hesitant to let herself be vulnerable. As we've gotten further along in the relationship, we've decided to see a couples counselor, to try and work through some of our personality differences. Like I said, we're completely reversed - I am very female-like in my desire for romance and passion, whereas she's guy like in her "oooh, that seems like something emotional and I want to avoid talking about that, because it'll make me feel all funny". With three months to go in the relationship, she's gotten better, but still frustrates me because I feel like if there is ANYONE she should feel completely comfortable with, it should be the person she's going to spend the rest of her life with. To add further complication to that, our sex life has really been less than great the whole time we've been together. I have a very deep belief that "touch" is an important part of the relationship, whereas she could take it or leave it. I see sex as a physical extension of our deep emotional feelings for each other, whereas she just sees it as something we do whenever it suits her. She doesn't seem to understand (though she acknowledges) why it frustrates me that we don't have a more emotionally connected/passionate relationship. Both of us are in our early 30s and have no health problems, so it logically doesn't add up. Our therapist has been having us read a book that talks about self-soothing, and she believes that I should be able to relax myself/not take things so personally when I get frustrated about her dismissive and unpassionate nature. Examples would be: when she says let's have sex tonight, and then falls asleep before we have sex or while she's touching me; I make plans for her and I to have a romantic dinner and she has something go wrong at work and says she doesn't want to go; I'm telling her how beautiful/sexy I think she is, and she starts talking about something that happened at work or just says "ok, whatever". It'd be different if I was not nice to her, but I think I treat her pretty well. I do laundry, housework, yard work without her asking; I buy her flowers or get her cards about every two weeks (and write, what I think to be, very romantic notes in them); I tell her how beautiful she is and how much I love her quite regularly; I cook her dinner frequently. I really can't think of how I could possibly try harder in the relationship, and it seems to be making little to no impact on our relationship being closer to what I'd consider mutually fulfilling. Whenever she/I tell our friends about how I am with her, they always tell me how spoiled she is and how they can't get their BF/husband to fold laundry without telling them 5 times. I do love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her, but I don't want to feel like I always have do all the heavy lifting. I'm just feeling very frustrated. Some of my friends say I'm just getting cold feet, I on the other hand think my concerns go deeper than that. Thanks, in advance, for your comments.

[JulieJ]

I would never tell someone to call of their engagement, but this does sound like it is a bit deeper than just having cold feet. I would recommend bringing this up with your therapist one-on-one or another trusted confidant.

[noirx]

Thanks, JulieJ. I have brought this up with other friends and they've all said pretty much the same thing - RUN! I have another personal therapist (outside the one my fiance and I see) who has told me that it's likely to get worse, before it gets better. I have mentioned postponing the wedding before and she's pretty much told me that if we postpone it, then she'd never marry me. My main concern now is that if this is all going to get worse after marriage (though she insists she'll feel more comfortable after we're married) I'm going to spend the rest of my life "paying for" the emotional damage that someone else has done to her. I love her very much (and I do know she cares for me a lot) but I'm starting to think I deserve someone more emotionally mature/compatible than this. On the other hand, I feel like I'm just being selfish by not accepting her as she is.

[Krytellan]

First of all it would seem that you got engaged way too fast. If you two weren't engaged, would you be struggling about what to do in the relationship?

 

I was in a very similar situation, and I ignored the signs and married her anyway. I am now divorced and it made for years of unhappiness, anger, and disappointment. If she is this way already, I have to tell you it's not going to get any better.

 

If you get married, what you are in effect doing is walking into a situation that you know is not good and saying I don't care that I don't like the way things are, I want to marry her anyway. That will get you through about 6 months of marriage, until the whole newness and glamour of it wears off. After that point, you will wake up every day wondering how you could have possibly done this to yourself. You knew the signs were there but you ignored them. You days will be filled with loneliness and resentment, which will create a nasty and unhealthy behavior pattern.

 

You can't make someone passionate, you can't make them emotional, and we all know you can't make someone affectionate. If you are already seeing help as a couple, you are in deep trouble. Love alone is not enough reason to marry and it will not make it last.

 

Choose wisely. Engagements are much easier to end than marriages. Trust me, I know. I regretted every day for 2 years with my wife.

[norajane]

We started having problems, almost from the get go, because I am very romantic and she tends to be emotionally closed off.

 

So what led you to proposing if you'd been having these problems from the start?

 

With three months to go in the relationship, she's gotten better, but still frustrates me because I feel like if there is ANYONE she should feel completely comfortable with, it should be the person she's going to spend the rest of her life with

 

3 months to go in the relationship??

 

Dude, it's 3 months until the wedding. Once you're married, there's a LIFETIME to go in the relationship. She shouldn't be making a lifetime commitment if she's not completely comfortable with you. And YOU aren't completely comfortable with the way your relationship is and has been from the start - if you aren't comfortable NOW, why would you be willing to commit to a marriage?

 

You can't expect that saying the vows is going to make her more comfortable opening up to you, nor can you expect that you're going to be any happier with how things are. Getting married does not automatically mean she's going to behave differently than she has been. It doesn't automatically mean she will become more emotionally available to you.

 

To add further complication to that, our sex life has really been less than great the whole time we've been together. I have a very deep belief that "touch" is an important part of the relationship, whereas she could take it or leave it. I see sex as a physical extension of our deep emotional feelings for each other, whereas she just sees it as something we do whenever it suits her. She doesn't seem to understand (though she acknowledges) why it frustrates me that we don't have a more emotionally connected/passionate relationship.

 

If you read the threads here about men whose wives don't give sex the same importance in a marriage, you would know what a HUGE red flag this is. This is the time when you two should be crazy about each other and constantly having sex - you haven't even been together much more than a year! If sex is bad now, it's not going to get better 3, 5, 10 years from now. If you don't even start out having the same view of sex, what makes you believe that you will end up in the same place?

 

Our therapist has been having us read a book that talks about self-soothing, and she believes that I should be able to relax myself/not take things so personally when I get frustrated about her dismissive and unpassionate nature.

 

You need a new therapist. This one is basically telling you to learn how to resign yourself to a passionless marriage without intimacy. Sorry, but that is a recipe for divorce. Or cheating.

 

I really can't think of how I could possibly try harder in the relationship, and it seems to be making little to no impact on our relationship being closer to what I'd consider mutually fulfilling.

 

What you want/need is intimacy, both emotional and physical. She isn't able to have that kind of intimacy with you. There are many women who could - why would you choose to commit to a lifetime without intimacy?

[YellowLioness]

I think that some people have this romantic idea in their heads that once they get married that all problems in the relationship will some how vanish like pixie dust.

 

Marriage is a big stressor, and will make any problems that you have more apparant. Only then you won't be able to leave with out a divorce.

 

Since you've been together for a year, you can pretty much bet that you've seen almost every side of her and that you've experienced pretty much everything that she has to offer.

 

You can't force yourself to accept someone. Going to therapy can only do so much to fix problems, and it can't fix someone's ingrained personality.

 

I don't know how much you know about psychology, but personality is defined as traits that remain consistant over the life time of the person. Likely, if she's not affectionate and is a bit neurotic and has been this way since anyone can remember, it won't change.

 

Also, you shouldn't be in therapy to force yourself to be more compatable with her, just because you have this romantic notion in your head that "she's the one." Not only is that frighteningly desperate, but it just won't work. You may be able to fool yourself and the therapist and your financee for a while, but in the end you'll only create your own bed of misery.

 

Besides, if you have to therapy to learn to like someone, it's pretty obvious that she's not the one for you.

 

Don't let lonliness decide your best course of action. Make decisions with a clear head and really consider logically the future. Wouldn't you rather have someone who can give you back the emotion and the connection that you crave?

 

This may sound cheesy, but I'm a firm believer that there is someone out there for everyone. If someone doesn't match you very well, then let it go. It's kind of like WallStreet: just because you invest a bunch of money and a bunch of time doesn't make the investment worth it.

 

Sometimes, you just have to count your losses and move on.

 

Just my thoughts. Good luck!

[noirx]

Thanks for all the great replies. I'm going to try to answer some of the questions that have been posed. Yes - I am sure this will make me sound certifiably insane. Basically, I think it was one of those she interviewed for the job and then didn't have skills for the job. I'm not saying this is her fault, because I allowed myself to believe a lot of it. Everytime we fought about things early on, she would always assert that it was her past relationships/parent issues that caused he to be that way. I suggested she get therapy, as I didn't think she could work them out on her own. She kept assuring me that things would get better, and I swallowed it hook line and sinker. And then it did, and then it went back to the way it was. To further make a mess of things, she told me that she would "feel more secure" about the relationship if we moved in together, so I did. It really didn't help. Then she told me that she'd feel more secure that I wasn't going to "up and leave her (because of her BS)" if we were engaged. And things got better, so I proposed, figuring it would straighten everything out and things were really going well that month. It didn't and after the first of this year, I told her we needed to stop doing things with the wedding, because I could see how things were going to get any better. She told me again things would get better and explained that if we moved it, it wasn't going to happen. Once again, I believed they would, and then they did and got bad again. Kind of like living with an alcoholic; she promised, I believed it, it never "stuck". So, we went through ebbs and tides of her being controlling, showing little to no physical interest in me (which I agree with the person that said we should be in the "honeymoon" period right now; but there's never been one - should've been a HUGE red flag), things always having to be HER way. I'd bend to make her happy and then I'd finally get pissed since I was give, give, giving. So, she finally agreed to see a couples counselor, and things had been going well. Well, in the last four weeks, we haven't been going, because of wedding appts, vacations, etc. And now that she doesn't have a person to answer to, she seems to be turning back into the way she was. It's almost childlike, in that if no one is looking she can't get judged and can do whatever she wants. She keeps telling me how much she loves me and wants to spend the rest of her life with me. Which, to me (considering I feel like the relationship is very lacking in the "giving" on her part) is becoming more and more hard to believe. Like I said, I accept a lot of this blame myself, because I've let her do this, because I feel like A) if i love her, i should be able to accept her as she is and B) if i'm wanting her to do what i want, i'm being as selfish as she is. Hope this helps clarify a bit.

[norajane]

Sounds like if you 'accept her as she is', then you are the one who is going to suffer without intimacy for the rest of your life.

[noirx]

Norajane - I would agree. Though, like I said, I feel like the couples counselor is telling us otherwise. Which, in the grand scheme of things shouldn't matter, but it's made it very difficult to make her see where I am coming from. She basically thinks (i.e. in the sex dept) that because I know she is like she is, I should have to be the harder working of the two (initiating, suggesting things, etc). Our therapist pretty much told us that in so many words. I think that is complete BS, personally, since I think two ADULTS should be able to be passionate about each other without all this mess. As I inferred before, I think that is only part of my concern, since I still think she has some emotional issues to work out. Again, the example of past relationships or always needing to have things perfect to achieve the approval of her mother. I believe a person at our age (hers and mine) should have taken ownership of these types of parent/relationship issues and worked through them in therapy. I mean I realized everyone has some level of baggage, but (and call me a jerk) I don't think these should be permanent crutches.

[norajane]

Norajane - I would agree. Though, like I said, I feel like the couples counselor is telling us otherwise. Which, in the grand scheme of things shouldn't matter, but it's made it very difficult to make her see where I am coming from. She basically thinks (i.e. in the sex dept) that because I know she is like she is, I should have to be the harder working of the two (initiating, suggesting things, etc). Our therapist pretty much told us that in so many words. I think that is complete BS, personally, since I think two ADULTS should be able to be passionate about each other without all this mess. As I inferred before, I think that is only part of my concern, since I still think she has some emotional issues to work out. Again, the example of past relationships or always needing to have things perfect to achieve the approval of her mother. I believe a person at our age (hers and mine) should have taken ownership of these types of parent/relationship issues and worked through them in therapy. I mean I realized everyone has some level of baggage, but (and call me a jerk) I don't think these should be permanent crutches.

 

I think your therapist is crap. Sorry, but really. Your fiancee should be all about jumping your bones. It shouldn't take herculean efforts to get her interested. If she doesn't want you so much now, why do you think anything is going to be different in the future?

 

I've copied a post from a guy who has been married for many years and who ended up cheating on his wife a few times. He has issues, but he loves his wife and says his primary marital problem is his wife doesn't really want to have much sex with him:

 

The nerve you just touched, though, is one that I've been too timid to bring up to her. It's weird that even as I'm trying to type these words I find it difficult to let go and just admit it. There were many night when I actually cried myself to sleep because I felt so unwanted. God it feels so pathetic to write that and I have to restrain myself from hitting the delete key on that sentence. Wow, just saying that is making my chest tighten up again. I feel like because of all the lies I've told and things I've done and just who I am I deserve all the pain I've gone through, but on the other hand I'm still selfish and defensive enough to be resentful that I have been going through it all.

 

Yeah, I'll have to do the therapy thing. I have zero confidence that it will work because I've heard how rare it is to find a truly competent therapist and I've talked everything out in my head and, those things I can, with my wife. I guess I'll never know, though, unless I give it a try.

 

How weird that it's still so difficult for me to cop to the tears even to a total group of strangers I'll never see in my life. I cry all the time at movies and sappy commercials and love songs, but this other pity crying is hard to admit to. Still, just like my original post, I thought I'd let it out because I can.

 

Everyone talks about the pain and sadness, but you have to actually use the word cry to understand the sense of laying six inches from your spouse sobbing silently in the dark. LOL. Now I sound like I'm playing for sympathy when I'm actually just a jerk. Whatever. I'm going to post this quick before I change my mind and delete the whole thing.

 

Do you want to be back on LS in a few years telling us how you cry in bed because you feel unwanted by your wife? Because she will never reach out and touch you with any passion? Because you are the one who always has to initiate and plead and beg and still get rejected all the time no matter what you do, or how romantic you are?

 

Seriously. Do you want to be in this man's shoes?

[thelittlespoon]

You guys are not ready to get married.

[I love hot men.]

I think your therapist is crap. Sorry, but really. Your fiancee should be all about jumping your bones. It shouldn't take herculean efforts to get her interested. If she doesn't want you so much now, why do you think anything is going to be different in the future?

 

I've copied a post from a guy who has been married for many years and who ended up cheating on his wife a few times. He has issues, but he loves his wife and says his primary marital problem is his wife doesn't really want to have much sex with him:

 

 

 

Do you want to be back on LS in a few years telling us how you cry in bed because you feel unwanted by your wife? Because she will never reach out and touch you with any passion? Because you are the one who always has to initiate and plead and beg and still get rejected all the time no matter what you do, or how romantic you are?

 

Seriously. Do you want to be in this man's shoes?

 

That exerpt actually brought a tear to my eye. Poor guy.

[I love hot men.]

Also, it almost seems like she might still be in love and hung up on an ex.

[noirx]

No, I don't think she's hung up on an ex. I mean, it is not entirely impossible, but she's pretty much stated how much she didn't enjoy her past relationships. Oddly enough, they're for the same reasons that I don't enjoy ours at times. Which she acknowledges that she can see how that would upset me, but it doesn't seem to register with her when she's doing the same kinds of things her exes would. And to that end, I wonder how much of that she brought on herself because of her dismissive, defensive, "my way or no way" behavior.

 

As to the comment some have made to the effect of "do you want to end up bitter", my answer is absolutely not. And I've thought about that, and it is a great concern of mine. I've known friends that have proceeded ahead for the wrong reasons and wound up in disastrous situations. I'm concerned that it is going to continued on this "rollercoaster" and eventually I'm just going to jump off of it. The thing there is that that has always been my nature with relationships - something frustrates me and I say to hell with it. I've only regretted that in one situation, and none of them have had the dynamics of this relationship.

 

If I weren't engaged, I'd of probably already ended this thing. The issue again there is that I don't want to feel like I've thrown in the towel just because things are difficult. The question I keep asking myself though, is "is this it?" because I definitely don't want spend my life in a passionless marriage. I guess I really need to put everything on the table in the next couples session. Thanks.

[IfWishesWereHorses]

If I weren't engaged, I'd of probably already ended this thing. The issue again there is that I don't want to feel like I've thrown in the towel just because things are difficult. The question I keep asking myself though, is "is this it?" because I definitely don't want spend my life in a passionless marriage. I guess I really need to put everything on the table in the next couples session.

 

There are people who, for one reason or another, are not capable of emotional intimacy. As you have seen, while its possible to change a few behavoirs for a short period of time, you are actually not changing the person. Begging for love and to be loved does something very unhealthy to your self esteem. You KNOW what she is capable of and what she is incapable of. You need to be able to be very honest with yourself about what you see and to not take into consideration what you would like to see.

 

Investing more time and effort into something for the reason that you already have time and effort invested is something most of us tend toward but is actually crazy making.

 

Promising to meet your needs after you meet some need of hers is quite controling. People who dangle carrots and manipulate are users even if their intentions are only to get their way and you can bet that you'll never get that carrot when its the only motivator. My guess is that not only will you be begging for love and attention, you will have to "earn" sex.

 

Its very sad actually because there are a lot of women your age that would give their right arms to be treated like that and shown such desire. Unfortunately though this girl seems to have a healthy respect for being treated badly. She keeps telling you that these issues are about her past and have nothing to do with you, what she's not getting is that they are becoming your life (should you choose it) and you will have no control over them. If you want to be loved by someone in the same way that you show love, you'll never get it like that from her.

[noirx]

Thanks, Wishes. You know, I find it very intersting that many of the replies I've seen on this board sound like what my friends have told me. Because they see me as a very intelligent person, they don't understand why I put up with this. I've often asked myself the same question and I really can't come up with an answer. I've given her multiple "mulligans" but (as someone mentioned) you can't change the way a person is, though you may temporarily change their behavior. I really had to laugh at the comment that "Wishes" mentioned about there being lots of women out there that would give their right arm. It reminded me of an argument we had about three months into the relationship where I had come over and done all her yardwork, gotten us dinner, and then did the dishes. She said she was stressed about work and kept putting me off about any intimate time. I told her, "You know, there are a lot of women out there that would kill for this kind of treatment. Even more importantly, they wouldn't be as dimissive as you are!" She said, "Well, fine, then - go find one of them." Talk about telling, I should have listened to her - LOL. Anywho, we seem to be back on the "anger train" today. It seems that she got pissed off last night while I was at dinner with a friend (male), thanked me for the flowers I got her, then proceeded to snap at me all night. I don't know how everyone else's relationships go (and correct me if i am nuts) but it seems to me that there should have been something more affectionate than a thank you and bitching. I'm not saying I expected sex, but I certainly didn't expect to get dismissed with a thank you and then have to listen to her bitch like the who world was coming to an end about every single little irritant. Unbelievable...