Not Sure -Am I the Messed Up One??

[NotAllThere]

My husband and I have been together 7 years and married 5 1/2. He is my 5th marriage. I have 4 children but none are his-all from previous relationships.

 

The youngest is the only one who resides with us, the others visit. We have been having alot of difficulties in our marriage from day one. We met while I was going through custody battle over my youngest. He has known him since he was 3.

 

We are seriously considering divorce...

 

Bottom line is our difficulty may be with just me. I have alot of baggage and mental issues and I find that I can and do harbour resentment after a while. He has woke up and decided he wants to give our marriage his FULL attention now (instead of online cybering and constatn porn site watching and the occassional actual phone calls to other women during the first 4 years of our relationship).

 

It has thrown me-for 5 years I have been trying to be his inspiration and I wanted him to desire me and therefore I was not always me but someone to please him at least sexually....and my personallity was always a bit immature for him-I am silly and funny and somewhat extroverted but still responsible and not too much of an embarrasment

 

over the last 5 years, my husband has said some very very visious things in arguements and always threatened divorce when the baddest ones occurred and I cried and cried and hurt and hurt....now we are at our worst and I cant anymore. I cant cry or feel bad and I have lost my ability to connect ot him

 

We had our first marriage counsling session and my hubby said he is going to work on communications skills but I still cant get over it. I pull away from him. I dont like to be touched by him or kissed or stroked. I feel dirty and guilty and bad becasue he wants to love me all of a sudden and I cant return it. I care for him and really feel for him with my heart but it just seems like he wants a women I cant be. Some sexy siren who sees him across the room at a party and seethes with desire and the imaptience of wanting him...that is not me I dont think I have ever been that way.

 

He has told me in order to fulfill what he needs, I ineed to be or think sexier about him and show him that..be passionate and desireous of him and be obvious about it sometime. He does feel abandoned between work and kids and my photography hobbies...he feels he is 4th in line. I understand that but I cant seperate it like he wants..I want everything together and working together...family and love and marriage and all that is a harmony and I shouldnt have to keep them serparate...

 

anyway-I dont know if I want the marriage anymore. I feel numb and a little angry and think that maybe all those times he said we were bad for each other and that maybe we just did not do it for each other he was right. and That myabe I am not meant to be married.

 

I dont know what to do.......

 

any help would be appreciated

[jmargel]

5th marriage? What happened with the other four? Don't you think some sort of pattern is going on here?

[NotAllThere]

At first I thought okay-it is all me and while it may be at least 50% my issues it is not all me-

 

I think when I get treated a certain way-I will react the same and usually that has to do with why I am on my 5th marriage. My last one ended with abuse against me which is an automatic no forgiveness ...I can say 2 were nothing to do with me exactly (one marriage was so we both could live off base and ended with him going awol- the other was to a man who knew about my child but decided after we married he did not want to raise somebody elses kid) but I cannot say the same for this and 2 others

 

I harbour resentment which i definite problem. I am mad at my spouse for being online cybering and lying in his information about being single and also for calling women early on in our marriage as well as lying to me about it and then me finding him in that lie more than once...

 

he suddenly decides he wants to love me and for me to be his inspiration (instead of porn shots or cybering) and the culmination but doesnt wantot give me time to adjust to the 180 degree switch made over 3 days. Then there is the issue with him being verbally abusive in arguments. He says he wont do it again but he has said that at least 3 times in the last year.... I get tired of things being thrown back in my face when I relate them to him in confidence of our marriage.

 

I am ready to quit. I dont know if he discovered he wanted to love me too late for me to be there in return...but I do know I have a hard time being intimate with him now and now he wants to be intimate all the time and when I explain i cant be and why...he is relly pretty upset

 

I cannot blame him but I also cant tell him what the future holds and after counseling, everything will be a-ok. He wants reassurances I cannot give and that is why I was thinking to spare him the time of having to go through counseling only to get pissed off if i say things are over.

 

He has already told me he has lost 7 years and he doesnt and cant wait around for another to see if the issue is with me or with us..

 

does that help make things clearer

[Cobra_X30]

I am ready to quit. I dont know if he discovered he wanted to love me too late for me to be there in return...but I do know I have a hard time being intimate with him now and now he wants to be intimate all the time and when I explain i cant be and why...he is relly pretty upset

 

I cannot blame him but I also cant tell him what the future holds and after counseling, everything will be a-ok. He wants reassurances I cannot give and that is why I was thinking to spare him the time of having to go through counseling only to get pissed off if i say things are over.

 

He has already told me he has lost 7 years and he doesnt and cant wait around for another to see if the issue is with me or with us..

 

does that help make things clearer

 

Yup, thats crystal clear!

 

If your unwilling to let go of the anger/resentment. Then it may be time to divorce so you can start hunting for Husband #6!

 

See, It should be very easy to tell him... If you fix your issues, I will let go of my resentment.

 

Really, I dont think its your fault. If you were not bieng the wife he wanted or needed, it was his obligation to work this out with you instead of turning to cyber relationships. It sounds like he needed the emotional aspect more than the physical. It's too bad it came down to this.

 

Some day... you will have to find a way to let go of all that resentment and anger... otherwise you will never be a truely good partner for any man.

[NotAllThere]

Okay-

 

First of all I did not want number 5 let alone a number 6. I am not looking and that is a good thing. I wanted to be with my husband but not married due to the fact I knew I had issues but because of legal issues over custody battle of my child from a previous relationship-He felt it would help resolve some issues in the judges mind---ALARM BELLS i did not want to be married for that reason nor because he felt sorry for me but he said that those were all side issues and that he loved me soooooo. We got married.

 

I dont want a number 6 - I just want to be where I dont have to worry about pissing someone off because I chew too loud, or sing to the radio, love to take 2 hour baths, enjoy immersing my self in my hobbies every once in a while, love to be silly (when the time is right), repeat myself when I get excited or upset, or ask to be allowed to state my side in an arguement without being told to shut up or some nasty comment on a confidence I may of bestowed upon them.

 

Yeah I am still angry and I am willing to work through it but it took at least the last 5 years for all that resentment to build-i cannot go "poof" and have it all disappear especially as every other arguement was you do not make me happy and you are ****ed up so I am getting a divorce...What kind of stability is that gonna give.

 

I have cried and cried my heart out each and everytime this has happened (at least 1 or twice a year for the last 6 years) but hung on...now I find I have nothing to hang on to because i dont believe in the hand he APPEARS to be holding out to me. I dont trust him to do what he says and to love me for me. He did not for the last 5 or so years. So I turned to hobbies and children and now he wants it all back-I am having trouble letting it all go. but i digress...I am not sure I want to take that chance with him anymore...I am not sure I am worth his stressing out and I dont like to see him cry over me- I dont want him to hurt and told him so and told him i wasnt sure I could get over the last 5 years. Maybe we need to seperate for a while and at least try to start over again...maybe we could find ourselves and each other again----HE FREAKED OUT...IM's, harrasing email and verbal assualt and confrontations....

 

So here I am -now he is offering to go and i dont know what to say but I know that I am still mad and he is still continuing to hurt me and it is not a nice cycle.....