Me again - Husband said too sore to have sex?

[Realgrl]

Thanks for the inputs. I really don't want to leave him because I still love him so I guess the only option is to learn how to handle this. It's causing me distress though. Why would he continue to look at a girl until she walks out of his view? I mean even though several seconds, looking at someone for that long seems like an eternity. What also eats me is that some of the girls know that they are being looked at and they sort of smile. When I walk through a sea of people, I usually state straight ahead. I "see" people but not their faces if you know what I'm mean. If I happen to notice someone, it's a brief one second look and then avert eyes. I tend to look ahead where there street leads, the architecture of the buildings, the shop windows. He looks purely at people and especially girls.

 

We are at our last day of vacation and I truly am not interested in remembering this. I can't even ask him nicely why he does this because he threatened last time if I ever bring up jealousy again we are getting a divorce. It's occupying my mind constantly the entire two weeks and I can't even enjoy reading or thinking of other more interesting things.

 

How do I learn how to deal with this the rest of my life? The only way I can think of is to not love him as much so that pain would at least subside somewhat.

Edited May 21, 2016 by Realgrl

[bathtub-row]

He does that stuff in order to control you and show that he's more powerful than you are. He doesn't care how it makes you feel. If you insist on staying in this marriage under the terms he has dictated to you, then that's your choice. But how you could continue to love someone who tortures you like this is beyond me. He can and will do as he pleases. You, however, must suck it up and not dare speak about it. Good luck with that.

[Cherryz]

You should be worried if he WASNT looking at all when he see other women.

 

Be happy you have a real hetero men as most.

 

Every men takes a small look at women that pass by.

Also women look to men that catch their attention. So do you!!!!!!!!!

But there is looking or really look and stare very long and keep look and make it big and

very clear.

 

Even-thou i think the problem here is you!

Because you seem to be jalousie for every little bit of looking that he do.

Its 14 years that you have done nothing to change or to get therapist to help you

with your insecurity.

14 years is a very long time. At some point when you keep complain about stupid stuff people will get tired and do crazy stuff and not take you serious anymore or leave you.

 

So since you know for 14 years that you cant stop yourself, then now look for real help of a therapist.

Maybe you dont find yourself beautiful enough. And compare yourself with every girl that he looks at.

 

If he now looking at them in a exaggerated way, it may be that he is really tired off your behavior and try to release steam by doing this.

Or he really this type of guy that like to stare long etc. in that case it can be annoying. And should be addressed.

But in this case it sound like you have some real work to do also.

[elaine567]

He does that stuff in order to control you and show that he's more powerful than you are. He doesn't care how it makes you feel. If you insist on staying in this marriage under the terms he has dictated to you, then that's your choice. But how you could continue to love someone who tortures you like this is beyond me. He can and will do as he pleases. You, however, must suck it up and not dare speak about it. Good luck with that.

 

Yes, I agree, this isn't just lack of tact here, this is now about him making a statement.

"I will ogle all the women I like, and I dare you to say anything about it"

 

Although it is eating you up inside, you cannot do anything about it as you "love him" and you do not want a divorce. That is a very unhealthy way to live.

If you pass this ogling test he may set you others that push your boundaries more and more until your fold and then he can sit back and say YOU caused the divorce by your constant jealousy and nagging...

[stillyoung]

Thanks for the inputs. I really don't want to leave him because I still love him so I guess the only option is to learn how to handle this. It's causing me distress though. Why would he continue to look at a girl until she walks out of his view? I mean even though several seconds, looking at someone for that long seems like an eternity. What also eats me is that some of the girls know that they are being looked at and they sort of smile. When I walk through a sea of people, I usually state straight ahead. I "see" people but not their faces if you know what I'm mean. If I happen to notice someone, it's a brief one second look and then avert eyes. I tend to look ahead where there street leads, the architecture of the buildings, the shop windows. He looks purely at people and especially girls.

.

 

I think this part of your statement is interesting. Maybe his behavior isn't as bad as it sounds when written out and there is a way to come to an understanding. It could be that you're just opposite types of personalities, he loves interacting with people, even strangers, and you are more uncomfortable with interpersonal interactions. So you see his catching a girl's eyes, smiling back, etc. as this huge violation, whereas someone else wouldn't think twice about it.

 

Of course I am getting this all from only two sentences, but it might be something to think about. The distress you're in, no matter if it's his "fault" or yours, should make you seek therapy like others suggested. You can't just suppress it, you have to sort through the cause, and if it's his fault then they could help you express it to him or bring him into the sessions. Otherwise they will lead you on to how to work on it yourself. But can you be totally straight with him - I know you don't want me to bring up jealousy, but it is stressing me out so much I want to see a therapist. Would you want to come with me to help us get through this? If he wants it to stop but also wants you to be happy in the marriage, he should agree.

 

 

It's weird but this kind of behavior doesn't really bother me (except the looking up the skirt thing, that is going way too far.) I find I'm more the people watcher in that respect. I will say, oh wow, look at what she is wearing. Look at those shoes, etc. Sometimes about the men too. My man nods and smiles at people he sees, I never thought much of it. Maybe deep down I never got the feeling he was going to go after one of them. I know he bases a relationship on way more than just superficial looks. And I'm pretty sure he feels the same security with me. So if you don't feel that same security the therapist will help you figure out why, and if there's something he can do, they can help point it out. It's hard to tell from the posts whether he really is doing something deliberate or just casual girl-watching. But he should care that you're distressed in the marriage and want to help get to the bottom of it.

[66Charger]

Nagging is "why didnt you take out the garbage.

 

Nagging is not "Why are you looking up that girls dress"

 

This is clearly a case of disrespect and close to perversion. Of course everyone looks, but assuming you are not together 24/7, the decent thing to do would be confine the ogling to when not in your presence. Why is that so hard? I dont mind looking, but swiveling of the head, looking up dresses(crotches) and threatening divorce? Um, I dont think so.

 

And the notion that "your nagging made me cheat" is twisted cheaterthink and justification.

 

Admiring, should never be done at the expense of your SO. What ever happened to common sense?

[Whoknew30]

Nagging is "why didnt you take out the garbage.

 

Nagging is not "Why are you looking up that girls dress"

 

This is clearly a case of disrespect and close to perversion. Of course everyone looks, but assuming you are not together 24/7, the decent thing to do would be confine the ogling to when not in your presence. Why is that so hard? I dont mind looking, but swiveling of the head, looking up dresses(crotches) and threatening divorce? Um, I dont think so.

 

And the notion that "your nagging made me cheat" is twisted cheaterthink and justification.

 

Admiring, should never be done at the expense of your SO. What ever happened to common sense?

 

 

I think it's sad that insecurity can make people's minds completely blindsided to things that can make a person extremely unattractive. Jealousy is ugly & once someone has been non stop down someone's throat, the other person being harassed stops caring about anything that is coming out of their mouth. Hes doing at this point bc he's over it & doesn't care anymore. I've seen this SOOO many times.

 

Also why is a wife non stop staring at her husband to constantly see what their staring at?...treat an adult like a child & they will start behaving like one. If she acts like things stop bothering her, you'll see how fast his behavior will change. Right now he wants a divorce & she admitted its due to her jealousy. So he's pushing it. Jealousy isn't ok bc of insecurity & what a double standard. If a man admitted he was jealous & his wife wants a divorce bc of it, it'd be completely different advice.

[SomethingToSay]

Your H is a selfish pig. I find what he is doing to be cruelly passivecaggressive. I agree all men look. But he has basically taken what could have been a romantic vacation and turned it intovan ogling fest. He doesnt care at all about your feelings.

 

How utterly bdisrespectful. Does he view porn excessively? Does he cross boundaries with wen in real life?

 

Sadly he is not going to stop is blatant ogling because he knows or thinks you wont leave him. You are basically his doormat.

 

Id suggest individual counseling for yourself to learn about boundaries. You mentioned loving him less. Thats sort of like detaching. You can stop acting like his partner and doing things for him and generally giving a **** about him, until/unless he is willimg to be respectful and quit taking you for granted

[66Charger]

Come on now, whoknew. Looking up skirts and swiveling of the head WHEN YOU ARE WITH YOUR SO, is a little extreme. It shouldnt be that hard to be respectful. I dont agree that outside behaviours are EVER a reason to cheat, however I do agree that if you behave in a certain way, you shouldnt be surprised it happened. The irony is that the situation is reversed IMO. If you constantly disrespect, ogle, flirt and treat your SO as second choice, dont be surprised when you are.

 

Surfs up, peace.

[Whoknew30]

Come on now, whoknew. Looking up skirts and swiveling of the head WHEN YOU ARE WITH YOUR SO, is a little extreme. It shouldnt be that hard to be respectful. I dont agree that outside behaviours are EVER a reason to cheat, however I do agree that if you behave in a certain way, you shouldnt be surprised it happened. The irony is that the situation is reversed IMO. If you constantly disrespect, ogle, flirt and treat your SO as second choice, dont be surprised when you are.

 

Surfs up, peace.

 

I agree he's taking it far but I also have to question someone that admits to a jealousy problem bc my H used to accuse me of things while out & me & anyone else that would be there had no idea what he was talking about. He'd "see" things in his way that no one else saw & it got old fast. His own friends would be like "that didn't happen, we were right there". Anyone I talked to, smiled at, it was always made to be more & he did this to the point to where I didn't give a crap anymore & started to do things on purpose bc I was going to be accused of it anyways. Everyone has a breaking point & once someone quits caring it's hard to make them start again.

[healingsoul]

I'm. It sure what ogling means. There's three instances that were pretty major for me along with the normal looking. We were standing in line behind a girl wearing short skirt. And husband needed to get something from his backpack that was leaning against his leg. So he bent over and got what he needed, but took advantage of the girl's leg view from that lower level and as he straightened out, almost looked like he was trying to look up her skirt. Thinking about this is making my blood boil. Second, we were walking and another girl wearing a skirt and did a double take. Third a girl was standing next to me at a cross walk and he was looking the other direction and didn't notice. But she started to walk behind me where my husband caught the tail end of her. So he turned around 180 with the guise that he's looking to orient himself. We are 34 & 35 and I can't bring it up otherwise we'll get into an arguement and divorce would be brought up again. I feel that everything he tried to do for me in terms of not looking back twice, not looking over etc before the divorce talk, is now out the window and he wants to look the way he wants. It's really killing me inside though. Can I expect this from the rest of the male population?

 

His behavior is rude and ridiculous. I would call him out on it and ask him to bounce his eyes away from the women. It is not necesarry for a man to look all over other women. Matter of fact, it makes most women very uncomfortable to be looked at this way. If your dh keeps doing this I would not threaten divorce but tell him that marriage counseling will be necessary.

[Dolfin80]

Sounds like emotional abuse to me. Is he abusive in other ways?

[Realgrl]

Hi,

I got into an argument with husband because he use to share his likes of music with me and would excitedly tell me about what he downloaded and share with me. Ever since we had a big fight in February and almost ended up with divorce, I feel that he's changed. Just the simple fact that he downloaded music and had plenty of chances to tell me either by hearing on the radio that will trigger that he has the album versus staying quiet about it, bothers me a lot. This incident is very minor but it reminds me that he doesn't tell me about things like he use to - almost like he hides things (kind of a strong word to use but not sure how else to describe) or doesn't tell me things he use to tell me. When I think we made progress since our big fight in February, things like this comes up and it throws me back to a point realizing that things have changed with him. And giving me additional thoughts of whether I should stay or go. I'm 35 and I feel my clock ticking because it gets harder to date when older

[Art_Critic]

This incident is very minor

 

The part below leads me to believe that is isn't minor...

 

I'm 35 and I feel my clock ticking because it gets harder to date when older

 

It seems like you have already checked out of the marriage if you are thinking about your future in dating, happily married people don't do that..

 

Time to re-think things.. the issue isn't about music.. are you still wanting to be married ?

Edited August 11, 2016 by Art_Critic

[elaine567]

Ever since we had a big fight in February and almost ended up with divorce, I feel that he's changed.

 

What was the big fight about in February?

[Realgrl]

I struggle because I never thought we would ever get a divorce and the big fight we had made me realize that he could cut ties that easily. And why should he be able to make that decision while I am the dummy being unprepared for it. If he had felt that way and willing to throw away 14 years a marriage then I should also be in that mindset. Anyways someone had asked what the big fight was about. The fight was about jealousy mostly on my part. I've come to terms with it and have stopped being that way.

[NTV]

so if I'm getting this right, the chain of events went

1. married 14 years

2. you feel jealous

3. you and he fight about it; he brings up divorce in the fight

4. you work on being jealous

5. you are looking at divorce because you think he's more willing to lose the relationship than you are.

 

 

Does that sum it up?

[lolablue17]

It depends...

 

If he had downloaded "Hello" by Adele, you should divorce him even if he shares it with you.

[JoeSmith357-1]

When you say "he hides things", and you do not quantify this with anything other than he downloaded some new music and didn't tell you, I think this is going to fall on deaf ears for some of us here.

 

First thing I think is that you seem pretty nosy, needy, controlling, clingy, nagging and a few other similar terms

 

35 is too young to have to spend the rest of your life with someone like that and he may have checked out.

 

You don't say much about the rest of your relationship

[Realgrl]

Hi, I posted on here before. I am the same person who was stressed out on vacation to Paris because husband keeps looking at other girls etc. Short summary of background - 35 years old, married 14 years, Feb 2016 almost got divorced because of my jealousy issues, then I controlled my jealousy, everything seemed fine except I think my husband thinks he has a sense of entitlement whenever we fight. He never apologizes and pouts when I apologize.

 

We just woke up and starting fighting again.

 

Yesterday afternoon - we fought over something little - Note I ended up apologizing TWICE (I might add) because the first time didn't sound genuine enough.

Yesterday night - I was feeling a bit down because of our fight earlier and I craved attention. Ended up fighting - he ended up moving his things and sleeping in the guest bedroom.

 

Today Morning - I ended up going to the guest bedroom and APOLOGIZING for last night. Everything seemed good....BUT THEN while we were snuggling in bed, he noticed my tears were still there (I can't turn off my tears on the fly - it just flows until I relax!!) and he pulled away and got upset and said he thought everything was okay. I'm so angry right now. Then we got into ANOTHER argument which at the end he said "well why did you apologize this morning when you obviously didn't mean it by the way you are treating me?"

 

I'm seriously so angry right now I can scream.

 

I've been looking at websites like "coping with divorce", "how to cope when ex husband finds a girlfriend" almost the entire time last night to prepare myself. (Note - I feel like since our almost real divorce situation came up earlier this year in Feb, where I literally begged him to stay and he spent 4 hours telling me what a bad person and wife I was to him because of my jealousy issues- he's dramatically changed to where he sees himself on a pedestal and all the arguments are my fault.)

 

He doesn't apologize and if I don't apologize and try to make up, we would be at a stalemate for WEEKS (haven't seen if it will last a month because I end up apologizing)

 

Also I feel that he's ready to throw in the divorce towel much more easily than I am. It's easy for me to look through divorce websites and prepare myself for that possible day, but I know deep down that I would still be devasted and afraid of the unknown.

[Realgrl]

My husband just came back in the house and walked in expecting an apology. I'm still angry. I hate myself for apologizing but I know I will be the one that caves

Edited September 11, 2016 by Realgrl

[Satu]

This relationship has become dysfunctional.

 

Thats the first thing you both need to accept.

 

 

"it hurts Jack

 

to think

 

that Jill thinks he is hurting her

 

by (him) being hurt

 

to think

 

that she thinks he is hurting her

 

by making her feel guilty

 

at hurting him

 

by (her) thinking

 

that he is hurting her

 

by (his) being hurt

 

to think that she thinks he is hurting her

 

by the fact that

 

... da capo sine fine"

 

 

- RD Laing, 'Knots.'

 

 

Look into getting some counselling, so you can find a way out of the loop you're stuck in.

 

 

Take care.

[Satu]

My husband just came back in the house and walked in expecting an apology. I'm still angry. *I hate myself for apologizing but I know I will be the one that caves

 

Then don't apologise, don't cave.

 

Choose to do something different this time.

[BaileyB]

It takes two to tango, but based on what you've described... To be really honest, your husband does not sound like a very kind and loving husband.

 

To be brutally honest, based on the conflict you've had in your relationship and the behavior you have described, I'm not sure why you would want to be married to someone when you feel miserable? I certainly wouldn't want to be disrespected and made to feel that badly...

 

To me, it's a terrible thing for someone to behave badly and then rather than accept your responsibility for the problem and apologize, to blame your partner and tell them that it is all their fault. That is not a very nice guy...

 

Counselling would be a good thing. If it doesn't change, I imagine you have some thinking to do about what you want from this relationship and for your life.

Edited September 11, 2016 by BaileyB

[Satu]

Blaming you for everything and being cold with you until you apologise, is emotional abuse.

 

I doubt that this is the only form of abuse in your relationship.

 

Take a look at this list and see what applies:

 

 

1. They humiliate you, put you down, or make fun of you in front of other people.

 

2. They regularly demean or disregard your opinions, ideas, suggestions, or needs.

 

3. They use sarcasm or “teasing” to put you down or make you feel bad about yourself.

 

4. They accuse you of being “too sensitive” in order to deflect their abusive remarks.

 

5. They try to control you and treat you like a child.

 

6. They correct or chastise you for your behavior.

 

7. You feel like you need permission to make decisions or go out somewhere.

 

8. They try to control the finances and how you spend money.

 

9. They belittle and trivialize you, your accomplishments, or your hopes and dreams.

 

10. They try to make you feel as though they are always right, and you are wrong.

 

11. They give you disapproving or contemptuous looks or body language.

 

12. They regularly point out your flaws, mistakes, or shortcomings.

 

13. They accuse or blame you of things you know aren’t true.

 

14. They have an inability to laugh at themselves and can’t tolerate others laughing at them.

 

15. They are intolerant of any seeming lack of respect.

 

16. They make excuses for their behavior, try to blame others, and have difficulty apologizing.

 

17. The repeatedly cross your boundaries and ignore your requests.

 

18. They blame you for their problems, life difficulties, or unhappiness.

 

19. They call you names, give you unpleasant labels, or make cutting remarks under their breath.

 

20. They are emotionally distant or emotionally unavailable most of the time.

 

21. They resort to pouting or withdrawal to get attention or attain what they want.

 

22. They don’t show you empathy or compassion.

 

23. They play the victim and try to deflect blame to you rather than taking personal responsibility.

 

24. They disengage or use neglect or abandonment to punish or frighten you.

 

25. They don’t seem to notice or care about your feelings.

 

26. They view you as an extension of themselves rather than as an individual.

 

27. They withhold sex as a way to manipulate and control.

 

28. They share personal information about you with others.

 

29. They invalidate or deny their emotionally abusive behavior when confronted.

 

30. They make subtle threats or negative remarks with the intent to frighten or control you.

 

(Credit is due to Barrie Davenport, the originator of this list.)

 

 

Be aware, that even if only one of the points above apply, you still have a problem.

 

 

Take care.