Feeling Invisible to my husband

[mrsbrianna]

My husband and I have been married for almost a year. We've known each other since we were young and also dated in high school. He's military and we just moved across the country so I'm already depressed and lonely. I just got a new job to keep me occupied during the day but I feel so alone and worthless.

 

We've talked about my feelings many times yet nothing has changed. Every week it's the same routine. We go to work, come home, and I make him dinner and clean the house then go to bed. During the week he constantly wants to play his XBox online with his one friend who is also married. Obviously I let him play, it would be selfish to say no. But we did have a problem where it was almost everyday for many hours and I expressed the fact that I need more attention from him. He offered to turn off his online membership. It was the next day that he got on and had his headset on, for three hours.

 

I let it go. He wanted to play again after I made him dinner and like I'm sure many wives would do, I said no. I said I needed time with him. He reacted very terribly, to where he was basically throwing a fit over not being able to play a game like my teenage brother would. He told me I never let him do anything and I'm controlling. Now it's escalated to him not only playing many times daily, but he disregards my feelings. He will bring up playing in front of his friends so I feel pressured into saying yes. Because this guy's wife lets him play all day.

 

The other issue I'm dealing with is the fact that not only do we spend little time together during the week, but we have to go do something with friends every weekend. Sure, he could be going without me but he does invite me. The issue is, he won't make the time to take me out on a date or go enjoy time with me. Many nights I would say I don't feel like hanging out with the guys and he makes me feel bad for it and talks me into going. Before he makes these plans with friends and saying we will be there without saying anything to me, I'll ask him to go bowling with me or hiking or fishing.

 

It's always a no. Last weekend on friday, I felt anxious and sick and wanted to stay home. He already told his friend we would be over for a bbq. He made me feel bad to where I got dressed and sucked it up. Which he proceeded to pick on me in front of his friends like always making me feel very insecure. Then saturday he said he agreed to help that friend do yard work with him. We went over and ended up just sitting around like we would at home for hours because it ended up raining. Then sunday he told him he'd go help him since it wasn't raining and I didn't want to go so I stayed home until he was finally back around 4pm, I had to be in bed by 8 for an early work day monday.

 

I just feel so invisible and like he doesn't have interest in me anymore. Everything is based around his friends. And its every weekend. If I say no he makes me feel so terrible and like I'm controlling. Our sex life has really sucked ever since this all began. I don't like him touching me anymore, since it's really the only time I have his attention. I'm at a loss of what to do, I've tried calm conversations and it always turns into an argument. He says I'm mean, that I am the reason we fight or argue because I won't let him do anything. It's like I'm not even here anymore.

 

He used to show me so much attention before we got married. Always asking me to go hang out alone with him at the movies or mini golf, rubbing my back and just enjoying a saturday night in. Now it's just me following him around all weekend to make him happy and not wanting sex because it's the only time he shows me affection. Sometimes he doesn't even say goodnight to me. He rolls the opposite way and just goes to sleep. I can't take much lonliness any longer.

 

have some friends but they spend time with their husbands on the weekends. I'm just the wife who spends her time with her dogs watching her husband play video games or make fun of me in front of the guys.

Edited July 22, 2018 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
paragraphs, please use them in the future

[Gaeta]

I am very sorry you are going through this.

 

 

 

I am an ex military wife. When I met my ex-h we dated for 3 years with 2-3 hours distance between his base and my college. We didn't live together before marriage. While we dated he always made me a priority and we had an amazing time together. The day we married we settled on a base and he changed into someone I didn't know. He'd go out on week nights with his buddies, he'd drink a lot, he would be secretive, he was agressive toward me, and we had terrible fights, like you we would never have dates together, he'd just sit in front of his sports all night, I begged him so many times to give me attention etc. I was getting to see the real him. My mistake? I stayed. I thought he would change and I stayed 15 years...and he never changed. I should have left that very first year and not waste 15 years of my youth thinking I could change him.

 

 

 

I have a friend who just left her husband and dad of 2 kids because he's addicted to videogames. You cannot change them or reason with them. If you stay it's the life you'll have for years to come.

 

 

 

If I were you I'd pack and go. If he makes a fit tell him to go seek help for his addiction, he's allowed to the best free addiction treatment in the military so he has no excuse to not go. That is the price to pay for you to move back with him.

[somanymistakes]

You may not be a SAHW anymore, but it sounds like you are still feeling fragile and lonely in your environment, and seeking comfort from your husband. (These are not bad things, I'm just trying to lay out the situation.) Whereas he, it seems, is busy with work all day and tired out and seriously wants to come home and unwind and decompress, to get away from doing what other people want him to do.

 

So you feel lonely and reach out to him, and he feels pressured and pushes you away. Both of you end up feeling unhappy.

 

And on the weekends, he wants to do things with you, but he also wants to hang out with his friends. You feel pressured, he feels controlled and rejected. Same thing with sex.

 

Through very simple choices, without any malice on either part, you're making each other miserable.

 

I don't think addiction is the main issue here, I think the main issue is that you've gotten yourselves into such a disconnect that now anything either of you does annoys the other. Without drastic action it's only going to get worse.

 

He reacts badly when he feels like you're controlling him. So you can't just drag him to counseling, or lay out a schedule of planned dates. What I would suggest is trying to calmly explain the problem to him and ASK HIM to suggest solutions. Or, at most, provide a couple of options and ask him to PICK. Tell him what the problem is, ask him what HE thinks should be done about them. If he tries to redirect it back to "well you always nag me", deflect that, ask him what he thinks should be done to improve things for both of you.

 

If he's not willing to try at all, or if he makes promises and then immediately breaks them, then you can throw in the towel.

[Mr. Lucky]

He used to show me so much attention before we got married. Always asking me to go hang out alone with him at the movies or mini golf, rubbing my back and just enjoying a saturday night in. Now it's just me following him around all weekend to make him happy and not wanting sex because it's the only time he shows me affection. Sometimes he doesn't even say goodnight to me. He rolls the opposite way and just goes to sleep. I can't take much lonliness any longer.

 

It's said so often it almost become a cliche, but your relationship is tailor-made for marriage counseling. He feels controlled, you feel abandoned, somewhere in the middle lies common ground and a workable solution.

 

Make the appointment today. If he won't go, you'll have a difficult decision to make...

 

Mr. Lucky

[LurkerXX]

DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN with this man, unless you see a change, and that change lasts a little while. You will be more isolated than ever if you have the added responsibility of children, and the brunt of it will be on you.

 

In my opinion, there are two priorities here...one is some sort of progress with your relationship, counseling, serious talks about compromise...ie still going to friends on weekends, but also doing things you want.

 

Whether or not you are able to make any progress on the relationship, you have to put in something to support yourslf emotionally. Whether it is an active meetup group; volunteering for habitat for humanity, literacy council, or any other sort of service work,; going to a book club; or a group fitness class, you need to get out and in contact with other people. Hopefully, you will be able to make some friends, but even if not (being a base, people move a lot), having something positive outside this relationship is a must.

[d0nnivain]

Check around among the support services available to military families. They have been dealing with issues like this for a long time.