Ladies? Should I excuse her because of PMS?

[ridingthebulls]

" I have spent the last ten years trying to soften the blow of any negative things towards my wife. "

 

LOL, PMS isn't ongoing for 10 years. Sounds like this was over before it started. Your wife is a real grouch and USES YOU for a punching bag. She needs a hobby to relieve stress, but that doesn't look like it will come ANYTHING CLOSE to minimizing her behavior alone.

 

How can you stay positive when she drains you constantly with her negativity?

[newbby]

i dont know if you are still looking for advice for this situation, but i feel you have got some very narrow replies here. real PMS can NOT be "pushed aside", that is like saying cancer can be pushed aside. if somebodys hormones are that off balance, then it is very much a physical illness, yet because its symptoms manifest mentally people do not take it seriously. the worst people for this are actually women, who think every womans pms is similar to their own, even female gps often do not take it seriously.

if severe pms can lead to pmdd, which is an extreme form of pms. women have actually committed suicide with pms, so it really is about time it were taken seriously. it can also take up a good three weeks of every month in extreme cases, i know, because i had it that bad. thankfully, it can be cured naturally, but it takes making alot of lifestyle changes, and it will take a minimum of three months to really notice any difference. if you want to know more, pm me.

however, having said all of that, once the pms period is over, does she ever realise the way she has been? does she apologise later? if she does not, it doesnt neccessarily mean that it is a personality trait, but maybe that the pms has really taken over her life.

[Limbo]

Hi,

 

It sounds like so much more than PMS going on there. Being a woman I get rather irritated by the constant pms excuse that is always used. It is a cop-out! - Now ladies, I don't mean that PMS doesn't exist, but I think we all have to admit that we use it more often than we should, and a lot of the time we may have other things on our minds, that we are not comfortable talking about, and it is just so much easier to haul that old one out of the bag. Seriously though, I believe that it is time for communication here, if you are serious about saving your marriage, maybe it is time to go back for more counselling?

[AManWithTroubles]

To Limbo,

 

You're not kidding. I had to do it, I spied on her today, went into her e-mail. I had to, it's the only place she talks about how our relationship is. She won't talk to me about things, when we went over communication over and over and over in counseling. Yes, the woman in our relationship is the one who doesn't communicate. And they say it's men.

 

Well, from what I get she is angry about me questioning about her going into her old work-place, since she quit. Well, I don't care if she keeps in contact with some of her friends there outside of work, it's just that I don't want her around the boy who I suspected her of having an EA with. I know she had deep feelings for him, in a "friendly" way, she told me that much. So am I wrong to ask for them to never see each other, especially if she still isn't 100% happy with me?

 

Also, she said that she wants to talk to people who don't find wrong in her? Oh, wow, low blow. I have tried countless times to have conversations that have nothing to do with us, or with her. And in the end, I get yelled at for looking at her, or whatever the case is. Now, I give her her space, because she wants time to herself. She has told me that she will come get me when she wants to spend time with me. Well, I end up spending all this time in my cave, waiting for my wife to call on me. She doesn't, then she thinks that she has to go out and find friends. I'm not buying it. I don't care if she has maybe the other married girl with children as a friend. Get her phone number, whatever. Just stay away from the boy.

 

Then she says she is going to go to school, when and if we move on to my next career, in preparation for me leaving her for a "sex-slave". Sex-slave? Because I wanted sex on our honeymoon? For the most part, I leave her alone every night, waiting for her to come to me. I wish I had a sex-partner, not a sex-slave. If I'm going to leave her, it's because of how she acts to me and with me, not for another woman. I also think it's a very negative point of view to approach life in that way. Expecting the worst, instead of working on the relationship.

 

I honestly think she is emotionally immature. She reminds me of one of our daughters. She used to love asparagus, then suddenly, she says she doesn't like it. Well, we get upset when our children don't eat their veggies. We tell her that she has to eat them, and my daughter locks up, and later on thinks that we treat her like a bag of trash. She has written that down. Well, my wife is the same way. I try to find things that would be healthy for us, for our relationship, and she thinks that I am treating her like trash. Sorry for wanting attention from my wife, and affection in my relationship. What the hell is wrong with me?

[whichwayisup]

It sounds like (and I hate to say this, I'm sorry...) your wife isn't sure at all how she feels about you, the marriage and what she wants, PERIOD.

 

Does she want things to get better between you? Sounds like it, but on HER terms, not yours. SHE says YES NOW and expects you to "be" there waiting, begging for her to give you attention. That's not love, it's control. And it's just plain CRUEL.

 

It's like she's waiting for YOU to make the decision so she doesn't have to. I don't know, I could be way off base here, but something really isn't right inside her.

 

I do think it's wrong that she can't communicate with you. Actually, she's CHOOSING not to. Which is worse...She isn't even trying to open the door a crack to get conversations started. She's afraid of change and change means SHE has to put in effort and stop being so selfish.

 

There isn't anything wrong with you. You love your wife and are willing to do what it takes to better things. Nothing wrong with a husband wanting his wife. It's her, not you.

[AManWithTroubles]

Well, I've had a talk with her already. I didn't mention the e-mail, but I got the information I needed from her, to realize that the counseling hasn't really helped. She has a jaded opinion of me, and I don't think she's ever going to see the good in me again. I thought we got all this out in counseling, and that we realized that it was mostly some misunderstandings. She told the counselor that all is well, but it obviously isn't.

 

You know what it's like to have your own spouse think that every move you make has ill will behind it. I can never live up to whatever it is that she is holding me responsible for. I can't stand it. I have to second guess my own actions. She thinks that if I go to the living room, where she is always watching television and knitting, that I want sex. And if I leave, then I am "stomping off" because I didn't have sex. It's not like that at all, and I am sick and tired of explaining myself and defending myself. What I am tired of is trying to get her attention. I never "stomp off". I leave when I realize that I can't get her attention away from the television and the knitting, but I don't stomp. I don't even act angry. I calmly leave, realizing that it's up to my computer again, to keep me company.

 

I don't even have the high sex drive now that school is out. For some reason, the stresss of school made my drive high, but stress lowers her drive. Great, what compatibility we have there. I swear, we were compatible at first, but she changed, drastically. You know what she says? She says that this is the real her, and the her that I fell in love with was not who she is. So I'm supposed to accept that, that my wife put on an act, or was under the influence of something, to make her appear different, until I put the ring on her finger.

 

Well, she was offered a management position today, and if I get this job in another state, then I'm really thinking about telling her to stay here, until she figures out what she wants out of life. I need someone who wants me, and is willing to be my partner. Not someone who is so afraid of me wanting to have sex with her, that everything I do is just part of the plot to make her my love slave. My god, this is ridiculous. I want to be her friend, her partner, sex will come naturally after this happens, but she won't open up. I need to give her some time, to think about how good of a guy I can be, or to realize that she really doesn't love me at all anymore, like she originally told me back in February. I can't take the abuse anymore. I can only change who I am, not who I was.

[HokeyReligions]

Have you considered a trial separation? Contingent on both of you going to counseling - together and separately. Also a complete physical for both of you to rule out any medical conditions or treat them (depression being one).

 

This will give you both time to focus on yourselves and take responsibility for yourselves.

 

Speaking in a very general sense - men tend to be 'fixers' they want to fix things - your posts sound like you are a fixer. You do what you have to do to make things right. but some women resent that and don't feel about it as though it were a helpful thing done out of love, but confuse it with a control issue. She may be one of those folks and not even realize it. Counseling may be able to help each of you understand your roles and how your behaviors effect yourselves and each other.

 

Congrats on graduating especially MCL! Yay for you!!!!

[AManWithTroubles]

4. She expects you to be able to read her mind. She interjects a lot of sarcasm in her tone... and I think that you miss most of them!

I was going over some of these replies, just to try and get a grip on everything, and see what I can do to either work on this relationship more, or allow her to begin her work.

 

Can you explain further on what you meant by this KnowHowLoveFeels? My wife is a very sarcastic person, but I don't know how you got that from my post. Can you explain your post, what you mean by sarcasm in her tone, and where you see that? Please help me.