Toughest battles can be interpreted in many ways, all qualify.
What are the toughest battles you have fought or are fighting?
Toughest battles can be interpreted in many ways, all qualify.
What are the toughest battles you have fought or are fighting?
In a fight for my relationship. We stumbled into a relationship after a mishap that got her pregnant. I only noticed when she got a belly showing at 5 months as she had not told me and assumed I would leave her the second I knew. She had already decided to have it with or without me.
Proceeded to have another two kids while she slowly but surely withdrew from any partnership activity. Learned after ten years of wondering what’s holding her back that she is the anxious avoidant relationship type and due to her forcing herself to have very infrequent sex with me anyways, she picked up a sexual aversion up along the way.
Apologized for my role in that, I obviously noticed her lack of enthusiasm but didn’t think much of it as she offered infrequent but of her own volition. I asked her to go to therapy either alone or as a couple but she refuses. We live together while being officially separated.
I love her and am not interested in anybody else while she claims I should just find somebody else while getting very aggressive when the opportunity presents itself. (I obviously don’t partake)
Shit gets dark and lonely regularly, she can’t even hold me in her arms. The kids love obviously helps but it’s not the same.
As people of that relationship type do, she drifts from flirty and nice to being angry and hurting me with the intention of keeping me at a distance within weeks, sometimes days.
I bought a book that opened my eyes, which pretty much reads like our diary. Put it in the living room and told her about it. She won’t even touch it nor acknowledge that she has a problem. Obviously its a problem for me not for her that she decided to never have a relationship or sex ever in her life again.
I mourn the years I lose while waiting for her to find back to the woman I though I had met. I regret that my children have a steady home but no good example how a healthy relationship looks and I fear that this might last until my kids are all moved out and I’m about 60 and decide to give love up myself for good.
For various reasons leaving is not an option I’m willing to choose. Mainly because I have a responsibility to my children and my wife not to abandon them even if she has psychological trauma she needs to process. (Both parents not being available emotionally at all and growing up with an alcoholic step father and lots of violence in her home.) There is also a small chance that my wife might hurt the kids if I’m not there to intervene, has happened before in small ways which she denies obviously.
As long as I fight for this home daily and keep everything stable everybody is happy but me. Its hard and has already taken a toll on my health, but I keep fighting the good fight and hope one day life will be bright again.
So I am just some internet stranger without full context - but I gotta say… the way you describe it, it sounds like you should break it off. To review:
Again, I am an internet stranger working without full context. But I would say you should lawyer up, completely split up and move out, and move on with your life. Get the lawyer to figure out the best way to ensure custody of your kids beforehand, then give her an ultimatum - get help, or you are leaving and either taking the kids or going to court to take as much guardianship as possible.
I’m not saying she has no redeeming qualities or that the time the two of you shared wasn’t special. But it sounds like she can be mean, aggressive, and possibly violent, like she doesn’t consider herself to be in a relationship with you and doesn’t want to, and that she is unwilling to try to change and probably won’t. And this state of affairs is having a negative impact on both you and your kids.
Meanwhile, by sticking with her, you are giving up the opportunity to find someone else who does want to be in a relationship with you, who can model a healthy relationship, and who will make you happy.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Your argumentation is correct, no doubt about it.
If its about making kids she is all over sex. Avoiding sex is about avoiding emotionally bonding to be to avoid being hurt.
She is most of the time an exceptionally loving mother and the kids love her as much as I do. Our kids need both parents in their life and making that decision would hurt my kids and the woman I love. I have always said, that the day our kids lives are more impacted by my staying than leaving (because of ongoing conflict) I would leave.
Pressuring her won’t solve this conflict sadly. People only chance through their own volition which makes this tricky as she has no real incentive to change.
Im also the sole breadwinner and although I earn good money, the local cost of living is too high to keep my kids lives strable if I need to finance separate accommodations. They would need to move and change schools and friends and I’m not willing to go there just for my well being.
Trying to “take the kids” is also a gamble. Even a progressive country like Germany seldomly awards full custody to a man. And again I’m not willing to hurt her or the kids by separating them from their mother.
Its mostly a stable and safe life for my kids. Her refusal might change, or might not. But considering all the things as they are, separation would hurt all the people I love including myself.
I have recently tried looking for therapy for myself to help with coping with all this and I’m waiting for what life throws at me next.
My situation is similar.
My partner just treats me so poorly I’ve long since lost a romantic attachment to her.
However, we have 2 young children, and my partners employment prospects aren’t great. We can’t afford 2 houses. As in we would share custody and i would pay her whatever was required, but no matter how you slice it the same income has to pay for 2 houses instead of one.
For the time being i just have to carry on.
Yes, my kids dont see a “happy loving relationship” but they dont really see an abusive one, just a miserable one maybe.
IDK if we’re super “successful” co-parents but we are at least an effective team i think.
Thanks for sharing. It helps to hear I’m not the only one in a situation like this. Try living your life anyways. Take your kids on trips and spend as much time with them as you can. :)
Sending you much love.
I think your intentions are very noble. You clearly care a lot about both her and your kids.
But at the same time, I feel like you’ve fallen into the trap of “I must be miserable for them to be happy”. Which is a variation of “I must be miserable in order to succeed.”
If I have one regret in life, it is that I spent so much time being miserable because I thought “this is just how life is”, “I just have to wait it out”, “this is how I’ll be able to achieve my goal and then I’m allowed to be happy.” And after being miserable for a long time in a bunch of different ways, what I realized is that I’ve seen the people around me reach the same goals faster and easier because they didn’t embrace the grinding-and-suffering methodology. And really the only thing that was different was that they had different expectations - they expected to achieve their goal while being happy and having fun along the way. If a path to their goal required being miserable, they rejected that path and looked for another one, because they simply assumed that there is not just one, but many paths to achieving any goal while being happy at the same time. The problem is that if you assume the “be miserable” path is the only one that exists, then you stop looking for the other, better paths. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - you believe no better path exists, so you don’t look for other options. And since you never look for other options, you never see the other options, and since you never see other options, you assume they don’t exist.
You’ve listed a bunch of things, like how your kids would have to change schools, like they are reasons you can’t separate. And I think it is reasonable to say that you don’t want your kids to have to change schools. But I feel like what you have done here is listed all these reasons like they are insurmountable obstacles to your happiness, which then implies that your happiness is impossible. I think instead you should see them as metrics for success - your ex stays in your kids lives and they don’t have to change schools and you are happy and have a loving partner.
Like, imagine that you and your ex have another kid. And for whatever reason, because this happened, your oldest kid now feels as miserable as you do now. Would you accept that? Would you say “my eldest child’s misery is the price we must pay for everyone else to be happy”? Or would you say “this is unacceptable - I will to whatever it takes to make sure all my kids are happy.” Because if you can have that mindset to ensuring your kids’ happiness, you can adopt it for your own happiness. And once you have that mindset, it’s just a matter of looking for solutions until you find the one that works best for you.
Love your answer. Thanks!
My eyes are open, my statements are more about right now. You are correct, at the moment suffering is worth it because of a lack of alternatives. Life will offer opportunities that change the calculus and hopefully my kids will be a few years older and able to understand better. Right now its still more on the psychiatric problems stage and I feel I need to give her time. But that time will sooner or later run out.
This is not a healthy environment for you or your kids. My friend’s wife grew up in the same kind of environment and is now doing the same thing to him, she’s currently working on kicking him out of their home while still expecting to control his paychecks. You should strongly reconsider getting yourself and your kids out of that situation or at least into therapy. Her unwillingness to work on the situation should not mean you have to suffer.
Thank you for your concern. I’ll think I will maybe reconsider.
Hey, Bud.
I lived almost exactly this. Three kids, no romance, no sex, no joy. Just business partners running a household.
It finally came to a head when I was driving and the song Self Esteem by The Offspring came on, and I just broke down. Even if you’re familiar with it, go ahead and give it a listen.
After being together for 15 years, I filed for divorce. The entire process was very emotionally challenging, but it was amicable enough that we didn’t need to involve lawyers. We split custody 50/50 a week on and a week off. (Although, I don’t think it works as well as we expected. The kids get lost in the shuffle, and next week’s problems just become the other parents problems. I’m starting to think the kids don’t have as much stability as they need.)
That was in 2018. I’m remarried now, with two stepsons in addition to my original three kids. Things are much better now, and my only regret is waiting so long to do something about it.
Go find love! It’s worth much more than all of the reasons you’ve convinced yourself to stay together. You deserve it!
I wish the best. Stop throwing away your life for someone who doesn’t even care about you!
Just listened to the song. First comment is that it caused a divorce 5 years ago. You are apparently not alone xD
Quickly does a little math in his head
Nope that wasn’t mine!
Thanks for your insightful comment from the other side. I good to hear you have found love again :) so will I one day :)
I know it’s scary as hell, but it’s the only way to find out what your future could be.
Best wishes to you!
Friend, have you considered that your wife may be asexual and gets nothing from sex? Or potentially is dysphoric about her body/sex? Asking because I have friends like this (and a partner to a much lesser extent).
I would seriously consider taking your wife up on the offer, if for no other reason than to make sure your needs are being met, which is very important. I know you love your wife and don’t see interest in others, but a dead bedroom can generate all kinds of resentment that your kids most definitely will see. My wife’s parents had a relationship that sounded very similar to what you described, and it blew up like 3-5 years ago and we’re still dealing with the aftermath, including mom going bugfuck and developing Munchausen’s.
I would at least find a therapist and discuss it with them. Your needs are important too, and there are ways to get those met without sacrificing the relationship or disrupting things too much for the kids.
There are obvious signs she even misses the connection but fears giving in to that which incidentally matches the image of her issue.
I have considered and would to a certain extend be fine with asexuality or homosexuality or even some kink she fears disclosing. But im pretty sure that’s not it.
Why do you hate yourself so much?
You are doing damage to your children’s future by doing this. They should not be subjected to violence.
They are not as long as I am here.