Marriage not great-taking 5 day trip with DH to work on it
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Anonymous
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My marriage is not in a great place. We have 2 kids, ages 5 and 7.
DH and I are supposed to go on a vacation together, just the two of us, next week. The thing is, we don’t fight. We are just really living parallel lives and rarely interact. We don’t have sex anymore (DH’s choice-not mine). I would love to improve the relationship but I don’t see how it’s possible. DH is extremely avoidant, to the point that it’s hard to have any kind of real conversation with him. He just refuses to engage or yes’s me to death and never follows through with what we agree on. I guess I’m not sure how to approach this time together. We don’t do date nights and have had sex fewer than 10 times in the last 5 years. I don’t expect that DH will be open to sex. I’d like to try and talk to him, but I’m worried it will create bad feelings and then we are stuck on this trip together while miserable. I do have massive amounts of disappointment in our marriage and anger. I’d like things to get better but I’m afraid if we talk about our marriage, then I’ll get caught up in my anger. We are pretty good at just coexisting on a superficial level and that tends to be our default. Should I just roll with that? I should mention we are both also exhausted and burnt out and if nothing else we need sleep and rest. |
Anonymous
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It’s not good that your husband doesn’t want to have sex. Do you know why?
If you’re commuted to working on things would pursue counseling. |
Anonymous
| Did you get fat? Is he the bread winner? |
Anonymous
Op here. I weigh the same as when we married. I make a bit more than he does. |
Anonymous
| A nice trip together is not a bad idea but counseling would be better. Why aren’t you having sex? |
Anonymous
Op here. We’ve done counseling on and off for years. It doesn’t work because DH isn’t genuine in counseling. I don’t know why he doesn’t want sex. He always says he’s tired. Even when I’ve orchestrated a break for him, there’s no amount of rest or downtime that renews him enough to want sex. I think it’s a combo of low T and depression. I’ve dragged him to the doc but he won’t follow up or even be forthright about the problems. He doesn’t take their advice. |
Anonymous
| The lack of sex is the most concerning. It signals apathy. |
Anonymous
Op here. Yeah it sucks. But I don’t know what else I can do about it. Even when we have had sex in the last 5 years, it feels so joyless, like he’s only doing it to shut me up. So I’ve stopped trying because I’m so worn down from all the rejection. |
Anonymous
| Is he cheating? |
Anonymous
Op here. He’s not. We both WFH. He’s extremely introverted and rarely leaves the house without me (his choice, not mine). |
Anonymous
I doubt there will be any meaningful connection or conversating on this trip sans kids. If he avoids talking about life he won’t do so then. He’ll coast along with books, sight seeing, meals with superficially talks about nothing, on the trip. You’d need a third party professional to get y’all to open up and see wtf his issue(s) are. Any mental disorders in his family tree? Is he familiar with how divorce and coparenting work? Or is he clueless about everything and potential lack of connection? |
Anonymous
Did you or therapist look into autism? If so an NT/AS therapist specializing/ understanding aspergers relationships could slowly help him at least behave more caring. Does he connect with the kids well? Or see their needs- physical, emotional, etc. |
Anonymous
Op here. We’ve worked with third party professionals before (marriage therapists). If anything it made things worse. It didn’t help us at all. DH doesn’t think about divorce and doesn’t believe me when I tell him I think that’s what is going to happen. Part of why I stay is I don’t believe he would be competent to care for our kids alone. If I stay at least I’m able to keep our home clean and make sure they get meals and to school. DH is just totally checked out of our life and has been for years. If we divorce I don’t believe he’d actually keep the kids half the time. He’d pretend he wanted to but wouldn’t follow through. Most of his life he just avoids/pretends/says what he thinks people want to hear, etc. |
Anonymous
Op here. Our therapist raised the possibility of ADHD/ASD and recommended DH consider getting evaluated but he wasn’t willing and believes he’s neurotypical. He’s warm and loving with our youngest but becomes overwhelmed very easily and requires an extraordinary amount of downtime to recover after spending any time with the family. He doesn’t connect with our oldest except on rare occasions. |
Anonymous
| The low T and depression needs to be treated before things will improve. I couldn’t live with my DH if he wasn’t taking this seriously and following through on treatment. |