Can This Marriage be Salvaged?

[Anonymous]

He probably has Clinical Depression. Wellbutrin is your friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? Are they back in daycare/school so your DH isn’t the sole childcare provider? If not, why?

OP here. They are 2 and 5 and they are back in childcare now. It's helped, but there is still every evening and every weekend. He's still very reactive/on edge, and gets easily annoyed at them for doing regular kid stuff like talking nonstop about silly kid things (older kid) and being very loud / scattering toys everywhere (younger kid). I hate watching him get frustrated at them, it kills me because they are such wonderful, joyful kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think with 2 kids you can be a jet setter on adventures for months. This is not reality based. Maybe in your retirement.

OP here. I personally know several families with young kids who do this, plus many others in my mom travel groups on Facebook. It's not necessarily 5-star travel and it's with kids, so it is hard and messy, but many regular families are having amazing travel adventures all the time. ESPECIALLY now with remote work becoming more common. I have friends whose husbands are consultants or lawyers traveling around with their young kids right now.

It's a matter of priorities - choosing a career that would accommodate this kind of flexibility, cutting spending on other things (house, cars, etc)...my DH just doesn't prioritize travel that much so it doesn't happen for us.

I don't think one approach is better than another, but I wish we weren't so different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you're hearing toward 40 and think you can get a better deal out there. Please be aware of what awaits you out there. For one thing, competing with single, childless 20something women. Men tend to date younger. You will begin to miss the reliability of a stable relationship, you will want again what you threw away. He will move on and find a younger woman, and she will become your children's stepmother. Could you handle another woman's view of how your children should be raised, what's allowable?

Are you willing to blow your children's nuclear family to smithereens because you're bored, and not willing work at being less boring?

Our culture is telling women to walk away as soon as they're bored and can't deal with stability. Your divorced women friends will tell you to go for it, because misery loves company.

OP here. I totally agree with this. I just don't know how to make peace with giving up some of my key dreams for my life and marriage without feeling disappointed and resentful. It seems like there is a key life skill of "being happy with what you have and not yearning for more" and I haven't learned it.

[Anonymous]

Is he on anti-depressants? It sounds like he’s depressed and needs to take something in addition to therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you're hearing toward 40 and think you can get a better deal out there. Please be aware of what awaits you out there. For one thing, competing with single, childless 20something women. Men tend to date younger. You will begin to miss the reliability of a stable relationship, you will want again what you threw away. He will move on and find a younger woman, and she will become your children's stepmother. Could you handle another woman's view of how your children should be raised, what's allowable?

Are you willing to blow your children's nuclear family to smithereens because you're bored, and not willing work at being less boring?

Our culture is telling women to walk away as soon as they're bored and can't deal with stability. Your divorced women friends will tell you to go for it, because misery loves company.

OP here. I totally agree with this. I just don't know how to make peace with giving up some of my key dreams for my life and marriage without feeling disappointed and resentful. It seems like there is a key life skill of "being happy with what you have and not yearning for more" and I haven't learned it.

The life skill is called being a responsible adult/parent.

Unfortunately there are less and less of these type of people in the world.

[Anonymous]

What do you both do for a living? What are your standard hours? Commutes? What is your HHI?

[Anonymous]

Being married to a depressed, negative, angry intolerant person is a relentless drag. I divorced because no matter what I did I just couldn’t overcome my ex’s constant negativity.

[Anonymous]

Get his Testosterone checked.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t be too happy if my husband and I “talked a lot” and it boiled down to him telling me “I think I married the wrong person, you’re holding me back from my key dreams”. It would suck the life right out of me. I wouldn’t feel the need to be nice to you. I wouldn’t find joy in the kids not when I had a partner who might make it so that I only see them for half their lives.
Think, op, “I’m not sure you are what I want” “hey, let’s go into the bedroom and f**ck” as my husband says, men have feelings too and sometimes women can really hurt them. Sounds like you have done just that.

I’d be even more upset if that partner had us go to therapy to talk about this, not when we could have spent the time and money enjoying ourselves. I’d be thinking “It’s a beautiful day, we have childcare (because therapists won’t let you hash out all this with kids present, we had $100 to spend, and instead of going out to a nice lunch or dinner, we sat in a room and I got to listen to how you felt you’d made a mistake in marrying me” Yeah, what a good time that was!

One of the sweetest things my husband said to me was that he’d date and marry me again knowing what he knows now, that there was a time in our marriage when we weren’t that nice to each other, knowing that he has to help me with things he probably wouldn’t if he married a different woman.

You also seem a bit flighty, you mention wanting to take career risks and then having months long adventures, newsflash for you, not showing up to work will put your career at risk.

Realize that taking care of kids during Covid is incredibly difficult. It’d be even more difficult if you live someplace where even now, you can’t take them to a park or a pool because neither of those things exist where you live. If I had to guess, you all decided that you could “live without” things that make parenting a lot more fun because “we’re only be here a little while” “the kids don’t know what they’re missing” “I never went to the pool when I was growing up”, it’s easy to get into that way of thinking.

If it were me and I wanted to save the marriage, I’d forget about your key dreams. Still enjoy the things that enspired those dreams but realize that you have a husband and two kids that need a happy family.

Second, and this is huge, live where parenting is fun, can you take the kids to a park so they can run? Is there a nature center you all like? Look for things like that.

As for a less demanding job, the problem with those jobs is they still expect you to be there and work. They aren’t the cure-all people think. Ditto for a low cost area, you still need money to live.

Move to an area because you like it, not because it’s cheap.

Finally, and maybe this should have been first, go to your husband, hug him and tell him you’re truly sorry. He didn’t deserve to have you tell him in therapy and out that you had doubts about whether or not he was right for you, not when you then expected him to be happy loving dad and sweet hot lover, and then “oh yeah, honey, let’s buy a house too so that when you ditch me, we’ll have to sell it and before we sell it, we’ll get to fight about selling it “because the kids need their home!”.

[Anonymous]

I agree that giving up one's key dreams is what it takes to save a marriage to a person who does not share your vision of personal fulfillment. Many of us are fooled into thinking that a marriage with children is about the happiness of the parents.

[Anonymous]

I dont mean this to be disrespectful. However, I read: married at 21, no prior relationships for either of you (Is that correct?), and he is satistfied with very little sex. Not interested in adventure of any kind. I hear that and think "that you know of".

Is there any possibility at all that he is gay? I only say this because there is nothing stopping him from living the life he wants to live, and yet he resents you for being "different" from him?

And maybe now he feels its too late for him to address his feelings? And therapists cant get anywhere with you all?

Sure, it could be lifelong clinical depression too. However, lifelong denial of self could lead to that as well.

I know that seems like such a random question, but I have seen this actual scenario play out. Not in my own life but in that of a family member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How old are the kids? Are they back in daycare/school so your DH isn’t the sole childcare provider? If not, why?

OP here. They are 2 and 5 and they are back in childcare now. It's helped, but there is still every evening and every weekend. He's still very reactive/on edge, and gets easily annoyed at them for doing regular kid stuff like talking nonstop about silly kid things (older kid) and being very loud / scattering toys everywhere (younger kid). I hate watching him get frustrated at them, it kills me because they are such wonderful, joyful kids.

Deja vu. Is there ANY family history of autism or ADHD on his side of the family?? His behaviors will get worse and worse as the children get more verbal and there are more responsibilities needed from him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think with 2 kids you can be a jet setter on adventures for months. This is not reality based. Maybe in your retirement.

OP here. I personally know several families with young kids who do this, plus many others in my mom travel groups on Facebook. It's not necessarily 5-star travel and it's with kids, so it is hard and messy, but many regular families are having amazing travel adventures all the time. ESPECIALLY now with remote work becoming more common. I have friends whose husbands are consultants or lawyers traveling around with their young kids right now.

It's a matter of priorities - choosing a career that would accommodate this kind of flexibility, cutting spending on other things (house, cars, etc)...my DH just doesn't prioritize travel that much so it doesn't happen for us.

I don't think one approach is better than another, but I wish we weren't so different.

I’m pretty sure your “mom travel groups on Facebook” don’t necessarily show you the whole picture. I really feel sorry for your husband. He knows he’s a disappointment to you. I think he’s given up trying to make you happy. Time for both of you to move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think with 2 kids you can be a jet setter on adventures for months. This is not reality based. Maybe in your retirement.

OP here. I personally know several families with young kids who do this, plus many others in my mom travel groups on Facebook. It's not necessarily 5-star travel and it's with kids, so it is hard and messy, but many regular families are having amazing travel adventures all the time. ESPECIALLY now with remote work becoming more common. I have friends whose husbands are consultants or lawyers traveling around with their young kids right now.

It's a matter of priorities - choosing a career that would accommodate this kind of flexibility, cutting spending on other things (house, cars, etc)...my DH just doesn't prioritize travel that much so it doesn't happen for us.

I don't think one approach is better than another, but I wish we weren't so different.

Right now seems like a particularly bad time to be traveling around with kids, given that most of them are not eligible for vaccination, but you do you.