Today is the day that I hate my husband

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07/07/2014 15:37

Subject: Today is the day that I hate my husband

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:What's shallow about not wanting to be married to an unkind person? I can't imagine why anyone would stay with someone who treats them unkindly if they had a choice.

OP, there are plenty of people who think that a woman's wrong to leave her husband unless he's beating her. Don't listen to them. This is the only life you have.

See if he'll go to counseling to save the marriage. If not, do what you need to do to make your life peaceful and happy.

I can't read all the comments - too much nasty name calling by people who really don't know what they are talking about.

I'm a guy, and this post resonated with me because the description of the husband resonated somewhat - it reminded me of my father. My father - and one of my siblings - are a bit tone deaf socially, with hints of autism spectrum disorder as another commenter suggested. Being around them in a social setting - being "connected" to them - was like being chained to lepers. They are insightful, intelligent, thoughtful (introspective - with the handicap of social tone deafness) people who are moral and neither sociopathic or "unkind", though they come off this way because of their EQ handicap (and worse, are hyper-sensitive themselves - they can dish it but can't take it). I did not inherit this tone deafness (nor did another sibling), and our mother doesn't have it, though she's got a basket of other issues (which is why she paired off with my father - her options were limited). Of the five of us, only my 'normal' sibling and I have a wide range of friends and acquaintances, and we have all our lives.

I grew up being fairly miserable because I felt the sting and stigma of being ostracised with them - because I was attached to them - and worse, because I could see - it was painfully obvious -when they were sailing off into boorish, tone-deaf territory, being insulting, or "unkind" without the faintest awareness or really intent of being that way. I was pretty lucky that I made friends, and was accepted into other families. I still shudder when people who know that one sibling recognize my last name when we first meet - the notoriety proceeds me. I have had people actually say, 'oh, you're so and so's sibling? I'm sorry!'. I truly could not care less - even though I love that sibling and feel a sense of duty to them - if I never saw them again. With substantial age (parent in their 70s, sibling in their 40s) they've both gradually developed and mellowed. I'm not sure what cognitive changes took place, but they're improving. And, I grew up enough to recognize I'm my own person, and they aren't a reflection on me. However...I don't have to live with them. I do more and more stuff with them - I limit the time I spend with them, but it's more now than it was for two decades. OP has to live with her husband...has to share friends (to some extent) with her husband...it's 24/7 immersion.

So, it seems to me: yes, it's as fair a reason as any for a divorce. And I'm very sympathetic to the OP.

The only niggle I have is this: as someone else commented: 'a checklist marriage'. OP, wasn't your husband like this before? Or were you just too busy worrying about the resume and checklist to pay attention to what he was like socially? How he treated you (inadvertent unkindness)? My experience, not just with my immediate family members, is that people who lack social/emotional intelligence (perhaps this is more social than emotional) have been that way all their lives...if they change, it's generally because they start to figure it out and get better (or get meds). I have made some terrible choices (which I fully own - I had issues that led me to those choices) in partners, but I never considered socially tone-deaf people. Ever. Maybe I was hyper-sensitive to it, but I got as far away from them as I could, as fast as I could, in spite of sometimes feeling guilty (knowing they are often drowning socially).

If your husband was, in fact, always this way, and he's been loyal, reliable, etc., and is a moral person, it seems to me that you owe him an opportunity to change - the option for counseling/therapy. I dunno. He's gotta be willing to do it, and gotta be willing to hear some negative things about himself. My father, finally, in his 70s, can kind of control his know-it-all communication style...well enough.

For everyone jumping up and down about "ooh, the poor kid...broken home, yadda yadda". I had that broken home, and I could not have been happier to have gotten free from the leper parent. That tone-deafness and resulting un-kindness left me with a few scars too...those people hurt others, not out of malice but obliviousness.

You're in a tough place...I'm sorry.