Reply to Marriage not great-taking 5 day trip with DH to work on it

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Marriage not great-taking 5 day trip with DH to work on it"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [b]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.[/b]

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.[/quote]

He seems unwilling to change and you seem unwilling to end the marriage. So you need solo therapy for yourself to learn how to accept him for who he is and resign yourself to the state of your marriage (or learn techniques to improve the marriage, through modifying your own behavior not his). All of that resentment and anger is not good. You need to acknowledge to yourself that you are actively making the decision to stay with him despite his faults, and be at peace with that.

I would suggest making this a fun, pleasant trip. No hard discussions. Be light and superficial. Don’t put too much on the agenda. Rest and sleep can work wonders on mental health. [/quote]

I agree, the stakes seem too high to have such serious conversations or expectations. But personally from what OP writes I would be working on an exit strategy.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics