Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Faith in God.

Really? And how has God helped with her DH's drug habit? I assume his habit is of God's making? Or, wait, do only women have to have faith and suffer till husbands sow their oats?

She asked what helps you make it work, and I gave her my answer. Feel free to dig a little past the surface.

Yes, the question was toother people about what made it work for them. This answer was responsive to the question.

Did you get triggered or something??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

I have a good friend who is in a similar place with her husband. They are both wonderful people, but they don't know how to fight. They say horrible things to each other when they are angry, and then they remember it for years. Several times, I have made it a point to share the way my husband and I fight(when one spouse starts raising the voice, the other spouse keeps calm and vice versa), and she agrees that under similar scenarios, she and her husband will go off at each other. They cannot seem to get off the horrible pattern. For them, it is a terrible mix of personalities combined with insecurities. Counseling has helped them some, but it is really hard.

I feel like I remain prettt calm, or at least have in the past couple years. When I think it through, i think I’m sort of past fighting and have no interest in that sort of exchange. It’s almost like I’m watching him act out a movie when he goes into that mode.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

Is he not so smart? This is a thing with men who are well, not as smart as they think they are. They resort to insults as they are too stupid to actually make a smart point.

No, that’s not the case. Very smart, multiple degrees.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Faith in God.

Really? And how has God helped with her DH's drug habit? I assume his habit is of God's making? Or, wait, do only women have to have faith and suffer till husbands sow their oats?

She asked what helps you make it work, and I gave her my answer. Feel free to dig a little past the surface.

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

I have a good friend who is in a similar place with her husband. They are both wonderful people, but they don't know how to fight. They say horrible things to each other when they are angry, and then they remember it for years. Several times, I have made it a point to share the way my husband and I fight(when one spouse starts raising the voice, the other spouse keeps calm and vice versa), and she agrees that under similar scenarios, she and her husband will go off at each other. They cannot seem to get off the horrible pattern. For them, it is a terrible mix of personalities combined with insecurities. Counseling has helped them some, but it is really hard.

Happily married for 11 years with 2 kids. We have been fortunate, and a lot of things have just worked in our favor so far. These include good health, temperaments and finances.

The main thing is empathy for us. It is really hard to find both of us angry at the same time. When one person is grumpy, the other one tries everything to ease the burden on the grumpy one. The grumpy person sees the effort, appreciates it and quickly calms down.

Additionally, there are so many areas where we are just a perfect match. One is a morning person, and the other is an evening person. So when the going gets tough with the kids, the morning person takes over in the morning and the evening person in the evening. One person is neat, and the messy spouse loves deep cleaning. So we hardly have clashes on issues related to house chores.

Another thing that has made a lot of a difference is finances. We are squarely middle class. (under 150K annual income), but we live within our means, and when we get really stressed we can afford to spend some money to make our lives easier.

And you can never underscore the fortune of having healthy, bright and well behaved kids. Our kids have lots of food allergies, and we have been able to figure out what works and do a good job of avoiding allergens. Other than that, they are very healthy, very bright, and usually the some of the best behaved in any environment beyond our home(they are fairly stubborn at home). So we don't have to worry about them when they leave the house.

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

Is he not so smart? This is a thing with men who are well, not as smart as they think they are. They resort to insults as they are too stupid to actually make a smart point.

Anonymous wrote:Faith in God.

Really? And how has God helped with her DH's drug habit? I assume his habit is of God's making? Or, wait, do only women have to have faith and suffer till husbands sow their oats?

We don't have druggies for husbands, so there is that. Doesn't sound like there is anything you could have done, so my advice is to let go of your guilt, there is none. Some people have addictive personalities, and there is nothing you can do. You should be happy to get rid of him.

Faith in God.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds immature, unkind, and ungrateful and I'm guessing when you work it out in therapy, it will become clear he always had those character traits (even when grading him on a curve for age, since it seems like you got together when young).
Character counts. Hard eyeroll to the dimwit who thinks it's emasculating for a woman to bring more income to a household, yet it's not unmanly to walk out on a family and go be a kid again.

This.

It's not you...it's him.

But to answer your question:

1. DH and I truly love eachother and are best friends.
2. We decided at the outset that we were in it for the long haul. The fact that our parents were happily married increased our odds for marital stability.
3. DH isn't selfish. He's a giver. A provider. And an all around decent, moral guy. Some girls would overlook him because he is a "nice guy." I strategically sought out a good guy.
4. DH is healthy and would never do drugs. Never. Again: I picked a good guy, not a reckless party animal.
5. DH is a family guy. Our kids and their happiness is his priority. He thinks deadbeat dads are losers. Again: you can usually find a nice guy with these basic values.
6. We prioritize intimacy in order to maintain our connection. I think this is key to a happy marriage.
7. We are partners. 50-50. I currently earn twice his salary, but in the past he has been the breadwinner. Since we're a team and all the money goes into a joint account, it doesn't matter. If you play tit for tat, you will be miserable.

Finally (after 3 pages) we have a single DCUM woman who has correctly answered the subject question.

Anonymous wrote:What was his family situation growing up? Influences a lot! In my experience (obviously there are exceptions!) men from stable families with parents married 30+ years have an easier time with lifelong commitment.

Agreed.

Anonymous wrote:Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

Your post really resonates with me. We have arguments, and then we have the arguments that are basically verbal/emotional abuse and that I've never really moved on from. The idea of divorce is always lingering in the back of my mind, but it's not practical with young kids.

Have any of the happily marrieds have arguments where the other spouse has just been cruel? I sort of feel like we’ve had several of these over the course of the last decade, and each has done permanent and cumulative damage. There is just no going back to how things were early on. Desire to divorce ebbs and flows. We get along well enough and worry about divorce with kids. After another recent day of behavior that I think crossed the line of civility, I’m back to strategizing about life without him. He seems to have gotten it out of his system and wants to apologize and move on. I suppose counseling is in order, but I honestly think I may be at the point of not even wanting it. Anyway, most strong marriages I see do not appear to involve such nastiness, even on rare occasions or even once...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teens divorcing after 20 years of marriage...we had a good life and DH has blown it up with his mid-life crisis that raised its ugly head about six months ago. He doesn’t want to be tied to a schedule according to him....things like being home for the kids is apparently no longer something he wants to do.

This is OP, your situation sounds like mine. I just feel utter confusion. I also think I'm supposed to be more mad at him but I feel more of the emotion of confusion and sadness honestly.

For the poster on the family life he grew up with, I do think this is a part of our situation. His family was extremely dysfunctional and I thought he was the example of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps but now I feel like even after so many years on a different path, when it got too hard it was just easy to fall back to their type of lifestyle with all responsibility removed than to keep pushing through the not so fun part.

I guess the moral of that story is really its about who you choose from the beginning not how well you do during. I'm not perfect, I nag, I yell sometimes and can be bossy but I never thought we had problems that would mean he would just dump me and the life we built.

It's so depressing. I would also not quit, even now if he'd just go to counseling with me and work on it. I feel pathetic.

Pp here with four kids. What does your husband do for a living? I ended up reporting my husbands drug use to his employer, and he was forced into rehab. He came out with a very different perspective on what was important in life, what he was able to handle, and how to ask for help. Is that a possibility for you guys?

That's like calling the cops on your ... wait you basically did just that.... Why would you get your husband in trouble?

Because I had small children and I needed my marriage to work. Plus I love my husband and I didn’t want him to die.