Annadee697 Member Profile

...See more Hi all. This will be long. I have been with the same man since 2009. We fell in love very quickly, and were inseparable. We worked together, so it was easy to spend time together because we were literally together 24/7 after a couple of months of the start of our relationship. We've had problems, mostly due to his need for attention from other girls, and I say girls because they have all been way younger than me. I was 39 and he was 27 when we met. His cycle has been to get someone's number, they blow up each other's phones, I find out, we have a huge fight, he begs to stay, and I let him because I love him more than everything. I always know when he's doing this, I have a weird sixth sense about it and then I check text logs and always find out. I have been dealing with overcoming jealousy for almost 2 years now, and finally have been able to get past it and trust him again. The last time he did this was 2 years ago, and things have been great. Mostly. We haven't worked together in almost 4.5 years as he was offered a management position at another company, so we don't get much time together. He works 10+ hour days, 6 days a week. He's never helped around the house, never did anything for himself, always let me do it all. Even when he was unemployed for 6 months at one time, or when I was working 2 jobs to keep my house and take care of my 3 kids that were still in school. He played his video games instead. I have a friend, he is my first long time boyfriend (2.5 years) from our high school years that I reconnected with through FB in 2013, that I started talking to during one of those times that I felt hopeless with my husband. He's never been more than a good childhood friend after we broke up since we were teens. He suggested I make my husband realize what he stands to lose if he doesn't grow up and act like a husband, and so we hatched a plan to make him do just that. My husband was jealous and upset, and he finally started to get it. At any point, another man can steal me away if he didn't start doing his part in the relationship. He swore to change, even got a second job to help with bills, and so we stayed together. I never wanted to leave him, I just wanted him to see how easy it would be for him to lose me. My friend and I didn't strike up an affair, although he admitted to wanting me to be with him. I made it very clear that I love my husband, and I wasn't interested in starting a romantic relationship with ANYONE else. Still, my husband didn't want me talking to my friend any more, so I stopped. Was I wrong to use my friend to manipulate my husband? Absolutely, I fully admit that. But it got the results I wanted. For a while, anyway. I know, it sounds like I have been raising another child. He is a good person, but he is lazy when it comes to home life. He has always been very attentive to me, just not my needs. Toxic, absolutely, but I love him more than I have any other man in my life. This is the time that we should be living life easier, we don't have children at home any more. His daughter lives in Puerto Rico with her mother, and he hasn't seen her for over 2 years. He barely calls her, but he is working on that now. Like I said, lazy and procrastinates. We don't have to worry about money any more, he makes 3 times what I do now. But he hates his job. All he does is complain about it. He's stressed out and frustrated, still in the same position with no advancement in the company after being told from the start that he would have his own store (he works for a local grocery chain), and just got moved again on October to another store and hates it. He is dealing with depression and anxiety, but won't seek help. We tried marriage counseling, and that lasted for 3 weeks. He didn't like spending one hour of his only day off defending himself in the office, but wouldn't talk much during the session. He bottles things up and shuts down. This past September, I felt he was pulling away from me, and I asked him if he still wanted to be with me. He said he needed time. I flew off the handle, told him I will make the choice for him, and slept in a spare bedroom. The next evening when he got home from work, we talked, I apologized, and he said he stood outside the spare bedroom door, wanting to come in, that he missed my presence by his side and he loved me. We were fine for 3 weeks. It happened again in October. We spent the entire month apart, sleeping in separate rooms, barely speaking. He said he needed time to figure things out. I didn't handle it well. Anger and frustration always got the better of me and I would cry and throw my frustration out onto him when I saw him. I reached out to my friend again, because I know he would be there and give me strength. We didn't talk every day, met up for lunch once with another friend of his, and he let me vent about my husband. Again, I have never been interested in him in any way other than a friend. He's a good person. Finally, the first of November, after spending entire day doing nothing but crying, I wrote him a letter, telling him to just go, I released him, and slid it under his door. The next morning, he came to me with a note of his own, saying no, he did not want to go, he wanted to stay, and could we talk. So we did. He cried in my lap, told me he loved me, and we talked. I was happy that he wanted me, but I had made my peace with letting him go. Still, I love him, so we tried again. Things were good for that week. I was on vacation, and he took off the last 5 days of it to spend with me. Then slowly, over the next 3 months, he started pulling away from me. We didn't have sex, which for us is very strange, because we are very active when it comes to that. I confronted him again, and again he told me he needs time. And again, I flew off the handle. I said so many things over the course of that first week this month, I was so angry. How could he do this AGAIN?? After crying in my lap and telling me he loved me and wanted to be with me and suddenly he doesn't know what he wants? I told him I can't trust his words. His "I love you" just seems like a conditioned response. So he moved all his stuff to the spare bedroom again, and I wait. Living in limbo, again. I started talking to my friend again, hung out with him and his friends a few times doing fun stuff. But all the while, I think of my husband and I miss him. I made the mistake of letting anger flow out and told him he can talk to whomever he wants now. So, now he's gotten another girl's phone number, a coworker again, and he's been blowing up her phone for a week now. He says it's nothing more than friendship and someone to talk to, but I know, given time, that it will evolve into more. She's younger and prettier than me, I'm sure. They spend time together at work, and I barely see him. I stopped talking to my friend. I don't want him to get his hopes up that my husband will leave and that he will get a chance at rekindling our old relationship. We are not the same people we were at 17. I am not attracted to him in that way. I don't want my husband to think I am moving on. My friend understands, as he just got divorced again for the 4th time last year. I don't know what to do. I am trying to give my husband space and time to figure himself out, what he wants, and whether he loves me or not. I haven't eaten anything in 3 days, I can't sleep without double-dosing on sleeping pills, all I think about is him and trying to save our marriage. I am having a hard time controlling my anger, I can't bring myself to do anything fun or anything at all really. I just sit in my bedroom and mindlessly play mahjong on my phone for hours at a time. I cry at work. I cry at home. I know I should be patient, and I should keep living my life and taking care of myself, but I can't seem to make myself do it. I'm tired. I just want us back. We never fight, unless it was in the past about his wandering attention, we always have fun together, we have so many common interests, we are a great team. I don't want to lose that. I am lost.

Bio

Recent forum posts

Talk to an expert therapist

🌈 Lisa Meighan is a psychotherapist registered with the British...

About Us

Get Started

Online Therapy

Terms

Bio