...See more
I feel so lonely and have no one to truly talk about this. Really appreciate your taking the time to read and share your thoughts. I initially posted this on a wider forum that 7cups, so I apologise if the language is a bit tough.
*Note the below contains mentions of depression, suicide, violence which might be triggering*
Married 3yr, together 6. My husband and I have always had a slightly quirky relationship. He is pretty emotionally reserved and confused on what interaction etiquette is, but very sweet (he thinks he might be on the spectrum, I'm not sure. He has ADHD and that can also make it difficult to relate to people). He finds it hard to open up and connect and trust. I'm on the other extreme of connection, I get very involved and attached. We have certainly drifted to a place of codependency, with me more as saviour and him as needy.
Generally, I would say my husband has pretty conservative outlook due to his family and upbringing, and one big challenge for us has been to make him listen and consider other viewpoints on the little things. He can be very controlling in some trivial things (going to bed at the same time, eating together, etc) but overall he is encouraging (if a bit pushy). Still, his judginess and overreaction makes me walk a bit on eggshells (used to be worse but I pushed against it). He is not the greatest listener (partly due to ADHD, partly anxiety related to self esteem). This can feel very hard sometimes as it makes me feel I am not valued, and I struggle to reach a conclusion re if that matters. I love him for so many things: his kindness, intellect, care, humour, responsibility with everything home related, attentiveness in our intimate life. I especially enjoy discussing with him everything big and small; I feel so inspired when we talk, and if we're both in a calm mindset, sparks of insight are flying.
From the Very beginning, I knew this relationship would be hard work, but it felt worth it due to our complementary nature, shared values, goals, and interests, and how we make each other feel.
Overall, we have been pretty bad at open, transparent, vulnerable communication. Both of us. 6 years later, it's coming to bite us.
We had many difficult times in our lives for the past 3 years. During a time when we both worked a lot, we drifted apart and both got depressed without sharing this with the other. For me, it led to terrible spiraling and in the process I made several career related mistakes which really affected our lives in a bad way. I only opened up to him when I was on the brink of suicide (with real intention to do so; it had gotten very bad and I thought I was completely worthless and a burden on every one). He was very supportive and did an amazing job with navigating me out of that. I really couldn't have done it without him. Of course, in the process his trust in me was broken (I lied to him while depressed, but never with the intention to hurt him. But I broke his trust for sure). And his world shattered, which we never addressed fully. That period was so intense with therapy for me, moving to a new city, new jobs, making ends meet, me becoming steady, that we never got to it. We couldn't afford couple therapy for it for a good chunk of time.
In the process, he struggled to thrive in several jobs. This definitely had to do with the shock to his system, but also with him more generally (his ADHD and people awkwardness makes it hard to perform as expected). We are both high achievers, hard workers, career oriented individuals. I have supported him a lot on the career side of things since the beginning, and he is a great mind with amazing potential. He has, however, always been resistant to emotional support (learning how to relate etc)
Start of 2020, we agreed he would start a company (his dream) so he would take no pay for about 6 months and I'd support us financially. That year was a bitch. Little money, so limited access to resources for support and little opportunity to spend on holidays or entertainment, plus covid which meant working from home (we have been since the pandemic started). A year later, his company still hadn't closed the funding he'd hoped for, and every month was like "almost there, soon". The pressure and super big effort took a massive toll on him. He started getting burnout.
In 2021, our relationship got more conflictual. Lots of screaming, and he became quite snappy for random reasons I couldn't comprehend. He treated me like crap a lot--not listening, expecting a lot without returning, saying crap like "I'll make us lots of money so just put up with me and support me and be nice" (could not care less about financial prospects Vs being treated nicely and I told him that to no avail). We started therapy in march and he finally became more open, talking about his childhood, struggles with an ADHD diagnostic his parents denied and refused to help with, sense of worthlessness and needing to prove himself, opening to support. We discussed the long term more and realised we are as aligned as ever, here for each other and committed to supporting and being warmer and more open to each other. Unfortunately, our therapist "fired" us when my SO ran 5min late for a session due to work (what an arse, I know). So after 2 months of intense opening and work, we were left stranded. At this point, his company also started to have big issues and we lost balance. Badly.
The last 6 months have been a hell. He was fully burntout. I was just getting to the point where I had regained some balance in relation to myself after I had struggled to recover from my suicidal episode 2 years back. I had a promotion and was looking FWD to investing more in us, especially since he was also making some money now. Damn, we were even considering buying a house and having a baby in january 2022. Then, his co-founder informed him he was basically fired (it was a very icky situation, full of betrayal, where he was lied to for months by his team, and while he definitely struggled to work at full capacity due to burnout and his difficulty with people, he absolutely did not deserve it; I say this as objectively as possible). So we ended up spending the autumn surrounded by lawyers, back to one income, little balance and joy, he obsessing about work when he should have recovered from burnout. This was the worst time. He became more and more cranky, looking to start fights out of nothing, and I became very shouty (I had already been a bit since the start of the year; our therapist thought I was trying to claim my own space and mark my needs since the relationship had gravitated so much around him). He has always struggled with self-abuse (self hitting, breaking things, suicidal tendencies), and it got very bad. This year, he was also physically abusive towards me on a few occasions (I know many people feel very strongly about this; while it is not ok, I do think it was not Ill intended coercive shit, more like snapping in the heat of the moment--he pushed me once, punched me in the back while I was in bed when he thought I was saying something dismissive, and pushed the side of his hand on my cheek once). This all piled up and made thing very difficult moment to moment.
I started individual therapy/coaching which was amazingly useful to give me a renewed sense of self (I had lost it after my depression) and more perspective. He also started some, but stopped soon after. Only this week did I found out he decided to stop due to cost concerns; I thought he wanted to do self help--that didn't work. By November, things had quietened with his work, but the company is shutting down and he can't get 2 years of backpay. This really affected him. As said above, he is a bit conservative, and the idea of his wife supporting him financially for so long has been very damaging in spite of all my reassurance.
We were getting to a point where I was finally in the mindset and I had the inner resourcefulness to help him navigate his emotional needs and struggles more proactively. But he had very little openness to that and spent the month procrastinating with busy work instead of embracing this. I understood he needed some space for perspective, so did not push or get too involved, instead allowing him to ask for help as and when with whatever. I already thought I have a codependent tendency to overhelp, so was happy to give some space.
Which brings us to the past two weeks (are you still there?--honestly thank you so much for reading this). He started dropping a woman into conversation quite often (yey, you guessed it) and making references to open relationships (this is something that was a topic of convo for us in the past as we know several people in such relationships. Some context here on my side: I have never been closed to the concept myaelf, but every time he brought it up, I'd roll my eyes as I definitely think one needs to be fully ok with oneself, to have awareness and self esteem and balance before going into anything more serious than a one night stand with anyone. Sure, the right thing would have been to discuss openly and explain that, but given his struggle to acknowledge lack of awareness and the need for emotional develoent, I always thought we would first address these things over the coming years, slowly. It never occurred to me he was mentioning it as anything other than an exciting curiosity).
Anyway, on Monday this week I took one of his hints/indirect questions about my opinion on open relations and I explained it calmly and lovingly, saying I do understand his point of view regarding monogamy being suffocating and not always healthy, and that I do agree that an open relationship can work and I'd consider that at some point in the future, but that people need to be very solid with themselves and each other before that happens. I then went ahead and said "if you want to sleep with X(her name--first time we brought her up in this context), this would be a complicated thing now as this is not the right time". He did not even blink at the mention of the name, but nodded. He later said he did not hear that sentence, which might be true cause his ADHD makes it hard to hear (no, really). Anyway, I left the convo there and went to take a call. He came later and thanked me for sharing that and asking if I really meant what I'd said re open relations. The next few days, he was very nice towards me and I felt he was starting to finally, after a long time, resemble himself again. We had fantastic sex a lot, which hadn't happened in a long time as his libido had been so low (he is on antidepressants, but it's also been a horrible time, and I never pushed for anything and explained this to him as initiating things made him feel pressured).
The next day, I got massively high fever due to COVID and could barely move. He was away from home for a while for a walk, during which time I wondered if he was meeting her as he was shifty as fuck. He came home and avoided questions. We went to bed and he kept on texting. At 1.30am he woke me up (still massive fever, still headache) and said that it is very hard for him to express his thoughts as he is always afraid I might snap and kick him out of the house (i swear I'm v nice and would not do such thing; he has all these things in his head). I told him it is a safe space and asked him to share. He then informed me he was going on a date the next day, like it was nothing. That things had gotten heated for the past 2 weeks with the woman above whom he d been working with on a work project and he thought it was unfair he d never be able to have butterflies in his stomach again. He then spoke extensively about how the past few days he d lost a lot of sleep thinking and he d realised he had been so horrible with me for so long. That his behaviour change was not to woo me to allow him to have a something with her (I called him on that) but because he had had a genuine insight into our lives. I did believe this as the things he had been talking about for the past few days, how he had analysed past behaviours with new eyes, how he had realised things with examples, really resonated with me and I know he hadn't seen that before. He reassured me he remained commited to our relationship and he loved me etc. It was an intense convo until early morning (still fever, still headache). I explained once more that if opening up our sex lives a bit is what he needs, we can do so. We discussed some rules and limits, but obvs with the understanding much more was needed to be approved. I told him he could meet her for their walk in the park.
Some context here is that he is quite immature relationships wise. Even though he had several long term relationships (3 relationships of 6 years each incl ours--6 is the magic fucking number yo), still he really has no idea how to navigate things. He ended up meeting her and he then shared with me that during the meeting they discussed the rules of how this would go, which completely took me by fucking surprise cause I wasn't part of that. I was particularly taken aback since he d said he had done a lot of reading on open relations and understood the way to go about it, which included speaking to your partner extensively and communicating openly. I was taken further aback when he started talking about things like going on dates with her, going away on weekends, doing horse riding together and many activities I am not naturally drawn towards all while possibly working with her in the future. He even asked in passing if we'd ever introduce new partners to our parents. We have had so many convos for the past few days, and I have lost so much sleep, I'm definitely not functioning well anymore (6h sleep, 3h sleep, 1h sleep, 8h sleep in the last 4 days; now it's late at night and I can't fucking sleep again). He says I misunderstood and he just wants a fling, but he still thinks it would be fine to repeat sleep and go on dates with this person he also works with. We still haven't completed our convos; work in progress. Over the past days, his behaviour has shifted from super nice to falling in old patterns, which is understandable cause change doesn't happen overnight, but still does not help me trust him. If I call it out, he apologises and explains where it stems from, but his go+to state is still one of grumpiness, mistrust, and fear towards me (we think he is projecting fear of others and self-loathing unto me). While I am ready to be patient and work through this, I just don't see how he could navigate his thoughts when dating someone else and sharing not just sex, but talk. How at this point when he barely knows himself and our relationship is in shambles he thinks this can be healthy to do.
We discussed about the fact that introducing another relationship is not going to solve the core of this, which is that he needs to learn to know himself, accept himself, love himself for who he is. That starting something that s more than a one night thing will lead to him presenting his projected image, not the real one, which he likely needs for emotional stamina in the shirt term since I know every damned thing about him and his rapport with me is so intimate HOWEVER starting something where he gets recognition for not being himself is.not.good. I also think subliminally he thinks this will boost self-esteem as he always compares himself to his co-founder who is in an open relationship (but has a very different self awareness level, even if not fully developed). I proposed starting more slowly (e.g. us having some threesomes--im bisexual--or him having a one night thing with someone) and not throwing himself at the deep end, and while he is open to other experiences, he is clearly hung up on her, he gets snarky about wanting to sleep with her and doing stuff with her and not comfortable enough with me to open up about quite how much he is hung up. He says she doesn't look for anything serious, but I'm not even bothered re her needs, but rather re his immaturity as I know he will be incapable to separate his emotions and it can get very icky very fast. He acknowledges this, but is pushing still that he can do it and he can get out if it gets messy. His emotional immaturity is also very clear since he said this is apparently the first person he felt he has a crush on since we ve been together (very wtf, I have these quite often and I also understand they are just that and that life is.much complex than this and not every person that gives me butterflies or makes me horny is someone I need to pursue). She is now away until midJanuary and I asked him to open up re the current status of things and tell me when they speak. However, I feel like tonight he was being sneaky and speaking with her behind my back. I have already explained to him that him doing this behind-the-back-flirting-date-setting-bpundary-discussion has made me lose trust and that it is hard to get to a level place where I can make sense of all this and approach it with compassion and understanding, and that I need him to meet me half way and do the work of being transparent and making the effort to learn about himself and relations in general. In general, he is not a scumbag, in fact he is quite naive and sweet and open yet sometimes he gets scared to share like I will admonish him like a decking parent, but he does lie by omission. And I feel he did that tonight. I did not want to push on it, but we said we d discuss tomorrow. I am now at a place where I feel my emotional energy is so drained. These years have been very fucking hard. We have been through a lot. He says he loves me and I believe that his perception of whatever the fuck he feel is that it is love. I don't actually know if it is. I did specifically tell him at many points that he should not be compelled to stay because he doesn't have financial stability, and he always says that that s not it and that he wants to spend the rest of his days with me and that I'm his person. I do think that with his openness towards emotional connection we could really harvest what we have been planting and this could quickly become healthier and even a thriving relationship. Fuck, I was so thrilled in November at the end of my coaching sessions for what the future would bring and that we were finally ready to move on and make personal progress. I'm so tired. He has a whole career to rebuild in front of him, we have no more savings (spent on company lawyers), the past year has been a storm of shit interpersonally, he will need to find and ground himself slowly, we will need to rebuild a messy, unhealthy, difficult relation (which still has a lot of good in it or I wouldnt be here writing this motherfucker for an hour), and on top of it apparently we need to learn to navigate a third person. As I write it, I'm thinking "wtf woman you are fucking mental" just as you probably are thinking about me. But the thing is, this is very complicated. As you can see, we have been through a lot. He has been an incredible support. He can be a fantastic partner when he is level headed and doesn't act from a place of fear and low self esteem. When he is balanced, he is fantastic. I have brought my fair share of difficulty into this relationship. I could have done things differently at different points. And I do think there is a possibility where this works out. But I have little energy left. And the trust he chipped at for the past days is making it very hard.
I welcome all opinions of all kinds. Thank you so much!
