Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
Hi All - sorry its a long one...
I have written before about my controlling New Husband.
I am trying to work out the problem here....is it him, or is it me?!
I know I cant change him so I am hoping for some guidance on changing me.
He makes me feel confused about things, I should be so in love having just got married but instead I feel confused and unsure about him, and I have a cold feeling that he doesnt treat me right....whenever we have an issue he always turns it around to somehow being my fault.( yes really, Im happy to take the blame if it is my fault) and it is always me who does the making up, I hate falling out and confrontation so will do anything to make it better....which I know probably isnt the best way forward! I havent always been this way, not sure how it happened to make me feel like this.
Can I give you the most recent example? It is quite intimate! I hope you dont mind. We were having a sexy Sunday morning and were both right in the middle of things, connected intimately, when he suddenly broke away and left me sweaty and panting on the bed! He went straight into the shower without a word. He had realised it was getting late and we had to be at a dance class.
I felt horrible, sordid and discarded. It actually physically hurt me for a start and felt very cold and uncaring to tear himself out of me like that. I cannot understand why he thinks that is ok and didnt give my feelings a thought.
So we got through the day and later on in bed I mentioned that it would be nice if he had said he was sorry about the way things ended this morning...he went mad...very cross and said it was my fault as I was obviously trying to manipulate us not going to the dance class I had booked for us both!!! EH!!! I had no idea what the time was and was just making love to my Husband....but there again it is always my fault somehow! I said I was upset as he didnt seem to care if he hurt me, I asked if he had thought about how it might hurt me...and he said no I just realised the time and got up to shower.
Im baffled about his attitude.
Where is the tenderness and caring?!
I have never been treated like this at all and have no way of knowing how to react or sort this out in my head.
I am trying to be stronger in my relationship with him and do things to make me happy. I had written before as he wont let me work or buy exercise equipment. We did have a conversation about working, he said as he has free time during the day if I worked he would need to get a 'friend' who was available for him to spend his free time with. aaargh!
Im at a loss. I love this man. I want my marriage to work. and I am struggling to know what to do and how to make this feel right. I feel constantly insecure about his feelings for me due to his actions ( as above) and am constantly trying to get some sort of positive feedback from him, like on my art. It would be nice if he said I had done something well. If I achieve something good I get cold blank stare from him...as if he doesnt know how to react....like when I got some paintings accepted by a gallery, he said he was disappointed in me for not getting a higher price. I feel like a constant disappointment and its making me sad.
So here I am 45 and still not getting it right ... Whats a girl to do?!
x
I have written before about my controlling New Husband.
I am trying to work out the problem here....is it him, or is it me?!
I know I cant change him so I am hoping for some guidance on changing me.
He makes me feel confused about things, I should be so in love having just got married but instead I feel confused and unsure about him, and I have a cold feeling that he doesnt treat me right....whenever we have an issue he always turns it around to somehow being my fault.( yes really, Im happy to take the blame if it is my fault) and it is always me who does the making up, I hate falling out and confrontation so will do anything to make it better....which I know probably isnt the best way forward! I havent always been this way, not sure how it happened to make me feel like this.
Can I give you the most recent example? It is quite intimate! I hope you dont mind. We were having a sexy Sunday morning and were both right in the middle of things, connected intimately, when he suddenly broke away and left me sweaty and panting on the bed! He went straight into the shower without a word. He had realised it was getting late and we had to be at a dance class.
I felt horrible, sordid and discarded. It actually physically hurt me for a start and felt very cold and uncaring to tear himself out of me like that. I cannot understand why he thinks that is ok and didnt give my feelings a thought.
So we got through the day and later on in bed I mentioned that it would be nice if he had said he was sorry about the way things ended this morning...he went mad...very cross and said it was my fault as I was obviously trying to manipulate us not going to the dance class I had booked for us both!!! EH!!! I had no idea what the time was and was just making love to my Husband....but there again it is always my fault somehow! I said I was upset as he didnt seem to care if he hurt me, I asked if he had thought about how it might hurt me...and he said no I just realised the time and got up to shower.
Im baffled about his attitude.
Where is the tenderness and caring?!
I have never been treated like this at all and have no way of knowing how to react or sort this out in my head.
I am trying to be stronger in my relationship with him and do things to make me happy. I had written before as he wont let me work or buy exercise equipment. We did have a conversation about working, he said as he has free time during the day if I worked he would need to get a 'friend' who was available for him to spend his free time with. aaargh!
Im at a loss. I love this man. I want my marriage to work. and I am struggling to know what to do and how to make this feel right. I feel constantly insecure about his feelings for me due to his actions ( as above) and am constantly trying to get some sort of positive feedback from him, like on my art. It would be nice if he said I had done something well. If I achieve something good I get cold blank stare from him...as if he doesnt know how to react....like when I got some paintings accepted by a gallery, he said he was disappointed in me for not getting a higher price. I feel like a constant disappointment and its making me sad.
So here I am 45 and still not getting it right ... Whats a girl to do?!
x
He says I am looking for problems which arent there....
I have worries as he was unfaithful to his last three wives, for various reasons. The main one being he says that he wasnt in love with them, and he is me. But I worry he will do the same to me if I dont comply and be available for him.
He tries to be a good man but is often forceful and not concerned with peoples feelings and ideas about how and what to do.
He is his own boss and ex-policeman so very used to being the one who controls things.
Hmmm
I am very sorry for you. The situation you described seems to me like he did it on purpose - to show you he is in control and to humiliate you. I don't believe it was just "because he realized you'd get late for dance class" - seems like a classic bully behavior.
You know what the bad thing is? That, as you admit, you take the blame on you, always are the one who apologizes first, and always look for his positive feedback. OMG I recognize so much of my own behavior in this but somehow it seems more obvious that it's not right when I look at it from the outside...anyway, you start believing that by changing yourself and your behavior, you will change him. And of course it never works this way.
I would say - run away. But then I know how it feels to even think about it. It's scary and dreadful. I wish you a lot of strength and I am sending you hugs.
I should take this advice myself.
I feel a right mess inside today!!!
Great to have a reply, thank you
Hug to you too...
Together we can do anything.
xxxx
I'm sorry things are so strained in this new marriage. I often struggle with the "is it me, or is it him" question. A recent example: he asked me to do him a favor- to make a bunch of cupcakes for a friend of his from college who was just diagnosed with cancer. The plan was that I would make them while he was away on a trip and we would decorate them the next morning before going to meet his friend for brunch. I love to cook and bake, so I was glad to help. I made the cupcakes, the frosting, and some home made decorations. The next morning he asked me to go to the store because he wanted canned frosting and sprinkles for the cupcakes. I reminded him that I had made frosting and decorations and he got exasperated that I was being passive aggressive. According to him, instead of coming right out and saying I wanted to use the things I made, I was asking a question to manipulate him. I know I can sometimes be controlling so I went to the store and tried to give up my "pride of ownership" in the project because, after all, it was for his friend. I left the groceries on the table and went into the kitchen to clean up. When I came out he has in the middle of decorating and i felt really dejected because the resulting cupcakes looked awful. I had spent a lot of time trying to make something nice. I said something like "really?" and he went off on me. He had asked me to do him a favor and I didn't do it to his specifications. It was his project and I was being passive aggressive and trying to control everything. My response was just to leave.
I don't know who was right or wrong in the above situation. Maybe I was trying to control the outcome too much. Maybe i was being passive aggressive. What confuses me is that i know i should be able to speak my mind and let him know when his words or actions bother me. When I feel unappreciated or taken for granted. I'm never sure if saying "i really wanted this done my way because i already put a lot of time, effort, and thought into it" is being bitchy and controlling. I was glad I left. It reminded me of why I am not with this person romantically anymore. It just doesn't feel good to be with him.
sorry if this post was a lot about me. Your story reminded me of the whole situation- the desire to express your feelings but the fear that they will be turned around on you. I have no answers. I know I have issues- maybe this guy is just the first who won't put up with them and calls me on them on a regular basis. maybe that is good? It doesn't feel good.
You married this guy for a reason. Were there red flags before the wedding? Why are these things now showing up
....and I wanted the fairytale...!!!
but not the Grimms version!
xxx
sorry about your cupcake thing, yes my husband would do that too - like my way is never good enough, his way or no way is his motto....he laughs at this but refuses to believe he is that person if I say, you know thats true dont you , even though we laugh...he says no way! siiigghhh!
You would think that if the outcome was the same why does it matter how you got there, but unless we use his process of traveling to the outcome it doesnt count at all. his way, or no way see.
x
codependent no more, language of letting go, beyond codependnecy and anything else by melodie beattie study it practice it. i need to. i'm being lazy about it b/c i'm not in a relationship but this stuff shows up in all of our relationships.
don't expect him to be caring like yourself. he's not.
Cheating thing - yeh well he has form. One of the reasons I married him was so if he did I would at least have some sort of legal help with the finance but I dont expect much.
We work together each and every day so he never really gets the opportunity.
We had a huge row not so long ago about his mobile. He accused me of tampering with it, trying to check who he called. I have no idea how to work his phone and to me doing that would be a severe violation of trust so I would never ever mess with someones phone as I wouldnt expect him to mess with mine.
He said he sees it differently - that me messing with his phone just shows how much I care about him.
Now this is just weird....why would anyone think that it was ever ok to tamper with someones hone to check up on them. It really isnt. SO I went mad that he had accused me of this! He then went very cross/stropped off down the pub because I had got so upset about the accusation. SO he turned it around on me that way.
As for the sex thing. I know I have strange feelings about sex having been raped and abused as a child, I kind of see it as his right to use me for sex somehow. I know this isnt healthy but thats how it is. So thats why I needed clarity about him jumping off me like that. I am hazy about what is ok and what isn't. But it felt horrid and I followed him into the shower room to tell him so. I told him it made me feel humiliated and degraded and that it hurt me. He just looked at me with that blank stare. I thought ' why arent you upset that you have just hurt me like this?'
When we were first married he started just taking me sexually in the night, just forcing himself inside me. It hurt so much and I told him I was scared to come to bed without some sort of lubricant on me in case he did this, even though I told him I didnt like it and it hurt he carried on. I got really cross with him one night and pushed him off, he got so cross he turned his back to me and wouldnt speak to me for the next day. Thats torture!
And yes, cold treatment is a torture. Why do we let it influence us so much?
and yes the sex was worrying, I feel I have to be available to him or he will have an affair as this was the reasons he had affairs with his past three wives. Although he says they stopped sleeping with him, I know the second wife didn't!
So I feel I have to. Its weird.
And to be honest it doesnt last long so I think just get it over with...not even sure if he is awake....!
I know it isnt good.
And for a 56 year old man who gave me the impression he had known a fair few women over the years he sure didnt know how to give and take in bed...no surprise there. take he was good at. He said I was the only women who ever liked to be 'ground into on her clitoral area' during sex to make orgasm...?! Well I talk with my GFs and we all feel the same about that!!! He made me feel weird.
In fact our first night 'together' he bathed me. Felt like it was to make sure I was clean. But weird actually but I went with it. He said it was a good way to get to know someones body, to me it felt like standard first time sex procedure...ya know , like he always did that.
Basically I would sum him up as 'well, hes just not nice to me'. to put it mildly.
SO with the date-rape and whipping himself out of me he is no way near a kind and tender lover he could/should be.
And as for his surprise with women needing clitoral area stimulation - he only takes, he doesn't give. That's a basic way for the most women to get off. How could he not notice it with so many affairs? Obviously he just doesn't care.
And what you describe about not being able to function while he is giving you cold shoulder - oh yes, exactly the same for me! I know where it comes from in my case: this was my father all my childhood: one day a great, caring, fascinating companion, smart guy and fun to be with, next day he came home from work not talking to anyone and telling me to shut up when I tried to inquire what happened. Good day, and then silence for a few days, then good day again, then punishing everyone with silence again for no reason...that is why now I react with total panic whenever I get no news from my BF and I become paranoid and a total mess. I know that also for him it must be awful, like he knows he must be always very available otherwise I go crazy.
I don't know how to learn to deal with cold treatment though, I wish I had an advise for you, but I am totally helpless about it myself and it's the easiest way to make me apologise for everything, even for what this other person did, and not me.
xx