True enough, but even if that’s the case, issues still need to be adressed. If all it takes is one breakfast to undo an entire marriage, then some serious communication is going to have to take place, and sooner rather than later.
But communication must precede talk of divorce at any rate.
I agree with Loach, who agrees with** Diogenes **and Alice.
Except for this part. Self-esteem isn’t something you can give to another person. If the guy had any, he probably wouldn’t be so dependent on the OP.
singular1, you both sound miserably unhappy and not the least bit loving of one another. Whether you go for divorce or not, you’re facing a massive relationship overhaul here, and some difficult lifestyle changes. Unless of course you want to go on living in misery. I would think of this unhappy Christmas as an opportunity to evaluate yourself, the relationship, and the direction you both want it to go in.
OMG! And I agree with. . . all of you. It must be Christmas or something! 
The OP doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. It could have happened any day of the year with the same result. Relationships don’t get to this point over one breakfast.
Maybe you can’t give another person self-esteem, but you can support and nuture the self-esteem they have, or you can do your level best to rip it away.
OP back again. I don’t have a lot of time, but I do want to address a few issues.
I had my head buried in the newspaper while he had his head in the menu. Neither of us was ignoring the other, it just takes him a lot longer to make up his mind than it does me, so I read the paper rather than stare off into space.
Also, the getting ready to go out ritual is a compromise reached long ago. I only take a couple minutes. It takes him forever to get ready to go anywhere. I know that there’s going to be a 20-30 minute interval between the proposal to go out somewhere and the final “OK, I’m ready” moment. I have to amuse myself during the interim. If I ask if he needs help or, Og forbid, utter the dreaded “what are you doing?”, there will be unpleasantness. Being pretty anal about being late, I’ve long ago learned to adjust. We’ve been together for 23 years. I know his habits, and I try to work around them without getting aggravated.
I did not “bring him to heel like a dog”. I hissed “Sit DOWN!” - hissed because it was as loud as I could get without the punks hearing me. I was desperately afraid one or all of them would rise to his challenge and he would get seriously hurt. Every noise that came from that table was starting him twitching and ready to spin on his heel and go back and escalate the situation. I had to stop him for his own sake. Any and all hissing was done well out of anyone else’s earshot.
He has only pulled this macho crap once before, very early on in the relationship, and we had a looooooong talk about how much I hate that macho crap and how deeply humiliating it is to me to witness/be a part of it and how that type of display is very much a deal-breaker. I see it as posturing and beneath him, even when he has an ass healthy enough to cash the check his mouth is writing. He is not unaware of how I feel about that. The fact that his language was as bad as theirs (me being the “fucking lady” present) certainly took a little of the Sir Walter Raleigh aspect out of the equation.
I don’t know where to go from here. I’ve got severe health problems myself, but I have to be the one that works and pays for all the bills. He’s getting counseling, but I honestly don’t see how I can add one more bill to the strained budget and get some myself. So that’s where you guys come in, I guess, and a close friend at work. Even if it’s venting, not counseling, it’s good to have someone to talk to.
This has been coming for a long time, I guess. “This” being the blow-up. I’ve felt trapped for a very long time, and so has he. I tiptoe around constantly, trying not to undermine his self-esteem, but it’s fucking exhausting. I just wish a goddam bus would fall out of the sky on me. Failing that happy accident, I imagine this will all blow over in a few uncomfortable days and the tension will subside and lay in wait for the next trivial blip to blow up in our faces and start all over again.
I’m not saying I’m without fault or blame. I’d be a fool to say that. But he has no one else to turn to, and I can’t just walk away and let him end up in the street. And believe it or not, I do still love the guy. I just hate the situation we’re in, and I don’t know how to fix it.
Based solely on what you’ve written here, I would suggest you do what you can to stretch your budget a bit further and get counselling for both of you.
You sound tired of your husband, of yourself, of your work and your whole life. You say you love your husband (which I don’t doubt you do), but right now all your descriptions of him and yourself and the interactions you have come across as very jaded and weary. You’re tired because you’re working and he’s not. Because the sole responsibility for the upkeep of the marriage seems to be on your shoulders. And it’s great that he’s in counselling right now, but you need some yourself. You need someone objective who can talk through your feelings with you, and work out ways that you can cope with what’s happening, ways that you can both feel like you’re contributing together.
You’re constantly waiting for the “next trivial blip to blow up in our faces”. I’d say he is too. And when you’re constantly waiting for that next trigger to go off, you’re going to find yourself either subconsciously or possibly even consciously going out of your way to make it happen, but under your terms so you have the control of the next argument.
After counselling, you may or may not decide that you still want to go forward with a divorce. If you do, then at least you both know you’ve tried to resolve the issues rather than just throwing it out there in an argument and following through out of sheer spite and rage.
Well, I completely agree with this. I just think that oftentimes when there are problems in relationships, it has a lot to do with one or both people not really being right in and of themselves. If there are serious psychological problems here (and it sounds like there are, if the OP is referring to being smushed by a bus as ‘‘a happy accident’’) then you can’t expect your partner to remedy them. Support and encourage you in your own quest for mental health, yes–but ultimately it is a journey we take alone.
My knee-jerk reaction to all of this is that there are problems that have to be fixed on an individual level before anything is going to happen to positively influence the relationship. Hopefully the OP and her husband can be a support to one another through this process.
The fact, though, that you mentioned these things in the OP might be a clue that they aren’t something that you’re really comfortable with, y’know? It felt to me like those details were in there for a reason, not to get all psychoanalytical on you or anything.
I’m married to someone disabled and yeah, I do get resentful and snippy and he’ll get weird as well. That’s when we need to spend quality together time, something loving that we can both enjoy so that our bonds can get strengthened again. The feeling of being in an unequal partnership simply sucks.
Damn. A lot of you folks are very charitable on this fine Christmas Day. I recognize there’s no easy answers, but if I were in the shoes of either the husband or the wife, I wouldn’t be seeking counseling, I’d most likely be on the next bus out of town. You both sound absolutely miserable with each other, and based on the ever-so-brief description given, it sounds like this relationship has run its course and foundered on the rocks some time ago.
singular1, I’m very sorry for the awful situation you’re in. Although the pitting was about the Denny’s incident, I think your description of how your husband and you relate to each other is about a million times more alarming to me. I sincerely hope that things take a turn for the better in the coming year, and even though I think there may be some awfully tough days ahead, I hope things turn out for the best.
You don’t sound like someone I’d want to be married to. Of course, Mr. doesn’t sound like a very classy guy either. Maybe you two are meant for each other.
Only addressing one part of the issue here:
Maybe you’d feel better about yourself if you took more than 2 minutes to get ready to go out. I’m not suggesting that you put on an evening gown to go to Denny’s at 4 o’clock in the morning, but certainly you could change out of your sweats or put on some lipstick or whatever. Just because you’re an “aging blob” doesn’t mean you have to be “repulsive.”
Unless you sit around reading at 4am in a crisp pair of khakis and a snappy sweater. In that case, my bad.
There’s a lot of advice in this thread, both good and bad.
The quoted bit, however, stands out as something particularly comment-worthy.
Learn the difference between esteem and self-esteem. If you can barely walk around in your own skin without damaging his esteem, then you are the sole owner of his esteem. There is no “self” aspect to it at all. The only esteem he has is that which you give to him. The fact that you can so easily take it away is testament to that.
That’s a gigantic burden on both of you. He has no power, and you have more than you are comfortable with. At the risk of sounding sexist or ageist, this is like a situation in which the children or family pet is in charge of the household.
OK, that sounded really sexist. Sorry. But nobody is happy in a household where Rover is in charge, and that includes Rover.
I’m digging myself in deeper, aren’t I?
Try to envision this: Imagine your life with hubby in which you get to do and act as you please, with absolutely no risk of hurting his feelings. Unless you are a complete controlling or rude bitch, of course, you get to be just who you are with no repercussions. How much better would your life be?
Just as importantly: How much better would his life be?
As a side note, a big Fuck You to Denny’s for forcing a customer to deal with other customers. It sounds like once the confrontation was underway, they did nothing to alleviate the situation, either. I know it’s not really germane to Singular1’s underlying issues, but Denny’s lack of proactivity* didn’t help at all. My apologies for this off-topic point.
I know this thread is about your marriage, but happy people don’t argue about stupid petty things nearly so much. Sounds like you and your husband are both depressed and this will be the main thing causing the arguments.
First of all, I’d sit down with a piece of paper and list all the things I could think of that were making me unhappy in life. You know, maybe things like…
I always seem to argue with the hubby on petty issues, and it’s tiring.
I don’t feel as attractive as I used to.
Life is too routine and miserable.
I’m not saying they would be your things, but once you have your list you can start to come up with steps to make life better. Let’s say you’re not happy with your appearance, you don’t meet many new people, and you don’t get out enough. Go join a weight loss club. Resolve to do something about it. It sounds like money is tight, but even little steps make a big difference when you feel you’re on the right track.
I know you are a wronged party in this, but next you need to do the big thing and sit down and talk with your husband. Tell him you love him. Tell him you two should start working on making your lives better together. If you can both earnestly get on the same wavelength you can work together at making both of your lives better. Take up some new activities together. You could take walks together, join a class together, whatever. Once bridges have been built and you are both back on the same side, you’ll be able to talk through things like the Denny’s incident without accusations or getting defensive. Explain what upset you both, and apologise to each other. You’re a team, remember.
Finally, when you approach your husband, do be aware that depressed people are sometimes quite difficult to coax into taking a stand and doing new things, so tact and effort will be needed. It could be very worthwhile though, and you will know you’ve done your best whatever transpires. Just don’t give up on him the moment he shows doubt and exclude him from your new things, because that will only feed his feeling that he’s unimportant. Also be very careful about criticising your husband while he is down. This really hurts people when their self-esteem is low, and a small compliment can go a very long way. This works both ways, of course. Build, don’t knock, and this will give both of you the chance to build up your own self-esteem inside.
Anyway, deep down you know what is making you unhappy, you know how best to approach your husband, you know whether you two want to make things work or not. Do something about it.
OP;
Even before counseling…there are good books and videos you can get that will help you guys through these tough times. Get to a library or used book store and check out some material. Then you both read/watch together and come up with some solutions before you drag yourself off to a counselor.
You may also be able to take advantage of some local support groups (church or community outreach stuff) for troubled relationships.
You can’t just give up without expending any energy to change. People are just too damn lazy these days and don’t want to put any extra energy into figuring out what the problems really are in their relationships. If things aren’t working the norm is to just give up and call it quits. The real problems in your relationship are caused by other problems that you don’t even realize. You’ll have to peel away the layers and get to the root cause(s) and then start from there. It’s some form of communication issue (obviously), but the reason for the communication gap can be complicated and that’s where the books, videos and counseling will help.
Get your face out of the paper and start reading something that will be productive to your marriage!
I can guaranty you two things; Your husband doesn’t feel respected by you and you don’t get loved by him the way you want to be loved. Find out why for both.
There’s a lot of good advice in this thread, and I am grateful to everyone who offered it.
Things are thawing, apologies are being offered and accepted all around. Baby steps, baby steps.
But nothing can erase the things that were said. That’s the hard part. I don’t know how to let them go. I’m trying - we’re looking forward to taking the dog to Basic Obedience classes next week (and I promise to refrain from suggesting he pay close attention to them. ),but I just don’t know where we go from here. If we go from here.
Oh, and Green Bean? I was dressed - I had gotten up at 2:30 (I live weird hours). And I never wore lipstick - even when I was a hottie. Putting it on now? Only invites the phrase “on a pig”.
Good. Baby steps are good, and apologies in both directions strengthen both of you.
It’s often hard to tell when you’ve made the leap from “I’m comfortable enough with my partner to rib him about silly things that he does” to “I’m openly contemptuous towards my partner”. It’s not impossible to reverse the process, though. I know I’ve had to do so myself, and our relationship is stronger for it.
You might think about asking him about behaviors that annoy you when he’s not actually doing them. If you ask him while he’s doing them, he’ll naturally interpret that as “What the HELL are you doing”, but if you bring it up later you might be able to talk about it. Sometimes frustrating behaviors make perfect sense once you know why they’re happening.
Let me give you a case in point: my boyfriend of many years takes forever to sit down and start eating. Food goes on the table and he spends 15 minutes going to the bathroom, washing his hands, pouring himself a drink, adjusting the lighting, whatever. I’m three-quarters of the way through my meal and the food is cold by the time he picks up a fork. Like many New Yorkers, we don’t cook for ourselves much, and this issue didn’t really bother me at restaurants or when we get take-out, since he’s welcome to eat the food any way he wants as long as he pays his share. However, when I went to the effort of cooking a nice meal myself and he would let it sit there and get cold it would drive me fucking ballisitic. I would nag him to hurry up, I would pout, I would gripe, but nothing really made a difference.
So one day out of the blue, I asked him to tell me why he took so long to get ready for a meal. He was confused, and said he always sat down promptly when the food was ready. I was confused, and said he never sat down before I had finished most of my meal. After a little bit of back-and-forth, we discovered a remarkable fact: he is more heat-sensitive than I am. What for me is “piping hot, ready to eat” is for him “scalding, still too hot to taste”.
He hadn’t been futzing around letting the food get cold - he had been occupying his time while the food cooled to his comfortable eating temperature. He had thought I was crazy for scarfing down food which he regarded as being still hot enough to burn.*
Now the problem has completely evaporated. I understand that he’s eating food, including my lovely home-cooked meals, when it’s at its optimal tastiness for him, and he understands that I’m not eating like a pig. There are other things he does that annoy me, of course, but by and large there are reasons behind them. I may not agree with those reasons, but I realize that he’s not just out to irritate the hell out of me. Maybe you can reach some of these kinds of understanding with your husband.
mischievous
*Humans are amazingly variable. We also have a friend who, when making tea, pours boiling water over tea leaves, adds two scoops of sugar, stirs twice, and then immediately drinks the whole mug in one-two gulps. I’m not sure why he doesn’t get serious burns, but he says that waiting makes the tea unpleasantly cold.
My husband and I will be celebrating our 22nd Anniversary this week. Once or twice a year we will have one of those arguments that leads to “the D Word.” At the time, we think we mean it. Just the thought of independence and freedom and space seems so tempting. But it all blows over in a day or so. And the thought of living my days and nights without him near gives me the shudders. One minister’s wife put it another way: “Divorce? No. Murder? Yes.”
These awful moments can happen in even the best of marriages, so don’t be surprised, young 'uns, if they happen in yours. (And don’t run off.)
I can even remember my father in his eighties threatening my mother with divorce. They had been married over fifty years and were just having a spat. But he was angry and at the time he meant it.
Singular1, each of you needs to be aware of the messages you two are sending each other. Sometimes those messages aren’t said with words. What I’m going to say may sound insulting to you, but from what I’ve read previously, you sound like a bright, enthusiastic and interesting person. I have nothing personal against you. But if I were your husband and read this post, I would be really pissed just based on the information there.
It’s Christmas Eve morning. You are going out to breakfast with your husband at Denny’s and you get the newspaper to have to read just while he’s reading the menu? In your OP, you said that you gave your order and buried your head in your newspaper and kept it there expecting him to say something eventually. That’s different. I wouldn’t feel very encouraged to talk to a spouse whose head is stuck behind a newspaper.
Was Denny’s terribly crowded at 4:00 am? Why did you choose to sit in the booth next to someone? Don’t tell me you were seated there by someone on duty! When your husband asked you if you would like to move, I think he was hinting that he would actually like to move. A lot of guys don’t like to be around multiple loud, agressive men and I can’t say that I blame them. It would even have been thoughtful of you to suggest that you move to another table.
Yes, I know what it feels like to be less than proud of the way I look. I used to weigh twice as much as I do now. But I never lost my pride even as the pounds piled on. I had an eating disorder. (Still do.) Others might have referred to me as a cow or a pig, but I’ll be damned if I would be sucked into that kind of thinking. I am a woman who does what it takes to feel good about myself. That may vary from woman to woman. You need to find out what it is. You are a talented writer, to begin with. You have an intellect. And this man married you. How did you get so lost?
Why did you tell your husband twice that he made an ass of himself? In fact, why did you tell him the first time? Do you think he didn’t know that? Do you think he wasn’t already feeling rough from the encounter? Were his nerves not already shot? Was the adrenaline not pumping fast enough to suit you? Sounds to me like you were spoiling for a fight.
What is it that you think he should apologize for? What wrong did he do to you? He didn’t embarress you. You were embarrassed when he talked to the guys. But you are responsible for your own feelings. He doesn’t control your feelings at all. Some other woman might have been proud. Still another might have tried to calm him down without feeling any hostility at all. Why should he apologize for what you felt? Maybe you should apologize to him because he got angry after you didn’t move. (See, it really doesn’t make sense.)
You seem angry that he is disabled. Others here seem to almost encourage that anger. I don’t understand that. Singular1, it’s one thing if he’s not truly disabled and is bilking the government. But is this man truly injured? If so, could it be that he is feeling a little angery sometimes that he isn’t participating in the outside world more? Does he maybe feel guilty even though he really is disabled?
My shrink told me that those are natural feelings to have when you are disabled – even when you are grateful that the government has granted you the Social Security disability. If we feel some compassion for him in his situation, does that mean that we can’t feel compassion for you for being a caregiver and a helpmate to him?
I’m not saying that you should stay with him just because he has a disability. But I really just don’t understand these shallow people who think that you run for the hills as soon as the person that you are married to becomes sick or dependent or unable to speak clearly.
If you can’t afford counseling, I suggest that the two of you find a book on how to fight fairly. And maybe someone else can suggest a book on improving communication within your marriage. Clue: Talk to each other at the table. No books or newspapers unless you are sharing what you read and both are reading.
And please, just because it’s different: Try a very light lipstick. A gloss won’t kill you. Start practicing some positive self talk and cut out the negative stuff. That’s awful for you to have to bear, but it must be murder for your partner to drag around too. (His wife thinks she’s a pig and just an aging blob.)
I hope you learn to find the value in yourself. It’s going to be up to you to restore and rebuild. That will be your best chance for real happiness in marriage and in life in general. My heart goes out to you.
Excellent post, Zoe.
Great insight. I’ll add (and echo from others above) that perhaps he feels impotent in society, and quite likely in his own marriage. I can’t help but imagine a scenario in which he wanted to feel like the protector of his wife, the result of which was his wife cutting him off not only at his knees, but a bit higher as well.
Not that I’m calling the OP a castrating bitch, mind you – just that I don’t consider it beyond imagining that one man’s attempt at gallantry might be one woman’s ridiculous machismo. Og knows that I’ve been in many situations where I’ve tried to do right by people, only to be castigated for the effort. Trust me when I say it feels… Bad.
Emphasis mine.
I sometimes think of relationships as being like two healthy plants in a lovely garden. If they both have plenty of access to soil, water, and sunshine, they’ll flourish in a mutually beneficial relationship. But all too often, they compete over what they see as scarce resources, and end up choking each other. That’s what this sounds like to me.
I hope that makes sense. Up early. No coffee.
Zoe -
I…I’m…wow…I’m speechless.
That was an incredibly well-written, beautifully thought-out post. I am touched that you could put so much heartfelt feeling into advice to a stranger.
And it was remarkably accurate, too. I can see it from his side now, and I feel awful for him. I know his disability is driving him batshit. I only wish he felt bad about bilking the government - we only recently found out about how disability works, and we’re going to try and get him signed up. (I was under the impression it was like Social Security and benefits were determined on your past earnings - which for him are woefully low.)
tdn - your post is insightful and helpful as well. I guess I never considered it from that point of view - I was too shocked and horrified by what was going on. Regardless of how ridiculous his actions were - and I know that’s what the boys were thinking, as they were obviously not the least bit threatened - there was some inkling of misguided gallantry at their roots.
Speaking of roots, I love your analogy of the garden, which is overwhelmingly appropriate. I’m painfully aware of his isolation caused by his disability, and I’m trying to get him to go outside and meet other people. I’m hoping that will be a by-product of the dog training class.
So again, we’re taking baby steps. The sting is numbing, frayed nerves are being soothed, split ends are being trimmed. We may heal. We will talk.
But I’m still not gonna wear lip gloss…