QuestionHello, I am frantic about what my next step is, please help if you can! My husband and I have been married for what will be five years in August, and we have a 2 1/2 year old together. Things were great in the beginning, when we were dating for the 2-3 years before we married, and during the first couple of years of our marriage. We loved each other, and our sex life was okay, but was starting to become non-existent because of an issue in my past. I was sexually abused as a girl, and for some reason I feel dirty and disgusting more often than ever before now, and I would prefer to not have sex at all. This is obviously a huge problem because my husband loves sex, and he always wants it but I just do not feel ok, and actually feel wrong when we are intimate. I can't kiss him, and sometimes I attempt to make love to him, and have to stop because I suddenly feel disgusting. Sex was so easy for me when we were simply dating, in fact it was a huge part of our relationship before. I know it hurts him deeply when I can't be physical with him because of my issues. Another problem is the instability of our relationship and finances. My husband cannot obtain a "normal" job because of other reasons, and had to work under-the-table for an income. We were lucky enough to be able to own a business a few years ago, and we were living well until the recession hit and clients ripped us off, leaving us unemployed and broke. We struggled for years, and somehow made it until he was able to finally find a job, that of course pays way below what we were used to, what most "normal" working couples are used to. This seriously affected our relationship, and I was considering leaving him because it had been two years and we were about to lose everything if he couldn't find a job soon. I know that was selfish, and I tried to find work as well but in my area there is very little anything. He had always been the breadwinner, and I felt upset as if he wasn't really trying to find work. Although, atleast we do have an income now, and can afford to pay some bills, we are in alot of debt from the prior years. I became a full time student so that I can aspire to obtain a career and bring home a much better paycheck in the future, and pay off debt. Despite now having an income, we have not been able to go back to our once happy selves, as we had thought. I feel as though I am nagging all the time, and he basically doesn't hear a word I say. I miss his treating me like a beautiful lady, opening doors for me, telling he loves me at all times of the day, the little things like compliments used to be an every day thing...and are now non-existent. He is always mad at me because of the sex issue, but I feel like its not something that I can just change, and when I told him the reasoning behind it he just went silent and it didn't seem to help him understand at all, in fact it just made me more upset because I feel like now that he knows why I am this way, he just doesn't care and only wants his satisfaction. I know I need help for this issue, and that it is major but I need his care and acknowledgment to help me too. There was once such passion between us, and it seems to have dissipated. I love him, and I know he loves me, but I have been arguing with him over the same reasons for years and nothing has changed. I want to feel like he loves me more than anything, and valuable to him. I want him to hear me when I talk to him. He just doesn't, and I don't know if I should continue to hope that he will change or leave. Please help. Thank you
AnswerHi Caroline~
You need to take care of yourself first and foremost. It seems as though everything that you've been through in this marriage over these last few years has taken too much of a toll and you and your husband. So much so now that it's affecting your marriage in a very negative way. It's putting a lot of stress on you as well as he. If you can't take it any longer then you need to distance yourself from all this and do a trial separation if necessary. Sometimes you just have to get away and clear your head for a while and then decide where to go from here on out. This break might do you and he some good as a whole. This way you can think about what you really want, need, desire, deserve and expect in a marriage. And so can he and if he's either unwilling or unable to give you all that takes to make a marriage work, then you need to go your separate ways and move on with your respective lives. Divorce isn't easy and neither is a separation but sometimes it's a necessary evil that you have to do in life. History has a way of repeating itself. And if he's not put forth that effort to ever change, what makes you think that he suddenly will have an epiphany to change his ways. If he's not done it by now, chances are he's not changing in the near future either. That's something you'll have to learn to come to terms with. This marriage bond might be irretrievably broken and not repairable. It happens. But you pick up the pieces of your life and you move on. It's not going to be easy to do, but you can do it if you put your mind to it, and you focus your attention elsewhere, so that you can set and obtain reasonable goals for yourself. You're stronger than you think you are and if you have a mission in life that you want to achieve you have to put a lot of hard work and effort into it. When you reach those goals it's worth every bit of what you've had to endure all along. You have to have faith in yourself and believe you can do it on your own. The choice is yours and it's one that only you can make.
