Questionhello samantha. forgive my writing style. i have an issue that is beginning to become extremely depressing to me and it will begin to have a toll on my marriage relatively soon if it is not rectified. i have been married for about 8 months to my wife that has been in my life for nearly 12 years. my wife and i are currently overseas because of my job, which is a first time being away from friends and family for her. it is relatively routine for me since i have been doing this my whole life. my wife and i are the same age (36) with no kids and are career-driven.
almost like clockwork, every three months she goes on a rampage of doubt, discontent, and petty arguments. now that she is away from her family and friends, it has gotten worse. everything she wants me to do, she does the opposite, but i take notes and continue to keep things moving the best i know how. based on my life's experiences, i have become pretty nonchalant about specific situations that i can not directly change. before, i was not as easygoing. i find myself making friends no matter where i go, since i grew up bouncing around from continent to continent. i have a federal job that requires me to travel all over africa. i had this job for about 6 years. though we live overseas, my job requires about 30%-50% travel per year.
my wife has become incredibly hard to deal with where her flaws are starting to outweigh the good. for example, my wife left for india 2 months ago and is having a hard time with the food and facilities. this was an agreement that she decided to make with her employer in order to keep her job. she is expected to be there for 6 months (on and off), but i can see the frustration is getting to her (big time). i am suppose to pick her up from the airport when she arrives in south africa, but i was just given a heads up about a change in my schedule. i was expecting to be back from traveling but my trip has been pushed back. once i got confirmed on my dates, i sent her an email to let her know that i will not be able to pick her up from the airport when she comes in. that seems to have automatically started a major issue with us.
she is suppose to be on vacation for two weeks before heading back to india to finish up her time there. she arrives on sunday, and i return on tuesday. this is two days after she returns. all of a sudden, i am quoted on my delivery on how i mentioned the change in schedule. i thought the point was to mention it, but she wanted me to elaborate on the entire situation. in her case, she told me that it seemed like i didn't care. where did this come from? i informed her of the change, traveling is a big part of my job, and offered to make arrangements to have a limo service pick her up.
instead of asking me for any additional details about why the change was so sudden, she just automatically assumes that i don't care. things like this seems to increasingly bearing on us, as well as the cut-throat comments and the lack of attention. personally, i try to keep a lot of the things i would like to say to myself because i know they can hurt her feelings, but i am not getting that respect in return. she says that i have changed, but i think she just has not been paying attention. we have not lived together much before getting married, so i am sure that has a lot to do with it. but, she points out how i am hanging with my friends now (which is incredibly rare - even when she is away), when before we would have our conversations and she would hear about some of the things i did with my friends on the weekends when she was stateside and i was overseas. i try to be understanding, but i have a feeling that my wife is looking for a robotic husband that does everything she wants me to do, and i am not sure what happened to the satisfaction we had so many years ago.
my wife works but has extremely flexible hours. the only time she has had a definite schedule is when she went to india. because she works from home, i try to get her out of the house to meet people and go take her out on the weekends to do different things to break the monotony of being at home all day. because of the hours she decides to work at home, the weekends is just about the only time we can get out. so in considering, i don't see much of my friends since we are together a lot. to bring up a point... at a bbq, one of my friends asked me to go out one saturday since i have been stuck in the house for a while and she had no problem with it. on the way home to drop her off and change clothes, she became distraught because she felt like it was unfair that i go out with friends when she does not have any friends. how selfish is that? every time i get a chance, i introduce her to many of the people i know but she is so selective with who she congregates with. at that moment, we got into an argument and i explained how i am not going to be responsible for finding her some friends. i don't like picking friends for anyone and can only introduce her to the people i know.
maybe it is just a moment i need to vent, but i am getting frustrated with this and so many other issues that are becoming an issue with us. more than anything, i try to put her first. we were best friends that became husband and wife and almost everything we had before is gone. in some circumstance, getting married to her was merely a bragging right to her peers. we seem to be missing the essentials that we had once before. at times, i am so happy to be away from home because i am tired and exhausted with unnecessary craziness.
we made a vow to talk about our issues, but these seem to be so one-sided. we even got into an argument one day where she hit a wall in my truck and dropped my motorcycle in the same day, but it was my fault because she was embarrassed. maybe i am too much man, because i just don't understand the logic behind that at all. what do i do? at the moment, i am truly considering a mediator because i am just about ready to send her home. i am just tired of having to explain every little thing and making some many compromises when i am only getting the same rhetoric out of her. any advice is welcome. thanks greatly.
AnswerHi Mr G~
It sounds like you have a few things going on here in your marriage. The stresses at work, home and life in general. You could've also grown apart as the years have gone on too. As we age we mature and our thoughts and opinions on things and the world change as we grow older and see the world in a different light and through experiences we have been through. You've mellowed and she's become more anal retentive about things that bother her and she lets things get to her and then takes them out on you and in turn that tends to ruin a relationship when a person does that. You seem to be committed to the marriage and her not so much, all she's interested in at the moment is to complain about something or to be quick to start an argument with you about something big or small. Right now you're very unhappy and you want to do something about this, and frankly you should before it gets that much worse. It's taking a serious toll on you and you seem to be getting no where fast with her.
You need to sit down with her and have a serious heart to heart talk with her. She needs to know how this is affecting you. And what you're willing and unwilling to put up with in this marriage. If she's not committed to fixing this and is always bothered by every little thing you do and you can't seem to please her, then why continue to be married to her. If she can do so much better on her own and make herself happier w/o you, then why be together? It's unfair to you and to her to be in an unhappy, unhealthy and unfulfilling marriage when you seem to fight all the time and can really resolve nothing in the process. Everyone has a breaking point to where they can't take something any longer, and they finally say no more, I can't do this anymore. You have to ask yourself where/when is my breaking point.
You need to sit down and figure out what you want to do with this marriage. And if you even want to do this any more. Go with your heart and do what's right for you and what makes you happy in the end. Whatever decision you make isn't going to be an easy one. The choice is yours and it's one that only you can make.
