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Fri 1 Jul, 2005 02:45 am
I am a 31 year old woman with 3 daughters by my husband. We have been married for 5 years now and together for 7 years. Since we have been together he has started to let himself go and doesn't care about his appearance nor his hygene. He won't take a shower or bath for 3 to 4 days and won't brush his teeth for weeks at a time or until I complain.
We have had many discussions not only about this, but the fact that he at times tends to take me for granted and think that just because I have his children that I don't need quality time with him or shall I say he considers quality time just being in the same room together. For the last 2 1/2 years to 3 years he didn't really help me around the house cleaning or help me with the girls as far as getting them dressed, changing diapers or pull ups, bathing them, or anything that involved a parents responsibility. He only seems to want to help me when I ask him and I don't feel that its something that I should have to ask him to do. I feel that he should be willing, afterall these are his children too.
Because I have been feeling this way or for whatever reason this has led me into the arms of another man, someone whom I was soooo in love with and was my first love. However this man is married himself and was having problems with his wife. Since all of this has taken place I have moved to another state with my children and become independent and now my husband wants to appreciate me after me complaining to him about our marriage for the last 2 1/2 years too late I have had enough and just can't take the stress.
My husband was unaware of my relationship with my first love and didn't know that we were intimate until I realized that I was pregnant by my first love at which time I still have not told my husband of the affair which we had before I moved away in the first place. I have decided to keep the baby and am now 6 months pregnant. My husband went on a rampage crying about how he couldn't live without me and the girls and I really feel like he just doesn't want another man around his children, which isn't fair to me if his heart isn't really into me. Besides all of this due to all of the bickering with his family and him taking their side when it came to the times when he should have had my back I have lost all faith in him and have since fallen out of love, I don't think I will ever get that back I have been trying to get that back now for over 2 years and I don't know what else to do.
When I told my husband that I still loved him as the father of our children but that I was not in love with him anymore, he asked if I thought I could ever get that back and I replied that I didn't think so. Since he has asked if he could come back and that he would try harder to be the person that not take me for granted and love me and help me to work at this marriage. So, he is living here with me and the girls again and has since quit his job and moved and is now working here. He has no goals, no friends and just wants to be around me and the girls all the time.
He knows that this baby is not his and I feel like he doesn't care about that just as long as he is around our daughters. How do I deal with the situation when the natural father wants to come to see the baby? Do I have the visits here at home in front of my husband and be uncomfortable or do I meet the father somewhere or do I allow the father to just take my daughter and visit with her even thought he hasn't spent much time with her and barely knows him?
My husband has swore to me that he would get better and that things would change and now that he has been here for the last 3 months he has gotten comfortable again and is back is his old ways. Not helping around the house or with the girls and back to his yelling at the girls because they won't listen and its very stressfull. I am trying to continue my education and get a degree in Accounting. He and I are totally opposite and have just grown apart and I don't know what to do. I believe that he would become suicidal if I left him again and I don't want that on my conscience. I have always taken his feelings into consideration and end up neglecting my own feelings. I feel that he is being selfish knowing how I feel and not allowing me space to see if he is for real about trying to be better.
Please I need your advise on what you think I should do........ Thanks
The only questions I have are: Why do keep bring children into such a screwed up, pathetic home life? Don't you know there is such a thing as birth control? I feel sorry for your children, but not for you or your husband, both of you have created your own misery. Maybe someone here will have more sympathy for you than I do.
A bit, but not much.
You gave your hubby a second chance but he failed at it so he has to go for all the reasons you stated.
Hmm, Im on my high horse about affairs especially if the other person is also married.
he cant jump into bed with you just because he is having a hard time with his wife.
What problem are they having?
Your kids will be fine as long as they get to see their dad.
They will love the new baby, but i think if your hubby is still living with you when the baby is born it would be better all round if the father meets up with you and the baby away from home.
if you and him get together permanently then gradually introduce him into your homelife once yuor husband has left.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve.....
You've lied to your husband and to yourself with this farce of a marriage. If you are smart you will realize that you can't control anyone but yourself. So if you stay, you've choosen your own misery. If you leave and he kills himself, it wouldn' t be your fault. He is the only one who can make that decision.
agprice--
Welcome to A2K. I hope we can help.
My guess is that if you could unmake some of your past decisions that you'd do that. Unfortunately life offers no Time Machines to change the past. You can only move forward.
You have quite a tangle of problems. First, your husband. He's proved that he can be a concerned and caring parent who does his share of the housework. He's also proved that he doesn't want to be a parent--he'd rather be an irresponsible kid.
I suggest some long-term marriage counseling here. He is the father of your daughters. He is willing to accept your love child. While you are going to school to earn financial independence, right now you lack both financial independence and personal time.
Granted, he hasn't been an ideal husband. Neither have you been an ideal wife. The past is over and done and you have to start now to build a future. Counseling will help with this.
Make it clear to him that as far as you are concerned the choices are counseling and change or divorce.
As for suicide, this would be his decision.
As for allowing you "space" aside from picking up some of the slack with domestic chores you live in a world where there is not much "space" available. You have three children under the age of seven, perhaps of five with another on the way. You are working towards a degree in accounting and dealing with the major part of the housework.
You're not going to see a great deal of personal space for the next seven years until your unborn child is in school--and even then your personal space will be limited.
Your limited space is a result of choices you have made. You can earn some space for yourself as time passes, but this will take your effort. Your husband can't give you serenity--you have to create it.
Whatever else you do get on a reliable form of birth control.
You say that if you ask him for help, he will help. So, ask. Prince Charming doesn't happen to be available for diaper duty or any other household chore this week. You're stuck with the substitute. Use the substitute.
Are you absolutely sure that the father of your child is your lover and not your husband? Legally, your husband is considered the father of any child that is born in wedlock. Does your lover know that you may have a child together?
You have enough problems to sort out right now. Worry about possible visitation in October after the baby is born.
Good luck, agprice. Lots of good luck.
Green Witch wrote:The only questions I have are: Why do keep bring children into such a screwed up, pathetic home life? Don't you know there is such a thing as birth control? I feel sorry for your children, but not for you or your husband, both of you have created your own misery. Maybe someone here will have more sympathy for you than I do.
You seem to have got it all wrong..... totally.... our children were already here when my husband and I started to have problems so do think for one moment that I don't love my children or that we brought them into a screwed up situation because that was not the case. There was once a time when we were happy and had our children, thats not the issue. The issue is after having my children my husband has taken me for granted, completely. I can say that all of my children were planned because we kept trying for a son and that never happened and never will because I know my limits and what I can and can not do as far as taking care of my kids and after this one I will be getting my tubes tied. Thank you......
You got pregnant by a man who isn't your husband. I think that's bringing a child into a screwed up situation.
Ladies--
The kids are born--or about to be born. They are part of the equasion. What about the rest of the problems?
The descriptions of your husband not bathing and not brushing his teeth for days sound like depression to me (whether he is doing that now or not). Your talk of possible suicide by him also flags a possibility of depression. Whatever else, it might be wise that you both get some professional counselling. He might be helped with counselling and or medication, and you could probably use help dealing with all your concerns.
Osso--
I think you're on the wrong thread. This particular male doesn't have a problem with personal hygiene.
agprice13 wrote:He won't take a shower or bath for 3 to 4 days and won't brush his teeth for weeks at a time or until I complain.
(First paragraph, kind of buried.)
I thought the same thing, about possible depression -- even thought of coming back with "Help, I am not happy & wife seems not to care", but deferred to much more reasonable advice already here. (I seem to have reached the end of my patience with "of course I had an affair, I was unhappy" types.)
Osso, Soz--
Right you are. Thanks for the tactful correction.
Noddy, look at the first post.
Osso--
Sorry, I missed that sentence. You're probably right about depression.
Depression is a strong possibility. Another one is that he perceives his wife as his mother, someone for whom he does not have to be at all attractive. The minimum requirement for attractiveness is cleanliness.
That's a sharp instinct there, JL - could well be true.
But, then, I do not bathe and brush my teeth just because I do not want to be unattractive to others; I also do so for myself. And I think that the absence of this personal pride is one symptom of depression.
Well, that's why I picked depression as a big factor.. but your comment about "mother" made sense too - resentment and fondness for mother often are roiling counter-points.
Interesting discussion. Sometimes I wonder if my wife would make herself more appealing to me if she saw me as her husband, not her father or brother (to whom she used to compare me). Sorry about the tangent, but this discussion caused me to think a bit about my own situation. Thanks.
The title of this thread is "I am unhappy and my husband does not seem to care." It just occured to me that your husband also seems very unhappy, indeed, depressed. Is it relevant for me to ask you if you care?
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