4 month dry spell broken, but it doesn't feel right...

[vashti]

i agree with vashti...if she was refusing to acknowledge her anger issues, after numerous attempts on your part to talk to her about it, you probably should have just left then.

To be fair, perhaps her anger issues have something to do with other such incidents of her husband violating her privacy?

[RdHrshyKss]

talking on this forum is a much better venue because you can get unbiased opinions, especially from people who have been in similar situations. you never know if her family is actually involved in these issues she is dealing with and refusing to talk to you about. i give you tons and tons of props for dealing with this for so long...it shows how dedicated you are. but if she is so deep in her own shit to realize that, you need to start looking out for #1 and say enough is enough.

i'm sorry if you already explained this, but how did you end up leaving her the first time, and how did you end up getting back together? she "change" and then go back to her old ways again? this happened with my bf and i. i ended up breaking up with him because i couldn't handle the shittiness in the relationship anymore...i ended up getting involved with someone else that was just a rebound, but my ex was still around and told me how much he loved me and realized the error of his ways. he changed and started treating me like i wanted to be treated. we got back together again and it was good at first, but things started going downhill again. and it all stemmed from my issues with myself! i wanted so badly to be with someone who cared about me, but spent little time caring about myself and trying to figure out what my problem was. once you get comfortable with someone, it becomes easier to deny and ignore because you think they'll always be there. especially in a marriage.

your wife could really benefit from reading these posts and seeing where you are coming from and what others are saying about it. maybe she'll want to put a few words in that could help everyone else figure out what the overall problem is. if it's the self-esteem issue, she needs to be the one to take charge in fixing that...you can't do it for her.

[Incognito]

To be fair, perhaps her anger issues have something to do with other such incidents of her husband violating her privacy?

No so. I only talked to her family AFTER she would refuse to talk about almost all problems. Also the anger issues are mostly cleared up. I only mentioned my talking to her family to compare me talking to people here and how much she'd be pissed at it going on. I don't discuss our issues with her family anymore, that was years ago.

[RdHrshyKss]

To be fair, perhaps her anger issues have something to do with other such incidents of her husband violating her privacy?

i don't know...i'm seeing A LOT of similarities with his wife and my own problems. yes, him bringing her family into it to try to force her to talk, would definitely create a problem and make it harder for her to trust him enough to talk to him about things...but the underlying issue is this habit of hers to hide behind all these excess issues rather than getting to the ROOT of the problem. she can get angry at him for violating her privacy, she can continue to argue about how often they have sex, she can stay in denial about how crappy the relationship is, but if she had been open with him in the beginning, he wouldn't have felt the need to do these things. although it was a rash move, looking at it from the outside tells me that he cares enough to do anything to help her and the relationship. he's trying, while she is just sitting there, hiding behind all of these excuses. granted, he is giving her these excuses to hide behind, but it isn't his fault that she is choosing to hide behind them. that is completely her doing and the only way to change that is if SHE does something about it.

[Incognito]

Well as much as I like to see someone take my side I am surely not completely free from involvement in this problem here. As I stated before I no longer do many of the things that I used to do, mainly because of the lack of sexual interest on her part. I posted this thread, not to further discuss the relationship problems, but to discuss why I felt defeated after having sex with my wife for the first time in four months. I already know the following:

I have a few main options (divorce, counseling, acceptence)
Only she can change herself IF she truly wants to.
She deflects most of her issues saying "It always comes back to me" when it IS her problem.
I don't do romantic things anymore because of reasons stated here and in other threads.
My inaction feeds her selfjustification.
I don't care enough or have the energy/will to do anything more than what I do now without getting exactly what I want because I did it for so long with no result.
My sex drive is way less than what it used to be and I HATE that.
Counseling costs way too much, especially if it isn't guaranteed to solve our problems.
My morals and my needs as a human have me stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[Junket]

Dude, who gives a shit if she may or may not be pissed if she finds out about this forum?

You're already at the point where given an easy out, you'd divorce her in a second.

But we both know the divorce is a big costly hassle.

Get her ass in here.

[RdHrshyKss]

i hear you loud and clear. it's a neverending cycle. she hasn't reciprocated your efforts for so long which has made you resentful. a normal human would think, "i've put all this energy and have gotten nothing so why should i bother?" my bf said the same thing, and would do less and less, which would make me resent him in return and it became this downward cycle until i finally had an AH-HA moment. the root of the problem was that i didn't know what the hell i wanted. i kept blaming him for all our issues without looking at myself and acknowledging that my OWN personal issues were a part of the problem. she uses excuse after excuse to get you off her back, which it has, but that doesn't help either of you. it makes her feel like you don't care for her as much which gives her even less of a reason/inclination to initiate anything. the fact that you feel "defeated" after having sex is because she had sex for the wrong reasons, she hasn't acknowledged anything you have talked to her about. just having sex isn't enough. she probably looks at it as an easy fix when it's the complete opposite. counseling would be the best thing, but finances are tight and it isn't possible. all you can do is get her to talk to you and sort it all out. if she refuses to do it for the sake of the marriage than the next choice would be to leave. i would think accepting it is the worst possible option because it will only get worse...

[RdHrshyKss]

stop initiating sex with her because it repeats the cycle. if she starts bitching about how you aren't initiating, you say "hey, you told me to not bother you about it, so i'm not bothering you about it. your lack of interest in me has made me not interested in having sex with you anyway. but just know that i'm not happy, and if you continue to ignore what it is that i want, i'm going to become more and more inclined to leave you for good."

if you want this to have a good outcome, you need to be supportive. you need to suck up the resentment and be there for her. tell her you love her. offer to take her out. make an effort even though everything in your brain is telling you that she doesn't deserve it. make her understand that it's not just the sex that you are after, that you want her to know that you love her and that you want her love you in return. this will give her less and less of a reason to make excuses for her behavior because she won't have anything to excuse them with.

if nothing gets better, and she just takes advantage of you and does nothing in return, call it quits. you don't have to get a divorce, you can separate.

if it is impossible for you to do this, then you need to leave. it takes an effort from both of you to make it work. she won't be able to fix this on her own without your cooperation and support, it's very simple. being stubborn will only make matters worse and it sounds like you are both being stubborn as hell pointing fingers at the other...

[SirWagginston]

Dude, who gives a shit if she may or may not be pissed if she finds out about this forum?

You're already at the point where given an easy out, you'd divorce her in a second.

But we both know the divorce is a big costly hassle.

Get her ass in here.

I agree. Let's face the facts: if this problem is not fixed, you will have to divorce her sooner or later. You have no way of getting the problem fixed without pissing her off, but which is worse?