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My recovering AH and I seem to be having more and more problems. He's been sober for a year and we have been through ALOT during that year. We have many financial stressors and we are currently living in an extended stay hotel (it is VERY nice and in a safe neighborhood). He is on the road a lot (truck driver) and it seems that we are both trying to work our hardest, but some how I always get the blame when there is just not enough money between paydays. I guess deep down I know that our financial problems started a few years ago when he started to drink and they are NOW catching up to us. Yet I feel that I'm getting the blame. He has been without food for a couple days (thankfully we get paid today!!!!!) and I feel awful for it. He makes me feel guilty because I've had food and some money from a birthday card I got. He makes me feel guilty for not depositing it in to the account so he can have access to it. He does not say anything straight out, but he'll have asked me what I ate and he'll make a comment like "must be nice." I know i get irritable too because I have been in that position. I just feel like no matter how many hours I work and how much I try to do, it's never enough. I know that I have even reverted back to some of my attempts at control. I see them now and I am trying to back off and turn things over to HP. I just am not sure how he feels about me anymore. We say our "I love you's" and then I say bye baby and he mumbles through it. It really makes me emotional and scared. I have attempted to talk to him about it and he says "i'm just tired." He has cheated on me in the past when we first started dating, and I have found (also in the past) texts to his exwife that are a bit inappropriate. Since he's stopped drinking I have not found any, but my old fears are coming back and I find myself sitting in the hotel room alone and confused. I miss the husband I married. The one that is always joking and able to make me feel better. I miss the man that was always able to come up with a plan when times were hard. Now it seems like he gives me control, or maybe I've taken it because of my controlling ways.... When he comes home he's usually only home for about three days. The first day he likes to sleep and shower, the second he visits his parents, and the third he visits his daughter (from previous marriage). Although, most of the time i do go along with him, I no longer get the 1 on 1 attention. He no longer talks about us taking a romantic vacation or about me coming on the road with him. He has become more concerned about getting in shape and his appearance. It makes me very nervous. We met online through a dating site and he has internet access on his phone. Maybe I'm just thinking too much. *sigh*
Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.- Maya Angelo
It sounds as if you are afraid to pull together or get too close because you are cautious about whether the bad times are truly over and not sure how to move into a better place together. I'm sure you are wise to be cautious, as we do tend to jump in feet-first without looking a lot of the time. On the other hand, if things are never going to get better or closer, then there's reason to wonder if staying is the right thing.
Do I understand right that he didn't have anything to eat for two days while you had some food? That does sound like a situation in which you are not working as a team. That wouldn't happen, I would guess, to a couple who didn't have a difficult past, so that's evidence as to how much stress you must have been through. At the same time, I can see why it would cause additional stress. It sounds as if he doesn't have practice/skills to speak forthrightly -- "Must be nice" is a sort of sideways (passive-aggressive?) way to say "You had some and I didn't and I resent that," if I have it right? Did you have the option of giving him any, or was it that someone treated you to something when he wasn't there? I can imagine a healthier situation where he might say, "I'm so hungry, this s****s, I really envy you that you had lunch today," and you might say, "This is sure tough, I wish I had a way of getting some food in here right now, I'm sure looking forward to payday." Both sort of being straightforward about it. But of course when there's old resentment and hesitation it makes it much more complicated.
Hugs to you. I hope you can find a good way out of this soon. Keep taking good care of yourself.
He is a truck driver, so we spend ALOT of our time not being together. I had gotten some birthday money in a card from my dad and so i've had some cash. Our account went negative 3 dollars (which is actually REALLY good for us) and so he didn't have food for a few days. I do feel beyond guilty for it, but i didn't know until he made that comment yesterday.
I can relate on so many levels with you. My exAH cheated on me a lot, and that's really what ended up being the "unacceptable" behavior I chose to no longer accept. My trust had flown out the window with him and to be honest, I withdrew and became quite punishing to my exAH in a lot of indirect ways. I no longer wished to share things with him, I no longer wished to be giving and helpful. If I had extra money, I sure as hell wasn't going to share that abundance with him.
Part of it, yes, was because I knew that if he had access to that money, he'd blow it on booze (he was actively drinking the whole time I was with him, and I'm sure he's still active to this day). But I know in my heart that there could have been some other times where I could have been generous but chose not to simply because I was hurting and didn't think he deserved any generosity from me. Most of the time I would not do him any favors. It is reasonable, of course, not to do for him what he could do for himself. But even when the situation was one where generosity on my part would not have been in danger of being enabling behavior, I still withheld from him.
In reflection, I don't feel good about some of the choices I made in our marriage. My step work will reveal to me where proper amends can be made. I feel I could have made better choices simply because I had made the conscious choice to stay in the marriage after I had discovered the cheating. In short, I expected him to change, however, and when he didn't, I punished him for it in some ways by wielding the Detachment tool like a weapon.
It is really tough work learning how to tread the road of detachment with love successfully.
All that said, I still know without a shred of doubt in my heart that divorce was the best thing for me. The exAH and I were tied up in this nasty dance that did neither one of us any favors. It was best we got out of each other's hair so we could stop distracting ourselves by continually taking each other's inventory.
