Growthtrac Community

[mari4him]

My H. and I have been married now going on 8 months. Problems started about 2 months into marriage. Both our previous marriages were 16 years in length. He and I met on a Christian dating site and after 2 weeks of 80 plus hours a week of getting to know each other, talking about everything from God to pizza we met in person. 1st date was about 12 hours long and officially started our long distance relationship, seeing each other every weekend for 10 months before we got married. His divorce was finalized (delayed due to custody issues) 5 months prior to our wedding. He has custody of his kids, I have custody of mine. 5 kids in total.

I did not take the decision to get married lightly. In fact, turned down previous proposal from an ex-boyfriend because I knew that I wanted nothing less than God's best for me and that involved a Godly man who put God first in everything. This is what I believed my H. to be. He believed that God brought us together, in fact shared a very vivid vision with me that he had in which such even took place.

We have been having a lot of problems and I find myself trying to remember all those things that caused me to fall in love with my husband in the first place. This backfires more often than not because the more I do that, the more I see how far he is from that man and thus increases my fear of was it just a façade and has that façade, that image faded away. Can it ever be obtained again or did it just never exist and thus it is gone.

It was his love and openness to God, his reading God’s word and seeing how it applied to him directly, to us. His doing and sharing devotions with me, as well as the spiritual discussions and enlightenment we once shared with each other. The mutual desires to follow God, be in service to Him, even talking about being in ministry together. Having God first and center of everything we do and were. Praying for one another, uplifting each other’s needs before our Father. Feeling I could talk to him about anything and everything without fear of condemnation, of judgment, of criticism. His willingness to listen, to carry out long conversations with me regardless of the subject. Feeling he listened, understood, cared about and respected what I thought, what I felt, what I believed; that connection between us. That bond. That we brought out the best in each other.

These are the reasons why I fell in love with him and sadly the things I don’t have anymore. Instead I am feeling a slew of emotions that I don’t like and leave me feeling alone, empty and even hopeless sometimes. A despair of sorts mixed with depression and a general sense of giving up and feeling I can’t do this.

On this site, I viewed the post about recognizing verbal abuse and am so very saddened by seeking how many of the things listed I felt applied to me and my marriage. Not only that but how many even in the critical portion of the post also applied.

Things like feeling he ... ignores my feelings, ridicules or insults and then says it was a joke or just funny, criticizes and then says or acts as if I'm too sensitive, enjoys arguments (self-professed argumentative person) while arguments exhaust me, twists my words around and then at times even uses them against me, seems to stir up trouble at times when everything seems fine, contradicts himself and will at times even claim he didn't say something he did say or it was misunderstood, acts irresponsible and selfish at times but justifies it while accusing and judging others of doing it, questions my judgment, interrupts me when I'm speaking either to cut me off or to argue with me, basically hears me but doesn't listen, stirs up feelings of anger in me at times bringing me to the point of raising my voice and then points out how I'm raising my voice even though he has done it too, tries to constantly convince me of how right he is always and how wrong I am.

As a result and this brings me to the critical aspect of it all I ... find myself sharing my opinions or feelings less and less, constantly feel like I'm walking on eggshells, careful of when, if and how to bring anything up for fear of another argument or criticism fest, am even careful about the discussions my children and I have in his presence for fear of how he will turn it around or find something to criticize, find myself making excuses for his behavior or attitude especially when he is outright rude, feeling emotionally unsafe and left longing for the man I fell in love with to appear again, feeling vulnerable and insecure, increasingly more depressed, trapped and powerless and have gotten to the point where I myself have at times been questioning my own reality, judgement and feelings on stuff going on.

What am I ultimately feeling in this marriage right now... and why...

I feel I’m not valuable to my husband despite how valuable he may “say” I am because actions speak louder than words. When he fails to make the efforts to ensure that my needs are met, even when or especially when, it means a sacrifice on his part for my sake, it causes a feeling inside of me of “I’m not worth the effort” to him.

I feel insecure and vulnerable. Among the promises and vows my husband made to me, even in our marriage vows was to protect me and care for me. When I see him not making efforts or strides in that direction, such as his failure to have his ex-wife sign the quit claim deed on the home, his failure to honestly disclose or to exhibit genuine concern over the status of the home, his failure to include me in his health insurance, it causes a feeling of vulnerability within me, leaving me feeling unprotected. When I have seen him not back me up or support me, whether it be in things I try to implement in our family or in resolving discipline matters in the home, even going as far as to side against me, rather than stand with me, it causes me to feel insecure in our relationship. Leaving a feeling like I can’t count on him, which leaves me feeling vulnerable and alone.

I am feeling a lack of trust and even a sense of betrayal. When I have trusted my husband with some information and have asked him to keep it between us and I see him share it with others, in particular the very people I asked him not to disclose the information to, it causes me to retreat into a shell and not trust him with what I may have going on inside of me because of a fear that he will disclose this information to others. Furthermore, when he is so critical and even condemning of me or choices I make in how to handle situations, it causes that same distrust in me to share something I may be facing or trying to deal with because of a fear that all he is going to do is criticize me or invalidate my feelings.

I am feeling angry and have even gotten to a point where yes even little things bother me or I feel a “whatever” attitude. It is very difficult to live with someone whose moods or anger bursts are unpredictable. Who one moment everything is fine and the next moment you are in an ugly and mean argument. Who randomly will say what he wants, how he wants and when he wants with no thought to another persons feelings and then leave them to deal with the hurt left in the wake of what he said while he goes about as if nothing happened.

I am feeling resentful because I was very clear in what I was wanting and needing in a partner, a husband. Promises were made, vows were made, and I feel like they are not followed through on. This includes promises and vows that were made before marriage, as well as, promises or compromises that have been reached after marriage. I resent the feeling that I have tried my hardest to live up to the promises, vows and follow through on my end of compromises only to find that the same is not reciprocated towards me. Where I find myself carrying about the feelings and needs of someone else, yet my feelings and my needs go ignored.

I am feeling disrespected in the way I am spoken to, the way my feelings, thoughts, opinions, ideas or whatever continuously go without validation. In fact, they are often contradicted, criticized or even condemned as being wrong by someone who consistently has to be right about everything. Where his lack of empathy creates such a situation that he can never see anything from anyone else’s point of view, fails to have genuine compassion for someone else and instead exhibits a self-righteousness that criticizes, judges and even condemns someone for a mistake they may have committed or a past sin they have sought forgiveness over. The lack of empathy is difficult for me and keeps me in a place where I feel conflicted within my spirit because it goes against the core of who and how I am.

I feel hurt by a lot of the things my husband has done and said. Even disappointed because this is not what I thought our marriage was going to be like. In fact, I have found myself asking at times “who are you” in the midst of these problems because the man I see now is not the man I was seeing before we got married. Not only that I have even found myself thinking “get thee behind me satan” at times when all that is coming from my husbands mouth is condemnation, or even the bringing up of a past sin which God has already showed His mercy and grace upon. I have even found myself thinking it was a mistake to get married and that perhaps I should have just stayed single. The fact that only 7 months into my marriage I am feeling all these things is very disappointing and hurtful.

I am also very upset with myself and I hate that. I feel I have compromised and perhaps settled for less than what God’s best for me was. I feel I have let God down, let myself down, and even let my children down because I promised myself and I promised God that I would not be in a situation like this ever again in my life. That I would not get married again until it was a man of God that was sold out to Him and that I knew God wanted me to marry. Promised myself and God I would not expose my children to things that they have been exposed to. Ungodly attitudes and ways and yet in so many ways I have compromised this. And even when I have shared this feeling with my husband, he has devalued the feeling as being silly or trivial. Not validating my feelings or seeking to encourage me, uplift me.

I am feeling confused, alone, and fighting depressive feelings and thoughts. I feel myself taking steps backwards and excusing wrong behavior on someone else’s part by believing their lies that somehow it is all my fault even though the more and more I pray about it, seek to genuinely learn if it is, I find it is not. I find myself seeking just some validation that my feelings are understandable, that I am not crazy here and yet knowing no one and not really having a support group here to call my own I am feeling alone and empty lacking that validation and support because I certainly cannot obtain it from my husband.

He and I are currently in a small group covering "love and respect" about how a woman needs love like she needs air and a man needs respect as he needs air. I understand all that and to be honest with you all, am struggling right now because respect is so difficult right now when it is so tied into his prideful attitude. When I'm not seeing that humbleness. When I'm not seeing him striving to be like Christ, to love me as he is called to do so, yet expecting all this submission and respect from me. In fact, his view on being more like Christ is that, and I quote him "it is unattainable". Well if it is so unattainable for him to be what the bible has called him to be then why is it supposedly more attainable for me to do so. It's that double standard that is getting to me and making it all the more harder to show respect to him in some ways. Respect is not about being a doormat or a "yes dear" person. Respect does go both ways and in a way, is earned and kept. How do you do it if by and through your husbands actions, words and attitudes you have lost respect in some ways, while maybe not all because you still show a level of it because it is just who you are.

[SAM]

So sorry we did not see you post earlier here in the forums. I apologize that it has gone unanswered for so long. Changes were recently made that, unfortunately, do not always alert us to new posts.

You have expressed your concerns very well. And, it is alarming how quickly your relationship has fallen apart. Can you make an appointment to meet with the leaders of your small group?
Or make an appointment with your pastor? Or, consider a Christian counselor?

The things you have brought up are not going to resolved themselves without help. Your resentment will continue to grow until your love runs dry. And, from what you say, your love for this man is teetering on empty.

I'm not sure from your post how long you dated. And, I am not sure if you participated in premarital mentoring or counseling of six weeks or more. If you did not, or it was minimal, then now becomes the time to do the work that was not done before marriage. Have you ever talked to your husband's ex-wife to get her perspective on their divorce? It may be very insightful into why you are experiencing the difficulties you have.

What you have described is not only verbal abuse, but emotional abuse.