It’s Hard To Drag Someone Through Life

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post Husband Won’t Look For Work: Likes Sex, Sandwiches…

Wow, and double wow.

This is such a sad story and one I know all too well. I lived it. When my son was almost two and my daughter 4 my x walked out on me taking all but $.15 out of our joint accounts. Very painful. The attorney I talked to said I was screwed. I couldn’t expect child support as my x was unemployed. In fact since I had been supporting him for a while I would more than likely end up paying him spousal support. Of course I took him back. Financially I couldn’t afford not to.

A few years later he left again. Again I took him back, about a week after that he enlightened me as to how much he loved his first wife more than me and ten years of marriage meant nothing to him. He also brought back my 9 year old child in tears during his short sojourn who rushed to her room in tears to break open her piggy bank because as he told her he couldn’t afford to buy a quart of milk. At that time he was employed and did hold that job for 15 years.

I held my marriage together for 27 years until my children were grown. I told my x that once our children no longer lived at home if he ever walked out again that the door would be shut. At the end of my marriage I felt horribly used and abused. Did we have sex? Yes we had sex, but we did not make love. Love is not an emotion that I think my x is capable of. A man should show he cares by providing for his family. Even when he played Mr. Mom so to speak he did not do all the housely chores. He didn’t cook, or do dishes basically he sat around the house watching TV and complaining that he didn’t have the money to do things.

You learn to tune it out but it doesn’t create an atmosphere of love. I was never over weight at 56 I weigh the same as I did at 20. My husband always found fault in me , I didn’t wipe the ketchup bottle off before I put it in the refrigerator… little things everything. It is just the way they operate to shift the blame on to you.

Anyways you are doing far too much, making way more excuses for him than you should and trying to give a man who doesn’t want direction, direction.

To make a long story short, I lost sexual desire for the man long ago, even though I still had sex with him. Why? because everything in life that was special to me was wrapped up with my marriage. Would I loose the house I built next to my daughter and her husband? Would I be able to find another place to live , where I could keep all my horses and dogs, cats… goats etc? I operated on auto pilot. He had told me that if he left he would leave me the house, because before we got married I owned my own house….

He has worked only off and on in the last four years. He has moved from family member to family member and has used up his welcome. He is now living with our son and his wife and after quitting two jobs he is working for minimum wage at the local thrifty store. This has been horrible on his children, grown adults that they are. If he had gone through this stage while the kids were in middle or high school it would have had drastic effects on the children.

Either resign yourself to a marriage in which you live for your children and their well being, or get out. If he is a man you do not have to drag him through life, he will willingly embrace it and shoulder the responsibilities. If he is less than a man he will put the blame on you, or society and be a miserable life partner. No one knows what could have been, only what is. Life is full of should of would of’s, but in the end you are dealt your own hand and you can play the game only once.

Good luck no matter what path you take we all need a little luck.