No, but perhaps Isabel feels like she has. The childish posts from a few who have serious issues with women can be tossed aside. Isabel, I think you pose the wrong question. There are many of both sexes who would qualify as jerks in a relationship. And when you are married, with the commitment implied by taking that step, dealing with one, man or woman, is that much more complicated. Ask yourself this... if you were single, living with the person who is your husband, would you still be in the relationship? If the answer is no, and you have tried, time and again, to get him to meet your needs as a person, putting aside the sexual aspect of it, would you still be with him? If the answer is no, then, in my opinion, you know what you must do. Beginning relationships can be easy. Ending them, serious, longterm ones, never is. Don't make the mistake of thinking that "all" men are remotely the same when it comes to how they interact with the opposite sex. We are anything but the same. You call tell that from reading this thread, although I'm sure you already knew that. You are 29, very intelligent, an academic who actually has a job ...in short, a very attractive "catch" for someone, if they knew you were "catchable." Are you so tied to this university that you couldn't make a change? (hoping for tenure, etc.) It sounds like you need a broader stage with which to play out the next few years. When I was 29, my wife and I moved from Houston to Austin, which was a big change for us. That was over twenty years ago. Change of the magnitude that you are thinking about, ending your marriage, won't be any easier next year, five years from now, or eleven years from now, when you are forty. And you don't have children, which would totally change the equation you are mulling over. If you are considering ending the relationship, then you probably won't find a better time to do it. The holidays are over. You could make serious plans for a move to another university, if that is something you're pondering. It's a cliché, but the only person standing in your way is someone named Isabel. Push that Isabel aside. You have a lifetime ahead of you, and it can be very exciting. Give yourself a chance. Oh, I wanted to add something else. Although I went out with my wife a couple of times when we first met, she was in a relationship with someone, and had been for a couple of years. I didn't know if we were going anywhere or not, although I was very attracted to her, and I knew she was attracted to me. Sometimes, that just doesn't matter. What really got our relationship going, and ended her relationship with the other guy, was the week of the '74 Willie Nelson 4th of July music festival. I knew she had gone to it with the "other guy" the day before, a Thursday. A friend of mine and I were getting ready to go ourselves on Friday afternoon, packing my car, when she came out of her back door. (She had moved into the house in front of my garage apartment about a month before) She smiled, and asked what we were doing. I replied that we were fixing to go to Willie's Picnic. She said that she had just got back. I shook my head, and said, "That's too bad. I was thinking of asking you to go, and you weren't around." She grinned and said, "Why don't you ask me now?" The rest, as they say, is history. Just toss my 2 cents in the jar, Isabel, and good luck.
I'm ashamed to admit that I used to have a bit of this in me up until I was about 20. Partially, it was learned behavior from my father, whose mother died when he was 3 and whose father died when he was 12 which obviously leads to a lack of learned skills, but it also partially makes a twisted kind of sense which I will try to explain. First, in an odd way, the fact that he unloads on you is a sign of a kind of love, I think. He unloads his anger on you because he views you as his closest and most trusted person. He feels "close" enough to burden you with himself. As an analogy, imagine he had a big, puss-filled infection that he needed to treat daily but couldn't reach himself. As a polite human being, he wouldn't want to have to burden anyone with the disgusting task, but would as you because of your close relationship. This is one of those classic behaviors where people fall into patterns that don't make sense if you speak them out, but developed through the illogic of behavior on a semi-conscious level, and repeated enough to become a fixed pattern. Regarding the "perfectly fine" issue this is a behavior, equally illogical as the previous behavior, which attempts to spare you from the burden of the frustration he's burdening you with. If he were to say he was feeling crappy, he thinks he'd have to talk about the issues with you which would upset both him and you. In other words, he thinks that if he says anything other than I'm perfectly fine it means he's signaling "special need" which he doesn't want to do. There's a nice Christian analogy here, where you love Jesus but you literally transfer all of your sin to him. That's a pretty crappy thing to do to someone whom you love.... Anyway, the problem is that at this point the behavior is probably so well established that it might take a major stress for him to become introspective enough to seek change. My father divorced my mother and moved to California and somehow managed to become a better person. At 20, the love of my life left me (and rightly so), that still makes me feel like I'd gone through some sort of amputation. He probably is the nice guy who is kind to cats, old people, and children. Unfortunately, he's developed a deep set of patterns in his relationship with you that aren't particularly healthy. People talk about "a change of scenery" as sometimes being all a basketball player needs in order to change his fortunes. By changing the patterns of the player's world, it enables him to rebuild new ones. The same may be true here, but I'd imagine it'd be more than a little painful. I hate to sound like a geek, but you might see if you can get him to some sort of "couples therapy" but he'd have to be scared enough to buy into it. I think it'd be worth trying to do something like that, however, given all that you have invested in the relationship. It may, however, take the destruction of your relationship to make him into the type of person you'd want to have a relationship with. To me, that is horribly sad. Good Luck.
isabel this is what u need to do you have to be straight foward with him and lay things out clearly. let him know how you would like him to act towards you when he feels a certain way. like if you want him to let you know that he is in a bad mood then whenever yall are not arguing and just talking let him know that it hurts your feelings when he snaps at you and let him know that if he is in a bad mood then make sure he tells you in a calm civil manner. further when he does so you should probably leave him alone and go do something else. that is just an example. this is how relationships work. you have to work on your relationship to proceed further in it. i don't know if you have ever told him how you want him to act towards you when he feels a certain way or if you have only wished in your head how he would act. HE HAS TO KNOW EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL. be clear and to the point. it is so damn annoying when a girl expects you to know how to act towards her whenever nothing is said. anyhow...this is how you improve relationships by clearly letting the other person know how you feel whenever both of you are calm and collected. further you sound like you have issues as well. you sound like you need a man/people to approve of you. comments like 'i must have done something wrong' and 'she is counting on interaction and approval from you' and this general discussion make me think so. i could be completely wrong, but you sound like u have some abandonment issues that you have not come to terms with. women don't need approval from men....it's you that is seeking the approval. i dunno i don't really feel like writing more, but you really need to go on some self discovery and think more about why you feel the way you do and why your relationships are the way they are. it's hard and it takes a long time, but it's worth it.
Isabel do you talk about other men to him? Like for instance tell him about something anyone of us guys stated from this or any other bbs? Have you given him any reason to think that he is not the king in your life. If he is having trust issues he should bring them out instead of holding them in. Maybe he doesn't want to bring it up because he thinks it may do more harm than good. Maybe he thinks you will choose clutchcity over him.
along the same lines as what Behad said, the satisfaction of loving and respecting a woman, and having her love you and respect in return, PLUS getting nookie when you want far outweighs treating someone like crap and having no feelings in return just to get laid IMO
Isabel; You need to stop beating yourself up about this. Introspection is good but not to the point of self-flagellation.
I don't really buy that...I think ladder theory does a much better job of explaining the same phenomenom. It's blunt, and it's misogynistic, but I feel it's pretty accurate. The base idea is that you want a partner as high as possible on your relationship ladder. (judged by whatever variables are important to you) If someone higher on the ladder is available, there is a strong possibility of a relationship change. Therefore, the strongest relationships are ones where both of you feel that you are with someone higher on the ladder than you deserve. If you feel like you settled, or if your partner is for whatever reason not as highly ranked as they used to be, you won't be as motivated to stay in the relationship. By playing hard to get at the beginning of a relationship or by faking being something you aren't, you may be able to portray yourself as being higher on somebody's ladder than you really should be - but that won't last. Based on ladder theory, I have a few questions for you: Is Ferdie ranked as high as he used to be? Perhaps you were willing to put up with more when he was ranked higher. Is his ranking stable? If it's trending downwards and looks like it will continue that way, then you probably know what you have to do. What do you think that your ranking is in Ferdie's mind? If he doesn't rank you highly enough, perhaps that's why he's not motivated to change: he doesn't think you're worth it. Anywho, this advice has been worth exactly what you paid for it, so good luck!
Its funny you mention this, as the girl I'm seeing now seems to have no emotions at all...Meaning, she's just like me, a guy who when the argument is over, its over and done with, which is cool...Although, she is a horrible communicator, I still like hanging with her, as I'm a girl in that sense that I need communcation in my life... However, your right, men do tend to over simplify things, which doesn't help...Remember some men can't communicate and if they can't express themselves, they ignore you hoping it'll go away...
I must have missed something. Ferdinand doesn't seem that bad, though Isabel seems unhappy. Isabel, maybe you need a new job or a new something. Are you sure it is Ferdiinand? You do seem very (overly?) romantic. Maybe this was just a Valentine's depression. Seems some folks can build to a near frenzy for Valentine's Day. A cute woman in our building was feeling that way as it was Valentine's Day and she didn't have a relationship. Still complaining today. I guess as a not very romantic, yet loving and communicative , old married guy I can feel for old Ferdy. My wife is not one to always talk about problems. A favorite tactic is to have a big fight and then go peacefully to sleep. Married over 20 years and happy. Wife just took back the candy I bought her and complained that I didn't buy her a dozen roses for $3.99 at Walgreens. I told her they were $19.99 yesterday when I CYA'd by joining the long lines of guys doing the same on the way home.
Great point Glynch! This is the problem with holidays that when it comes down to it there a celebration of conformity. You must be jolly! You must love your family! You must be dopy and romantic! You must spend! If you don't do those things its mandated by the calender and society you must be a loser! I think this is why suicides increase during the holiday season. While I don't get suicidal most of the time I find holidays to be more of an annoyance. Even non-Western holidays. For Chinese New Year last week I had to go to a Reunion dinner and sit around with friends of the family who couldn't speak much English and who wanted to watch CCTV (PRC Sattelite TV Channel) Chinese New Year show witch was all in Mandarin. And this was in Singapore. Total digression here but I have to admit parts of the CCTV show was pretty cool. American variety shows got nothing on the Chinese. Imagine Andy Lau (Hong Kong action star) singing with about a 100 lion dancers, a 100 women dancers in very tight traditional Chinese costumes, 50 kids gyrating in chicken suits and finally two dancing robots.
I can understand the sentiment - the idea that maybe Isabel is overly sentimental. But, there is also a point where, if her husband is as unresponsive as Isabel says he is and if he really does criticize her for feeling those emotions, you have to consider the fact that what she is experiencing is a reaction based as much on neglect as on her own emotional state. Women naturally approach things with a different emotional framework than most men. We all know this. Given her patience and the length of time they have been together, it would appear she has attempted to practice restraint and is just worn out from it. I do think you have to feel like the person you are with accepts you as you are - warts and all - and that is certainly a two-way street. Both Isabel and her husband have to come to those terms equally or things just won't work. That's something I honestly wish I could have learned when I was a LOT younger.
I'm not around the Hangout much, and I may be stating the obvious, but I haven't seen it mentioned in the six pages leading up to this, so I thought I'd throw it out there just in case. I tend to try to be self-reliant and not depend too much on other people. But I've been learning the hard way that I really need stronger relationships with family and friends that I can turn to for support. I have witnessed how supportive this community can be in times of stress. It's wonderful and positive and a good thing. But this community is not enough. If the only people you're reaching out to for support are people here or other acquaintances who don't know you well, then that's a problem. I also don't think it's enough just to have a significant other to rely on, even when things are going smoothly. Do yourself a favor and try to find a counselor or pastor or someone experienced with relationships to talk with. I've been seeing a professional counselor for a little over a year now and it's helped me a lot. It sounds like it's time for you and your husband to take a hard look at your relationship together, and in my humble opinion, you're more likely to come to a satisfying conclusion if you can bring in someone who can help you get on the same page with each other. I read a book not long ago that you might find helpful as well: The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner Pub. by Harper Collins, New York, NY. 1997. I'd be more than happy to talk more about it or even mail you my copy if you're interested. And like many others here, I'd be more than happy to listen if you want a friendly ear. You can e-mail me through the BBS e-mail thingie. Good luck! And go Owls.
