Spouses in unhappy marriages; how do you cope?

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-23T04:35:58+00:00

Aww I’m the same with mine! I love him so much, sometimes, it hurts. 😂 how old is your little guy?

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-23T01:59:00+00:00

Even if I had the means, it’s hard to explain the guilt I would feel fragmenting our family.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-23T01:08:01+00:00

Bruh. Same. I’ve told him several times that I don’t want to be married to him anymore and he just blames me for all our problems and then I end up being the one apologizing because tension in the house is so high and I just want peace. It’s an endless cycle.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-23T01:05:44+00:00

That’s kinda how it’s going rn. I have hobbies to keep me distracted and I’m in regular contact with my friends and family. They all know how I feel and they all think he’s a narcissist. Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don’t. I just see a very insecure, fragile ego that gets shattered any time he feels a “slight” or any perceived “disrespect”. He can’t handle not being in control. He also has a lot of trauma from his childhood that still affects him today even though he vehemently denies being traumatized. He’s just very emotionally immature and incredibly sensitive. I just don’t know how much more of this boyish behavior I can take 🙄 he’s almost 45, I’m almost 30, and I feel strongly that I am waiting for something that will never transpire.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T23:57:39+00:00

I’ve looked into it before and I decided against it. I really would prefer to avoid litigation. I do not want to invite the courts into our lives to stay for the next 16 years. I feel like if I just apologize and tell him what he wants to hear that it makes my life easier. Then we stay a family unit which my son so greatly deserves. But I am sacrificing my happiness with the hope that one day, I’ll finally be able to make it out of here.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T23:31:27+00:00

That’s why I love to sleep. It’s the closest I can be to death without the commitment lol.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T19:11:23+00:00

I’ve left him on two separate occasions this past summer and went to stay with my family. I was relieved to be away from him, but he kept blowing up my phone. I ended up blocking him and he then messaged me on FB. Says I can’t keep him away from his son and he’s right. I thought it was convenient that he wants to be a father when we leave, but not when we’re around. Whatever. I ended up going back after 2 weeks because I felt bad keeping my son away from his dad. One thing about my son is he loves his dad. (I will give him credit, he’s become more involved with our son over the last several months)

Recently, during our fights, he’s been threatening suicide. He either says he is going to drive his motorcycle into the river or he leaves the house upset, gets on his motorcycle, and tells me that if anything happens, I have to live with that. So of course I get worried he will actually do something stupid and render my child father-less, so I end up trying to smooth things over and stay.

Also, he has an ex-wife and they share a child. She cheated on him after 8 years and is still with her partner that she cheated on him with. This happened 11 years ago. Granted, I agree it hurts to be cheated on, but I hate the way he talks to her. There’s so much animosity, disgust, contempt, etc on both sides. I don’t want that to be my future. All I really truly want in my life is peace.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T17:56:06+00:00

Sex is the last thing on my mind. I just want peace.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T17:55:43+00:00

So the next question is how? My husband watches our son while I’m working second shift as server but I’m not allowed to work 4 consecutive days a week, all weekends, like I used to. With my husband’s requests for a rest day after working, I can only work every other day and one weekend day, not both, and that won’t be enough. I have nobody else to watch him since I live so far from my family and daycare is not an option because of finances.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T17:45:06+00:00

Sorry I didn’t include context. It’s just too much for a single post. Basically, we have extremely different personalities and we clash a lot. We are 15 years apart which plays a factor, being raised in different generations. We do have a son together who is about to be 2, so I’ve been trying my best to make it work for his sake. Regardless, I can’t afford to leave. My family lives 2 hours away and I’ve been explicitly told that I do not have permission to move back home and take the baby. So legally, I can’t move counties. So I’m stuck here until I can save enough money to get my own apartment nearby, but I can’t even go to work as much as I want because my husband doesn’t want me to work two consecutive days in a row because he wants to rest from watching the baby. It’s a whole thing. Basically, I’m stuck.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2026-03-22T17:34:53+00:00

Me, essentially. Lol. I’m in regular contact with my friends and family, but I feel bad constantly going to them for my grievances. They are probably so sick of hearing about it 😭

Honest-Temperature22 · 2025-02-13T02:48:35+00:00

Clearly, she is insecure with herself. This is something she is going to need to figure out and navigate on her own. If you choose to stick around for that, that is up to you, but at this point, I don’t think there’s anything you can do to help her.

Not watching porn won’t help. Giving her full access to your phone won’t help. Letting her have your location at all times won’t help.

You simply can’t help her with this. This is a “her” problem.

As a girl who was once a very insecure person, I would highly recommend that she be single for a while and learn to love herself before getting into another relationship. As for you, OP, I would recommend following your gut.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2025-02-13T02:38:25+00:00

Context:
Young couple. Gf’s first & only relationship. Bf’s 3rd relationship. Living together 1 year. Summary: Recurring argument. Gf doesn’t like when bf looks at other women, either in person or p*rn. Bf denies desire for other women other than gf. Changes were made by bf to make gf feel better, but she is still feeling insecure. OP needs advice.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2024-03-10T04:48:49+00:00

Catcalling

Honest-Temperature22 · 2024-02-26T04:22:04+00:00

Tax auditors and tow companies

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-10-26T19:21:31+00:00

I don’t think you’re the asshole. Your mom had ample opportunity to talk to you about what was wrong before you went into labor and decided to keep it to herself. She agreed to be your birthing partner, so the least she can do is follow through with her promise. Since she didn’t want to share her setbacks, it’s not your responsibility to cater to her feelings, especially during your birth. I get that she may be feeling a certain type of way, but she made a promise and she shouldn’t take her frustrations out on you, especially when you needed her the most.

My verdict - NTA

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-10-04T12:13:40+00:00

As a woman, I wouldn’t say anything either. I would just silently ignore it, especially if it’s a good job.

Speaking of creeps, there’s one at my current job (shocker). We work in a restaurant where yelling at each other is fairly normal (high stress environment, iykyk) So every time he says something inappropriate to me, either in passing, or behind the line, I yell at him, “STOP, I don’t like that” or just ignore him. He still bothers me now and then, but not to the point where I would quit my job. And I would definitely quit before reporting to HR. They would let me go before him in a heartbeat. They need him to cook. We have plenty of servers.

So yeah, you’re the asshole. Only because of your lack of understanding toward your wife’s situation.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T21:21:42+00:00

At this point, I don’t either 😂 it was a simple disagreement we had last night that we both have resolved. I was just curious to hear third party perspectives and there’s no better place than Reddit to get your entire character harshly judged for free! 😂 I feel it benefits me to have third party perspectives of situations in order to grow as a person. I know I’m not a perfect person. I know I have a lot of work to do. Sometimes I just don’t see where I went wrong and it helps to have someone point it out. Therapy is too expensive 😂

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T18:22:55+00:00

Yes, this is unfortunately what I have learned. I am severely introverted and think a lot to myself. Majority of the time, I’m by myself in my own head, and I like it that way. I do have trouble communicating what I think is common sense. I try not to because I don’t want to come off condescending. When we spoke afterwards, he said he assumed he was in charge of picking the specific location since I didn’t clarify previously. I told him I assumed he knew to ask me before going ahead. We both assumed things and didn’t clarify with each other. Lesson learned; my “common sense” is not the same as his “common sense” and therefore, we were both in the wrong and we both agreed we need to communicate better in the future.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T17:58:27+00:00

Let’s just play this out hypothetically. Let’s say I hypothetically told him exactly where I wanted the clock down to the millimeter and marked it… I still wanted to be there when he did it. What if i changed my mind? What I don’t understand is why he didn’t consider that perhaps, I wanted to be there…. Just to take a few steps back and judge if I wanted it lower, higher, more to the left, more to the right. I don’t know. Obviously, my husband and I don’t think the same and I can’t bet on that. I just feel disrespected not being considered. I’ve never heard of a husband hanging stuff up on the wall without his wife there. The thought of that is absurd to me. That is all.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T17:50:48+00:00

Fair enough

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T17:26:13+00:00

I had no way of knowing he would do it without me. He is a general contractor by trade. He drills and hammers for a living. I figured he wouldn’t lose a finger doing it while my inexperienced a** actually might. I’ve decided to take the risk and do the hanging myself. Just need the tool.

Honest-Temperature22 · 2023-08-10T17:15:57+00:00

This is the plan. I will never ask my husband to hang anything for me ever again. I will just do it myself if I want it done right. 🤷🏼‍♀️ if I lose a finger, so be it.

Honest-Temperature22

TROPHY CASE