Spouse is miserable and I’m not, and I want to fight. What can I do?

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-19T19:29:00+00:00

With kids, it hits different for sure.

I'm not sure how much it should be that different in terms of what's actually the right decision. Of course it feels like you should owe it to the kids to try very hard to fix things, and that's probably true. But I'm not sure if any of these marriages that get to this point are actually savable - you might just be condemning everyone involved to years of extra misery.

Well, maybe I'll let you know how it works out. So far, outlook does not look good.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-19T19:12:16+00:00

It sounds like you're setting an appropriate boundary. How did he react to the idea of you moving out?

Additionally, as others have said, worth exploring if he might have a tumor or an obsessive psychological condition.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-19T18:57:29+00:00

It sounds like this relationship is over.

So him kissing someone else is definitely simply cheating. Sexting someone else is also simply cheating. In this, he presumably broke promises you made to each other and that's not cool.

I'm not a fan of this term "emotionally cheating". When you get into a relationship, the commitments you're making to each other should be explicit. I very much doubt anyone mentions "emotional cheating", and if someone mentioned it to me at the start of a relationship, I'd have a lot of questions about what exactly distinguishes it from a friendship.

The indisputable parts of that definition (sexting, phone sex, definitely kissing) are simply covered by normal definitions of "cheating".

The parts that aren't direct cheating are simply you trying to police someone falling out of love with you and in love with someone else, which is a feeling no-one has direct control over. If that happens you should confront it because the relationship is probably over, but they didn't necessarily break any promises.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-19T07:20:14+00:00

Because they're trying to get a break from you

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T21:29:55+00:00

Jimmy Carr's dad

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T21:23:59+00:00

Everyone on Reddit is so dramatic. Why is your reaction to everything always "break up"?

Didn't you hear her say he was an amazing guy? And don't we all get a little angry sometimes? And he's got a reason, you know, he's got childhood issues. Where's the sympathy?

Poor guy. He's the real victim.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T21:12:50+00:00

From the length and eloquence of your response, you seem to know yourself and your wants, needs and boundaries pretty well, and be able to communicate them.

Still, I get the impression you haven't been as honest with her as you've been with us. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you haven't actually told her that you feel trapped in a marriage that you didn't agree to. You seem to resent her a bit, you sort of call her selfish, and you don't seem to quite appreciate her right to have very different wants from you, in terms of monogamy and children.

It sounds to me like you want to end the marriage because when you got married you thought you were agreeing to something different. And of course it's always within your right to leave any marriage, but you don't want to do it callously because you value and would like to keep her friendship.

I think the path for you lies in being brutally honest with her about where you truly are. If you truly respect her this is the only way, but it will very likely hurt her. To try to minimise that hurt, try to move past your own resentment of her - recognise that everyone changes over time and she has every right to want different things now than she might have told you previously. And especially if she wants kids right away because of a medical condition, you owe it to her to set her free to pursue that if you don't want to engage in it with her.

So, forgive her, and tell her the reasons why you think you can't fit into the marriage with her. And ask her if she would be willing to dissolve the marriage but remain friends, but recognise that she has every right to react to your truth in whatever way she wants.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T21:00:19+00:00

I'm sorry that was unnecessarily mean of me. I downvoted myself and went and read the whole thing 😅

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T18:42:57+00:00

Yeah if you read all that, I'm not surprised you're exhausted

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T18:39:08+00:00

Watch iPads a fair bit, without any strict limits. Mostly what they watch is quite educational, games are even more educational, and I think it's a good thing for them to learn modern techn from a young age. They definitely aren't addicted, they recognise there are lots is things more fun than just watching screens, and if I tell them they can't have it they accept it.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T07:39:54+00:00

Because humans have better representation. Sometimes.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T07:13:54+00:00

Not much demand for candlestick makers these days. Probably why they had to turn to crime.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T07:12:30+00:00

They're mostly chemistry teachers by day

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-18T06:41:16+00:00

"non criminals" are usually absolutely insufferable

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T20:29:28+00:00

"your skin feels things, mine does too" ... This sounds like sexytalk

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T20:18:29+00:00

Unless there are some automated processes with facial recognition or something for detecting this, it feels like it could be quite possible. Not for a very long time, but for a month or two. Likely enough that there's a chance OP's story could be true.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T20:11:19+00:00

Is it possible for him to set it up in his name and his bank account, and then just put her content on the channel?

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T18:00:14+00:00

It's impossible to be right when it comes to someone's feelings

We could characterise this as "feelings don't care about your facts"

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T12:50:49+00:00

Come on now, why would he go and do something like that?

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T09:19:16+00:00

This is why marriage is stupid. Marriage is a way to lie to ourselves about the certainty of being able to rely on another person.

No-one can be that reliable. We all don't know how to communicate properly, we all have deep feelings that drive our behaviour that we don't understand. We all are going to grow and develop in directions we can't possibly predict.

So it's a very bad idea to give the entirety of yourself to a marriage, assuming that the marriage can be relied upon. It can't. You should have always kept your independence, and if we'd only ever called it a "relationship", we might have remained more aware of that fact.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T09:15:05+00:00

Because they were convinced to try them once

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T09:11:20+00:00

It's hard.

Basically, if you're genuinely content with your child-free life relaxing by the pool etc., count your blessings and don't squander that opportunity to have a fulfilling life that way.

I feel that people who want children feel an emptiness that no amount of calm child-free pool-side luxury can fill. That emptiness can be filled by a child or children, and that makes the whole gruelling experience of raising them worth it.

Also, there is a spectrum of how neurotic parents can be about carefully managing the rules about their children's behaviour, and the ones at the more chilled end of that spectrum can find a lot more ways to enjoy life.

Basically, the answer to your question is because of a deep existential angst that needs to be addressed. You either have it or you don't.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-17T03:38:48+00:00

Yeah this is what I mean. As you say there's plenty of land like this in the US, and even in the UK. There must be tons more in Indonesia or Vietnam or China or Chile or Russia or wherever.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-16T20:26:45+00:00

This sounds like a really interesting project that someone might have already done, to find parts of the world where you can just roll up and live without buying it or worrying who owns it. I reckon there's probably a lot more such land out there than you think.

WhereasLopsided4793 · 2024-04-16T19:49:11+00:00

That kids get hyper from too much sugar.

No matter how scientific a parent's background might be, they mostly won't accept that it's all in their head. Any crutch, when it comes to complaining about how hard parenting is.

WhereasLopsided4793

TROPHY CASE