Should you ever settle?

shandypants5

What a poor man you live with.

You sound quite "high maintainance" to me.

You go through life making Decisions about partners as if you were choosing a new car ( "dependability over exitement") so you had already decided that this man wasnt good enough for you before you started dating, and now your MARRIED!!!

Please dont expect the good people of MSE to justify your self centered decisions for you, make up your mind and do what YOU feel is right.

Have you ever considered that HE may be thinking the same thoughts about you?

Life isnt about planning everything out and always getting the BEST.
Its about being with people you like to be with and who love/like you back.

Happines comes from..

"Wanting what you have" not "Having what you want".

paddy's_mum

In a nutshell, you're bored! You've traded excitement, with it's risk of pain, for safety .. and discovered that you're in a rut of your own making.

You are living in a dangerous bubble of romance, talking about perfect fit etc - through no wrongdoing of their own, there are thousands of desperately unhappy oppressed wives in this country who would envy you your solid, reliable and admirable husband from the bottom of their wounded hearts.

I cast my vote with others who have said don't bring children into the picture. Nobody with any sense would throw fuel onto an already volatile mixture, would they?

While you're doing all this thinking, remind yourself to take care that you don't throw out the baby along with the bathwater.

Personally, I don't think the marriage can be salvaged, mostly because at rock bottom, you actually don't like your husband very much. Nevertheless, I wish you luck and the hope that if you do separate, time doesn't prove that you had the greenest of grass all along.

sunshine09

Realistically he is going to do things to annoy you. I am 25 and my husband is 24 and we have been married 5 years and he does things that annoy me all the time. I know I annoy him by doing stuff like putting beans in a bowl in the fridge without cling film on so he always ends up knocking it over! All kinds of dumb stuff like that but so what? If you live with someone 24/7 they are going to do annoying things.

I am sure when you lived with your mum/dad/flatmate/siblings they drove you up the wall sometimes with annoying things they did and vice versa. Also life isnt going to be exciting all the time and I think it is immature to think it is. You wait until you have kids then often the most exciting thing you have to look forward to is uninterrupted sex or managing to go to the toilet without the kids following you lol! I wouldnt change it though cause everyone goes through that when the kids are young. You cant really go to 'grown up' places. Its hard to even eat your dinner if your in mcdonalds before its cold let alone have anything particularly exciting happen. If you cant handle lack of excitement that when you dont have kids then you are definitely not ready for kids yet with anyone. Also you better get used to your house looking like a bomb site within 10 minutes of waking upeven though you spend ages cleaning it when the kids were in bed! The kids do more than just leave towels on the floor when they are toddling, my daughter is always trying to jam food in my husbands xbox!

I love my husband though and he is a good man who works and cares for his daughter. I work 25 hours, cook every night and do all the cleaning but I dont mind as he works in a warehouse and has a tiring job. I dont resent him for it and do it cause I love him. In return he gives me a lie in if I need one and lets me go out with my mum for the day sometimes and have a few hours off.

anony.mouse_3

niknaks wrote: »

You are clearly unhappy in this relationship. I don't think you should stay just because you are frightened that you might not find someone better for you.

I think (and forgive me if I am wrong) that you are looking for validation to leave. I know I did with my first husband. I loved him, but I spent more days unhappy than happy.

I wanted children, he didn't. That made things very black and white.

What you are lacking is the black and white. You want to leave but don't feel you have a good enough reason to justify doing so, other than your own unhappiness. Your happiness is a good enough reason.

It is scary, but will be much better for you both in the long run if you do it now. As you say (and I understand that too) you don't have time to waste.

I do hope you find happiness, it is not a fairytale.

Thank you for your post. I don't think that I am looking for validation to leave, deep down I desperately want to make my marriage work and am looking for ways to do that.

There is little black and white in my life but an awful lot of grey. I don't want to leave because I am unhappy now. I do hope that both my husband and I can start to make each other happy again. As for children, my husband is nearing 40 and always imagined he'd have several by now. I on the other hand never saw myself with children but that's not to say I don't want them. Yet another grey area to untangle.

anony.mouse_3

BillTrac wrote: »

And on the other hand. This is from a husband who's wife(after 30+ years of marriage)regrets it all. The love and closeness went a long time ago.

This is the voice of bitter experience

You could stay and in 30 years hate him even more because you missed out on so much.

You need to sit down and think, because whatever you decide will be your legacy. If you stay and eventually realise it was a mistake then you will feel bitter. If you decide to go and then realise it was a mistake there is no turning back.

Actually, there will be no turning back whatever you decide as unfortunately time travel isn't a choice. What you finally decide has to be agreed between the pair of you. It isn't about just you, it isn't about just your husband. At the moment you should be a team. You aren't, and this is something you need to talk about, both of you.

I really hope that you both sort it out, but also I hope that we don't have two unhappy people going through the motions of a marriage and just being miserable. We only have one life, seems a shame to live it with no joy

Good luck to BOTH of you

Thank you for your post. I'm so sorry for what you are going through and this is definitely not what I want in years to come.

anony.mouse_3

aliasojo wrote: »

Sorry, that was my fault for not being clearer. I didn't misunderstand you...and he does provide for you, in stability. I appreciate my post sounded like I thought he provided financially...that wasn't what I meant.

Now that I've read your recent posts, I think you're over analysing everything, probably as a result of your therapy. What most of us accept as part and parcel of life, you seem to be fretting over. There are loads of things my OH does (or doesn't do, come to that) that annoy the backside off me. Things that are repetitive and for the life of me, I cant understand why he doesn't stop doing them, especially since I've asked him to.

I've been to Relate with my OH as our life together has been far from plain sailing. It helped to sort the wheat from the chaff, if you like. We were both made to sort the realistic expectations from the unrealistic ones and one we had established what was 'fair and reasonable' to expect, then those were what we worked on. Both sides had to have concessions and let things pass that would normally be on our 'annoy' list, simply because we had to accept that the other person was not us and therefore they would have a different set of 'acceptable' and 'not acceptable'.

It sounds like a lot of work just to have a peaceful life, lol....but that's what life is...work. Everything need work, nothing you have just happens for you.

I wonder if you are at the stage of analysing everything now and questioning things that normally wouldn't matter too much?

I think you both need to go to counselling. Your therapy might well be helping you sort out whatever you needed to work on but I suspect your relationship needs joint input.

I also strongly suspect that your relationship is more regular routine than fun these days and that you're struggling to remember why you're together in the first place. You have to invest first before you get any reward......put in more effort and see what the dividends are.

I have no idea if you are a committed christian or not....I'm not but I came across this film by accident (I thought it was something else involving hunky firemen ) and although it was pretty cheesy and twee...the storyline was about a couple who hated each other and heading for divorce, ending up loving each other again. Apparently it is used as a counselling tool in America. I'm not suggesting you follow the steps in the film but it might make you consider your own actions in your relationship too, rather than just becoming focused on the annoying things your OH does.


In the end we cant tell you if your relationship needs work or if it's dead. But I stand by what I said earlier, if your husband is not what you want or need, move on. It's very stressful and upsetting living life as someone else's 'that'll do'.

Thank you for your post. I'm not in the least religious, but I suppose i'm more Buddhist in belief than anything else. I'll try and watch that film the next time my OH is away. At the moment I feel I need to establish what I want and need as an individual before possibly embarking on joint counselling.

anony.mouse_3

Pssst wrote: »

I think your therapist needs therapy.

I do not think its a good idea to try and mould people into what you think is ideal.

People are what they are.

Why is it always moulding the man?

aisle,altar hymn...the signs are there on the wedding day.

think about how you would feel if he was trying to make you fit into his vision of what is ideal for him? you would begin to feel unloved, undervalued and inadequate.

No..my answer is that if you truly believe that you are not happy and that there are issues of discontent then pack your bags and do one.

Are you staying with him simply becuase you do not have the confidence/ability/ money to hack it on your own?

If so,thats no basis for a sound relationship. you are simply using him.

Men do tend to be slightly disorganised and untidy. Women generally are always bloody trying to tidy up. Its how it is.

What a hurtful post. I didn't marry with the intention of changing or altering my husband. He changed after we married. He seems to forget, daily, that things need doing. Things he managed to do perfectly well when he lived alone. He used to make an effort for me, and now he no longer notices the efforts I make for him. Even our wedding anniversary is no longer a big deal to him. He forgot the last one and we're not even into double figures yet. I'm no neat freak (believe me) but like linzpower I wonder why my husband is unable to make the leap from clothes on floor to clothes in washing basket 2 feet from them. This is just one small example. I don't think it's much to ask that he be involved with the running of the house. He did before we married, so why not now?

anony.mouse_3

Atomised wrote: »

At first I thought this would be a thread about someone deciding to stay with a partner they didn't fancy or love. After reading more I now think you resent him and feel like he doesn't meet your standards , make your heart beat faster and your insides jump.
I remember having huge doubts about someone once - "He doesn't talk enough" , "Is something missing?" etc but I realised it was just a way of protecting myself as giving my heart away is the one thing I was determined never to do. I always did fancy him rotten though and he did leave in the end so....meh.

You are married and I think you've had long enough to know if he is the right man for you. The only bad thing he does is neglect housework so you've focused on this instead of the real problem- you married him for the wrong reasons but are too scared to move on as you know it will break his heart , your family will think you are mad and you don't know if there is love waiting elsewhere.

You could stay and try to fix your marriage but how many more of yours (and his) years do you want to waste? Counselling sessions together might help clear things but your therapist probably meant you could mould him to hoover more , not to change the person he is as that is silly advice. Loving someone means accepting their faults.

Good luck to you both.

Thank you for your post. You've hit the nail on the head. The therapy is helping me to realise that I probably haven't fully committed to my husband because of what went before and the fear of having my heart trampled on again. Subconsciously I need to protect myself. I am after all the result of my experiences.

There are a number of things other than the housework that get to me. He can be thoughtless and actually rather cruel. He regularly talks over me (something which I think is incredibly rude).

When we bought this house (just before we married) I told him I hated the kitchen He agreed and promised that once we were in it would be the first thing we sorted out. Several years on I've stopped asking when we'll get it sorted. In his mind there's nothing wrong with it and as until it catches fire or falls apart it needs nothing doing to it. It's as if he can't see it. There are bits and pieces that I picked up in sales for the new kitchen in the first few months that still sit in their boxes dong nothing. I am saddened every time I go in there (several times a day) because he broke his promise. I was so excited about stamping our mark on the place and apart from furniture it's exactly the same as when we bought it. But every time I try to bring it up it ends in a row.

anony.mouse_3

paddy's_mum wrote: »

In a nutshell, you're bored! You've traded excitement, with it's risk of pain, for safety .. and discovered that you're in a rut of your own making.

You are living in a dangerous bubble of romance, talking about perfect fit etc - through no wrongdoing of their own, there are thousands of desperately unhappy oppressed wives in this country who would envy you your solid, reliable and admirable husband from the bottom of their wounded hearts.

I cast my vote with others who have said don't bring children into the picture. Nobody with any sense would throw fuel onto an already volatile mixture, would they?

While you're doing all this thinking, remind yourself to take care that you don't throw out the baby along with the bathwater.

Personally, I don't think the marriage can be salvaged, mostly because at rock bottom, you actually don't like your husband very much. Nevertheless, I wish you luck and the hope that if you do separate, time doesn't prove that you had the greenest of grass all along.

Thank you for your post. There are lots of things I do love and like about my husband, but they don't show themselves very often.

Pssst

anony.mouse wrote: »

What a hurtful post. I didn't marry with the intention of changing or altering my husband. He changed after we married. He seems to forget, daily, that things need doing. Things he managed to do perfectly well when he lived alone. He used to make an effort for me, and now he no longer notices the efforts I make for him. Even our wedding anniversary is no longer a big deal to him. He forgot the last one and we're not even into double figures yet. I'm no neat freak (believe me) but like linzpower I wonder why my husband is unable to make the leap from clothes on floor to clothes in washing basket 2 feet from them. This is just one small example. I don't think it's much to ask that he be involved with the running of the house. He did before we married, so why not now?

My apologies..it wasnt meant to be and i am not being personal.

I am in my mid 40s and i tend not to p-ussy foot around too much these days.

I agree that your partner should make more of an effort but it is for him to realise that and to deal with it and not for you to tell or dictate.

In the end,if you are not content and happy then the best thing to do is tell him and if it is mutual then both need to plan to move on...simple.