Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
If you have seen my previous posts you are probably aware that I'm currently trying to save my marriage.
Yesterday my hubby finally came to the house to discuss how he was feeling. I want to thank everyone who has responded to my previous posts on here, you are all such wonderful people to take the time to respond and help me understand my husband more.
Unfortunately our marriage is still far from healed, my hubby told me yesterday that he still loves me but it's not about love anymore and that it is about his mental health moving forward. On this basis he needs time to decide if he can be with me or not. Im devastated that at the moment our marriage could end at any moment but in the meantime they're is nothing more I can do.
After listening to what he has had to say, I feel sad at how he had been made to feel, although at the time he never showed or explained this. In asking for the emotional connection I so desperately needed, I have made him feel pressured and distressed and now feel extremely guilty.
In the first 3 years of the relationship things were fine, but when the first lockdown hit and we only had eachother, this is when I felt I started to lose him and thus is when he started feeling the pressure from me. I never pressured him through malace or intent to cause upset, I just love him so much, missed him and felt I was losing him.
After speaking to him last night I started doing some reading about the feelings from my side that have motivated my input to what I now realise has contributed to the downfall of our marriage and found cassandra syndrome. Upon reading more about it I realise that this is me over the last year, emotions amplified and heightened by the lockdown.
I feel I want to explain this to my hubby, to show him that with more unstanding of how and why this has happened and with us both receiving help, this could work. However I'm worried that pointing this out to him will cause even more distress and push him away further.
Any advice on this subject would be very much appreciated
Thank you in advance
Hi - I might say some things here that others disagree with.
Through our childhoods, our worlds gets more and more complex. We don't have the coping mechanisms do we retreat into things we can control and lose ourselves in - model trains, dinky toys etc.
Our eventual personality depends a lot of how much time we spend avoiding the world and how much parental input we've had. Often, one of our parents is AS too so if it's the working parent, we get a lot of input from the NT at home. If the caring parent is AS, we can end up quite emotionally and socially stunted. (mine was)
If your husband is the latter type, he won't have witnessed much closeness or thinking about others - so it's either not in his program or it's of low value..
Has he had previous relationships? If they ended badly, it will have damaged his image of women so he might be more careful and selfish in future.
The concept of love is difficult - it's unmeasurable so demonstrating it is a logic-fail. It's likely he feels it's more like pair-bonding - like swans - a mutual need for safe company.
To get your needs met, you need to literally tell him what you expect from him - almost a menu of 'doing this pleases me' and he'll happily do that - it gives him a safe list of guaranteed successes. If you want flowers, tell him - and which types you like and why - colours, smells, how often etc.
You need to understand and accept his shortcomings and work out a way to work together to make you both happy - how to make yourself the focus of his life - make yourself visible again.
Have a long chat with him about both of your future goals in life - retirement plans etc. and work together to decide what you're going to do to achieve it. We work best when we are comfortable that we're doing something good and worthwhile and that our partner has our back.
If you can manage his stress levels, he'll have brain-power left to do all of the nice things. Working out a long list of things that de-stress him and you will pay dividends for you - it might even be little things like sitting in the woods in peace & quiet - take a picnic. It might be going around museums or making things together - the more active you are in things that de-stress him, the more he'll drop the phone and spend time with you.. Make yourself into the primary de-stress route - that might be letting him tell you about his day - venting - or just giving him a coffee and leaving him alone.
There is a balance though - you need to be smart to get the balance right so you end up as a close couple and you don't end up as his mother or slave.
The question is do you think he can do it - and can you really be bothered with all that noise?