New to this and could use some advice
My husband and I have been married for a year. He has two daughters from his previous marriage age 8 and 12. I have one from my previous marriage age 6. I get along fine with his kids most of the time, it's the ex that I have a problem with and actually my husband too. For about the past 4 months or so, he has not been seeing his children on a regular basis. His ex basically dictates the visitation schedule, even though we are suppose to have the girls every other weekend. She allows us to see them when it's convenient for her and she doesn't have anything scheduled that the girls have to be at. The problem is....when it's supppose to be our weekend, she always seems to have something scheduled...such as a birthday party for her family, a church thing or whatever....and tells us that the girls will not be coming over. The other half of this problem is that my husband allows it to go on. He will sit here and complain about not being able to see his children, but yet he will NOT do anything about it. It's getting old and is causing problems. I know that I should not worry about it because it's HIS choice whether to see HIS kids or not, but I get tired of hearing him complain when he isn't doing anything to change the situation. There are other issues that we have too, such as him not having a job. Right now I am the one bringing home a paycheck. We have our house for sale so that we can move closer to my work. Right now I drive 1 hour, 20 minutes one way to work. Because of this I am always tired and have no interest in being intimate (and also because of the other issues with the ex too). I had been on anti-depressants for over a year and decided to go off of them because I thought that this might help with the intimacy problem, but it hasn't. Another thing is that when his kids are here, I seem to become invisible to him because he spends most of the time with his one daughter...the older daughter spends the whole entire day on the computer. This is not such a big deal anymore because I have learned to do my own thing, which is what I'm doing right now while they are here. My daughter is not here because she is with her father...she will be back later today. We used to have all of our kids on the same weekend but since the ex keeps screwing with the schedule he never knows when he is going to have his kids, which also allows for no plan making. I've decided that when I have my daughter and we want to go do something, we are going to go regardless of what everyone else is doing. And on the weekends when he has his kids and my daughter is with her dad, I hang out here at home or go with friends. Right now it as if we are just two people living under the same roof. I know that I need to get some counseling just to learn to deal with all of this crap but other than that I'm not really sure where all of this is going to lead. Sometimes I wish that I had not gotten married. He was gone last week and just my daughter and I were here, it was nice. I have a lot of anger and do not know how to channel it all.
Hello! I am your long, lost twin!
I could've written your post, except for the part about working. (I'm a SAHM, hubby's the one who works.) I've been dealing with the same thing throughout the 6 years we've been together... he doesn't get to see the kids because BM won't let him, he gets to feeling down about it and feels helpless to make a change, he feels alienated from the kids but is paralyzed to do anything about it, he takes his anger out on me and our children, the only physical gratification I get is by reading the Yellow Pages (as in, let your fingers do the walking) and we basically felt like roommates, rather than husband/wife. It's been like this for us for years, off and on. I so feel your pain!
Right now, we're doing really great... we moved far away, so there is NO visitation at all, but in the past couple of months, he's been talking to his kids more, they are talking to him more, I no longer read the Yellow Pages and our whole environment just seems a lot more relaxed. Usually, it's a roller coaster and I take the "up" times with a grain of salt, because I know we'll soon hit another "low" time. This time, the up is lasting a little longer and feels more permanent. I think it's because we had a bad blowout during which he actually raged at me. This wasn't yelling during an argument, this was real rage and it scared me. He's never been the type to be physically or verbally abusive or threatening towards me, but it had reached a point of no return over his relationship or lack thereof with the skids. I got scared, then I got angry. When things calmed down the next day, I told him if things didn't change, I was leaving. Period.
Well, things changed. I wish I could tell you what exactly changed that made our problems easier to manage, but I don't think it was any one thing. I think we both got scared and realized that we were on the brink of losing our marriage. That motivated us both to change. Also, I made a last ditch effort to reach my skids and let them know that their dad loved and needed them. They responded and it made him feel SO much better about that situation. It was like gently opening a valve and slowing releasing all that pressure. We also talked about how we were going to handle problems from now on and as long as we stick to the agreed-upon program and each person pulls his/her own weight, the little stuff doesn't have as much impact as it used to. My husband also changed to a less-stressful shift at work, which helped him immensely, and he got help for his PTSD. (Retired Marine.) For us, it wasn't any one thing that helped, just a lot of little things that combined to make things less stressful, in general. But I felt like I've been trying for years to make things better, and maybe so did he in his own way, but it wasn't until we both got on the same page that we saw any real, lasting changes happen.
Even if we did live closer to the skids, though, they are now 11, 14 and 15 and the last place they want to be every other weekend is with US. And our kids, who are 4 and 9, will feel the same way as they get into their teenaged years. We just kind of had to accept that all we can do is the best we can do and once we've done that, well, we have to let ourselves off the hook. We had to do a lot of letting go of things we are powerless to change. We also had to make a conscious decision to focus on our marriage, in spite of whatever else was careening out of control around us, and once we did that, our marriage returned to being the safe haven it was during the early part of our marriage. You know, they just don't tell you when you're applying for that marriage license that it's the hardest work you'll ever do.
I wish I had some advice for you. I hope it helps to know that you're not alone and that there are others going through an almost identical experience. Finding this site helped me a lot, because it gave me an audience when my husband didn't want to talk or when I felt like I couldn't talk to him. This is such a great place to dump your anger. You can dump it on us and we'll commiserate with you and, before you know it, you'll feel at least a little better and less alone.
Now that I think about it, maybe I do have some advice... try to pick little things that you know you can change easily and work on them first, one at a time. Getting a few small successes under your belt can give you the momentum and self-confidence to tackle the larger issues. And in the meantime, know that we're here for ya!
~ Anne ~
Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice! -M*A*S*H (Sidney Freedman to the OR staff on dealing with stress)
Thanks
for the advice. It's weird how your husband is retired Marines. My husband and I are both in the Army National Guard. We have both done time on active duty. You are right about small successes and I will try to do that. And it really is nice to know that I am not alone and there are other people out there going through the same thing. Thanks again. Take care and I hope that your "UP" time is lasting longer than you thought it would and that it continues to do so.