My husband is lazy, selfish and childish... but I love him.

[Ali-noe]

Hi everyone, I'm having some pretty big problems with my marriage. We married young, about two years ago, I was 23 and he 27. He was handsome, caring and very intelligent. So when we met four-five years ago, I fell quickly and felt so sure about him and our life together. But quite quickly after tying the knot, things started going downhills. I think it all started with how he fell into a pretty bad depression that lasted for about a year. During that period I did everything at home and I went out of my way to give him all support and love that I possibly could. Sadly, he didn't take care of himself during this period, so he started to gain a lot of weight, despite my biggest efforts to cook healthy food that he would like, he ate a lot of unhealthy stuff and now, two years after, he has went from about 70 kg to over a 100 kg (154 lbs to 220 lbs). I am a certified, clinical nurse (don't know the exact title in English) and care a lot about health and taking good care of oneself, so this deeply disturbs me. Not only in the way that I don't find him as attractive anymore, but mostly because I honestly resent that he's living with such bad discipline and care for himself. Especially with the history of heart disease and diabetes in his family. I think about his weight and health every single day and always put in a lot of thought and effort in making sure that he doesn't eat too much. But a while ago I even found out that he has been buying unhealthy stuff "behind my back", so to speak, and I got extremely saddened and even angry. Because of all the almost wasted effort that I've put in every single day.

He also has started to have really bad problems with patience and care for me. He often can't take even the smallest setback, he can be very rude to me sometimes, he almost never has the will or patience to listen to me when I need to share something with him. I have a pretty big need for talking about it when I've faced some sort of problem, but sometime after we got married he stopped being able/willing to be that support for me. About 90 % of the time while I'm speaking to him, he looks at his phone and just barely listens, even when I'm telling him about something very important and emotional for me. He will just sigh and hope for me to finish as soon as possible. This has led to that I've almost completely stopped sharing bigger parts of information about my life with him, because when I try it almost always end up in an argument. This has in turn led to that I don't feel as if he even knows me anymore, he doesn't seem interested in me and I've ended up feeling lonely, isolated and unimportant. For a period of time this really took a blow to my self-esteem and I noticed how I started to look at myself and my feelings as less important than I used to.

Due to him taking SSRI medication against the depression, he also experiences some side effects that really has taken another blow to our relationship. It's a lot harder for him to reach orgasm and he rarely feels lust towards me. This is a big problem to me, because I love sex and need it for the sake of the intimacy. If I could I would have sex every day, which we also used to have back in the day. But nowadays it's more like once every two months. It's really tragic honestly. And an upsetting part of this subject is that he on the other hand sometimes masturbates to porn. I have never witnessed it, but he has gotten a bad conscience a few times and told me. I honestly would be fine with that he looked at porn if he also took care of me. But right now it hurts and upsets me.

What's also worrying is that in the same rate that I've started to long for a better relationship with him, a few other men has taken a deep liking to me and I'm especially close to one of them. A young man who was in the same class as me the three years we studied nursing. We became best friends during that period and to be honest, I keep comparing them. Especially the fact that he really shows how he cares for me and the fact that he is very disciplined, mature and competent in both our line of work, socially and just your everyday home things. Without saying it out loud, he has made it pretty clear that he cares for me in a romantic way and I've ended up very distressed about it all. I truthfully don't want to leave my husband. Not at all! Because, despite it all, I do love and care for him deeply. I don't want him to fall down even deeper if he lost me. I know that he does love me and wishes that he could be better for me, but a lot of his problems can be traced back to trauma he went through at an early age. So I'm understanding about it and just want him to become a better, stronger and healthier person again. But my hands seem to be tied because he doesn't want to talk to neither me nor a professional about it. He did meet a psychologist a few times before, which was when he got the prescription for the medication + started to get better from the depression, but now he sternly doesn't want to go again.

I really don't know what to do. I love him, I still love his personality on a good day, I love his intelligence, I love him. And I care deeply for him. How could I possibly leave him, that could really destroy him! And I also don't want to leave him due to the fact of our shared social circle, my good relationship with his family and that I do think that there are a lot to him that is very good for me. But at the same time I've grown to resent how he lives his life, I feel lonely and frustrated and even affronted. Not that it matters much, but I am someone who takes really good care of myself and has a naturally pretty body/face. I care about appearances and how you present yourself and my husband has completely let himself go. He even dresses badly and sloppily. I can still find him very attractive during sex because he tends to be dominant, which really turns me on, but other than that I've noticed that I sometimes feel a little upset about that I could've "gotten better"... I hate those thoughts, but they are there, sometimes, especially when I more or less consciously compares him to my before mentioned best friend who also cares for me in the romantic way. Because honestly, he's without a doubt one of the best looking guys I've met. Ugh I feel bad and so superficial while writing this part, but I just have to because I consider it to be a problem that I, whether I like it or not, am very attracted to my best friend.

I would never cheat and neither do I really see a future together with this friend in question because our values and religious views are a bit too different. So the only reason to why I mention him is that it has become a problem with how close I am to him while not being so close to my husband.

We don't have children yet, but I really long for children, but I know that we can't have children now with this state of our relationship. I am already taking care of him so much that I feel like his mother, and often feel irritated on him and I know that it would just get so much worse if we were to bring children to the world right now.

I'm sorry for this really lengthy text and for any English errors (not my native tongue, I'm Norwegian). But any comments and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Have a nice day!

[Gloria]

Regardless Of Why Your Husband Is Acting This Way, A Marriage Is An Equal Partnership. Everyone's Feelings Count: Some men were raised in a generation where the man's desires or feelings counted for about twice as much as the wife's. And in this same era, women were considered to be overly emotional or too needy. I had no way of knowing if this wife's husband was raised in such a generation, but that is one perspective.

Another possibility is that some people are raised to believe that they are the only ones who matter. Some parents coddle their son's so much that those same men grow up to think that their opinions and feelings are the ones that count the most. And while your husband may not have had any control over his upbringing, he most certainly has control of his actions now.

It's very important that you don't sit silent and allow him to discount or belittle your feelings. You are not being petty or asking too much to want to have your feelings matter. You are expecting to have an equal voice in your marriage. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, your children are going to grow up with your marriage as the model for their own. No one wants for their daughter to think that her feelings don't matter and no one wants for her son to think that his feelings are the only ones who do. So I'm completely backing you up here and I support your insisting that your feelings and needs matter just as much as his. You can not expect to have a healthy marriage if they don't.

How To Handle It When Your Husband Doesn't Seem To Value Or Care About Your Feelings. (Attack The Behavior And Not The Person.) I believe that the worst thing that you can do is to say or do nothing and hope that this just resolves itself. Also, many wives will try to guilt, shame, or coerce their spouse into doing better. The thing is, negative strategies often do not work. You do not want to use negative reinforcement to bring about positive change. To me, the best strategy is to be very direct and firm with your request and then to heap on the praise once your request is met.

So in real life, this is how that strategy would look. The next time the husband discounted the wife's feelings, she might respond with something like: "we will need to discuss that. Two people make the decisions in a healthy marriage based on the feelings of both people. But you are the only one making the decisions based on your own feelings. I know that you wouldn't deliberately hurt me, but when it seems that you don't care about my feelings, it does hurt me very much. I need to have an equal say and I need to know that how I feel matters to you. I'm your wife. I know that you love me. But I need for your actions and your behaviors to reflect that love. And when you don't consider my feelings, I'm just not feeling it."

Notice that you haven't made nasty accusations or insinuated that your husband is an awful, selfish person for not caring about how you feel. He may act in selfish ways sometimes, but there is a huge difference between acting in uncaring and self centered ways and being a self centered, nasty person. It is very important to understand this distinction. Because when you approach your husband and make it sound as if it is a personal attack, he is going to be defensive. But if you are objecting to the behavior and not the person, then it's a whole different story.

The next step would be to catch your husband caring about or considering your feelings and then praise him to whoever will listen. Because in order to stop this behavior, his attention must be drawn to it, then he must make a conscious effort to stop it. And when he does, he should be given positive reinforcement so that he wants to continue doing it. People will act in ways that are beneficial to them. If he sees that caring about your feelings makes things better for him, then he will likely want to make that happen.

[David]

I've notice that many men don't mature upon marriage. They still have that single guy's attitude and that single guy's penchant for fun and games. Marriage often doesn't settle him down. But children might. This is not a recommendation, merely an observation. I've notice that when a man holds an infant that cannot care for itself the realization of that responsibility sinks in for many men.

But what can a wife do about this immaturity?

ISOLATE THE IMMATURE AREAS

A wife needs to isolate what areas her husband is immature in. More than likely, it is not in every area. List all of his responsibilities, those things that he is directly responsible for, and rate them. His wife, his children, his job, perhaps the finances, maybe the maintenance of the house, and whatever else you can think of are things that ought to go on this list.

This has the added benefit of helping you to isolate your own frustration. He may be good with the children and be lousy with money. He may be great with money but not very good at providing you with needed security. He might be fantastic with his work ethic, but sloppy with his things at home. Find out what areas are causing you the frustration.

Praise him for the areas he does well in. It is difficult for a man to deal with a nagging and unhappy wife. Most men deal with emotions in such a different way than their wife does that he doesn't know how to handle hers. But he loves praise. Praise will encourage him and may even help him towards being responsible in those other weak areas.

GET YOUR HUSBAND TO SEEK ADVICE FROM A MALE COUNSELOR

This may sound a bit chauvinist, but hear me out. I counsel a lot of men and I've noticed a curious contradiction. Most men won't seek help on their own. It is the result of that ego and pride that men have in abundance. But if they actually do come to me, I'm able to show them, from a man's perspective, why they need to take responsibility in certain areas of their life.

Often, if a man can see the problem from a man's point of view, it may finally dawn on him that he can no longer run or hide from it. In addition, many men just flat out don't know what to do because no one ever taught them. Their solution up until this point is to ignore the problem.

But using a man to point out the problems and solutions from a man's perspective will go a long way to helping your husband grow up and mature. He many resist this, but if you can find the right pastor, counselor, or mature advisor to help, it'll go a long way.

COMMUNICATE YOUR FEARS BETTER

Ladies, watching your husband's immaturity produces fear and frustration. Your expression of those fears and frustration more often than not will drive your husband away from accepting responsibility.

To be frank, you need to play off his ego and pride. Most men have fantasies of being that knight in shining armor that wishes to rescue the damsel in distress. This isn't true for all men, but it is typical of male psychology. Instead of flailing at him with your words, show your distress in a way that makes him want to come to your rescue.

Good communication is the key to any relationship. I'm writing a book on it because the importance of this concept is generally misunderstood. Yelling, screaming, nagging, and name calling doesn't really do much to get an immature husband to accept responsibility. Learn to communicate your fears better.
I'm not suggesting that you appear helpless, but I am suggesting that you be a bit smarter in how you express your concerns to your husband.

DON'T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS IRRESPONSIBILITY

If you always do his job, then you aren't giving him a reason to do it himself. Why should he do it if you will? Unfortunately, many men think this way without consciously being aware of it. In some cases, you may feel that you have no choice, particularly when it comes to money or the children. But in general if you pick up after him, become his alarm clock, become his character, fulfill his promises to his friends, and so forth, he will come to expect that from you.

Understand that most people, male or female, have grown up being pandered to. Their parents supplied every need and most wants. Society panders to children and their innocence. And then cuts it all off when they turn 18. There is very little effort or skill at making smooth transitions into adulthood. For eighteen years it was all about him. Now it is no longer true, but he hasn't really come to grips or true understanding of that. He doesn't realize that responsibility is accepting the needs of others.

You may need to help your husband learn that. You may need to ignore his irresponsibility and let him suffer the consequences of his own actions. You may have to do it in complete silence. Don't scold, don't yell, don't lecture, don't be a mother, that'll only push him away. But he may need to learn that there are things that he now has to do on his own.

A mother came to me once about her teenage boy who refused to do anything about his messy and somewhat disastrous room. She told me that when she couldn't stand it anymore, she would just go in and clean it herself. She wanted to know how to get him to do it on his own. I inquired about, and found out that he would never let his friends into his room. I suggested bringing over to the house girls his age and showing them his room. That didn't happen but twice before he started keeping his room clean on his own from then on out.

When I was a teenage boy, my mother took me aside and said, "Son, from now on you have to wash, dry, and fold and iron your own clothes. You need to learn how, and I'm not doing it anymore." She never got onto my case about the laundry, she never nagged me, and she never scolded me about it. But it didn't matter. I wasn't about to go to school in smelly clothes. No sir. My mother taught me to take responsibility for my own appearance.

Be very, very wise in how you do this. You don't want to push him to the point where he just gives up. Make sure you are helping, not making the situation worse.