Marriage problems
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Yeah, Ron. I agree. I also don’t think he hasn’t spoken of this to the wife. I suspect he HAS brought up their lack of sex many, many times. Only to seemingly have that fall on very deaf ears. And THAT’S when he started venting to a friend.
I base this on the fact that the LW never expressed any real surprise upon learning that her husband thought their sex life had problems.
“I think Helen said it. I wouldn’t say anything to friends that I wouldn’t say directly to the husband.”
He’s almost certainly said it to her which is why (A) she did not express any surprise or confusion hearing about it and (B) immediately blew it off as a serious concern.
This is all why I said previously that if you are at this stage, you have one foot out the door and your marriage is toast.
Also, you guys know there’s a huge difference between joking about leaving drawers open (my thing is leaving out paper towels I used once), and confiding in friends about your sex life. The former is not going to be an invasion of privacy, the latter almost certainly is.
It sounds like we all agree about much of this. Ron, she wrote that her husband is on his phone all the time and he ignores her over his phone. Each of them is feeling neglected. And yes I believe that both of them have had this fight several times out loud with one another.
And you know what? If he’s reached this point. If he’s talked to her about the lack of sex multiple times as you guys are assuming. If she’s not been responsive to that. If marriage counseling isn’t an option or they’ve discussed it and neither is open to it. Then get a divorce! I think at this stage, bitching to friends would be more understandable, though personally I’d still move forward with separation and divorce before complaining to friends (in frickin writing). You can always explain to friends and family what happened with your marriage after you’ve decided to uncouple.
Right. What @kate said. If you’re at the point where you’re regularly bitching to your friends about your marriage, either get a divorce or go to couples counseling. If they do work it out, his friends will always think she’s a shit partner if he’s continually talking negative. I’m not sure how you come back from that. It’s not rocket science.
I said as much in my first post. And no @bgm, if I wouldn’t consistently talk negatively about my partner to my friends. What’s the point of being married if that’s all you do?
I get the idea of not talking about your problems to mutual friends, as you don’t want to put them in the middle.
But, asking advice/talking about problems to your own friends … how is that so much worse than doing the same on a website like this? Without seeing exactly what he said, it’s hard to tell how out of line it is. I will admit that the LW’s description of “bad mouthing” does not sound good … but the LW also says “I’m not blameless and have faults of my own” without going into any details, so I’m hesitant to completely go all in without thinking there may be some bit of an “unreliable narrator” thing going on.
The “not standing up for me when his friend pretended to not know her name” is just weird. If he’s pretending, there isn’t really anything to stand up for. It may just be part of how they joke. This wasn’t a conversation she was part of, but one she saw by reading his texts.
The most damning thing is that they don’t talk to each other. The rest is just kind of fluff.
Because we don’t know your spouse. It’s anonymous.
Same with a paid counselor. They don’t know them. They also can’t gossip.
@Kate, well obviously. And that’s why I say mutual friends are off limits. But depending on the definition of “friend” – they may be people he knows that she never comes in contact with. Especially if they are along the lines of “facebook friends” or “gaming friends” – people he may not ever see in person and aren’t really any concern of whether their opinion of LW is good, bad, or indifferent – since they’ll never actually meet.
I think if you’re badmouthing your spouse, you’ve gone way too far. But sometimes friends do talk about problems, if for no other reason than to get a second opinion to see if they are out of line themselves. Without knowing what he said, it’s just up to us to conjecture how bad it was.
Nothing says you love and care about someone more than going behind their back and talking trash about them and telling their personal intimate situations- that’s not toxic at all, that’s what healthy relationships look like.
Friends and family really do not need to know about your sex life – if couples are having sex issues then they go to their doctors/sex therapist/ or talk it out. Friends and family do not need to be put in the middle of who is right or wrong and causing riffs in relationships. Friends and family will be the first ones to throw your dirty laundry out there when things go south between you and them. Friends and family will likely feel awkward hearing about your relationship issues and the ones that don’t probably enjoy gossiping about it.
If you are going to friends and family’s constantly complaining about your relationship then maybe its time to get professional help and/or exit it.
What’s a friend to say when you said to them “I’m not happy with Becky anymore, she gets on my nerves, annoys me when I play my video games, we are always fighting, and our sex life sucks” – friend replies back ” Oh yeah she’s a bad wife, you shouldn’t put up with that. Tell her to f off”. WOW soooo helpful!
LW – you should do as Kate said, and then prepare yourself for a divorce. Clearly neither one of you are happy and I wouldn’t be with someone who talked awful about me behind my back.
