bloodymediocrity
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I know I’ve said a lot here, but I’ve largely ignored the “he’s clearly sleeping with her point” and it does really need to be driven home.
Survey time –
Have you ever had a platonic friend that you liked being around so much that you absolutely had to see them not only on the job but every weekend that you weren’t sleeping with?
Has anyone ever had a platonic friend that they absolutely had to see every weekend?
You ask the question what would it take for him to prove that he’s invested in this relationship. I will do my best to answer that question.
He needs to accept that he can’t see his “friend” as often as he wants. One day out of every weekend is too much. That’s a lot for anybody, but especially absurd with his history of cheating. He needs to be willing to spend more time working on his relationship with her, and put in distance with his “friendship”. Any time he gets together with her, you need to be invited as well. You don’t have to go every time, but it needs to be a standing invite.
He needs to take action to show that he’s committed to this relationship for the long haul. You need to be on leases, you need financial transparency. You need your name on checks and stamps and whatever else.
He needs to end anything even starting to remotely resemble emotional abuse. He needs to believe everything you tell him. He needs to stop gaslighting you when you tell him that you’re hurt (such as by saying you’re being controlling). Every word that comes out of his mouth needs to be kind and loving. He needs to listen when you’re upset and he needs to acknowledge and respect your feelings. Every. Single. Time.
Does any of this even sound remotely possible with him?
Even if he did do all of this (which, spoiler alert, he won’t), there’s still the “kids” issue, which even in a truly even and loving relationship is still divorce-worthy.
Tina – I get why this is so hard for you. I really do.
You have invested a great deal into this relationship. You have emotionally supported this man. You think you understand him deeper than anyone else. You see his flaws and think because you see the reasons behind them (his abusive father, his stressful job, etc.) that his abusive tendencies actually bring you more intimacy.
You’ve invested financially in the relationship, without care as to if the scales are balanced or not.
You’ve invested a great deal of time and emotional energy into making this work.
How could you have done this for a man you love so much, if he doesn’t love you back? If you feel this, then certainly, he must feel it to, on some level, right?
Well, no. He doesn’t. How is this possible?
Relationships are a series of exchanges, and they are never truly balanced. Over the years, we have hardships and rough patches, but it should more or less even out.
In this relationship, you have been the primary investor, and he has been the taker. You have put all of your energy, time, and even money into this relationship. You have invested so much that you’re basically bankrupt. He has all of your energy, and he’s not doing the bare minimum requirements to keep things up.
You’re over here literally begging for scraps, looking everywhere that you’re going to get some kind of return on investment. Meanwhile, what is he doing? He’s going to couple’s counseling after you dragged him there. He’s continuing to go out with his “friend” E V E R Y W E E K E N D while we’re a fucking G L O B A L P A N D E M I C. That is N U T S.
You need to recognize that you’ve been swindled here. You’re not getting this time, energy, labor, or love back. You are getting the bare minimum scraps, and that’s what you will continue to get.
Tina – even you don’t believe there isn’t “something going on”. If you really felt that deep down, this woman wasn’t a threat to your marriage, you wouldn’t be losing it right now.
Why won’t you trust your gut?
To reiterate the point others have made, yes, people can have opposite-sex friends. Totally normal, totally fine. Happens all the time.
What’s not normal – weekly date nights that aren’t even stopped by a deadly global pandemic. That would be weird no matter the genders or sexual orientations of anyone involved. But someone doing this with a history of cheating? C’mon.
What is the advice that you’re looking for? Are you waiting for a magic bullet that will change your toad of a husband into a prince? It’s not going to happen.
You can maintain the status quo and continue to be cheated on (100% emotionally and 95% sexually). You can keep doing the couples therapy that clearly isn’t working. You can try new couples therapists. You can keep being miserable.
*** OR ***
You can get the will to leave him and build a life that is beautiful and good and meet someone who actually respects you.
You can accept this other woman into your life, open your marriage and just create a new status quo. It may not be what you want but at least the mystery will be gone.
You can have an affair of your own (once we’re no longer social distancing).
You can learn black magic and put a love hex on your husband.
You can literally handcuff yourself to your husband so you can keep an eye on him at all times.
I really believe that any option presented here is going to be better for you then continuing to do what isn’t working.
Yesterday I experienced what I would call an almost violent depression. I just couldn’t move the first few hours of the day. I curled into as tiny of a ball that I could manage and just cried. Then I went through the typical guilt because “I have it pretty good compared to a lot of people” and then felt pretty worse. It got a bit better throughout the day but never really felt better. I’ve dealt with depression for a long time but this is the worst it’s been in a very, very long time.
Today is more of an anxiety day, which I have an easier time dealing with. I can keep myself busy when I feel anxious, but depression is just so all-consuming and motivation crushing. So it’s overall a lot better, relatively speaking.
This pandemic has really managed to shine a light on the fact that most of the time, our bosses are really not our friends. I’m pretty lucky in that most of the opposition to working from home has been in middle-management. It seems that the people at the top of the food chain are the ones pushing to work from home if possible.
I’m finally able to start working remotely today. I hope it goes well – I’m a bit anxious about it because I can be easily distracted by my family’s needs, and I don’t really have a good private area to work at all.
Whelp – my work is cutting our hours down now as our sales slow. Not surprising but it’s a nice extra layer of stress now. At least my wife’s employment is safe and steady.
Schools closing up here in MN soon too. I balance living in a relative small apartment by keeping busy and out and about. It’s going to be a challenge keeping every one sane. I foresee a disturbing amount of streaming services in my future.
This is adorable. Warms my cynical, wedding-hating heart a bit.
So…the ring is purchased and you both know it’s going to happen. It kind of seems like you are both just pretending to not be engaged for…reasons I don’t understand? Is it a photo-op thing? It seems kind of silly at this point. By the time it does happen my feelings of excitement would be replaced by feeling of “thank god this is finally over”
Admittedly, I’m a bit of a crank when it comes to weddings and engagements, so feel free to ignore me.
@JulieCatherine is on point here. The letter writer doesn’t need to be lectured about her drinking here. She needs to be assured that her feelings of violation are warranted and that this wasn’t her fault. The only person at fault here is her shitheel friend, who probably doesn’t even think he did anything wrong.
The writer didn’t ask “Do I have a drinking problem?”. This guy saw she was vulnerable, saw the opportunity to feed her shots, made a lame excuse to spend the night and unquestionably took advantage.
The letter writer mentions nothing about her drinking habits besides this incident and many people here are ABSOLUTELY telling her this is her fault. And it’s a load of Grade-A. B.S.
