Its been three days since I hit that "final straw" moment with my husband. We have been together 8 years, married only 4 months. I have the same issues that keep cropping up, that he is unable to process positive emotions (love, happiness, sexual arousal with a female) and I feel unloved while he is at a comfortable level of happiness in our relationship. It is not that I feel this way all the time, because I can forget about it, it hides in the background because more important daily things come up that I must use brain power to focus on (car broke down, school work, what's for dinner each night). He struggles with putting down technology to notice me, and I mother him, always trying to help him improve himself, though he does not want my help. Our lives are too busy with other things that we have never dated, we went from our first meet, pretty much to moving in together and have spent most of our time together. I feel that a wedding and reception (Since we are already married) would be more forced upon him, so I am struggling with the idea of refunding the layaway engagement ring. It is set to be paid off in about 2 months, so I have that long to decide. I cried tears of joy when it was on my finger and he hadn't even asked the question. If that does not show him how much I care for him, I am not sure what else would. But I do not think he even blinked when it happened. At least the Shane Co Rep shed a tear or two and smiled for me. So, we have tried couples counseling, which did not work because I think neither of us worked on anything. So, I have now decided to try emotional detachment. Psychologists say this might work, if he wants to change, but if not, then it will go one of two ways. Either the changes I make in myself will allow us to live together mutually emotionally detached, or it will end in divorce. So, day 3 has been mostly spent crying, as he is at work, and I am trying to detach myself enough to be able to talk to him without breaking down into crying fits or going back into old habits and trying to fix him. This is truly tough but I am determined to fix myself.
I'm in an emotionally detached marriage with a narcissist. There are no positive emotions in mine either, no intimacy, and arguments and the thought of leaving him don't make me cry anymore. I'm working on a plan to leave in 2020. I have to for my well-being and happiness. I know at least partly how you feel. My advice would be to work on yourself, and if that leads to living with him as a roommate like my husband and I have for awhile, or divorce, at least you'll know you're working to better yourself for whatever you have ahead of you. You deserve so much better. I'm sorry you're hurting. Please keep posting. There are so many great people here, and I'm here if you want to talk.
@LivingOnAPrayer Thank you and I am here for you as well.
Like I told you, I had to do that, detach from my ex. It started years before I pulled the final plug. We were high school sweethearts. He was everything to me when we started out and always my only true love. But once we married he totally took me for granted, never wanted to talk or connect but still expected sex. So how does this work, I'm expected to on a dime suddenly get there? Like I'm some prostitute. Eventually we divorced, because he was literally never around once we married. I'll have to admit during the marriage we had lots of platonic opposite sex friendships. Towards the end, I knew I'd leave and ended up cheating because it was so lonely, which I DON'T recommend. It's not worth it and does so much damage to another human being traumatizing them (didn't know at that time how it causes a form of PTSD.) So now you know my story about the loneliness issues in my first marriage. It was easy for me to disconnect from him and have my own life because my ex never isolated me how my husband now does. My husband has isolated me so cruelly, I can't even have normal relationships outside of him. So I can't just disconnect the same way, building a separate life. But I have disconnected more emotionally in other ways.
@Scat My first husband also detached himself from me in every way but expected sex. For awhile I went with it because hey we all have desires but after awhile I cut him off because I felt like a prostitute like you said, or at the very least like that was all I was good for. My current husband stopped wanting sex a long time ago, I believe due to medical issues and stress. So I know what you mean about the loneliness issues.
Health issues also make my disconnecting my difficult. But you can do it easily if you're an emotionally healthy person with your own interests outside the relationship.
@Scat my apologies for not understanding your situation fully. I am not convinced that this will be easy, and I thought I was emotionally healthy until very recently (today). Maybe I was so good at hiding it I even hid it from myself. It does not help that I have been in the medical field for over 15 years and so I know "the system". I try not to take that into account when going to my therapist appointments, but when it comes to my brain, who knows, maybe I am fooling myself.
@Kiaya_saya We humans can be self deceptive. However often our own intuition about matters is correct. So if your inner overpowering feelings are telling you the therapy will help and you like the therapist, then it could be a good fit. I guess time will tell. At least you’ll know you tried.