Dear Dr. K,
I married my husband after dating for five months because I was pregnant and felt like it was the right thing to do. I was codependent with him for the first 15-18 years of our marriage. This looked like me walking on eggshells, trying to please and appease him to make him happy so he wouldn’t be irritable or sulky or snap at me and the kids.
Now that my kids are adults, I’m not trying to control him anymore but now I feel nothing for him. I want the best for him but if I didn’t live with him and only talked with him a few times a year I think I’d be fine with that. I think I lost respect for him as a partner after years of trying to get him to work on improving our relationship and him saying he didn’t want to talk about it.
Now I’m just “done:”
– Done with caring
– Done with trying to have a close relationship
– Done with putting energy into it
I’m not miserable but I do wonder if it’s the healthiest I could be to live like this or if I could be happier not being married. I’ve gotten so used to this being a normal way to live. I’m in individual therapy. What would you advise?
Done with Dancing
Dear Done with Dancing,
It sounds like you have some awareness that you have created the very “man baby” that you now want to leave behind. If he was irritable or snappy or took his own frustrations out on others, you tolerated it. You swallowed your true self in order to “keep the peace at all cost.”
And it worked.
People typically don’t feel much for those they can successfully manipulate. Your husband would likely be shocked to learn of your deep lack of feeling, respect and connection. He might not even realize that he was “allowed” to be immature and obnoxious toward his family. He might have thought his actions were normal. Justifiable even.
Yes, he made a contribution given his disinterest in couples counseling. He’s not unusual in that.
Yes, you would periodically protest, but he could easily discourage you with a growl. Would his answer have been different if you told him that “I’m deeply unhappy. If you don’t want to work on the marriage, I will have to make other plans”?
We’ll never know.
Then you gave up by accepting “no” for an answer for years and years. Perhaps it was because you never said “yes” on the day you married.
Perhaps you said: “What the heck. It’s the right thing to do. I’ll do it.”
The Jerry McGuire syndrome. Renee Zellweger’s character (Dorothy Boyd) knew he didn’t love her, but married him anyway. Everyone loses.
We all get the marriages that we’re willing to settle for. This hollowed-out one was your choice, and you blamed him for it. Now, of course, you want to get away. There is nothing to “want” left to it. Nothing left of anything that resembles friendship, affection or respect.
Couples therapy happens when misery is intolerable and people just can’t stand living such a disconnected life. They want the “good times” back. But I hear no “good times” you want to return to. Only the peace and aloneness that you gave up on your wedding day.
And that’s something to process in individual therapy. That’s something worth grieving about.
Thanks for writing.
Dr. K