That’s great, Sherry, that you may be interested in Larry’s program.
Would you be ready to be disciplined and put your energy into doing the steps of the program?? It does take committment. I know that in my situation, after I decided to sign up for Larry’s program, I had less and less of a need to vent to my friends and family. I became more focused on a real solution to my problems instead of just talking about them. It was definitely worth it. Hope you make the right decision–you will be in my prayers!

Tom’s an angry man. I have been thinking long, deep and hard about all this. Thinking a lot about Larry’s, “secret lifestyle” article. I think I’m starting to understand this mess, but I’m still not ready to get my hope up.

I’m going to budget to talk w/Larry for December. Religiously, we don’t “do” Christmas. So, while everyone else is getting in that spirit, I think I’ll see if I can get Tom to agree to have some of those phone consultations.

I know my heart has been softening now that I think I’m figuring out what’s making him angry. I don’t think it’s me anymore. Where I used to think he hated me, and just kept me around so he didn’t have to pay me maintenance if we divorced. I needed the heart softening to begin, because….well, I just needed it to start happening. I’m realizing my anger is/was a sabbotager to any healing attempts. Not that I care after a long hard fight/bad day with him. But obviously, if I’m going to choose to stay here, it needs to make sense.

Currently paused in deep contemplation…..
Me, the troubled one…

Hey Sherry & Angie–

I FEEL both of your pain. When we are married, we are not given any instructions other than those of our parents who didn’t even know what they were doing when they instructed us on how to be married. All I can say is: I participated in Larry’s Environment Changer program where you participate in a number of telephone calls with Larry–or someone else who is one of his Marriage Translators. This is TOTALLY different than regular counseling. Believe me, I had plenty of regular counseling–with NO good results. My husband and I were both MORE angry and less able to communicate when we tried this.

Now, even though things are still difficult with my husband and I don’t know our future, I AM THE PERSON WHO HAS CHANGED!!! I finally have peace and the ability to take whatever comes at me in the future. I have so much more understanding as to how I got to this point–it is incredible! This is an unbelieveable comfort during trying times.

Lots of times, LIFE IS A MESS. You have to make it OK for yourself and do the best you can.

Renee

First, let me apologize for not responding sooner. The link wasn’t working for me, and we are in the middle of a move. I finally emailed Marsha and Larry’s daughter about the problem, and finally today, I’ve been able to read all that you’ve written.

Wow! After reading Marsha’s, I felt my eyes heat up and tears fall. Lot of emotion, namely frustration/anger, but also guilt/hope? So much emotion. I don’t mind anything she said. It’s just that the approach is almost too simplistic, and I don’t see how just accepting him, and he the same, remedies the other issues, like no sex/tenderness/emotional starvation. But maybe I’m too short sighted.

Yes, I love a few things about him. But the cycles of neglect and abuse make for relying on those few things to keep me here, not very powerful.

Since I wrote that first email to Marsha, something interesting happened. He fainted at work. Flat out cold, on his face, hurt himself, confused, etc…. Obviously, being a truck driver (although not an over the road driver, he’s an LTL linehaul driver), fainting is NO good! So even though he felt content to blow it off, I was almost feeling irate at his reaction to it. Most likely because anymore I feel like a pressure cooker when I deal with him. So I demanded he not be so careless and selfish about how I felt about it, and to go to the doctor to ask about getting an MRI. He did, and got one. Nothing showed up. However, he took his sweet time finally admitting to me that when he saw the doctor, they guessed that he was under too much stress, and is anxiety filled, and that is likely what caused him to pass out. So, he gave him a prescription for generic Prozac.

I am NOT keen on taking anti depressant without counseling. It took him almost 2 weeks to admit he got the prescription, had taken it for 5 days, and stopped because he didn’t like the way it made him feel, and that he was thinking about going to the doctor because he didn’t think he was depressed, but that he thought he could use an anti anxiety med. I kind of blew up and shouted, “GREAT! So instead of working on your problems, you’re going to buy into the idea that there’s some magic pill out there that’s going to make you feel better! You know what!?!! I’m done! I’m not going to stay with someone who functions this way. Things between you and I are only going to get worse! You want me to calm down AT ALL, then you better find a counselor and quick, and do what you’ve been avoiding doing for YEARS now! Get some help!”

Well, I’m sure you can imagine that conversation ended on a dud note. But that night, I remembered some years back going to a certain clinic for some counseling, and looked it up on the internet. They had kind of bio’s for each counselor and since I had read that a bad marriage will likely leave you needing counseling more than the abusive spouse, I picked one, called the next morning and set an appointment.

Then I told him what I did, and why. I told him I was going to go to a counselor to find out why I stay in such an awful marriage, and figure out why I feel guilty everytime I think about filing for divorce, because I have come to firmly believe there’s nothing here worth saving! He just kind of looked at me, and went, “ok, where’s this website?”

So we’ve been to 2 sessions now. Still doing intake. Feels good to be doing something. If we keep moving in the right direction, soon here then I think we’ll have to buy some of the stuff here at the website and see if we can learn and implement any of it.

To the 2 ladies above who commented. I hear you, and I hear the sadness at the death of a dream, as I feel. I do NOT understand the men in all of our stories. They claim they want the marriages, but they really do little to nothing to save it. It can’t be both ways. My dad told me he had concluded that my husband was handling things the way he was, so I would file for the divorce, then I’d be the bad guy and not him.
I’ve thought men like this hate losing at life and they stay in these awful marriages because they like the fact it gives them some semblance of normalcy/somehow successful. How fake!

But don’t they want to be happy/peaceful? When do they put out effort to save the marriage? When do they seek information to learn and grow by, to save the marriage with? Funny I said that though, as it was my husband who told me about Larry Bilotto’s website. He’d heard him on the radio over two years ago while driving his truck one night. Called me and asked me to go check out the website. Yet never since then, did he do anymore. Why is it, at least these 3 men, and so many other’s I’ve observed, just wish/think/hope for improved marriages, yet put forth no effort to try and make a difference/change?

Yeah, I could stay here like a room mate. I don’t want to fool around with anyone though if we are still under “contract.” I wonder if this keeps up and I get a real temptation to stray, if I’d play on it, even though I’ve always believed I’d never do anything like that. I wonder how to deal with these unmet physical needs that only HE should be filling.

I’m tired now. My head needs a break. My heart is numb. The future is narrow and dark. I want quality of life. So much more to say, but I’ll sign off here for now….

“Cindy” AKA Sherry

In May of 2005 I had a gastric bypass for medical reasons. I went from 307 to 165. I was 127 at our wedding. My husband’s weight stays around 220-240. He was 160 when we were married. So we grew together. My husband always wanted to be a pastor and I a nurse. In 1987 I graduated as an LPN. He has been in and out of school for about 5 years with no degree. We left our home of 15 years to move from SC to KY for his bible college degree that he did not get because he was offered a position at our home church in our hometown. I was miserable. I think I cried the first three months. While in KY I had 3 different types of surgery. I had not had any surgeries in my life before KY. First gallbladder removal–did great. 2nd was rectal fissure repair. Thirdly Total abdominal hysterectomy with removal of my appendix. All of this happen within 4 months time. The last surgery in KY was the worst and I could not get any relief from the pain. Demerol did not even touch the pain. I think that my body built up a tolerance to the meds. Anyway during the last surgery I began to have some of the worst pain ever. I called the school and asked them to send my husband up to the hospital. When he arrived he was mad. He did not stay long.

After the gastric bypass in 2005, I developed severe back pain. The doctors say I have arthritis, degenerative disc, osteopenia, curve in spine and a rotated rt hip. I became disabled. I was unable to take care of the house or anything else. I became disabled and then he changed. He has been pastoring a baptist church that I am not able to go to most of the time. Well, he got a second job with the school district. After a year he was promoted to the district office where the ratio of men to women is low. For a long time I kept hearing one persons name all the time. I asked him what is with this girl. He said we’re just friends and talk about stuff. I said did she know that we were having marital problems and he said yes. He continued to claim she is only a friend. But, since then I have found out that he has been going out to lunch with her and some other women. I do not know if it is ever just one women, but I suspect so.

Anyway, now that I am unable to do the things I once enjoyed, I feel like he is moving on. He says I killed his love. He has also said that half of him left a long time ago. I told him it is not right to ask me to put all my heart into saving this marriage if he is going to do it half-heartally. I asked him “Why are you still here?” He said because a part of him wants this to work.

This is what I and my therapist think. My husband is perfect outside our door. He would not want anyone to think he could do no wrong. He made the statement at one of the two marriage counseling appts, what would happen to my ministry. Can this man ever love me anymore? I am so tired of him giving me hope and then taking it right back.

I have two sons. The oldest is 24 and has a great job in Alabama but he treats women horribly. He is probably had sex with a lot of the girls he has dated. He is not only disrespectful to some of these women but also to me. His dad in his eyes is perfect. My other son who just turned 12 is having a problem adjusting to the turmoil here, first time middle school student, and hormones. I do not want this son to disrespect other people whether they or male, female, black, white, ect.

Can this marriage be saved??? We have had very little sex or intimacy. He had had a problem with porn and I started pushing him away because he made me sick. I guess that is where it all started. When I pushed him away for the last two years.

If you can help it would be appreciated. Thanks

Cindy, I’m with you all the way here–except I’ve been married 30 years. I know about staying in it for your children. In my husband’s case it was perfectionsim and criticism for me which basically ended up in being abuse. I thought of myself as My Fair Lady: see which thing he could criticize each year: my weight, my haircolor, my mothering, my employment, my outside activities; whether or not I did outside activities: of course, I was supposed to do them when my kids were little so he could complain about them, but then when I decided to do something for myself after my children had grown and left: that wasn’t acceptable! After years of neglecting the fact that our sex life was falling apart, it caused my husband to go berserk: he made me feel unsafe to the point where I had to move out. (He had no one night stands!) Like you said, my emotions were starving–because he totally ignored me. At least, like Marsha says, Larry always let her be “her”. That’s something a lot of us have never had. I was NEVER allowed to be me!

The good part of Marsha’s advice is that you can’t count on your husband to make you happy–ever! Most times, you have to look outside of the marriage for other people to be part of your life so there is not so much stress on your spouse to be everything for you.

I guess if I was still with my husband–instead of 2 miles down the street separated (and waiting for divorce papers)–I would examine outside groups or people I could get involved with to enrich myself first, then maybe he will come around. Focus on YOU for once in your life. Too many women who are Mothers don’t allow themselves to do this–no matter how old their children are! I also agree with Marsha that you love your kids and have had a committment to stay in your marriage that has lasted 23 1/2 years–that’s a LONG time. There must be something there!!

Here’s hoping that you are able to “fall in love with your husband” after 22 years of a so-so marriage!