I’ve been with my husband for around six years and married for three. We met in college, both social work majors. Dating through college was easy and FUN. We had the same interests, same sense of humor, and wanted to move our lives in a similar directions. He had a 4.0 without trying and we studied abroad together without killing one another so it seemed like a match made in heaven.
I did see some potential future hiccups but thought they would likely mitigate themselves as we aged. My husband has never had to work hard very for anything and life has just always “worked out”. He recognizes this and would like to change, but it’s about to become disastrous. I planned everything about where to live, our whole wedding, honeymoon, 1st move, and now 2nd move. I worked the six weeks prior to us getting married before we moved. He did nothing and continued to do nothing the six weeks after we moved before he started school. Since he has been a law student (graduated in May) he has not had a job and the entire financial burden has been on me. His first year there really was not time but he has had time his second and third year to work a small part time job. My salary barely covers our living expenses and it has been a huge contention point because he has never felt the urgency or need to help out. He has expressed that he would “like” to have a job but then done minimal work to get one, such as applying for target and ending his job search there. He was signed up for Uber but didn’t like it so he did it twice. Literally. Would have been the perfect source of income as it would work around his schedule. He currently works 10-15 hours a week at a restaurant and he started this in March. I got him this job through a friend. I try not to hold resentment for that because I am glad we have some more money, but it’s hard. I should note that he does a significant amount of house work. He is tidy and does almost all of our laundry because I can’t get our basket down the stairs very easily. He considers this his contribution to our marriage in defense of not having a job.
I will be attending law school myself come August. The plan the whole time has been for him to get a job and support us while I’m in school. He did not go the firm route as he wants to work for the government and many of those jobs won’t hire until after he gets his license but some may and there are lots of paralegal jobs to get your foot in the door. It’s one thing if you are trying really hard to get a job and no one is biting; I’ve been there. I applied for 35 prior to moving to where we live now before someone hired me (most functioning adults understand this).
He takes his boards in five weeks (studying 8 hours a day, it’s a lot of work) and we move in six. He has applied to one job. He hadn’t done anything three weeks ago so I sent him like 15 listings on different websites that would suit him because I figured he maybe didn’t know how since he’s never really had a job. He told me he has applied to 8 of those last week but couldn’t tell me which ones or show me ANY email confirmations. He said he used indeed and government jobs website and both of those show almost all activity on them and there wasn’t even saved applications. I confronted him with this and he has continued to lie and say he has applied and doesn’t know why he doesn’t have any email confirmations; after he actually did apply to one and get a confirmation he admits that maybe he “thought he did” but didn’t actually click submit or know what he was doing. I’ve explained I have to either believe he is THAT STUPID (he’s not!!!!!) or that he’s lying and he understands my perspective. I know I should lay off and not micro manage and let him fail, but if I do this I FAIL TOO because I’m depending on him to support me while in school. I’ve already set my backup and applied to pull out loans to cover cost of living just in case but really hope I don’t have to do that.
So, as if this wasn’t exhausting enough, I picked up his phone about a month ago to plug into the wall when he fell asleep and found a series of “flirty texts” with an unknown number. They sounded like cheater messages “hey babe, can’t wait to cuddle tomorrow, wish i could be with you now” and one strange message about the price of nudes. He lied when I first woke him up and said he had no idea what it was and even called the number and told them not to contact him ever again (poor sex worker, probably gets that kind of call every other day). He did tell the truth and say he uses chat rooms and had been getting numbers off of them for the past two months but had never met someone, sent money, or shared nudes. I think I believe him. He immediately had me set parental locks on his phone and has been apologetic, but otherwise I feel he is waiting for me to get over it because he is content with our relationship. He wants me to help him with this but I just can’t be responsible, it hurts so badly to be betrayed and while it wasn’t black and white cheating it was definitely disrespectful. I just worry about how far it would have gone had I not caught him.
Because of his fuck up, I asked him to find a marriage counselor because I can’t trust him and don’t know how to work through this. I could go on another long rant here, but he essentially didn’t do it and said he didn’t think I was serious after I explicitly asked FOUR TIMES so I made the appointment myself. He also indicated he was scared to do it because he’s worried they will tell me to leave and while I respect that feeling, shouldn’t he want to do whatever he can to fix this????? He says he’s excited to work with her now. I met her on my own last week and he’s going this week. I also got my own individual to deal with all the stress and to have so introspection. I do worry that my controlling nature is enabling and that I am spiraling into only looking for the bad. Maybe I am a narcissist that has ridiculous expectations. I’m not sure.
My love language is gifts and acts of service because for some reason I feel like I deserve to be treated like a fucking queen (hate this about myself, almost always hide my birthday from people because I end up disappointed by my stupid expectations). Our anniversary was Tuesday and he got me flowers that he bought the day of. Said he was planning to ask me if I wanted a pair of shoes while we were at dinner but I don’t really believe him. I bought him a nice gift and almost want to return it. I don’t know, I feel like he should be trying to kiss my ass after he knows how much he hurt me but he hasn’t.
As if this wasn’t exhausting enough, there is ONE MORE thing. Two days ago, we got in his car to go to our belated anniversary dinner (I was too upset about his lying about jobs, couldn’t stop crying so we didn’t end up going on actual anniversary) and I found a weed pipe just... sitting there. I knew the car smelled funny and asked why and he said he didn’t know. I’m honestly just laughing. I know marijuana really isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s that he hid it from me deliberately and has already been deceitful. He smoked every day in high school and I kinda thought he grew out of it. Also kinda worried because where we live and where we are moving it is illegal and he has to pass drug screens for any government job he applies to. I can’t smoke because my job drug tests (government social worker) and I also feel someone uneasy about using since I also drug test my clients and it seems slimy.
I’ve asked him if he had been smoking with a friend because he never invited me to hang out and it looks like I was right!! Not sure what else he could be hiding but he swears that’s it; I know all of his secrets now. I’m not that mad. I should be mad, but maybe I’m just exhausted about caring??? Kind of worried about that, will unpack in individual therapy this week. For the first time, I felt like he showed true remorse yesterday when he cried to me on his way home from work about how sorry he is about everything. The most genuine apology I have received.
I do love him. The potential for such a beautiful marriage and partnership is there, he just isn’t being that partner. I know you shouldn’t marry someone for what they WILL be and should marry for WHAT THEY ARE, but I think I married for that potential. What other choice do you have when you marry fresh out of college?
A few takeaways: 1) Am I overreacting? 2) Has anyone made it through something like this before and can you tell me how? I don’t really have anyone to talk to other than my therapists because I don’t want the people in our lives to treat him differently if we make it through and I don’t want to disrespect him. We share a lot of our friends. 3) Is it possible to trust him again? Right now I almost don’t believe a single word he says. I’m worried I’ll always feel this way and I’ll catch him with a prostitute in five years or keep finding secret drugs or addictions 4) I am not saint. I did not mention any of my own flaws here but I can be very controlling. I am a type A super independent type of person and take over for people when they are not doing a satisfactory job which I know has been enabling in this relationship.
I want to thank anyone for reading this. It’s very long; God bless you. This was honestly therapeutic just writing the whole thing out and I feel I can see it better like this. And I know... why post it if writing it was enough... I’m just hoping some internet stranger has made it through and can tell me how. (Internet) Friend advice is different than therapist advice.
TLDR: Lol everyone is gonna skip down to here to read and I don’t blame you. My husband has lied about applying to jobs, got caught “flirty texting” strangers, and now I found a stash of pot in his car. We’re starting therapy and I am unsure if I will ever actually be able to trust him the way a spouse should be able to.
Submitted June 23, 2019 at 11:56AM by throwawayy4796 http://bit.ly/2ZJcteJ
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