Why My Marriage Failed

It is interesting to look at relationships in the rear view mirror. They always say that hind sight is always 20/20, and I suppose that relationships are no exception to the rule. I have done a lot of soul searching over the last couple of years since I first said those dreaded words, “I think I want a divorce.” And I meant it. I THINK I want a divorce. (Note the emphasis there.) I wasn’t sure, but I knew things did not feel right.

Let me back it up for a minute- When I met my now husband, we worked together at a company that did not support relationships in the workplace. We had lots of laughs and we challenged each other conversationally, but we seemed to have very different interests at the time. Because we could not really be seen together for fear of work repercussions, we spent most of our time together at his apartment watching sports and movies and learning about each other through conversation instead of action. What I mean by that is, instead of saying “what do you want to do today” and then going and doing it, we would talk about what we would have enjoyed doing if we were able to get out and do stuff together. This is a really important part of our history, as it turns out. Life for he and I had its ups and its downs, but to be honest- the downs certainly seem to come to the forefront. We met and lived through the demise of an entire company that we both loved working for. The day they went bankrupt, I realized that it wasn’t just me that was affected, it was WE. Within a month, he stood by me during one of the hardest times of my life. My mother was diagnosed with cancer, had her right lung removed due to complications when they attempted to remove the upper lobe (with the cancer), and was put in a medically induced coma to give her a chance at survival. When they started to wake her up after about 5 weeks, my step father asked me to take him to the doctor because he was having some issues, and he was also diagnosed with cancer and had emergency surgery to remove his left kidney. I was dating my now husband during this time, and he was the one stable thing in my life. We ultimately ended up moving to Charlotte when I got an offer there, and we spent the next 2 years of our life there in relative solitude. I had work and after a couple months there he had work. We even had a few work friends, but none we spent any real time with outside of the office. I was on a journey towards fitness, and so I spent most of my time in the gym or at home where I could really control my eating and drinking the way I wanted to. Most nights were spent with me watching TV downstairs, and him upstairs playing games on his computer. This was our rhythm, and one we had become accustomed to. On the weekends I would go to the gym and go horseback riding, and he and I may go to the grocery store or to dinner together occasionally, but for the most part we did our own thing. We made a decision that we wanted to be in Richmond so that I could be closer to my mom and step dad, as their health was not the best. And so a month before we got married, I moved to VA and stayed with my mom. My then fiancé got a job at the same company about a week before we got married, and he started the day after we got back from our Honeymoon. Talk about a whirlwind! 

Where did we go wrong?

Let’s talk about sex, baby!

As it turns out, getting to know someone by conversation, when it is not backed up by action, creates some major challenges. When I say, “sex is extremely important to me, and I think it is the cornerstone of a healthy marriage” and then he says “sex is important to me too,” we may mean that in VERY different ways! In fact, that was the case for us. I have always been a sexual being that derives a true connection from sex. When you have a healthy sex life, it allows for room for other issues to be overcome because you have that crucial connection between the two of you. My husband and I had sexual issues long before we got married. He told me later, that sex just was not a priority for him. He said that his age made it so he was unable to satisfy me or give me what I needed. Because I loved him, I took strides to stifle my sexuality and sexual needs. I still tried to get him interested, there was lingerie and there was naked propositions. There were comments like “whatever you want, I will try it!” (Mom, if you are reading this- SORRY!) When I was rejected with nearly every attempt, I began to have my own sexual insecurities that I had never had before. A man not wanting to have sex? This just doesn’t compute to me. Women are raised to not just think that men want sex all the time, but to KNOW it. So that begs the question, “what is wrong with me?” More often than not, that rejection was met with my tears. Usually not in front of my future husband, but in my bed- alone.

When things got really bad in our marriage, one thing that he confessed to me was that he had been lying to me about his sexual issues, that he did want sex…. Just not with me. Now, he wasn’t cheating on me, you see… but he was self-servicing. Now- I know what you are thinking…. “Carrie, OF COURSE HE WAS! ALL MEN MASTERBATE!” Yeah, yeah…. I know. But, he had told me he wasn’t, and I believed him. After all, I also know that all men are sexual machines…. Right? But he still didn’t want me. He told me that I put too much pressure on him, that I could never be satisfied, and that I had caused this. He did say that he shouldn’t have lied about it….. (gee, that was big of him!) I was floored. I was crushed. I was broken. How could he lie about this? How could he watch me beg and beg for his sexual attention, and continue to turn me away? How could he listen to me sob into my pillow when he was a room away and not want to come comfort me? I had reached a point where I felt as though asking him for this attention was like asking someone in a wheelchair to get up and run a marathon with me- completely unfair and not even possible.

I still believe very strongly that a healthy sex life is an extremely important part of a healthy relationship, even more than I did before. After all, I thought that before in theory and now I know the reality of how detrimental a bad (or nonexistent) sex life can be on a relationship.

Lights, Camera, TECHNOLOGY!

Technology is the giant dog that lies between you and your loved one in the bedroom. You may be in the same place, but you aren’t really TOGETHER. This big ole dog drives a wedge between you and your significant other that can go unnoticed until it is too late. Sure, we all have cell phones, computers, TVs, and social media- but should we let this run our lives? Certainly not. Do we let it run our lives? We certainly do. When I think of the sexual dysfunction in my relationship, I cannot help but think if we had spent more time in bed together, that we naturally would have done the deed more frequently. After all, that is where the magic happens…. Right? Instead, I went to bed and he stayed up and played on his computer every night. Usually, World of Warcraft. He would wander into our room in the wee hours of the morning when I was deep asleep. I would be up, and active, sometimes even out of the house, before he ever even woke up. What if he had gone to bed with me just a couple nights a week? Would our story be different? When we were together, we were both on our phones. He would frequently tell me that I spent too much time texting or looking at Facebook, while he would be doing the same types of things. (We have always been good for pointing the finger at each other for some of the same behaviors we took part in.) We would be out, eyes down at our phones. How can you really connect with the person you spend the most time with, when you are engaging everyone on the internet before you engage them?? There is a simple answer really- you can’t. Now, I am not saying that you should go back to a home phone, a typewriter, and shut off the internet at home. (Though, how cool would that be!) What I AM saying is that prioritization is a choice. We need to choose more wisely.

What to do, what to do?

Here is a fact about relationships- it isn’t all about you. In fact, I now know that if I had focused my energy on making him happy and he had focused his energy on making me happy, we likely never could have failed. But we didn’t. We realized that when we were telling each other about what was important to us early on, we had our own interpretation of that. When I said “sex is important” and he said “sex is important,” we were both so impressed that we were aligned that we never wondered what the other person’s definition of “important” really was. When I kept asking my husband to go to events at the VFW with my family (that in fairness, were sometimes boring), he would stare at his feet and say, “if I have to.” Sometimes he would go, and he would sit there looking miserable. Enough times of that, and I finally started asking, but saying “you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” Enough times of him taking me up on that, and it became assumed that he wouldn’t go, and I just started saying “I am going to the VFW with my mom and George tonight.” There is a breakdown here on both of our parts. When you are in a relationship, it is part of your job to do the things that you don’t want to do, and that may not be fun, because they are important to your partner. Furthermore, it is important that you suck it up, put a smile on, and have a good time so that they don’t feel burdened by the guilt that they “dragged you there” or that you “aren’t having fun.” We are adults, we have to do things we don’t want to do sometimes. Own it. Live it. That’s life. On the flip side of that coin, we all need to identify what is important to us. For me, it was important that we spend time as a couple with my family. I have very little family, even less now, and I wanted him to be an active participant in that. I let the discomfort of making that known rule me, and I became resentful of him not being an active participant in our life together. So if what to do is the question, the answer is always “do for your partner, because it will always bring you both rewards.”

Dolla, dolla bills ya’ll!

Yeah, you hear it all the time. Finances create issues for many, many couples. Now I know what you may be thinking- “Wait- I am not special here?!” Sorry to be the pin to your balloon, but no, you are not. I have come to believe that money can be a lynch pin in your relationship regardless of if you have too much, not enough, or juuuuuuuuuust the right amount. Unless you are the lucky few who have the exact same opinion on how to manage money, how to earn money, how to save money, and how to spend money- there will be some challenges to face. For me, I was never comfortable with joint accounts. I felt like my then boyfriend talked me into them, and I finally said, “ok, but we will ONLY use this for joint bills.” He said ok, and we went along like that for a short period of time where he put money in the account, but I was solely responsible for the act of paying the bills. Then one day called and said “can I use the joint card for lunch for my team.” Since we only had enough money in there to cover standard bills with a smidge of cushion, I opened the account online to check what we had available, only to find out that he called AFTER he had made the charge, and subsequently over drafted our account. I was livid. I calmly (har, har) made the suggestion that in the future he either choose to ask for permission, or beg for forgiveness…. But asking permission when you have ALREADY DONE IT is nothing short of infuriating. He lost debit card privileges at that point (yes, I know that makes me sound like a mother) and got them back the year we got married…….. only to do the exact same thing again. Ugh.

I would strongly recommend that you have finance conversations early on, and often. I didn’t know what his credit was like, he didn’t know what mine was like. Did we have debt or assets? WHO KNEW?!?!?! Not us, we didn’t discuss it. Honestly, I don’t know what the answer is here, I have yet to figure it out. How do you pay joint bills without joint accounts? If you have one person who is anxious about joint accounts, what is the most effective way to help them overcome that (if that is the goal)? I can tell you that our approach did not work. I constantly felt strong armed, and like a mother that was policing his every move. He felt like he did not have enough visibility and like he was working for money but had no idea where it was going each month. Both feelings were fair, but we never took action to solve for those issues………… all I can say here is to keep the communication lines open and find a solution that you are both comfortable with, whatever that may be. If you do give one person the control over paying the bills, make sure the other person knows what is being paid, when, and why. I can remember when my dad died and he had controlled all of that, it was a mess for my mom and created WAY more stress for her in a time when that was the last thing she needed. So- plan for the worst, hope for the best.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Find out what it means to me, right?! Wrong again- find out what it means to you BOTH, and strive for it. One of the biggest issues in my marriage was our lack of respect for each other. He saw me as a woman who filled a role that he wanted for himself. I am social, educated, quick witted, charming, funny, I love to cook, I will clean, and his family (mostly) liked me. I saw him as calm, patient, smart, funny, and loving. He would be my cheerleader and tell me how much he loved my food and craft projects, and helped me to confront stressful situations with a more calm approach (which I badly needed to learn!). The fact is that he spent years taking advantage of me, and I spent years growing increasingly resentful of his lack of effort in our relationship. I began to feel like a mother, a maid, and a cook…. But not like a wife or lover. In turn he began to feel like a petulant child, always being scolded for his lack of action. I felt as though he pushed me into a place where I HAD to nag him. He has acknowledged that he did, because he grew up being nagged by his mother and to him, this equated to love. (Mothers- do women around the world a favor and don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys adult man children who want their wives to mother them.)

Together we did a lot of damage to our respect for one another. We let each other down on all of the items listed above. I felt like I could not count on him to do what was best for us, so I began to feel like I HAD to take the lead. He felt like I only cared about myself, and did not consider his needs. I remember watching some interview of a celebrity where the woman said, “we both have very dominant personalities, but at the end of the day I am comfortable deferring to him because I know he will do what he feels is right for us and our family.” I started crying. I had never once felt that my husband would do what was best for US. In fact, I had gotten to a place where I believed he would likely just take no action whatsoever. This was likely accurate. If I consider what he would think, he likely believed that in that same place I would choose to do what was right for me, and he would simply be a bystander. He was likely accurate. I knew he wouldn’t voice an opinion (leading to my belief of how he would react), and I learned that his lack of opinion made it necessary for me to make decisions that I felt to be the best. At the end of the day, I still hope to be in a relationship where I can say- “…..at the end of the day I am comfortable deferring to him because I know he will do what he feels is right for us and our family.”

When the end is nigh

The demise of a relationship is painful for everyone. When I say everyone, this includes the couple, their kids (if they have any), their families, and their friends. In an ideal world, all of these people have invested their time and love into the couple, and they will suffer a loss when it is over. Some couples have some major event that causes a split. She cheated. He hit her. There is a thing that they can look back and point to and say, “there it is! That is the minute it was over!” The fact is, it was over long before that, or they never would have gotten to that point. Other relationships suffer a more obviously slow and painful death, like mine. “No one did anything wrong,” you say. “We just fell out of love,” you say. The path to the end is no different, it is only the last straw that looks different. For me, it was when he couldn’t prioritize spending a week with on vacation when I was begging for him to help me save our marriage. It was when I asked him to go to marriage counseling with me and he said he would, but that he wasn’t capable of anything I needed him to do. It was when I got home and said to myself, “ok, I can do this on my own… I can find a way to be happy this way.” It was when I stopped relying on him for anything, because that felt like a way to guard my own heart. It was when I started going to marriage counseling by myself to try to find a way to deal with my life the way it was. It was when he allowed ALL OF THIS to take place. He has said that he would rather be miserable with me forever, than to get divorced. The simple fact is that I do not feel that way, and I will not spend my life in misery just to be able to say I never got divorced. I deserve more than that. I demand more than that, and so should you.

Regardless of what the last nail in the coffin was for you and your spouse, it does not make it any easier to live through it. It does not make it any easier for those same friends and family. They will do their best to support you, but recognize that it is hard for them too. They want what is best for you, and everyone will have an opinion of what that is. It is ok to talk to people, it is ok to not talk to them. Do what is right for you. If they truly love you, they will understand. If you flip flop on your decision, they will still be there to support you…. But everyone will have their own opinion. It is ok to say, “I need some time, I need to look at this from a different angle, please be patient with me.” The real friends will still be there to support you, no matter what decision you make. I am lucky to be surrounded by such friends, and have weeded out some that weren’t in the process.