#marital-conflict

#marital-conflict

I am employed full-time. My husband is currently unemployed, after being laid off from his tech job. I'm the only one making ends meet and sometimes, I can't. I feel very frustrated by my husband's lack of "get up and go." He has been unemployed for over 15 months. I'm fed up and have threatened divorce a couple of times. Nothing ever changes. We got married when he first lost his job, because he needed insurance. I'm very stressed out and have been getting sick from all the stress.

After three years of dating, my husband and I got married six months ago. Our wedding was amazing. We rented a chateau in the south of France, it was black tie, and we danced all night. We're incredibly grateful to my parents, who saved up for years, and to all our guests who flew in from the U.S. and took time off of work. We asked for no gifts, but some people gave us money anyway.

For many men in modern heterosexual marriages, the tendency to become quiet and withdraw during conflict is born out of a well-intended desire to focus on the positive, a propensity towards not wanting to escalate things further or increase the discord with their spouse. For others, it's an involuntary reaction to stress, a logical form of damage control that nature has hardwired into you and Dr. Gottman's research supports this.

When we were young, poor, and renting, my husband was always a slob; he never picked up after himself, left his dirty and clean clothes together in a mountain on his side of the bed, would rather die than wash a dish, etc. His car was putrid. As a medium clean person (but not a neat freak), I was annoyed by the clutter and grossness.

Your sign-off exposes the futility of your question-you can't uncreate a monster (I'm not calling your wife a monster; you did). This is a real be-careful-what-you-wish-for moment, but then I have to wonder what you were actually wishing for. By one measure, your foray into sex-club frequenting has been a smashing success. Your wife took to it like a horny fish to ... a bunch of other horny fish.

My wife and I have been at odds over something since we've been together. She gets especially horny during her period and wants sex. The idea of doing it while she has that going on sickens me. With the exceptions of when she was pregnant, every month it's been the same thing when that week rolls around: the demands, my refusals, and the accusations that I'm "not a real man." How can I get through to her that this is off the table for me once and for all? -Counting the Days Until Menopause

For the past couple of years, we've been living on the family farm in the Midwest for a few months a year, to make sure the pipes don't freeze, keep the vermin down, etc., before another family comes for the summer. My husband isn't crazy about this arrangement (he's a city kid, and the farm is in a rural, red area), but loves the family, and realizes we save hella money this way. For the record, we are both progressive politically, feminist, anti-racist, etc.