Is my marriage failing?
I’ve been with my husband for 5 years. We have 2 young children and to keep up with all the expenses of living, we both work.
He works day shift until 1, comes home and is in dad mode.
I wake up in mom mode until I have to go to work in the afternoon.
In my mind, we are both responsible for the house. In his case, he works on the nightly reset. And I work on getting bigger project out of the way, like laundry, grocery shopping, school drop off/pickup, etc.
It’s very shift work right now because our girls are so young and we dont want daycare.
Since postpartum, I’ve been trying to work on my self and got diagnosed with ppd ppa pmdd adhd. So I’m always just on the go, moving, can’t focus, overwhelmed.
Well we’ve been arguing a lot and I can tell there’s just some tension. I’m trying to communicate but I always seem to validate his feelings of him saying “I get up at 3:30 in the morning… I’m tired…”
But I don’t feel validated when I say I want to work on our relationship. Spice it up. Do more date nights (in or out of the house) just spend time together but he just looks like I slapped him across the face. Dumbfounded. It feels like he’s just distancing himself from me and I don’t know why.
I also told him I wanted him to start making me come during sex. It’s always penetrating but never flows down to please me first. Tbh his head is not great, or maybe it’s fine but my head won’t shut up and I just can’t relax. I always just masturbate later. Idk I never put my needs before anyone but I want to just be honest because it could make our sex life better.
Idk I feel like I’m settling and always validating him and I even called him a narcissist because sometimes it seems like he only thinks for himself or “the empire”. It’s annoying.
Hes a great guy but I think I hurt his ego. But at the same time idc. If we’re going to be in a marriage, I want to communicate. I want to work on ourselves so we can be better and stronger for our relationship.
“I don’t know what else to do” is the response I hear all the time. Even though I give him examples.
Please tell me I’m just losing it. That I’m actually just crazy.
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You know men seem to want to listen when they feel they are gonna lose you. You gotta get distant and quiet as well. Look good when you get the chance. Sometimes you gotta Play hard to get. Don’t let him walk all over you, don’t even give him the chance. Let him feel threatened. You are just as independent as he is. A wife should come first in marriage even before the kids. If he’s not prioritizing you then make him understand that you’ll find other ways to bring joy back into your life.
If you don’t shift the tension you’ll end up in an emotional spiral. Don’t allow him to have that much power over you. Yes fight for the marriage but don’t lose yourself in the process.
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Hey Kayle, first of all can I just say how insightful & wise you are 🥺 Good job on working on yourself and your marriage, it takes a lot of guts and effort! As someone who’s been in a similar situation, I just want to share what helped: - Realising that my husband struggles with everything feelings-related, this includes talking about feelings, validating my feelings, etc. and just needs some extra help/time. But if he loves you (which it sounds like he does since he puts so much effort into your family!) - he will get better with time 🙏🏼 - Men struggle a lot with feelings of responsibility when it comes to their family, so he might be a lot more overwhelmed than he’s letting on and when you say you want more from him - all he hears “You’re not good enough!”. It helps to acknowledge my husband’s good sides first and THEN bring up things I’d like him to work on. - And at last, it does take heaps of time but you will get there if you’re both willing to put in the work 😌❤️