Things have been really good around here for a long time. I’ve been happy and at peace.
It seems lately though that I sense a negative undertone in the relationships around here. Hubby seems to be getting comfortable again with criticizing me, a lot. I can take criticism but he harps on things that I can’t seem to change, or I shouldn’t have to change. It is like he won’t be happy with me until I can read his mind. It is the same old things too since our marriage began. We’ve been married a long time, I’ve managed to get along doing things the best I can, no catastrophes, yet he still thinks I should do everything the way he would have done it and when he sees I didn’t, he gets mad and criticizes me.
There is more than one way to do many things and I’ve gotten along ok. So, since the world hasn’t come to an end, though he acts like it is just around the corner and it’s all my fault, I think there must be some passive-aggressive undertones here, meaning he is harboring deep resentment toward me and now that his ‘big mistake’ is long enough ago, it is all starting to rear it’s head again. I am torn here feeling like everything is headed back to where we started, where the seed for adultery was planted in the first place.
I have been evaluating what course of action I want to take. I just don’t think I can take going back to that again. I put up with it all these years because I loved him, because I was looking forward to eternal perfection and knew when perfected, he would be the only one I wanted to be with. I put up with it for the kids, because I looked for the good in him and tried to ignore the bad, because I tried to convince myself it was only a temporary glitch in the relationship…
Now, I see it isn’t temporary. It is there for real, it gradually got worse until he left me, albeit temporarily, for another woman and now it is coming back and I have to decide what I am going to do.
If I were younger, this would no longer be a decision for me. Been there! Done that! I would not stand for it. Being older is throwing a wrench in the works that makes me feel torn, trapped, hopeless and very sad.
If I had a job, if I could find a job- I’ve been looking but no one wants a worn out old woman like me. I don’t know what to do. I love him but I hate that he doesn’t love me. He says he does but his actions are starting to suggest something else–again. If I had a job, I would tell him to go and find a way to be happy because he obviously isn’t with me. I believe he would be gone a while but he would want me back eventually. I doubt I would take him back but I do think he would realize what a good wife I’ve been and how much and how unconditionally I have helped him, supported him and loved him.
