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Anyone have these issues in a relationship? Advice please

neonSummer8296 June 7th

Husband and I have been married two years and have had several issues throughout the marriage. Some of the more major ones we are working through already but others I’m just at a loss for:


  • when I express that something is an issue for me, it’s almost always dismissed, or he’ll promise to do better next time but repeats the same thing over and over. Many times, he doesn’t even seem to really believe it’s an issue until someone else tells him it’s not okay, usually someone from his family or a friend.
  • his reaction after he does something that hurts or upsets me (like yelling at me because I asked him a question while he was playing a game) is to try to justify his actions, claim that’s just how he is and I have to deal with it (or some other sarcastic response), or an insincere or sarcastic apology. His attitude is one of exasperation that im feeling hurt or upset by his actions and he’s basically trying to find the quickest way to move on from it but doing nothing to prevent it from happening it again. The things he does that hurt/upset me shouldn’t happen but I understand that he’s human and makes mistakes, my real issue is how he addresses it when I tell him how it made me feel or ask him why he did it.
  • Sex. I have a lot of pain when we have sex and the entire thing is a stressful experience and takes a lot of willpower for me. There have been times it has hurt so badly that I started crying halfway through it. Needless to say, my sex drive is not great. I was a virgin before my husband so I really have no comparison but I have seen other *** and my husband is way thicker in comparison. I’ve had a pap smear where the doctor inserted something (to insert the swab into to get a clean sample) about the same girth as an average *** and it felt strange but didn’t hurt. It also didn’t help that he would coerce me into having sex the entire first year of our marriage, saying we should be having sex at least 3-4 times a week and would pick a fight if I turned him down that would last the entire night. I would then have to show up to work the next day at 8 am while he logged on from home (WFH) and slept until 1 pm. This stopped after he started therapy and maybe realized how much of an impact it was having on me and that it was just pushing me further from him but it definitely impacted my trust in him.
  • there is pressure from his parents on us to have kids. The thing is, I don’t trust him enough right now to want to bring kids into the equation. His reactions during some of our fights have showed that I can’t rely on him to have my back in some situations. I also have various health conditions that will make a pregnancy dangerous and will impact me negatively long-term, and we’re currently living in a place that, should anything go wrong, makes any kind of medical intervention impossible unless I’m at death’s door. Considering those factors, I definitely don’t want kids right now, but am not completely against it either in the near future. He’s also said he isn’t ready for kids yet but that he would be in a year. Neither of us is fond of kids either, definitely not him. He keeps talking about our future kids and bringing them up in different conversations, where there is no relation to kids whatsoever. I bawled my eyes out to him last week while expressing that i feel very scared and pressured every time he brings it up. He apologized sincerely and told me that he didn’t mean anything by it and didn’t think that much, and that he’s not going to risk losing me just to have a kid, that I’m more important to him than any kid ever will be and that he will stop mentioning it so much. He did stop for a couple days but the last 2-3 days, he has started mentioning it again. When I brought it up after getting into bed, he got mad and accused me of picking a fight right when he’s tired and just wants to sleep, even though I just asked him why he’s bringing it up again when he said he understands how I feel and wouldn’t anymore.
  • a continuation from the last point but it seems like I can’t bring up anything with him without it being seen as me picking a fight. It doesn’t matter if I pick a time when he’s not busy and there’s nothing going on, or how conversational my tone is, or that I say I just want to talk about it because it’s something that’s an issue for me. The irony is that he’ll claim I’m picking a fight and be the person who actually picks the fight by starting to yell at me and get angry with me for bringing it up or not bringing it up right when it happened. I’ve tried that too but that also ends up in a fight because then he’ll try to dismiss it or say that I just have to pick a fight about everything.
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ElenaDeMonaco June 7th



This is not advise per se, it’s just a point of view from someone that believes you deserve to be happy @neonSummer8296

The word “partner” doesn’t apply to someone who refuses to take another person’s feelings into account, no matter how irrational those feelings might seem in the moment. The word “partner” doesn’t describe someone who always has their own rigid agenda, who pays little attention to your needs or feelings or is not really interested in what you are experiencing in the relationship…

A person who is incapable of addressing your feelings isn’t a lover or even a civilized man, he just doesn’t deserve to occupy the richly romantic landscape of intimate relationships, where the complex contradictions of the human heart and mind are explored with patience, empathy and discernment.

There is no happiness here if you can’t stand up for how you feel. There is no partnership here if he can’t hear you. 

How could he even consider kids? Just because of the pressure?! Because “you have to”? Is that a reason?

There is no love here if he doesn’t recognize that to love is to allow the vast sea of someone else’s emotions and desires into your heart and honor them as if they’re your own. The ability to do this is what makes love feel good and what keeps it alive.

I had a very difficult partnership experience for five years, where I developed learned helplessness, high cortisol levels, insomnia, overweight, depression… and it took a miracle to end it because I just kept “holding on” to it, thinking that it would get better or that he was “nice” and “handsome” and focusing on the positive and not wanting to see all the negatives, pain and sadness that I was really feeling.

Life is to short to be with someone that doesn’t feel right to you✨