Submitted by ThrowRAelisexlie t3_10k6bcf in relationship_advice
Sorry about the length. TLDR husband was a dick/lied about me to an acquaintance, I’m frustrated. Throwaway because my main is easily identifiable.
I’ll start this by saying we have previously seen a counsellor (a long time ago, for a different issue) and the first thing on my to do list tomorrow is to call them and book some appointments, but realistically it could be months until we get an appt. I’m going to be fairly blunt in this post because I’m venting and need some advice for the moment; not because I don’t love or respect my husband. We’ve been together ten years (married 2 yrs) and he is a wonderful partner. There is likely a lot of nuance left out because ten years of history is a lot. Just know that in general my husband adores me and sings my praises to all who will listen. That’s why this situation hurts so much tbh.
My husband has self esteem issues. We were both bullied as children, I took the “don’t give a shit and no one else will either” approach, he became a people pleaser. He’s done whatever he can to fit in all his life and tends to say/do whatever he thinks will make people happy. It’s problematic, but hasn’t affected me too much to date other than my having to set some boundaries around his need to help people impacting our lives. E.g. financial boundaries around giving too much money to friends, physical boundaries about helping people to the detriment of his own existing injuries, etc.
It can cause some issues with communication because he tends to be extremely defensive about anything that could be perceived as him doing the wrong thing. I have encouraged him to speak with a professional one on one for strategies to manage these (and other) issues, but so far he’s only been comfortable speaking with a counsellor when I’m present. I will also note, in case it’s important, that I am and always have been the “breadwinner”.
We’re doing some renovations and our builder and his crew were around today. So far I’ve pretty well worked solely with our builder on planning/executing Reno’s and primarily been the person home when he’s around. But I just got a promotion so I am in the office more frequently atm, and my husband was scheduled to wfh today. Late this afternoon I decided to check our security cameras to see if our builder and his crew had left for the day. I didn’t want to bother my husband since he was supposed to be working (his work includes assisting over the phone clients). I saw my husband standing out the front with the builder and his crew and assumed they were discussing the reno progress so figured I’d tune in to get the update first hand.
That’s not what they were talking about. For some context my husband and I are planning to try for kids later this year, and I’m currently experiencing some medical issues that require me to be off hormonal birth control. Unfortunately, those medical issues also make condoms extremely uncomfortable for me to use. So, we’ve been trying to be careful about when we have penetrative sex (and do other things when we can’t). We know it’s not fool proof, if we fall pregnant early it’s not the end of the world, we’re financially secure and the only real impact would be needing to cancel some upcoming travel and maybe not getting the Reno’s done in time.
Imagine my surprise when I tune in to hear my husband complaining to our builder and and crew, graphically I might add, that I deny him sex unless I’m ovulating. Everyone has a good laugh about how uptight I am, what a horrible situation he’s in, one of the crew commiserate he’s in the same situation. Then off they go. Everyone happy and laughing. Except me.
I’ve explained to my husband that I’m not angry with him (I was, but I had time to work through it before I came home) and that I love him, but I’m feeling humiliated, betrayed, ashamed. Also more than a little embarrassed and unsure how I keep working with our builder as I have been so far. He is sorry, has acknowledged how his actions have affected me and is clearly ashamed of himself. He has retreated into a pool of self loathing that I would usually pull him out of. But honestly, right now I don’t give a shit. And I really don’t want to deal with his self loathing. I’m the wronged party here, I shouldn’t have to do the emotional leg work of picking him up, patting him on the back and telling him it’ll all be okay.
I’m just frustrated. This has sort of happened once before; the last time we had an argument, about nine months ago, he made a post basically making me out to be a shrew to some of our friends in a discord channel. Thankfully it was in the early hours of the morning and he removed it before anyone saw. I just want him to be a better person. We’ve never had issues like this before. 😔
Any insight/advice would be appreciated.
Edit: woke up to more comments than I expected. I really appreciate the backing/support and advice. I would like to say that relationships are nuanced and all you’re getting here is a snapshot of ours. I’m by no means perfect, and neither is my husband, but we do support each other and have a strong foundation for our relationship.
I do know my self worth, lol, that in particular has never been an issue. I’m just not a particularly emotional person, perhaps it is my childhood trauma but I’ve found responding emotionally or with anger to situations unhelpful. I take time to analyse why I’m feeling a certain way and then how best to communicate that with the person who has impacted me. Ultimately, their actions aren’t about me, I can only choose how I respond.
We spoke this morning with as much length as we could before having to get to work. He has apologised more in length. Though not well and I called him out on that. One of the things he said, which I think is telling, is that he can only imagine how much I want to hurt him/get back at him for what he did. Which I don’t. And I think that’s really weird and not a healthy response to someone hurting you. I can appreciate a situation where you fantasise about someone who wronged you being similarly wronged, but why would you actually wish harm/hurt on another person. So I explained that and said I think it speaks to a bigger issue that his immediate response to being hurt is to want to hurt someone back. He was legitimately stunned/confused. Anyway, therapy is on the cards, hopefully I hear back from our counsellor office soon.
And regarding the cameras/eavesdropping, they’re there for for security because we live in a not so safe area. My husband and I both tend to look at them during slow periods of our day to check in. It’s not uncommon if we see the other to tune in and say hi. I guess we’ve used it as a bit of a cute way to connect when we’re not around each other. E.g. he might see me gardening on my lunch break when I’m working from home and turn on the camera speaker and say “hey sexy lady”. If either of us want privacy (e.g. if I have a friend over and we’re discussing something personal) we simply turn them off (it’s an app, not hard).