She texted, "I have been thinking and I know this was my idea to take a break. I was talking to a family member and her husband was the same as you. They are back together, however, I am not ready to move back in but I'm ready to talk without a therapist. I was hoping you would meet me at that cafe Tuesday morning, right after I take the kids to school. Write down things that are important to you to talk about and I will do the same. I want to give us a try, let me know".

Should I be hopeful, is this a step that she will come home?

I know it isn't even been a month. Maybe I shouldn't get to excited.

I've been in an 8-year relationship with my partner, and we've been married for 2 years now. We have a 9-month-old baby. To get straight to the point, I've been feeling depressed lately, and I'm not sure why. My partner is a very kind person, despite my tendency to nag. However, I sometimes get angry, especially when it comes to his financial situation. He's respectful, handsome, and calm in his actions, almost the reserved type, but when it comes to finances, that's where I tend to get upset. Yes, my salary is higher than his, but I feel like I'm the one buying all the necessities for our baby. His budget always seems depleted, so in the end, I end up buying everything first. But when his salary comes, I don't ask him for reimbursement because I believe it's for our baby. However, I can't help but feel hurt because I'm the one providing for the family, even though we both work. It seems like something's wrong. I feel hurt for myself, but I've never told anyone about our situation because I don't want to degrade my husband's dignity. However, it's reached a point where I feel like I'm the only one providing. His money goes towards transportation expenses and giving to his parents, but I've never been given anything. We've discussed that when he gets his salary, he should give it to me, and I'll handle the budget. Honestly, when he runs short, I'm the one he comes to. He asks for permission, but he still takes money from my wallet and ATM. It's not a problem for me because as his wife, I know there's no one else who can help him but me. But I can't shake off this feeling of depression regarding our situation.

Married 5 years, together 8.

I’d like to start out that I grew up with a mother that was the bread winner and I feel my dad took advantage of her. On top of financially taking advantage of her, he cheated on her multiple times. Which I was the one who found out every time.

With that being said. I strongly feel it is important to me that I do not end up in the same situation. I currently earn a good chunk more than my husband and as I grow I feel like I am slowly getting the same situation. I don’t think he will cheat on me but how can I depend on that 30 years from now?

When we married we were equal. But as time passed I was more aggressive with trying to achieve more. I took on manager and sales roles. He stayed the same, no school, no job changes, nothing to grow.

Now at 34, bc of his lack of ambition or growth. We have no home, no children, not much built up. No children because I never felt financially ready. But now that I want children we are having fertility issues on this side.

I get depressed further as time passes. And as we continue I notice I am paying majority of the bills and trying to plan the things I want in this life. I plan our retirement. I front the bill on our vacations. I am so jealous he gets to turn on and off work while I have the pressure of everything else.

I am slowing loosing who I am because I care about is earning more money. I want a home, I want to earn more so we can go through fertility. It consumes all my time and he just watches me do it.

I have fully confronted my husband and told him I am working hard to achieve the things that I want and this is not a partnership it feels like I am taking care of another. This is not what I signed up for.

He does not take it lightly and says he understands and will try. He gets really sad. Then another year passes and absolutely nothing happens. I love this man and on the daily he is such a good person. So considerate and he loves me, but I am depressed that I am being weighed down and pulled away from the life I want to achieve. Has anyone else been on this situation? I feel as if I am swimming upstream.

Am I a horrible person for caring too much about earning more than my husband?

I've been struggling to get my head together about my husband and our relationship, and I just need to get something down to maybe get some advice.

I (34F) have been married to my husband (39M) for 12 years. We don't have children and we don't have plans to have any. We both work full time with fairly well-paid jobs, we own our home and our cars, so things are pretty good for us in every way - except, at least in my view, emotionally, romantically, etc. Affection and physical displays of love have all but stopped and I rarely hear 'I love you' said spontaneously or without me having said it first.

I sometimes feel like we are a pair of really good friends who live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. Some of my friends have commented more than once (both to my face, and behind my back) that we seem more like housemates than a married couple.

We met when I was 16, became an item when I was 18, and got married when I was 21. Is it because I was so young that I don't feel like I 'know' how our marriage should be feeling, at this point? Or is something wrong with our relationship, or have we just out-grown each other?

I welcome any and all advice. It's starting to really get me down, and whenever I see other couples very much in love with each other it is starting to really hurt.

TL;DR I feel like I'm missing the part of my life that should be filled with the romantic love that I should be feeling from my marriage. Am I being naive? What should it feel like when you are 12 years into a marriage?

This totally doesn't belong here but I have to vent

Does anyone else struggle with their man not thinking about them when it comes to finishing something from the fridge, leaving you feeling disrespected? 2 weeks in a row now, my man has 'stolen' something of mine from the fridge. Last week, I had made 4 chicken burgers to have for the work week. I ate one. The next day I open the fridge to find only 1 left. His high ass must've eaten 2 that night and not known(I told him he could have ONE) I made 4 again last night for the same reason, and again, had one. Thankfully he didn't steal any this time. When we got up this morning, he wanted to use 2 for buffalo chicken Mac. This comes from a man who says he doesn't like chicken often (we had chicken Thursday night, Friday night, and oh, look, Saturday night). I obliged to not make a fuss when first waking up and told him he could have 2, leaving me with one to use in a salad.

Tonight, he gets off work early while I'm still at work (we work night shifts). We opened a big bottle of white wine last night(Friday night). I wasn't feeling well (flu-ish). I had maybe 2 glasses while he continues to fill this goblet of a cup up. There was a good portion in the bottle when it was placed back in the fridge, and from what I could see, before I left for work. About an hour ago I asked him to not touch it, so we can share it when I get home around 8 in the morning. He says he's going to bed, and will be asleep when I get home, that he already drank it.

I feel very disrespected and hurt that I wasn't AT LEAST offered or asked something like, 'hey, would you care if I had the rest of this wine?".

With literally anything that is getting low, I ask him if he would like some before I take it, if he would like to share, etc but never do I get that same treatment. (Example: he loves whole milk. I do, too, on occasion. If the jug is getting low, to the point where there may only be enough for 1 cup, I will ask if he'd rather have it than to say nothing and pour it for myself. Any other time I bring similar matters up and that they make me feel this way, he simply shrugs and says 'thats your prerogative; that's the difference between you and me'

TL;DR my man drank my wine, leaving me none, and I'm pretty pissed about it

Last night it was my husband’s best friend birthday party, I was not invited so I did not go, so I planned to go out with one of my colleagues to have fun with her, and I did not bother my husband with my messages and calls while we were out, today’s morning I woke up and I said good morning nicely, my husband answered me in a dry way “good morning”, I told him I will make our coffee, and I made it, he did not drink it and he was complaining in a rude way about the size of the cup, he wanted a bigger cup, then I asked him some nice questions about his last night, and he did not want to answer any of them, then I started to talk about my evening and he did not show any reaction, so I started to cry, and he said that I am an idiot, I answered him back that he is the idiot and I kicked him out of the house, am I right? I need deep communication with him but it can’t happen.

My 34f husband 37m always wants to have sex more and says we don't have sex enough and it’s ruining our marriage. I agree and I do too but penetration lasts too long and it starts to hurt for me. Usually that's between 20-30 mins of penetration. Foreplay can be however long. It's the penetration that is the problem. How do I tell my husband that I want shorter PiV sessions? We could be having more sex if it wasn't so long I become sore.

Tl;dr sex is too long how do I ask him to make it shorter?

So it's mother's today here.

In the morning after he had breakfast, he asked me to make him a sandwich, I said no, because I was going through our kid's revision as she's having an exam tomorrow. He then called me "good for nothing bad woman" a couple of times, kinda hurt...

Later that day, again as she's having her paper tomorrow, I thought to let her get some good sleep, so I asked him if she can sleep in our room, she doesn't sleep well in her room, gets scared off the dark, because of all the horror movies he let them watch, when I have repeated told him not to, but he always says that the kids like it, and whenever I stop them, I'm the bad mom. So, he rejected the request, even though he has actually agreed to it last week. For him to agree, he asked me to give him a bj, to which I did. Daughter is more important than stupid pride, but just feeling crappy to have to do it, especially after the morning insult..

How is everyone today? Well I guess since he won't I'm going to have to do it and it's the hardest thing for me to do since I love him so much but I took these couple days to see if anything will change like he said they would but nothing so my husband (36m) and I (32f) will be getting divorced cause he can't man up and be honest about nothing and I'm tired of hurting and I'm tired of my heart braking over a man who don't even want me anymore just keeps me around well no more it's doing nothing but tearing me apart😭.

35 married with kid traveled when young experienced but all in all was quite serious about everything financially stable can stop working for 10 years. Issue meet a woman at job she is single and embodies everything I thought I would be as a teenager, travels all the time has a vast social cicrcle open to everything and does not over analyze she made me question my life choices. We got to close now I am questioning my whole life and want to destroy it by risking an affair to which she is opened, how to stop ?

Today is Mother’s Day and me (31f) and my husband (31m) have had a bit of an argument.

We have been married four years and together 9. We have a toddler who just turned 3 and 8 month old twins. My husband works long hours during the week so I am the default parent as I’m on maternity leave currently.

This morning I got a sleep in, when I got up my toddler gave me a gift a wearable blanket which is lovely as it just turned winter here. The that was it my husband didn’t even wish me happy Mother’s Day. He was more hands on today and in his words let me go to the supermarket kid free as a break. When we were eating dinner he asked me why I seemed spaced out today and I guess I was just feeling disappointed because I wanted something special planned even if it was a cooked breakfast or a family outing or maybe just a special dinner being cooked? Nothing fancy just wanted to feel special.

My husband said I should’ve told him if I wanted to go out to eat or do something as he did not know what I wanted. He said he tried but did he really? Shouldn’t he be doing extra in the weekend with the kids anyways considering I am doing most the work all week and every night I attend to the twins I haven’t a full night sleep in 8 months, although I was exclusively breastfeeding until two weeks ago, and I choose to switch to formula feeding as I couldn’t keep doing it mentally.

Anyways am I just being selfish expecting this and should’ve communicated better.

Married 7 years, 2 kids. Just had the second one. They’re the best! However, during pregnancy and so far after I cannot stand my husband.

Is it the hormones? I feel bad that I don’t want to be around him. There was a time I adored him and wanted him around 24/7! Now I am unhappy and I’m not sure how to get through it

I’m 43F in a 10 years plus live in relationship with my 40M. How long should I keep waiting for him to propose/commit or just go to the courthouse and make me his official wife. Partner for life! It’s crushing my self esteem idk if he’s seriously going to propose or if we’re just shacking up til something better comes along? I’ve been hurt before not for this reason. I know it’s gonna hurt and I just want to be prepared mentally and emotionally.

I, 24f, have been married for 7 months and I'm honestly wondering if there was a point in getting married. I don't feel like my husband loves me or even likes me at all. Video games or his hobbies always seem more important than me or our son who is not even a year old yet and I'm honestly sick and tired of feeling ignored. I've been the one who takes care of us financially, I keep the house running, and our child taken care of. I have brought up my concerns with him more times than I can remember and I don't feel like he takes me or my feelings seriously. Even our sex life feels like it's taken a turn for the worst and I'm always concerned about him cheating on me since he did before we got married and I didn't know until after the wedding. I'm just extremely frustrated and unhappy and I don't know what to do.

My husband is diagnosed with depression and is taking meds which are hugely affecting his libido and sex drive/ performance. I’ve been nothing but understanding and supportive of him so far. However, I feel like this is unfair to me as a young women in her 20s. I deserve to feel desired and have my needs met. Ofc him being a corn addict isn’t helping either, but I feel so lost, lonely and sad. Any advice from someone who’s been in my shoes?

I just need to vent and maybe some advice/kind words. I gave birth to our first born son almost 8 weeks ago. I had a rough pregnancy and even rougher delivery/recovery. I had a csection and hemorrhaging which led to an emergency hysterectomy. So this will be our only kid.

I was anemic from losing so much blood + healing from csection was hard on me. A few weeks later his parents (against my wishes) came to stay with us for 4 weeks. (2 weeks down…2 to go). I’ve been extremely stressed, overwhelmed, and overstimulated with them here while dealing with a new baby, post partum hormones, and just the chaos in the house.

The only thing I was looking forward to, was celebrating my first Mother’s Day as a mom. Now I know it shouldn’t be all about gifts, but I was really hoping my husband would do something for me for it. He told me tonight he wanted to get me this necklace I wanted (our son’s birthstone) but he couldn’t order online. He didn’t try calling the store or even going in to buy it. He said “I’ll give you my card so you can buy it if you want”. I told him no i wanted it to be a surprise and it just ruined it for me.

I went in the room and just had a complete breakdown. That upset me, all the emotions of his parents being here, slowly going crazy. Is it wrong of me to have expected him to do something special for me for my first Mother’s Day? Part of me feels like I was being entitled, but the other part of me is like “girl you fucking earned this shit with what you went through”.

I’m just really sad and I feel like the day is already ruined. Even my sister sent me cookies. Idk, I really just needed to get this off my chest.

I (f30) is in a sexually frustrating marriage with my husband (m33). He has erectile dysfunction and low libido. We only have sex once or twice a month. I would dress up all sexy and gave him hints that I want sex but he wouldn’t even look at me. I get horny at least twice a week. I ended up sometimes just masturbating behind his back (most times to the thought of him) because he doesn’t want to have sex or sometimes it just doesn’t get hard until penetration.

He always tell me to lose weight- I am a little overweight but I still have an hourglass figure. I just don’t feel like he sees my beauty anymore. We’re also having other marriage troubles because he lost all his savings for some shady investments and was hiding financial transactions behind my back. Which was extremely frustrating because he has Azoospermia (no sperm) and we’re supposed to put aside some money for fertility treatments. The point is, i’m not happy in this marriage, I have been considering divorce countless times, but I do still love him very much because I know he is a good man.

Anyways, I don’t blame him for this one time mistake that I did which is sexting a stranger. That was a conscious decision from my end and I take full responsibility for that. I shouldn’t have done that. I know it would break his heart if he finds out. We are from a pretty conservative culture and we’ve only ever had sex with each other after marriage. I was just really horny one night and I he was away at that time. I sent a suggestive photo of my body to the stranger, (fully dressed just suggestive). I needed validation that I am still beautiful😢. Of course the stranger said I’m beautiful but he is probably just horny as well. The chat ended up with the stranger calling me (voice only) and we masturbated together. I’m not proud of what I did. And I’m thinking of confessing everything to my husband. I know he watches porn because he’s not good at removing his digital trails and we never talk about it. Maybe because I sometime watch porn too.

But the reason I’m considering to confess is because I’m afraid that I might reach out to the stranger again when I’m sexually frustrated. Me and the stranger both live in the same state so I’m really afraid if I would get tempted and things escalate. I have already communicated with my husband a few times about my sexual frustrations but not much was done. I wish he would at least please me with his hands or use a toy with me if he couldn’t get it hard. I never said no to his requests, even doing things I don’t necessarily enjoy like giving head. But he doesn’t seem to return the favour for me.

I know these all are just excuses and doesn’t justify what I did. Should I confess everything? Or should I just communicate with him every time I have any sexual needs? I don’t ever want to do the same mistake again but but I really don’t know for sure, because I never saw myself being in this situation in the first place 😢 To the husbands, if your wife did this, would you rather her tell you or would you rather not know?

I want to know if I'm overreacting about my wife going out with her friends or from what she says "friends" when it's just one of them and yes they are male. I honestly didn't mind it at first since they were coworkers and they played online and let steam out about how work was and then a year goes by and they start going out which in total is her and the two others. I didn't have an issue until she would get home late and eventually led to not communicating that she would go out all of a sudden and progressed further when she didn't tell me it wasn't all 3 of them going out and when asked why she would say she assumed it would be all 3. I literally had my last straw last night since she said it would be all 3 of them going and it turned out it was just the two of them. I know I didn't want to but I went through her phone and read the messages from when she got home and thinks I'm being the asshole for being upset that she didn't tell me that it wasn't all 3 of them and it was just the 2. I now officially have lost trust for her and her so called friend and I don't know what to do or think. Just please give me some clarification if I am overreacting or not because I did have trust issues before with people I'm not around any more and did not expect this.

When we first got married, I wasn’t exactly hot for him. I respected him a lot. He is a great man. I loved him but it wasn’t all sparks and fireworks. Fast forward 3yrs in and I find myself crazily in love with him. I miss him so much when he is away from me. I find myself craving his words of affirmation, his physical touch and just his overall presence. I text and call him a lot during the day. He answers the calls and texts me back, yes but I wish he would call and text me more. The problem here is I think the way I was in the beginning of the marriage was part of why he found me attractive. I didn’t call much when we were apart but then he would call me a lot. I didn’t initiate sex much and in turn he would initiate a lot. I’m bursting to show my love to him and I feel I need his love and attention all the time but I’m stifling myself because I’m afraid he will withdraw and won’t find me attractive anymore. What should I do?

Saw a message that looked like my husband was hitting on another woman. I’m 3 months pregnant, I confronted him and quickly started crying and shouting and swearing and even hitting at him/pushing at him , this wasn’t how I approached him and instead tried to be very very calm, doing breath work and everything. Asking questions instead of accusing etc etc. but his answers were like !!!??? Even though I was showing him the proof on HIS phone. Avoidant, accusatory towards ME, and plain offensive to my intelligence even dancing around the idea that someone else must have sent it… we live alone and I was out of the country when he sent the message. I felt like I was being gaslighted and that my mind was melting and then proceeded to freak out out of shock, feeling like I wanna die and that my heart has been broken into a million pieces and I overstepped a line of being physical with him and swearing at him (told him f*** you). Well now he’s saying he’s done with me. Saying I’ve revealed who I truly am. And he can’t live with a woman who would hit him and swear. I want to die. I wish I could take it back. I love him so much and reacted badly to the prospect of him being unfaithful to me. I hate myself. What if I truly am a monster. I am totally at fault and truly underestimated how bad it is to hit a man even though I am a woman who can’t hit and can’t truly hurt him physically. I’ve never known that violence is a true red line if that makes sense, I’ve seen in my house people break things out of anger and be physical after finding out they have been betrayed. So I always thought although violence is bad, if someone is at a certain point and has been pushed there, then low-level violence where nobody truly gets hurt is not a crime and is instead a means of expression. Yes I come from quite the dramatic family. I now realise that was so stupid of me to assume. I will never ever, god willing, react in any circumstance like that again. But how do I salvage my marriage now? My husband knows I didn’t hurt him and is ignoring everything from my side including that I’m emotional as hell and pregnant and that I saw a compromising message.

I feel like most relationships have them. What are the ones in your marriage?

I’ve been married for a bit under a year. My husband is really fantastic- very kind, super supportive, great provider, checks all the boxes. We don’t fight often, and make up quite easily. When we do fight, it’s usually admittedly me starting it because I prefer to address things right as they’re happening. For example, if he says something upsetting right then and there I’ll say ‘that really hurt my feelings.’ He is TERRIBLE at this, and really tries ‘lets things go’ but then they build up to a bigger issue than they are because he keeps it bottled up. The past few times we fought, he’s said things such as ‘When you did that nice thing for me the other day (something I planned genuinely) I was honestly even shocked you did that. That’s so out of character for you.’ Or ‘We got that bit of bad news the other day and I knew you’d cry about it. It’s so predictable.’ When I have conversations or moments with my husband, I am very genuine and don’t really have any underlying thoughts or ‘icks’ about his behavior at all- and if I do have an issue with what he said or how he behaved, I don’t pretend like I didn’t I always let him know.

Basically, I’ve found that my husband is a fantastic actor I guess. These moments that we share that I believe are genuine and wonderful are brought up in fights as something such as ‘I can’t believe you did that’ or ‘that thing about you is so awful.’ It’s making me think and I’ve asked him- do you even like me? He says of course he does, but then he has these rather large issues with my behaviors or personality that I feel like a spouse should not have. He says he can’t be as honest as I can in the moment because I’ll flip out, but it honestly makes me more paranoid now every time I’m with him and we share a wonderful day I’m like ‘Was that wonderful for him though? Did I do something wrong?’ After a series of miscarriages I’m now pregnant and unemployed, wondering if this is normal and nervous that the stress of this is gonna cause another miscarriage

My wife and I are both 30. Been together 13 years, married 3 years. No kids. I work full time in an office and she works from home. I do all of the cooking, outdoor maintenance, house projects, etc. She does most of the cleaning and food shopping.

Overall my wife and I get along well, but I feel like our marriage is in a weird place right now and I don't know what to do. I'll go through my grievances, maybe I'm overreacting.

My wife hasn't initiated sex in 6 years. I only go for it maybe once per week, because any more than that I'll get denied. I'd prefer 2-3 times per week but gave up on that battle awhile ago. I've told her several times over the years I'd appreciate if she'd initiate sometimes, and she says she'll try but never does. Even when she says yes to sex, it's more like she just wants to get it over with. During the act she has a good time though (even though she just lays there). But little things annoy me, like she expects oral every time, but won't ever offer to give it back. She used to initiate sex all the time before we moved in together 6 years ago.

The other thing is just lack of affection. We haven't kissed in a couple years, no hugs, no I love you's, nothing. I could be better at this myself, but the issue was that I was the only one initiating these things, so I gave up when I felt like it was too one sided. Neither of her parents are affectionate at all, so that's probably where she gets it from. I've brought this up with no change. Maybe I can try harder, but it's gutting when you're the only one initiating, so you don't feel loved.

She doesn't want to do anything except work, watch law and order, and sit on social media. If I ask her to go out for dinner, she asks if we can bring it home. If I ask to take vacation, she says it's too expensive. If I ask her to come on my boat with me, she'll just say no. Never wants to go to family or work parties or weddings. She didn't used to be this way until she started working from home during covid. She refuses to go back to an office. She's not depressed or anything, she's always in a pretty good mood, just doesn't like doing anything.

I have a conversation with her probably twice per year about all this, and she says that she'll try harder, but never does. I'm already 30 and at the point where I'd like to start a family. So I sort of need to get this whole situation figured out sooner rather than later. How can I repair this relationship to be like we used to be when we were just dating? Is it even possible? I'd prefer not to start over again at 30. I want to be a husband, not a roommate. Sometimes I feel like she only uses me for my cooking and higher income. And she's reliant on me for everything.

I tried keeping this as short as I can but it still ended up long. I think it just felt good to vent about this at least. If anyone takes the time to read it, I appreciate it.

My sister caught her husband cheating but he doesn’t know (she has an audio recording). They have been together for 10 years and married for 3 years. However, in the past year he has started to drift away from the family.

Signs of him drifting away starting with no support to his stepson in his education. He makes $200k yearly while my aunt makes $40k. However, they decided to purchase a house worth $700k and most of my sister’s money is being controlled by him ever since they got together. He has purchased a $20k buggy and 3 other vehicles in the past 2 years. They both go around telling everyone they don’t make enough to support him because of their expenses. Even though he is going to a community college and has a scholarship that drops his annual tuition to $2,700 for 3 quarters. She has been sending him money to pay for his books and other necessities.

tl;dr stepdad was caught cheating now, sister is scared she will lose everything that they worked together for and have nothing left to support herself and her son

Basically my ideal marriage would be one where we’re not really wasting time on useless activities (like date nights, watching movies etc.) and more act as reliable/trustworthy support systems for each other’s careers (such as bouncing ideas off, support when the going goes tough, offering new perspectives etc.).

Has anyone been in this sort of situation, and could you speak to if it was a net positive or if going solo would have been better? Where would one meet people like this?

Last year my husband and I came pretty close to divorcing. Around Christmas we decided not to go through with it and have been trying to fix things mostly for financial reasons and due to the fact that there are still feelings there. We’ve been married 7 years and have a 5 year old together. I also have a 1 year old that was conceived through an affair.

It came up in counseling that he has posted about everything on Reddit. He showed me everything I cheated on him. I know what I did was wrong and hurt him. But it seemed like he was trying to make me look as bad as possible. He left out a lot of context about our marriage. It might have looked like it to him but it’s not like we happily married then I fooled around and destroyed everything. Everything was already strained and me putting energy into the wrong places didn’t help.

Anyway when we met what attracted me to my husband was how different he was. My family has always been religious and I grew up very active in our church. His family was entirely different and he was different than anyone I’d known before. I liked that I was saving him. He started going to church with me and started taking things a bit more seriously. Before he was very carefree and heavily into partying. The drinking was always there. He ended up cheating on me and confessing the next day. He chalked it up to a mix of being drunk and frustrated that I wouldn’t have sex with him because I was saving myself for marriage. I forgave him and still decided to marry him. I had to convince him to have a dry wedding.

It wasn’t until we were married and living together that I realized exactly how much he drank. He admits that if it wasn’t four the pictures we took he wouldn’t remember our honeymoon. He would get drunk every night. Sundays he would go to church with a hangover then start drinking as soon as we got home. My sister had to drive me to the hospital when I went into labor with our son because he had drank too much and couldn’t drive. We had multiple arguments about his drinking. It wasn’t until he was drunk at our son’s first birthday party that he was embarrassed enough to admit he had a problem.

He was sober when my affair started but our marriage wasn’t great. He was keeping score of every good thing he contributed to our family and would bring it up during an argument. Sometimes it would just be having a job (I worked too) or being sober. I felt liked he blamed me or resented me for having to quit drinking.

When I met a guy who seemed interested in me and like he genuinely liked being around me I cheated. I liked the attention I got from the affair. I liked being able to forget about everything at home. There was a part of me that started developing feelings for the other man which I’m now embarrassed to admit. I know that to him I was just someone he was using to get off.

Before the affair our marriage was probably easier to fix. I made everything worse for us. I added more resentment. I added another child that I couldn’t afford to have and that my husband has barely held. I made a lot of bad decisions.

He told me posting on Reddit made him feel better and I’m wondering if sharing my side would make me feel better.

I’ve (26F) been married for 2.5 years. I knew my husband (27M) had anxiety but we never lived together prior to getting married and I think I was pretty naive to the signs but after getting married and living with him I found out he also goes through depressive episodes that usually lead to binge drinking. The first 1.5 years it happened about every 1-3 months, he would be doing so good (eating good, working out, taking care of his body) and then from Friday -Sunday he would drink himself incompetent and 3 times it has bled into the work week and then I would have to contact his boss to tell him that my husband was “sick”. The last time just over a year ago was one of the worst times and I was about to leave the relationship but he promised to stay sober and get help. He did stay sober 375 days but he never looked into seeing a therapist and when I tried to assist he claimed he didn’t need it. When he drinks he can be pretty verbally abusive but when he doesn’t drink which is most of the time he treats me so well. I grew up with parents who never fought in front of me or my siblings so I’m still trying to figure out what is normal and what isn’t normal in a marriage. I feel like I’ve excused a lot of the things he’s said to me because I know he grew up being verbally abused at times so it takes times to unlearn habits but I feel like I’m going to be in this never ending cycle that will eventually break me even more because I don’t feel it can get better without help and I can’t force him to get help. Is this something worth getting divorced for or should I try to help him some more?

I’m still pretty young and have a great career and my biggest fear is going through years of this healthy/unhealthy cycle for it to never change and then realize 20 years later I should have left now because it only got worse. Over the past year of him being sober, we had a great year and I thought we were building such a great foundation but prior I would confide to my close relatives who have gone through similar experiences and didn’t leave there situation until 20+ years later. They all told me they would support me in what I decided to do but a lot of them suggested staying because my husband really is a good guy when not drinking and everyone felt bad he was going through this. But now that it happened again I don’t feel comfortable confiding in anyone until I’ve made my decision because I do not want to sound like a broken record.

We were arguing and he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. And I’m so scared this is going to be the first of more. Next month will be a year married and anything like this has never happened. But these past few months he has been so angry. And I guess tonight he snapped. It didn’t really hurt, but scared me more than anything. And I’m so worried things will just get worse.

My husband (42, M) and I (40, F) have been together for 20 years. He knew about these issues when we married and thought he could handle it; now he regrets that.

I went though child trafficking and it has always strained our relationship. I'll probably never be what he desires in the bedroom. Things have improved with years of therapy, but I'm still nowhere near meeting his needs (which are perfectly reasonable).

I'm beyond vanilla, I can't fulfill his desires, I struggle with sexual intimacy, I get too emotional, and there are many things I cannot do. I also have anatomical issues due to the physical trauma, and surgeries meant to fix those issues only worsened the situation. I can't even perform oral because of the trauma. I try, but doesn't want me doing it if I'm not into it and enjoying it. He misses it though... So, if we have sex, it's anal, which neither of us enjoys really, but it's all we have.

He's cheated with at least 10 women over the years. We've dealt with it and it's not the issue here, but it's a painful reminder of his unhappiness and unfulfilled desires. I should be meeting his needs, but instead, those women gave him fulfillment and validation that I've never been able to give him. I should be the only one doing that for him... I should be able to keep my own husband happy and fulfilled...

Now he's resorted to medication to suppress his sex drive, and it makes me feel absolutely awful. Without it, he's moody, distant, and constantly thinking about other women or cheating. With the meds, he's disinterested in me, and our relationship suffers. We barely spend time together, there's little affection, and the non-sexual intimacy that our therapist suggested is nonexistent.

I believe a fulfilling sexual relationship is essential to a marriage. I want that with him, but I fail, leaving him unsatisfied and me an emotional mess. It's a vicious cycle of terrible sex and emotional breakdowns, so trying isn't even worth it to him anymore. It's not fair to him...

For over a decade, we've tried to fix this, but I still don't meet his needs. Maybe I'm selfish for holding on or not letting him seek fulfillment elsewhere. But he doesn't want that, and forcing it feels wrong.

Something has to change, but I don't know what to do anymore...