Sex & Romance
forumnon
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Trouble in marriage
Hi there -
I've never posted on a site like this; I normally just read the messages. But things have been really hard and I guess I could use some perspective.
My wife and I have been married for about 14 months. We got married relatively quickly (after about a year of dating) and, because we are both in our mid-thirties, decided that we wanted to try for a child quickly in case there were any fertility problems. It turned out that we could not have been more wrong. My wife basically got pregnant on the first try (before we were even married). We now have a wonderful (though, as I will explain, challenging) 10 month old baby boy.
Lately things have been so hard that we are just totally miserable. We had a fire at our brand new home. Luckily, no one was hurt, but less luckily, the sprinklers did a lot of water damage. We have been living in a 1 bedroom hotel room for a week and things have been steadily deteriorating. Our 10 month old baby, who was just beginning to sleep through the night (3 nights in a row before the fire), is now waking up 3 - 5 times a night again, sometimes for a long, long time. We have been dealing with contractors and insurance and while we think that we will be covered, it has been stressful worrying about whether that will actually be the case and, if not, how much that will harm our finances. We continue to both work full time, both because we need the money and because my wife has no leave at work left.
Tonight was kind of a breaking point. We had been boarding the dog, who has been with my wife for a long time, but is incredibly old and completely incontinent, because the insurance would pay for it. My wife really wanted the dog to come with us and insisted the she come stay with us in our tiny hotel room. The baby woke up, as he now always does, and wanted to sleep in our bed. Because we can't let him cry and he won't go back to his crib, my wife took him into the bed and I went to the sofa bed. I walked out into the main room and immediately stepped on dog crap and piss. I was furious. I started cleaning up and when my wife came out, I said that we had to board the effing dog and that I didn't want to hear any discussion from her on this. She got angry at me and said she would clean it. I don't think I raised my voice, though I had a very angry tone. (She would probably disagree. I don't know which of us is right.) I went to watch the baby after a few more hostile words. When she was done cleaning (the room still smells), she came into the room, she said that she didn't like the way I talked to her. I said that I was incredibly frustrated and that I was more angry at myself than her for letting myself be talked into bringing the dog with us. She said that this was another example of how I become a different person when I'm angry. That really bothered me because I felt like she was essentially telling me that I never had a right to be angry with her even though I feel like she pushed really hard to bring an incontinent, disabled dog that we can't care for into a 450 square foot hotel room. I said that she was being incredibly unfair. I said "eff you" at some point, though I immediately apologized. I said that I wanted her to confirm that she would put the dog in boarding. She said she had told me she didn't want to talk about it and then said that if I wanted to talk about it, she would bring the baby out, which she did. That bothered me even more because it felt like she was using the baby as chit during our fight. We argued more, with me saying that I had a right to be frustrated and angry and her saying that I just had no idea what I was like. Finally, in a moment of pure anger and frustration, I said that if things were so bad, maybe we should just get divorced. She paused for a moment, asked me if that was what I had said. I said it was. She went back into the other room and while I've delivered a bottle, we haven't really talked since and probably won't until morning.
I probably shouldn't have said what I said. But I'm currently at a loss as to where we go or what we do. I know that a lot of other folks have much harder circumstances, but I find ours to be genuinely intolerable. We have no family help at all where we live, which happens to be one of the most expensive places in the country. I regret buying the house and, if it were up to me, would fix it, put it up for sale, and cut our losses. My wife, however, wants to stay here because it offers great professional opportunities. I used to care more about those, but I am so burned out and exhausted that half the time I just want to leave and take a meaningless 9-5 job closer to where my folks live so that we can get some help. We have no time for anything except work, the baby, and house stuff. We don't even have time for therapy to work on our marriage. I have a real connection with my wife, but I think that there are a lot of problems, internal and external, which are crushing our marriage and I'm not sure they're going to improve.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
I've never posted on a site like this; I normally just read the messages. But things have been really hard and I guess I could use some perspective.
My wife and I have been married for about 14 months. We got married relatively quickly (after about a year of dating) and, because we are both in our mid-thirties, decided that we wanted to try for a child quickly in case there were any fertility problems. It turned out that we could not have been more wrong. My wife basically got pregnant on the first try (before we were even married). We now have a wonderful (though, as I will explain, challenging) 10 month old baby boy.
Lately things have been so hard that we are just totally miserable. We had a fire at our brand new home. Luckily, no one was hurt, but less luckily, the sprinklers did a lot of water damage. We have been living in a 1 bedroom hotel room for a week and things have been steadily deteriorating. Our 10 month old baby, who was just beginning to sleep through the night (3 nights in a row before the fire), is now waking up 3 - 5 times a night again, sometimes for a long, long time. We have been dealing with contractors and insurance and while we think that we will be covered, it has been stressful worrying about whether that will actually be the case and, if not, how much that will harm our finances. We continue to both work full time, both because we need the money and because my wife has no leave at work left.
Tonight was kind of a breaking point. We had been boarding the dog, who has been with my wife for a long time, but is incredibly old and completely incontinent, because the insurance would pay for it. My wife really wanted the dog to come with us and insisted the she come stay with us in our tiny hotel room. The baby woke up, as he now always does, and wanted to sleep in our bed. Because we can't let him cry and he won't go back to his crib, my wife took him into the bed and I went to the sofa bed. I walked out into the main room and immediately stepped on dog crap and piss. I was furious. I started cleaning up and when my wife came out, I said that we had to board the effing dog and that I didn't want to hear any discussion from her on this. She got angry at me and said she would clean it. I don't think I raised my voice, though I had a very angry tone. (She would probably disagree. I don't know which of us is right.) I went to watch the baby after a few more hostile words. When she was done cleaning (the room still smells), she came into the room, she said that she didn't like the way I talked to her. I said that I was incredibly frustrated and that I was more angry at myself than her for letting myself be talked into bringing the dog with us. She said that this was another example of how I become a different person when I'm angry. That really bothered me because I felt like she was essentially telling me that I never had a right to be angry with her even though I feel like she pushed really hard to bring an incontinent, disabled dog that we can't care for into a 450 square foot hotel room. I said that she was being incredibly unfair. I said "eff you" at some point, though I immediately apologized. I said that I wanted her to confirm that she would put the dog in boarding. She said she had told me she didn't want to talk about it and then said that if I wanted to talk about it, she would bring the baby out, which she did. That bothered me even more because it felt like she was using the baby as chit during our fight. We argued more, with me saying that I had a right to be frustrated and angry and her saying that I just had no idea what I was like. Finally, in a moment of pure anger and frustration, I said that if things were so bad, maybe we should just get divorced. She paused for a moment, asked me if that was what I had said. I said it was. She went back into the other room and while I've delivered a bottle, we haven't really talked since and probably won't until morning.
I probably shouldn't have said what I said. But I'm currently at a loss as to where we go or what we do. I know that a lot of other folks have much harder circumstances, but I find ours to be genuinely intolerable. We have no family help at all where we live, which happens to be one of the most expensive places in the country. I regret buying the house and, if it were up to me, would fix it, put it up for sale, and cut our losses. My wife, however, wants to stay here because it offers great professional opportunities. I used to care more about those, but I am so burned out and exhausted that half the time I just want to leave and take a meaningless 9-5 job closer to where my folks live so that we can get some help. We have no time for anything except work, the baby, and house stuff. We don't even have time for therapy to work on our marriage. I have a real connection with my wife, but I think that there are a lot of problems, internal and external, which are crushing our marriage and I'm not sure they're going to improve.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
Re: Trouble in marriage
Life changes and challenges are hard.
You got married, had a kid, and now have life challenges testing your marriage. All of you living in 450 sq ft doesn't help as none of you have anywhere to escape to.
Counseling probably wouldn't hurt if she's agreeable. And it sounds like maybe you both need some downtime. If you can afford it, maybe set her up with a spa day for a massage or something. And you need to do the same.
Can the insurance put you up in a rental somewhere? Or at least a bigger hotel with multi-room suites?
That you and she are displaced is adding to the problem -- and yes, the dog needs to be boarded. That's a fact, not a guess.
You and she would do with having some counseling. Your tempers are running short due to displacement and close quarters --- a one room "home" is no fun at all.
Do it tomorrow before things really get out of hand.
ASAP- if for no other reason to have someone to vent to and help you organize your thoughts and what is important to you.