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Honeymoon Planning
My husband and I eloped three years ago taking part in a cultural "trial marriage" and never told anyone but the two friends who were witnesses and then I became pregnant a year later and we continued not to tell any of our friends and family so to them our baby was out of wedlock. We ended up having a "wedding" after our son was born but it wasn't at all special.
My husband and I have had a very bumpy relationship without any romance. He still has never proposed to me, the eloping was more of a casual attempt at solidifying our relationship since our first year hadn't gone very smoothly and we had finally worked out the kinks. I have always dreamed of the proposal and he never could do it, he didn't see the point. To this day when a commercial or a friend talks about proposals he cringes and avoids my eye. During our first ceremony he talked the entire time to the friend who was performing the ceremony and then told me that he'd drop me off at home on our wedding night so he and his friend could get food and hang out the rest of the night (he claims he didn't know I'd want to hang out the rest of the night). Then at our next wedding none of my family came but all of his did and apart from the vows and first dance we never saw or spoke to each other. No one wanted to toast and no one was introduced to me. We didn't even get wedding presents, not one. I had planned a wonderful day and he had told me that most of it didn't work for him and so I have to change it all, later he told me he didn't think I'd take him seriously, and so after so many changes and last minute schedule rushes his family decided it wasn't a "real" wedding and more of a coming out party for the now three of us as a family.
So now it's been another year and we still haven't had a honeymoon and we can't seem to plan one without me worrying that he'll become a diva and make it about him like all of our other traditions. I'm an extremely traditional person, especially when it comes to cultural traditions and I have never had anything traditional happen and although he claims something is up to me if at the last minute he doesn't like then it all has to change or he'll be complaining or yelling the entire time. I really want to go to Vancouver and go snowboarding (something we both love) but because of our small son we needed to figure out how we could maybe bring him along and stay with his grandparents in a separate suite but then money became an issue and my husband said that we should all stay in one suite with them which obviously is what I want on a honeymoon.
As difficult as it may be to believe I do love him and he is my best friend, it's just that when anything really important to me that happens to also be a social event burns to the ground before it has a chance. I never considered myself to love romance before but after being with my husband for over four years now I'm seriously realizing how starved I am for it.
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for how to plan a honeymoon or any ideas that worked for you guys. He wants this to be about me finally, but I still have such a fear that in the end he'll end up being the center of it all.
Re: Honeymoon Planning
Ummmmm wow.
There is so much wrong here, I can't even find a place to begin.
I am hoping this is MUD because if this is real, there is a helpless child in the middle of all this clusterf*ckery!
As for the honeymoon -
If you are starved for romance, don't bring your child. Leave him/her with grandparents. There is nothing sexy about having a small kid and grandparents in the next room. Just the two of your should go, have romantic dinners, and lots of sex and maybe you will feel some of the romance you crave.
Don't plan the honeymoon. Make him do it. If he doesn't actually make the arrangements, you will know exactly how important you are to him.
And then you can spend the money getting THERAPY to figure out why in the world you actually got yourself into this mess of a relationship.
So, let me see if I have this straight:
You are very traditional, yet agreed to get married in some random, casual ceremony while your husband chatted with his friend the entire time and then ditched you that night to go hang out with his friend. And the reason you guys had for getting married was because the first year had been rocky but you had worked the kinks out? What, was the wedding supposed to be a way to celebrate? Here's an idea-the next time you want to celebrate something try going out to dinner instead of eloping.
You knew how he was, but you're sitting here complaining. Why did you marry him and then have a child with him if you didn't like how he was?
I don't see a reason for a proposal at this point, either. Sorry. If you wanted a real proposal then you should have made sure he knew that and you might have reconsidered going through with the elopement. You can't go through TWO "weddings" and still demand that he propose...that's something you should have asked him to do a long time ago.
Why didn't you tell anyone, besides those two friends, about the marriage? Would your family/friends not have supported it? I'm surprised to hear that someone would prefer to let their family believe that they had a child "out of wedlock" rather than telling them about the marriage.
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you're extremely passive and have little to no back bone. You gave up your traditional desires to have some sort of casual wedding ceremony where you allowed your husband to disrespect you and the marriage by talking all through the ceremony. You let him ditch you on your wedding night. Then you gave up everything you had planned for the second wedding because, well, he said so. WTF?
My advice to you:
Don't plan a honeymoon. Take that money and head to therapy to work on your confidence, self esteem and passive behavior. Hopefully the therapy can help you realize that you're in a mess of a marriage and give you the push you need to move on. He might be your best friend, but you aren't his.
And some advice for your next relationship - you don't get married to try to solidify a rocky relationship, you get married to legalize your already solid relationship. Otherwise you just end up stuck in a rocky and crappy marriage (which I'm hoping you've figured out by now).
This is one of the saddest things I've read in a long, long time. What a goddamn mess.
I agree with a PP who said to let him plan the "honeymoon". It sounds like you're the only one who gives two sh!ts about this relationship, so to put it squarely on his shoulders might at least make it clear to you that he isn't really interested in being part of this marriage.
I would leave the kid with the grandparents in their home -- don't bring them with you. ESPECIALLY not in the same suite. If you two don't have much money, you don't have to go far from home to have a good time and enjoy yourselves.
Aiyiyi.
There's problem after problem here and you're hung up on not getting a formal proposal....are you kidding me?
Problem Number One: You got married to smooth out bumps. Positively the wrong reason TO get married. If it simply wasn't working out or if it was problematic -- which it was -- the both of you should have ended the relationship and gone your separate ways.
I'll say it before somebody else tells ya so: Putting a ring on somebody's finger doesn't magically make problems vanish. It makes the problems permanent ones.
Second of all, what kind of a red blooded male wants to spend what technically is his wedding night with his FRIEND, ffs?
Are you certain your H isn't gay? Or at the very least, sexually maladjusted? Or woefully immature??
He prefers a guy's company over yours the on his wedding night...what the hell is up with that? ANybody else think that is odd besides me?
Plan a honeymoon? Maybe you ought to plan an annulment. There are so many problems here they can't be counted.
I take it that by saying "nobody was introduced to me" that you don't even know this jerk's family. Wow --- how is it you can be together and not even know a SO/spouse's family?? That's weird in itself.
And how is it you have a reception and you spend no time at all with the person you just married?
What kind of redeeming values has this mollusk GOT? None that I can find. He can't even be by your side on your wedding day -- and as for your wedding night, he's off carousing with a buddy?!
And what kind of logic is this --- you have one ceremony and you call it a "trial marriage." Dude: a marriage is a marriage when you have a ceremony. What "trial"?
This is more than a bit warped; this isn't about money -- this is just plain effed up:
I really want to go to Vancouver and go snowboarding (something we both love) but because of our small son we needed to figure out how we could maybe bring him along and stay with his grandparents in a separate suite but then money became an issue and my husband said that we should all stay in one suite with them which obviously is what I want on a honeymoon.
Who in heck stays in one suite with grandparents --- no way would I do it.
You should have ended the relationship when it got bumpy and problematic. Period. And you should have done it long before a "trial marriage" and certainly long before a chalupa entered the picture --- this "marriage" and relationship is not healthy for you and it most certainly isn't healthy for your son. Another very good reason for you to see an attorney and file.
You may even be eligible for an annulment. Document, document document -- what is happening here is not normal, not in any size shape or form. I am sorry for your troubles.
You have a world of problems. You think this guy's a peach and you loooooove him -- what is here to love? He's not even spending any kind of time with you at all by the looks of it -- you need therapy and fast.
There isn't anything to love here. And as I said, this is not a normal relationship and this is not a healthy one.
And that you couldn't even tell your families that you were married 4 years ago when you got married is beyond mind boggling and just way bizzare...and not normal. Why would you not tell them??
My husband and I eloped three years ago taking part in a cultural "trial marriage" and never told anyone but the two friends who were witnesses and then I became pregnant a year later and we continued not to tell any of our friends and family so to them our baby was out of wedlock. We ended up having a "wedding" after our son was born but it wasn't at all special.
I am wondering just what kind of culture would advocate a "secret marriage" and one that's abnormal, at that. No clergyperson of any type would endorse a marriage of this type.
And just for the record, what culture are each of you from?
Therapy for you stat...and that annulment is sounding better by the second. And when you get the annulment run like hell as fast as you can.
Indeed -- what in tully is the rest of the story? I get the idea that there's a crucial detail or several left out. The "trial marriage" thing based on culture -- what is that exactly about?
I have a feeling that is EXACTLY the case. That, or she doesn't like the fact that it's so blatantly obvious that her husband sucks and their marriage is a sham!
Lots of men simply are not the romantic type.
And if a romantic guy was a must, you should have moved on when you found out he wasn't a romantic. Why did you stay with him after that?
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What culture requires you to get legally married as a "trial" period? It seems that the trial period is over once you get a marriage license. And if this is a common practice in your culture, why the need to keep it a secret and let everyone think your child was born out of wedlock?
Also, if you have a rocky first year, common sense dictates that you should break up rather than make a complete mockery of the institution of marriage.
I must say, from top to bottom your post contains the highest concentration of jackassery ever seen on the nest.
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
I am amazed you two were able to reproduce based on his behavior. He sounds like he doesn't like you enough to call you by your name and buy you a bagel must less love you enough to call you wife and pay for a honeymoon. You keep throwing out the word tradition, but I wonder if you mean something that your family had done over and over for years, decades, centuries, or if you are referring it to be something you have deemed special to you because of your relationship.
My suggestion is, plan an all expenses paid all out vacation for yourself and leave him at home with his "friends and family." Then come back and get a divorce, because honey this is not gonna work.
This, exactly.
I cannot for the life of me understand why you are sitting here worried about a honeymoon when your marriage is a complete trainwreck, and your husband a complete a$$hole.
What is it going to take for you to realize your husband is really not at all engaged in this marriage, has zero respect for you, and that this is all a complete mess.
If this man is your "best friend", based on how he acts and treats you, I feel pretty horrible for the standards you have for yourself and your friendships and relationships.
Go to individual counseling. You need to figure out why you think so entirely low of yourself that you would willingly stay in a marriage like this...and hell, why you got married to this man in the first place. You don't get married to "iron out the kinks". WTF? If you are in a rocky relationship you END THE RELATIONSHIP...not get married.
You should go to Vancouver on a snowboarding trip, but it should be without him, and it should be to celebrate the divorce you are going to get.
This whole thing blows my mind.
ftw
This is what I thought too. It's very possible he's gay. You should look into getting an annulment.
You're right. This is difficult to believe.
"every time I tried to leave before I got pregnant I either got raped or threatened. "
Oh. my. god. What are you thinking?
"maybe I am too stupid to live"
You know what? That was an ignorant comment for someone to make to you. Ignore it.
Glad you're in counselling. It doesn't seem you care to listen to people expressing their concern for your relationship, maybe that's because many posters on here tend to be very direct with their advice, but you need to see that your choices don't seem to be very healthy. The things that are preoccupying you right now are very small compared to the cluster you're in.
I highlighted the most concerning statements in your story. You have a will and heart like no one else if this isn't MUD, and for the sake of your child, I am going to act like it's not.
Really? Rape and threats, if that is the case, GO TO THE POLICE NOW. You need to for yourself and your family. God only knows what he will do when your child speaks outside his place. I am sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but your marriage isn't working. You can work as hard as you want putting your husband's needs before your own and your child's for as long as you want to, but it will not make this marriage WORK. This marriage is surviving purely on your will to continue it, if you were to breathe wrong this marriage would fall apart like a house of cards.
You don't know what kind of relationship you are in so let me tell you, you are in an extremely abusive relationship with no end in sight that depends on you making the right move every moment you are alive, even as you sleep and if you make a wrong move your selfish husband will make you pay dearly for it. And I take back the divorce part, you should get a divorce, you want this sad sadistic lifestyle, so stay in it. If you like to be raped and threatened that is on you. But you should give your LO to adoption. There are more than a few couples with good, emotionally stable, financial thriving, happy homes that would love to raise your kid. You kid does not deserve this. I doubt he is a good dad or even a decent dad, because a child that is raised with love and care can still be fucked up if daddy treats mommy like your husband treats you. I am sorry to say it but your husband treats you worst than he would treat a cow sh!tting on his lap. It's sad but it's true.
His mental or physical state makes NONE OF THIS acceptable. What are you thinking you stick this out another few years you will get some great amount of money and show everyone "See I stood by my man" huh? Well, no matter how big a check that could be, it would not be worth it. This part about how he is emotionally, mentally, physically unstable is more reason to get this kid out. I mean, he has to be alone with LO eventually, and what will happen then? Will he threaten and beat LO into submission?
And lastly, no one thinks you are stupid for complaining about the trip after hearing your sad story. Everyone is wondering why you haven't decided to pack your bags. It isn't about divorce, you wanna stay married to this fool, be my guest. But for the life of that child would you mind keeping LO and you safe, even if that means running away from this monster. I am glad you are in counseling, get your kid some too, and get some individual counseling and work this out before CPS shows up at your door.
THIS IS MUD
sorry
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
Wow, you're so sweet.
Young and in Love.
11.07.09