Hi ladies, I have been an ardent reader of IL forums for a very long time now. I have followed a lot of fellow Ilites advice and made my life a bit better than before. However, there is this thing that has been eating my mind for the last few days. To give some background, I have been married for about 4 years now - arranged marriage. Had a great difficulty adjusting to my husband as we were poles apart. But with patience, love and also some pointers from our IL's, I was able to reach a common ground with my DH. I had huge expectations from my life partner but of course, none of them were fulfilled. I was mostly hoping for fairy tales that never occured in my life. However, I have had no complains from DH except that he was not very expressive with his emotions. Added to that, I came to know of DH's affair before marriage that didn't work out. No clue why. Had hundreds of fights, arguments, tears and everything else in between as there was physical intimacy between them. This relationship of DH had scarred me for life and made me a very insecure person who could never trust her DH again. DH is very nice to me. He is almost a perfect guy except for the emotional intimacy with me. He would never as much as do anything without consulting me first. I am hypothyroid and tend to be moody sometimes and this gets on his nerves. He hates my temper and that's the only argument we always have. I have tried explaining to him that sometimes it isn't under my control and that he should just let me be when we have an argument. DH hates when i cry and a simple argument would end up into a full fledged fight. I have tried everything I could to make him calm down and not add fuel to the fights but have failed miserably. Sometimes I feel that he would be nice to me as long as I don't answer back or talk logic in our talks. I have to be the sati savitri kind of wife who never talks back to her DH. It is funny because DH is not an imposing husband at all when it comes to my dressing, friends or anything else on this planet. He keeps saying that he does not get the respect he deserves at home. I cannot understand what else could I do to make him feel respected. However, the reason I am posting today is because we had a fight last weekend. The reason was very simple. I asked him why doesn't he talk to me anything else other than bills and household stuff. I agree it was a stupid question as he shares everything about his life with me. However, I just felt like having a heart to heart talk and asked him. He said life is not a fairy tale. that ended there. He made some snack the previous day and then asked me how it tasted. I told him it tasted very nice the day before itself and so just said life is not a fairy tale. I cannot keep praising you all day long. That instant we were fine. He went to the restroom and once he was back, he was in a pretty bad mood and started asking me why i repeated that sentence to him. He said stuff like i was mocking him, i could not stand him being happy and relaxed so was putting forth another fight. I told him i was just kidding and that i was sorry ( still dont know why i said that though). But DH did not budge a bit and started blaming me that i fight with him all the time and that he lost his peace of mind because of me. I ended up saying I dont do that and all i wanted was some expression of love from him and that we lived like roommates. If we had to live like roomies, we don't need to be married to each other. we could do that with anyone around. He started screaming if that is the case, go find someone else to live with. I told him I wasn't like him. that's it. He lost it and slapped me!! I cannot believe he did that. I felt i was going to faint and controlled myself to even be standing still. he was screaming and hit me again while i was still crying. This is the first time DH has raised his hand on me and said that I provoked him to do that. After 3 hours of crying with him going out of the house and being back, he came to me and started giving me a lecture as to how i dont behave like i have a family, how i dont respect him, how i always fight with him and how i waste our life. I tried hard not to say anything in my defense, lest provoke him again. He hated it when I cried and wanted me to shut up and not even cry. He would not move away from me even after asking him to leave me alone. I had to listen to him and take all the blame and not cry and not retort back. After trying hard to explain him that i was only kidding and didn't say the sentence to mock him or anything, and after a long time, he said he was sorry. and that we should eat. He didnt even let me cry my heart out and was bent upon ending the discussion then. I just pulled myself together and got up, fed him and went to sleep. We never made up after that and it means the fight is over and everything is normal. It is always like that. Our fights are never resolved. We talk to each other after a while and usually I end up saying sorry and try and be normal. It's all over now and we are back to normal. But the fact that he actually hit me has been very disturbing to me. I was hit and blamed for no proper reason and I apologised! So much for being a woman, is it?? Please ladies, help me prevent these kind of situations in the future, if I can. Sorry for the long post.
Sonu, When things get calm tomorrow or a few days from now, you need to talk to your dh about what happened and explain to him that hitting cannot happen again. As for crying, even I would cry if I got hit. So, don't feel dumb for crying, I think most ladies would have done the same as you did. But one thing is, in an every day fight, try to keep your emotions under control (meaning, don't cry for everything). I don't know what your overall problem is. One side you are saying that you had a lot of dreams and expectations from marriage, of which NONE of them were fulfilled. On other side, you are saying your dh is very nice, almost perfect guy, etc. So try to figure out what it is exactly you want from him. See, asking for emotional intimacy or acts of love during a fight is never going to work. You need to mention this stuff during a calm moment, when neither of you is on the defensive. Also, whatever you want from him, first try giving it yourself. If you want romance, give romance. If you want a heart to heart talk, you start the conversation. Hopefully your dh will apologize for hitting you and promise never to repeat it. Even so, do warn him not to do it again when things settle down. Good luck.
The phrase "life is not a fairy tale" to his question of how the snack was unnecessary! I ask my husband how a particular dish was..so many times,just to hear extra praise. Whatever you say,it should not look as if it is mocking him.You could say the same thing in a humorous manner... Just forget the affair before marriage and don't talk about it again as it aggravates him.Maybe your husband is one of those types who can't stand crying and consoles you by hook (love) or crook (anger)...it's a part of life.Try to focus on things that make you both happy.
Yes, when he asked How was the snack? Sonu did taunt with "life is not a fairy tale". That was absolutely needless. His hitting was also needless and a wrong thing to do. Sonu said "I told him I wasn't like him" - meaning he is capable of going and living with someone else. A hurtful statement, but by then both were taunting each other. I think you should stop taunting each other, and thats the only way you can take it forward.
Maybe you are still resentful of him. Thats what is coming out in these remarks. You are not able to forgive him and get over your anger. So you provoke him. He in turn get angry and is getting physically violent. It is a vicious cycle. Will take you nowhere except to more pain. Either you say you can't ever forgive him and so this marriage is not going to work (it won't if you don't forgive - thats a given) or you forgive, move on, start afresh and allow for the both of you to get to really know and understand each other. Love will come thereafter. My two cents ofcourse.
Dear Sonu, Let your husband's past affair be past. I know it is very hard for you to digest it but you have to let it go since he was involved with that girl even before he knew that you existed. He would have got physically intimate with her thinking he was going to marry her. Now till you forgive him for his past, you will keep having resentment towards him and it would be shown in your everyday life and your husband will also be able to feel it. You already know you have thyroid, so remind yourself to calm down whenever you get very angry saying the hormones are doing their job when actually it's not necessary at all to get that mad. I wish your husband was little more understanding on this part but nevermind you can control yourself. When an argument takes place please don't bring up his past, this would be a never ending story then. As you say your husband is overall a nice man, so leave the past behind and live a happy life with him. Also tell your husband you are very disappointed because he hit you. Say you never expected that from him and will not tolerate another one from him. You can try to be more expressive like cuddling him while watching tv, holding his hand, getting him a card and who knows he might also follow your steps soon.
Yeah Sonu same thing happens to me, a very simple argument sometimes turns out into huge fight, and I some times curse myself for this, if only I had been more understanding and kept quite that fight would not have extended. This disturbs my mental peace and more over my MIL will be very happy when she comes to know that we had a fight. So better to avoid such fights instead of regretting later. Here again you are reminding him of the past, I think it shoud be forgiven and forgotten, and never make the mistake of drilling his past.
hi sonu, as d other ladies said dnt dig d past,its already passed n u cant change it.u said u r trying to adjust wid him so whn u r in dat stream dnt get deviated.perhaps if he was more understanding things would hav been different but tht's nt d case so have sme patience.likewise dnt let him beat u,tell him in that way hez hurting u in both ways.select d best time and tell him not to repeat such things.likewise u also dnt prvoke him to such extent dear, be calm..u struggled so much till date then y do u wnt to bring complications again??u should'nt hve said tat phrase seriously..at d sme time he should'nt have gone to the extent of beating,both of u r wrong..nw v cant take it back right so c tht atleast 4m ur side u dnt aggravate situations. take care,
blessed, Is your MIL staying with you? If not how would she know that you and your husband had a fight? I hope your husband is not telling her. :spin
dear rose and dnm , Sonu is married for 4 years and still don't have a clue why her husband's relationship with the ex-lover (not ex-wife) din't work out even when it went physical..... she has hypothyroid. And to top it all .....she doesn't feel gulity to have brought in the snack joke .......If we read her posts .....she is puzzled as to why she said sorry to him..... She might have said sorry because he reacted..... but not because she felt gulity. To top it all her husband " slaps and blames her for provoking him " So let's cut her some slack....which I feel she totally deserves.... Sonu, What is your husband's positive points dear ? .Can you eloborate... You say he is perfect except the emotional bonding.... Even in marriages where both the spouses don't have a history and are reasonably good partners ,if they don't have emotional bonding.....it is unfulfilling..... In cases where one of the spouse has a previous affair....."emotional bonding" IS the essential ingredient in such marriages . So what you are talking about here.....is a very basic thing...... I would suggest you to expect a deeper sober love in your marriage rather than a fairy-tale kind..... Any decent man,who comes out of a relationship and marries another women(especially in arranged marriage) should tell the prospective bride a true account of what went wrong with his previous relationship..... According to me ,Your husband seems to have a lot of baggage...... Looks like he wants you to accept him the way he is without you asking any questions....show love for him.....show repsect for him.... he wants himself to come out of his problems and he doesn't want to share his problems with you.... What he is missing in this is ....for you to be this....He needs to first come out clear and connect with you..... Sonu on your problem : that the fights never gets addressed .....we ignore and move on and no lessons learnt..... You need to bring in the topics some other time and discuss....Okay he is not discussing his past....Atleast whatever went wrong after marraige you can discuss when you are in good mood.... You must make an effort to talk about it.....Slowly he will connect and when he is comfortable ,he will start sharing..... Please donot cry ..... when you don't cry your thoughts are more focussed and you can reach him better which is want you want right ? Good luck!
