So I’m not asking specifically about my situation, that’s just for background, but I am asking seriously – as men, do you believe that all love come with pain? Is it better to look past it because it’s unavoidable? Is there such a thing as loving someone who doesn’t hurt you?
I’ve been married 17 years. I love my husband a lot, especially in the last couple of years he has been so supportive and loving. It wasn’t always this way though. Most of the 17 years we’ve had together he basically abandoned me. For one thing he works doing FIFO so I hardly saw him he was gone like 8 months of the year. He’s still gone about 6 months of the year. We have 3 children and he didn’t help raise them at all, even while he was home for long stretches. There were situations like after having my second child I didn’t shower for about a week, I eventually had to beg him to watch our baby so I could shower and the minute the baby starting crying he flew into a rage and I had to run out of the shower still drenched, hair still shampooed to get our baby who he was holding with arms outstretched almost like he was about to shake him. He also used to hit our kids when they were small – and he hit me a couple of times also. We all lived in fear of his moods and I left a couple of times. I never got any money, like $100 a week for groceries I had to stretch out to work. A lot of op shopping and community meals even though we were earning 6 figures. But I came from an abusive home and I really wanted to make it work so I tried my best. He was also very critical of my body, I was in no way overweight but he would constantly pressure me to keep losing weight, he liked the very thin look.
But like I said, he’s a totally different man now! However, as much as I care about him I still have a lot of sadness inside about everything. I try not to show it, I want to move on, but to me – I love him but I’m not in love with him. But I feel too old at 39, and too broken, to be with anyone else. I ended up having a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated and after that gained a lot of weight, and lost a lot, but my body isn’t the same. I don’t think any man could be attracted to me.
Anyway, sometimes I think of separating from my husband but then I fear going through all of this same sort of thing with another man. And I also ask myself the question “does all love come with pain?” Is it unavoidable? I’m a very nurturing person, I love to look after the people I love, I give everything, all of myself, but I’m also very independent too. All I want is someone who protects me from pain, not cause it, but maybe that’s not real?
Thanks