What Are The Plans When Things Get Rough?
“What are the plans for when things get rough? Marriages go through ups and downs. Some couple’s ‘downs’ are 50 times bigger than other couple’s ‘ups,’ but nevertheless, things fluctuate. You absolutely need a plan for when things get rough. Decide at what point you, as a couple, will agree to marriage counseling and how to communicate this to your spouse. In those first years, you’ll think ‘I’ll never ever be that upset with you’ and the idea of needing help from an outside source seems ludicrous.
Decide how you handle conflict. No sarcasm (for the love of God, no sarcasm). Raised voices need to be minimal and the other party should be allowed to say ‘time out, we need to take a break.’ Where and when will you talk about difficult things? Decide who it’s okay to discuss your problems with. Are you okay having a close friend that you can confide it and are you okay with your spouse having the same? Or should all problems be resolved directly with your spouse.
I speak from a failed marriage. Next month is our 25th anniversary and we’re in the process of getting a divorce. I wish we had dealt with these things. Quite frankly, I don’t know if it would have helped, but I could have at least said, ‘but we agreed to this.’ Three years ago, I had enough of her selfishness and said we needed counseling and she refused. She agreed to try on our own, but then wouldn’t follow through. The night I asked her ‘why do you love me?’ and all she could give me was ‘because you’re a good father’ was when she finally agreed to see someone. But when we did, she didn’t follow through. Read The Five Love Languages, he told us. I’d already read it. She didn’t read it until I decided to see him on my own and he asked me to ask her to come in on her own. When she finally read the book, she told me she could hear 4 of the languages in me and she laughed saying ‘I’ll never be able to do that’ as if it was a joke. Then she did none of them, not even the two I identified with.
I know it’s easy for someone in my position to blame their spouse. Over these past few years, I’ve learned a lot about myself and about her. I’ve recently learned of cluster B personality disorders, which includes narcissism, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. I read the descriptions of these and see how her behaviors fit so many of the traits. Lack of empathy. Inability to control emotions. The need to be the center of attention. Imagining relationships are more intimate than they really are. I know the tendency to blame the partner is there, but I can list incident after incident of how she’s exhibited these traits. In fact, the last one is the only way I can justify why a relationship she had with another woman isn’t an affair—I found numerous books on lesbianism on her Kindle, books about being in love with another woman while married to a man. It’s been a rough three years, but the end is near. Thank God.”