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December 18, 2011
in Marriage
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On an unhappy marriage.

dearcoketalk:

Dear Coquette,

I’m not attracted to my husband anymore. I don’t respect him anymore, either. We’ve been married for four years, we’re in our 20s and we don’t have any kids. I realize that the fire fades, and that it’s hard if not impossible to keep up a rocking sex life consistently and long-term, but I actually feel mild disgust at the prospect of having sex with him. Intimacy is pretty much shot, and when we do have sex it’s just “going through the motions.” Is there any way to get attraction back? Is there any way for me to respect him again? Or does that stuff only exist in fiction and should I be happy that I’m with someone who cares enough to make dinner and ask about my day?


Damn, girl. How much weight did he gain? Not that it matters, I suppose. The real problem isn’t that you no longer want to have sex with your husband. It’s that you don’t respect him anymore. That’s ugly stuff. You can fall in and out of love over the course of a marriage, but once you’ve lost respect, it’s pretty much impossible to bounce back.

 I get it. It’s rough out there for a young married couple. Life started beating both of you down, but instead of finding strength in one another, you found fault in each other’s weaknesses. Based on your tone, I’m guessing this isn’t the result of any infidelity or emotional abuse. This is just a garden-variety case of your husband’s emasculation followed by a vicious circle of mutual resentment that festered into disrespect. After all, you can’t respect a man who doesn’t respect himself.

This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that everything’s gonna work out, but I’m not the type to blow smoke. Unless you both work together at putting fresh energy into yourselves and your relationship, you’re probably gonna end up getting a divorce. There’s a small chance you’ll find a way to hit the reset button on your marriage, but whatever happens, you’ll be starting from scratch. It’s going to be difficult.

The only thing I can suggest you do is talk to your husband about how you feel. Find out how he’s been feeling. Try a little couples counseling if you need a referee. Make a plan to change things together and give it an honest shot. If your marriage doesn’t improve, do what you gotta do.

Oh, and one more thing. Whatever else happens, don’t get pregnant. You’ve got no business bringing kids into this situation until you know how it’s going to play out.

When I was growing up, it was pretty clear that my parents hated and had no respect for each other.

They stayed together because it’s taboo in Chinese culture to get divorced, most likely because of the taboo of having multiple sexual partners and the belief that the only way children can be happy is if they’re in a nuclear family unit. Another reason was financial. There’s no way that they could’ve gained all the assets they have now if they didn’t pool together their income. So I guess that’s one good thing that came out of it.

I can’t tell if they’ve learned to respect each other after working together for two decades to gain what they’ve had now. It seems like they mostly tolerate each other. They still have the same complaints - the other is stupid because of this and that, the other is too stubborn to realize that they’re wrong, the other is always wrong, and so on and so forth. (Sooo it sounds like they don’t truly respect each other?)

Honestly, it didn’t do me much good seeing the two of them interact, and it still doesn’t. Although I’m able to piece together what a healthy, romantic relationship between adults should be, I’ve never seen first-hand what it should look like. There was no romance after all, let alone respect. All the arguments would end with my dad screaming at my cowering, crying mother, so I do know what a relationship where the power’s unbalanced looks like. In fact, the distribution of power was incredibly skewed - my mom had no support system and was at the mercy of my father and his family of shit-heads. I know that she was pretty much forced into getting the old version of the IUD - the one that injured a lot of women - and she still has health problems from it.

At least I know what NOT to strive for in a relationship.

All of it has made me incredibly cynical about marriage. My friends who grew up in more or less perfect families can already picture a fancy, expensive fairy-tale wedding. They think it’s horrible that I think it’s important to have safety nets in case a marriage fails. They think I’m planning on having a divorce in the future just because I want to ensure self-sufficiency. Like “Oh well, I’m gonna have a divorce anyways so I might as well act like it!” They believe in happily ever after and forever, because they’ve never seen the other side of things.


(via dearcoquette)

Notes:

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  5. sooozyboozy reblogged this from dearcoquette and added:
    was growing up, it was pretty clear...my parents hated...had...
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