Need help - feel like it is ending

[married]

My husband and I have been married for two and a half years. Part of our major problem is that he is still hanging out with the college crowd while I have been a working woman for four years.

He is also from another religion and another country. He feels that friends are very important. While I feel they are important I don't like to have friends over all the time and don't want them to rule my life. My husband lets his friends call and whenever they want to do something he changes his schedule to do what they want.

Well we talked about this and seemed to have fixed it to where we don't hang out with his friends as much. But he seems to be holding onto a grudge.

This grudge has affected our sex life where he is saying he is not in the mood. He hates my personality and says I am always fighting. Actually I just ask him a quesiton like why he doesn't want to have sex. And he answers it with so many different answers. First he said because he didn't feel like it, wasn't in the mood. Then I pressed him to understand why he wasn't in the mood and he said it was my personality like what I was doing right then, fighting.

I know a few things. I got married to stay in a relationship and make it work. He however doesn't want to talk about the relationship. He wants me to accept it. I do not want a divorce but it seems like as time goes on he dislikes me more and more. Why can't he listen to what I need and understand instead of thinking I am controlling, etc.....

I would love to hear from people on what I can do to help save my marriage and make my husband fall in love with me again....

[Kate]

Dear Married

The first few years of marriage can be quite tough, especially when you come from very different backgrounds and life experiences. The key is to come to understand and value the differences.

There are a few sections of this site that may help. For example there is a section on Adjusting to Married Life (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/diffadjust/). There is also a section specifically dealing with the challenges of marrying across faiths (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/interfaith/).

In this latter section you'll see a link to Enrich (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/interfaith/couplequiz1/). This is an inventory that you can do which helps you to explore the strengths and growth points of your marriage, and to explore ways you can build your relationship up. Another similar programme is called REFOCCUS (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/services/foccus/). Another tool that you might find useful is our Personality Profiler (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/pp/personprofile1.html), which looks at values and how you see life.

I know you said your husband just wants you to accept things, but he might consider one of these tools, if you say to him that you want to accept things, but it would help if you could understand the differences. It may be that he believes that you can't change things in life or just lets things develop, whereas you may be the sort of person who sees the need to sort a problem out as soon as you are aware of it. That already highlights a difference in the way you think and see life. it's not impossible to live with this. My husband and I have a similar difference in approach. Understanding how we were different enabled us to accept each other and not be offended by the different ways we responded to challenges in life. It may be that your husband is afraid that he may have to change and so he doesn’t want to listen. That would men it would be important to reassure him that you aren’t doing this to change him, but to understand the issues.

I hope that gives you some ideas to think about.

All the best

Kate