Overcoming our marriage issues...

[corduroycape]

Hi All,

I had a discussion with my wife yesterday and she was very upset with me after talking with her friend. Her friend has just left her partner on the grounds that he doesn't make her feel special enough. My wife said she felt like I also don't do enough for her and she feels sometimes like she doesn't know why she is with me.

Now I feel like I'm learning to be the best husband and person I can be. We have only be married 6 months. We spend practically all our free time together. I work full-time and I pay the mortgage on the property I bought and we currently live in. I pay for most things as she is unemployed and looking for work. We are in our early thirties. We don't have much money at the moment, especially as we want to sell the flat and upgrade slightly to something suitable for us and our dog.

So we have very little money to go out for lots of meals and other treats. I spend money on her every month to buy clothes, probably about four times as much as I spend on myself. She always receives chocolates and just last week I surprised her with a couple of books she really wanted. We do go out for a meal every one to two weeks, she usually picks because she is more fussy.

The truth is when we first met she had these really high expectations and I'm naturally careful with money, so it caused problems (she in all seriousness wanted to meet a rich man, but she hated all the ones she met). She wanted to spend money I didn't have and when I refused she got annoyed. She says it effects her still now that I didn't want to spend the money. I have learned to relax a lot with money (without being stupid), I did used to get uptight about using my overdraft and she has also now realised that we don't have that much money (so lowered her expectations slightly). Now when I say lets go out for dinner sometimes she says no because we cannot afford it but then blames me for making her become this uptight person. I feel like I can't win.

I'm trying hard to make her feel special. I share the cooking with her. I do as much cleaning if not more a lot of the time at home. She admits that I'm at her beckon call and said to her friend that I'm practically wrapped around her little finger. I do anything she wants within reason but it still doesn't seem good enough. I'm planning a weekend for her this weekend as I do sometimes go with the flow a bit too much so I'm making a real effort to make her feel special. I do notice though when I make plans she always tries to change them. Sometimes it's a real battle because she likes control but I'm insisting because if she wants to be taken places and be treated she has to play her part too.

Sometimes I just feel like I get it wrong too often. I'm constantly trying, improving a lot (like I have got loads more assertive with her and others) and she has got better too. I hope things get better but sometimes I wonder whether she already has it good, but that I'm not appreciated for what I do and never will be. I also don't like the way she approaches these subjects, she gets really heated instead of being calm and it totally stresses me out.

It would be good to have some advice from both genders on this...