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Old 19th December 2011, 01:04 AM   #76
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

I don't really know what she envisages with her daughter, especially now she is married and living in the USSR. It's a very intense mother-daughter relationship - biological. They can't stay away from each other. So things being the way they are I do understand that my wife is feeling a lot of disappointment and frustration on that score. To an extent it could be seen as an insoluble problem. It must surely have a lot to do with my wife's present state of mind.

I'm from indigenous English stock, born into a working class family and made my own way via self-powered education into a sort of middle-class life. My parents tried to put out a smart and well-to-do image to the world, but I have always been casual and unpretentious in that respect. I think I have turned out with something of an inverse snobbery element. I have no time for pretentious people swanning around exuding self-importance. When, as in the Cheshire circuit, the conversation starts with "So, what are you in?" rather than "What do you do?" I know I'm at the wrong garden party. It is not that I am an ignoramus. I just don't share those values.

That's why my wife and I have diverse social aspirations. One or two very close and good friends are enough for me.

Last edited by Bellx15; 19th December 2011 at 02:18 AM.
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Old 19th December 2011, 11:10 AM   #77
Chamomile
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bellx15 View Post
They can't stay away from each other. So things being the way they are I do understand that my wife is feeling a lot of disappointment and frustration on that score. To an extent it could be seen as an insoluble problem. It must surely have a lot to do with my wife's present state of mind.

I think I have turned out with something of an inverse snobbery element. I have no time for pretentious people swanning around exuding self-importance. When, as in the Cheshire circuit, the conversation starts with "So, what are you in?" rather than "What do you do?" I know I'm at the wrong garden party. It is not that I am an ignoramus. I just don't share those values.

That's why my wife and I have diverse social aspirations. One or two very close and good friends are enough for me.
Hi Bell

Yes, I'm sure that it sure has created a huge impact on her emotional well-being. They say, Mothers get severely depressed after children fly off the nest..It's called "Empty Nest Syndrome". It's not at all uncommon. It may take years to get over the loss. (My Mother had it quite badly when I left home) But she got better and she was doing far better than before after that difficult period. So there will be an end of her current doom and gloom. Minimize disagreement and try to sound caring and supportive, which may help disarm her adversarial mindset.. Hang in there. xx

PS I know what you mean about "Cheshire", I wouldn't have liked it myself, so you have my great sympathy..
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Old 19th December 2011, 01:54 PM   #78
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Thanks. When I think on about the daughter in USSR issue, it really does scare me a bit. There doesn't seem to be a solution. So perhaps I need to gently open this up as a topic of discussion, at least to show that I am sympathetic and concerned about it.

Yes, I do try to remain caring and supportive, but I also slip up at particularly heated times. I agree, though. I have to keep trying, and also try to be less reactive.

The Cheshire set - actually there is one particular couple acting as the agents here, (the wife being a loud, pushy, social-climbing, bossy Ukrainian wife) through whom my wife gets to the Set. That wife I find appalling; I am just offended by everything about her.
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Old 28th December 2011, 08:17 PM   #79
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

So, here we are again.

Apparently, we are incompatible because I forgot to put out the recycle bins today.

Is it worth pursuing this?
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Old 28th December 2011, 11:09 PM   #80
chosen
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Oh dear. I always put them out cos my husband never remembers but not sure why that matters, as long as one does it, and its easy to forget, especially this week with all the days being messed up. Thats not being incompatable of course is it, its just being human. If she remembered why didnt she remind you? If she didnt remember then why is she blaming you for forgetting?
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Old 28th December 2011, 11:13 PM   #81
Helen_uk
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

I was thinking the same chosen, if that was a reason for divorce I'd be getting divorced before I got married !
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Old 29th December 2011, 12:30 AM   #82
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Thanks. But there we are.

She didn't remind me about the bins because: " I always get offended if she points jobs out to me." It's a scam, but read on.

Let me be fair about this. I am not giving the whole story. What I really need from you good people is a sense of reality. I am not trying to make out a case against my own wife.

This morning my wife asked me whether I had put out the recycle bins, and I said no, I forgot. I went out to do it, but the truck was already there and so there was no time to sort out the containers sack.

My wife was clearly in the middle of a hormone crisis, crying on the spot, so I tried to play the whole thing down and said I'd take everything down to the Tesco site. Not to worry. then she brushed past me, saying "Easy job, well done, you didn't do it."

I felt this sarcasm to be unacceptable and asked her why she thought it necessary. That triggered a verbal cataloguing of all the things I hadn't done in the past year. I asked why she had waited until now to mention all these apparently essential things and she told me that she felt unable to tell me at the time, because in the past I had always overreacted to being told anything.

[This has some truth behind it. I used to be like that, but several years ago we had a really good discussion about it and I accepted that as long as she asked me respectfully, rather than boomed commands, along with sarcasm and patronising tone, I would be happy to do it. I actually accepted that I was pretty hopeless about noticing what needed to be done around the house, and invited her to point things out to me. So to appeal to that historic inhibition now is just dishonest. She knows perfectly well that every time she asks me to attend to something domestic I receive it in good grace, and usually act on it.]

So anyway, the game seems to be this: Keep an eye on all the mistakes I am making, wait for a really good hormonal imbalance, pick on a trivial error, start the sarcasm, and then back it up with a full catalogue of all the mistakes I have been making but she has been unable to point out at the time, because I can't take criticism. Therefore, we are incompatible. We are incompatible because of what? Dress, socialising, my domestic standards, etc.

I said to her this morning: "You know, I do believe that if a psychologist were looking in on this s/he would suggest that you are actually manufacturing a reason to declare us incompatible. Why are you doing it.?"

In the middle of the argument she says that if she could just have her own flat and we could be apart we could stop annoying each other and get on with our lives. But as I said, this is 90% hormone talk. She actually loves me, even though she is unable to see that now.

What am I doing wrong?

Last edited by Bellx15; 29th December 2011 at 01:32 AM.
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Old 29th December 2011, 01:59 AM   #83
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Let's be even more honest.

When I really think about the past ten years I have to say: She really doesn't know what love is. She has never loved me. She loves her daughter (i.e., is hard-wired to her) but that is not the same thing.

I don't know. I think I've reached the end of this.
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Old 29th December 2011, 05:44 AM   #84
Forever
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

What would it hurt then, to grant her her wish...what do either one of you have to lose at this point to let her have her own flat? Then she will see over time if she prefers a man who makes human mistakes from time to time, yet loves her vs. a life alone with her hormone and emotions but no one around to take it out on.

Perhaps it is best to get apart before there is nothing left of your feelings towards her?
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Old 29th December 2011, 08:14 AM   #85
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

It's a perfectly good suggestion, and that might be the way it goes. I have a problem with it because I don't think I want to do any more emotional roller-coasters. It would probably have to be a clean break, no return.
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Old 29th December 2011, 08:30 AM   #86
Forever
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Soumds like there is nothing left then if you are already speaking of no return.

Maybe you should hold off on being so final until the two of you have had a year or two apart...maybe then she will have realized how badly she treated you as well as her hormones settling down (they will)...and maybe you will have had a chance to actually miss the better parts of who she was before all of this hit the fan over the last year?

What made you conclude that she never loved you and doesn't really know what love is? Why do you take such a hard line...is this frustration and dispair talking?
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Old 29th December 2011, 08:37 AM   #87
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

My tolerance of meaningless marriages has all but evaporated over the years. I am 61 now, perfectly fit and healthy, and just fail to see any benefit in rattling around together in the same cage, just to be constantly told what I am doing wrong.

As some others have said, this is not purely menopause. There are underlying reasons for the constant disapproval.
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Old 29th December 2011, 08:45 AM   #88
Forever
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

So for the last ten years she has been voicing her constant disapproval of you...but only in the last year it has become intolerable for both of you supposedly because of menopause?
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Old 29th December 2011, 10:18 AM   #89
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Not exactly. I'd say the negative messages have become more frequent of late. It's all about our 'incompatibility'. She's much worse now with the menopause. But she will say that in the early years she just felt she had to keep quiet.

Certain complaints, though, are about more recent changes in my behaviour. In the beginning I would visit her USSR immigrant friends and husbands / families, but as the years went by I became disenchanted with most of them and the visits faded out. There are only two that I have nothing to do with, though. The truth is that I just don't like them, and I think I am entitled not to spend time with people I don't like. This makes us incompatible, of course.

We also had a fairly major blow-up last year when her daughter came over to stay with us for four months. I think that has had an impact.

Last edited by Bellx15; 29th December 2011 at 10:28 AM.
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Old 29th December 2011, 10:31 AM   #90
Bellx15
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Re: Menopause advice needed!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Forever View Post

What made you conclude that she never loved you and doesn't really know what love is? Why do you take such a hard line...is this frustration and dispair talking?
Sorry, I missed this.

Just looking back over the entire marriage more reflectively, I never really experienced any spontaneous affection from her. It was always reserved and a bit .. well, Russian. Except that Russians are not generally like that.
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