Soleil's Intro & Triage

Soleil

Hi All:

I've been lurking for a month or so now and finally decided to join. I found my way here via the Return of Kings website during their infamous fat shaming week. I was intrigued by the red pill concept, and was relieved to find that there were still some men who championed marriage after swallowing said pill. My own marriage has been rocky for quite some time now and I'm hoping this will help us. I ordered the Mindful Attraction Plan earlier this week and have just about a 1/4 of it left. We're both in our late twenties, married 5 years. No kids. We were high school sweethearts that broke up when I went to college and got back together years later. He was in the military for four of our married years, then we moved back to our hometown after he ended his contract last year. He's currently in school and we both work part-time. 

Medical: He's mostly okay. Aches and pains left over from the military and a few physical signs of stress such as teeth grinding and headaches. I was on oral birth control most of our marriage but stopped taking it a couple of months ago. I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder and mild depression a couple of  years ago following a major car accident. Physically I got away with a couple of scrapes but it took a toll on me psychologically. I saw a therapist for almost a year following the accident, but did not take medication for it. I still endure bouts of it, but it's not at the level it once was, and it doesn't last as long as it used to. 

Structural: As far as physically, both of us are still attractive although we've both gained weight in the past year. He would say that he doesn't have a problem with the amount I've gained, and in fact compliments/gropes me more now that I'm a little bigger. I'm used to being in shape however and am uncomfortable with how I look at the moment. I'm still attracted to him, though preferred him smaller. Financially we've been getting by. Regular debts (student loans, one car loan, a couple of thousand on one credit card) But, without either one of us having a full time job, the bulk of my anxiety comes from worrying about money. He gets money from the GI Bill and from his part-time job, I was only recently able to find a part-time job myself and so we've been draining our savings. He's been interviewing for a full time position and we should know whether or not he's been accepted mid January. I will start looking for full time employment again as well. 

Critical Moments: He considers himself a gamer, and so spends whole days on the computer. Sometimes he starts playing a game on his phone even before we get out of bed in the morning. I don't really know if it's at addiction level or not. To my knowledge he's never missed work/school to play a game, and the only relationship his gaming impacts is ours. He will go out to do normal errands and spend time with me/family. But if he's home, 90% of the time he's on the computer. He also has issues with porn. He's had large quantities of both video/pics saved on his phone and computer. We've fought about it multiple times and each time he would claim to get rid of it all, but it would show up again. He would also message women on craigslist, though to my knowledge those messages only lasted a day and he never made plans to meet them in person. All of this has been ongoing since right from the start of our marriage up until now.

For me, I confessed to him a year or so ago that I had sex with an ex boyfriend prior to our engagement. It happened after we decided to restart our relationship while we were still long distance. I apologized at the time of the confession, but it has come up in arguments since then, and I know it deeply hurt(s) him. I currently do not have any outside sexual sources, but have looked at porn here and there on my own during or marriage.

When did the sex go bad: We would have long periods without sex while he was in the military because of deployments and other work commitments but always picked back up when he returned. I would say it dropped off dramatically after the car accident and was really bad during the transition from the military back to our hometown. Some periods it was him, but mostly it was me who was not interested.

Sex in the beginning: It was fun, adventurous. Both initiated. All times of day. Lots of flirting in between.

Elephant in the Room: I would say for both of us it is the fact that we got married very quickly after restarting our relationship and married who both of us used to be rather than the people we had grown into. More specifically for me, there is a lot of regret because my life has not turned out the way I wanted to and I blame him. I know this is wrong, and what I will be working on as I tackle my MAP but this feeling is present in a lot of our interactions.

Who is the Leader: I would say him. In the military, life is all about the service member. Not much has changed since he got out, and I would say a lot of my animosity towards him is the fact that I don't like the way he leads nor all of the decisions he makes for us.

Good Times: We've always had good times. We love to discuss all types of topics and genuinely enjoy each other's company when we're not fighting. Strangers have even come up to us and told us how lovely a couple we are and how it's nice to see two people who look happy together. We had/have fun together. We love each other, just having a hard time pushing through when everything is not all rainbows and butterflies.

And so, now the work begins. He knows I've been reading a lot of 'mens' websites, but I haven't fully explained everything to him. I appreciate any and all feedback anyone is so inclined to offer. This is a wonderful community from what I've seen, and i feel like I've learned so much even in this short amount of time.

Kathrynthegreat

Welcome fellow Texan!

Soleil

Kathrynthegreat said:

Welcome fellow Texan!

Thank you! Love your tagline!

DaddyOh

The fact you are young, and do not have kids gives you an opportunity to focus strictly on the marriage.
Focus on healthy, finances and intimacy.
In regards to your weight. My ex wife always strived for the 130lbs mark. Usually hovered around 140lbs. Was attracted to her at 130lbs and 140lbs+ (she didn't go above 150lbs in our marriage). So your husband telling you that he's attracted to you with some extra weight is probably true.
Your marriage has potential to be great. Your visit to this site is a step in the right direction.
Good luck

PhoenixDown

Welcome!!

BrianC

Welcome! You're in good company. We are very happy to help. There is a great discussion on anxiety disorders here that might be a helpful start.

It sounds like a great deal of your MAP will be about setting boundaries about games and engaging him in activities away from the screen. Preferably ones where you get to know each other all over again.

Kathrynthegreat

@BrianC @Serenity @Jen_Kay. . . .do you guys see the messaging women on Craigslist as something that needs to be addressed, like, *right now*??   I don't see that as something that can wait on Phase 4.  

BrianC

Yeah, @KatherinetheGreat, that did sound problematic, but I honestly was not sure what it meant. @Soleil, Can you give us the details on the whole "women on Craigslist" thing?

Soleil

@DaddyOh Thank you! Your ex-wife and I sound similar size-wise. I am on the shorter side though, so ten pounds in either direction has a significant impact on how I look. Health, finances and intimacy are my priorities for the new year.

@RedPillWifey Thank you!

@KatherinetheGreat @BrianC With Craigslist, he will either go to the personal ads for women seeking hook-ups or the women offering their 'massage' services and email with them back and forth. As I said earlier the correspondence usually lasts only a few hours (I haven't seen him talk to any one person over multiple days) and I believe him when he says that he hasn't gone to see them because he's always home. (I guess that's one perk of the gaming thing)

PhoenixDown

Oy.

It really doesn't matter if he's not actually going to see them. He could easily escalate it into doing so (and don't underestimate the ability of a cheater to be sneaky). This is not normal. The energy he puts into that is energy he should be putting into improving himself and your marriage.

I think you absolutely have to stop that before all else. It's an outside sexual source that he's getting dopamine from. There's no way he's not masturbating while he's having this communication with other women about sex, if not actually sneaking ways to cheat.

Soleil

@RedPillWifey I agree and told him that I wasn't going to wait around until it got to the point of a physical affair. I know porn addicts continue to push the envelope in order to get the same rush. After the last time I caught him (which was the beginning of Fall I think, August or September) he gave me all of his passwords and said I could check at random. So far, I haven't found anymore emails, but pics will still pop up every now and again.

@cinnamon I track my cycle. I did it during our first years of marriage and even prior to getting married when I was a broke college student and didn't want to spend the money on birth control. I only got on birth control so we could be a little more spontaneous and got off of it recently after reading about its impact on libido. It has improved our sex life exponentially and as my desire has gone up his interaction with porn has gone down.

As far as what I want, I want a healthy marriage and believe it is a possibility even with all of our dysfunction. His leadership style is often just to delegate things to me, and then when he does make a decision, he often does so without my input. I know he is committed to the marriage, and in fact we just had a discussion this weekend where he acknowledged that he spends too much time on his hobbies and can be selfish when it comes to money etc. For my part, I am clingy and my anxiety/depression is difficult for him to deal with.

I am keeping an eye on him. He knows that a physical affair would guarantee divorce but beyond asking for passwords, I don't know what else to do to set up a boundary. 

mixnmatch

To paraphrase some of the above.

DO NOT get pregnant!!!!  Get yourself tested for STDs!

The girls on craigslist or backpage etc are 99% agencies looking to farm girls out.  In the real world they are called pimps.  You do not carry on conversations with pimps because they are mostly male or put a girl on the phone to answer your call.  They want to know your address or give you their address and how much their "donation" is then click goes the phone.  They then dispatch a girl/prostitute.

The only way he is chatting is if he has met up with these prostitutes and they have given him their direct number to bypass the pimp/agency that markets them online.  Prostitutes calls these guys regulars.  I don;t think you want to be married to a regular.  There are a few small exceptions but I use to work in a legal aid clinic where these girls would go after they got busted and this is how it works.

Serenity

If your husband has progressed to the point of messaging girls from Craig's List, then I suspect the rabbit hole goes far deeper than you realize.

Do your work hours coincide, or are there times where you're working, but he's home?

How often are the two of you having sex together? How often does he initiate?

Soleil

@AlphaBelle @mixnmatch @Serenity Thank you all for your advice. Trust is almost non existent in our relationship now and I've made it clear that it is something he has to earn back over a long period of time. I do plan on continuing to do my research to see what else I might uncover. 

Soleil

I'm trying to post more but it keeps saying my comments are too long

Soleil

I understand that from what I've described that it seems as though a real life affair is a possibility, it's just not probable logistically. We're always together (I'm sure that is also part of the problem) I work at the same school where he attends and also works. We usually ride in and come home together. Anytime I've popped in where he is supposed to be he is always there. And we rarely go out without the other one in the evening. In fact when he want's a 'guys' night' it usually involves him inviting his friends over to our house to game/watch movies.

@mixnmatch what you say about the girls on craigslist makes perfect sense. Whenever he does email them the exchange doesn't last very long. He'll send 2-3 messages and I noticed they never send more than 1-2 back and leave him hanging so to speak. I even asked him why he tries to talk to these girls when they don't seem interested in talking to him and he says he likes to see if they will give him response and its a challenge to keep them talking.

We have sex pretty regularly now. About 3-4 times a week. I would say he initiates 75% of the time. I feel like my main focus at this point is just to get myself together via the MAP so that I'm in a better position down the road should nothing change. For now he has agreed to use his computer in an open space sans privacy.

redheaded_woman

Welcome! There are so many wonderful people here to support you in your efforts.

So he is currently messaging other women? This isn't something in the past that is now over?

Just want to be sure I understood the timeline on the messaging specifically.

MplsRS

Welcome!

It sounds like a good chunk of your relationship issues are on his side.  Especially, with his online gaming addiction, porn addiction and numerous EA's.

The part in your story that really surprises me is that you're having sex 3-4 times a week.  Are you into having sex with him or are you just going along because you think you should and you don't want to say no.  From what you described you are having attraction issues to your husband and with his porn use I assumed he was probably not initiating very frequently.