I Cannot Count On My Husband
“My second husband is turning out to be as undependable as my first,” snaps Gigi, 32, who worked as a paralegal until she married Jim a year ago. “When I first met Jim, it was as if a ray of sunshine shone on my gloomy life,” she remembers. Nick, Gigi’s first husband was a brooding, selfish, unsuccessful musician, who spent most of his time drinking in bars and who was totally insensitive in bed. When he finally walked out, he left her financially strapped with a 3-year-old son.
Gigi met Jim at a friend’s wedding and was captivated by his blond good looks and warm, confident manner - not to mention the fact that her son instantly developed a loving, affectionate relationship with him. Though Jim lived 300 miles away, he came to see her often, and one month later they married.
“It was hard to quit my job, sell my house and move so far away from my father and aunts who raised me after Mother died,” Gigi says, “but marrying Jim was a dream come true.”
But the “happily ever after” part never happened. First, Jim forgot to come home for dinner one night. “It was our two-month anniversary,” Gigi recalls, “and I’d fixed a special meal. But he didn’t even call.” When Jim blithely walked in the door at 10:45, he was amazed that she was angry at him for stopping off for a few beers with his brothers and some friends.
“I expected this marriage to make up for the first one, not repeat it,” Gigi states. But Jim’s drinking with the guys has become a pattern, she says, and as far as she’s concerned, he’s undependable in other ways, too.
For example, though she’s adamant that they buy more life insurance, Jim won’t discuss the topic beyond saying his policy at the advertising agency where he’s a production manager is sufficient. “And when my father had a stroke and died last summer, he offered little sympathy,” Gigi says sadly. “If I’m a little weepy or irritable, he accuses me of overreacting.”
Even in bed, Gigi adds, Jim shows little emotion - a stark contrast to the way he used to be. “I always thought that if you love someone, you want more sex, but marriage seems to have taken away his sexual desire,” she says.
Forty-year-old Jim insists that he loves his wife very much, but “she’s trying to run my life.” As one of 11 children, Jim wasn’t used to having someone check up on his whereabouts, “and I’m not about to accept Gigi’s rules now.” Her need for control even enters their bedroom, he says: “She’s just too aggressive.”
What’s more, Jim doesn’t understand why Gigi is still seething about the one dinner he forgot. Though he appreciates everything she’s done to make a warm and loving home, her need for constant reassurance leaves him confused and claustrophobic. “I know her first husband had a drinking problem and was totally irresponsible,” he says kindly, “but I’m not that guy.”
Letting go, moving on
“Gigi and Jim must learn to see each other as individuals, apart from any past associations,” says Kathryn Groth, a marriage counselor in White Plains, N.Y. One reason Gigi can’t handle Jim’s forgetting their second-month anniversary is that she is unable to escape the accumulated hurts of her first marriage. The recent loss of her father, coupled with the insecurity of uprooting from her hometown, makes her feel shaky and vulnerable. Not surprisingly, she looks to Jim for closeness and reassurance, while he needs to feel like a free agent.
Like Gigi, many people find it hard to let go of anger - it’s a shield against future hurts. But nursing grudges ultimately hurts you more than it does the person you believe has let you down. The following advice helped Gigi.
1. Explore the nature of your pain. One of the first steps in letting grudges go is to really understand why and how a person hurt you.
2. Focus on what you feel, not what he did. Explaining why you’re upset is another key step in wiping the slate clean.
3. Give a mate a chance to make it up to you. But tell him how - specifically.
4. Give yourself time. Forgiveness is not a one-step action but rather a process.
5. Finally, since you can forgive only when you see changes in behavior, you may have to tolerate some uncertainty while you watch for those signs.