The missing links in my marriage…Wow – I never thought of myself as a pity party kind of person…but here I am. I met my husband in 2003, he is very handsome – as a matter of fact, I told the friend that introduced us that I wasn’t interested because he was “too cute” – it makes me cry to read that statement. We married in 2006; he’s an amazing man – good Christian, a great provider. I believe we’ve been through the same problems that most new couples have – here’s where things went awry, he changed jobs 4 months after we got married. He travels for his job, approximately 3 weeks out of each month, his travel has leveled out to usually Tuesday-Thursday weekly, but in the beginning it was weekly, all week, trade shows in Vegas, Arizona, golf trips to New Mexico, you name it – he’s been there, he’s done it. During the non-travel weeks, he played pick-up softball, worked out at the gym daily, played golf on weekends. Incredibly selfish. After some sporadic marriage counseling, church sermons, Biblical friends inserting their opinions, me demanding attention – life shows signs of improvement. Here’s the hard part, I’m starting to feel like I don’t care anymore. The years of insecurity, jealousy, worry, and loneliness have taken a toll on my love, my heart. I never knew the value of climbing into bed with your husband and talking about your day. Or the value of being able to pick up the phone and call your husband to share something funny, something scary, something sad…you bottle it up to tell them when you talk to them at 10 pm tonight after they’ve shared a posh dinner, with posh friends – many of them young, attractive, single and female – but guess what, at 10 pm, your funny, scary, sad news…doesn’t matter anymore – to you or to him. You’re speaking on the phone to a person who you resent and you feel like you no longer have much in common. I never knew how insecure I could feel when my husband travels with a female coworker, just the two of them – how your mind becomes the devil’s playground for every bad adultery story you’ve heard, read about or saw on television. I have read and “think” I understand that love is not butterflies in your stomach, or giddiness – I understand commitment over emotion. But what if you find yourself not wanting to be with them publically because you feel fake, b/c he acts like life is grand, resentment sets in b/c you want to make a Public Service Announcement – “this is not what it looks like on the outside, it’s not all that on the inside.” How awful to even say those words...Right now, after typing that, I’m convicted. As a Christian, the very words I have typed show my lack of Faith. I am definitely clinging to the end of my faith rope…Forgive me Father, I want the American Dream…I want a husband at home, two and half kids, forgive me for my selfishness. Where do you go from here, right now – I feel like two different people, in two different worlds. He now has a Christian accountability partner and is trying to make changes, part of me is thankful and part of me feels like everything he says and does is an act, like he’s trying to talk himself into being a husband, father, etc. I think he longs for bachelorhood, for single-life, for his old life – I think that’s the life he’s living 3 days of every week.
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Wives of Husbands who travel for their jobs.