January 2025: My goals for this year are learn to move on, find a temporary job to save money, get a full time teaching job in Texas to be near my family, to get myself away from my unloving husband I have been dealing with for more than ten years.
For the past years, I feel loss and confused with what I should do with my life and future. I live in sadness, loneliness, frustration, and stupidity. It is just impossible to live a man who has stopped loving me and never appreciates anything I do for him, always ignoring my feelings and showing me how important other things and outsiders are more important than me. Now I am getting a clear picture.
The Marriage Lessons I Have Learned and Advices I have to Offer:
- To fall in love takes a second, but to maintain a long lasting marriage life with mutual love, respect, and support takes two people’s effort. Without love, collaboration, and appreciation, marriage life falls apart. Family falls apart. This is the main lesson in marriage life I have learned.
- If the wife is the only person who initiates the desire to go on family vacations and the only person who plans for family trips, while the husband puts his dedication and effort making plans with his friends every weekend, it’s another sign to move on with life. No wife needs to live with a non-family-oriented man who prioritizes his leisure and friends before his wife and kids.
- When a husband complains and criticizes his wife failing to cook the raw vegetables she bought for her husband and said to her he does not know how to cook, but turns around looking at your recipe and putting his dedication, time, and love out to learn to cook for his friends without being asked or told to do so, that’s obviously a sign to move on with life. A man’s way of showing love is very direct. When my husband loved, he would put his time and dedication voluntarily to show and express his love, and when he has fallen out of love, he has shown me in so many ways through his constant negativity, criticism, complaints, neglection, and ungratefulness how much he hates have me in his life.
- Move on when a man doesn’t understand that if we wives never complain about the husband’s flaws and sloppiness doesn’t mean he is better than us, and it does not mean he can constantly complain and criticize our flaws. No one is perfect. Loving each other’s imperfections and accepting those flaws are love and acceptance. A constant complaining and criticizing husband is never a loving husband, but a toxic husband. Move on and get away from these toxic men in your life.
- Life is too short for any wife to put up with a husband who takes her love, time, and devotion for granted. Move on. Life can only be better without such a man in your life. Moving on does not mean looking for another man, but move on to love yourself more and set yourself free from an unwanted place with someone who does not deserve your love.
I hope my fellow married women out there with a profession to rethink before you quit your job to be a stay-at-home mom/wife. It is only possible with a very supporting and loving husband to make it worth the sacrifice or else you will put yourself in misery. I have been an example for being the stupid fool who gave up my career just to believe and think a man would love and cherish me forever. I am learning to move on, but at a much slower pace.
Without Love
I used to be depressed, having crying spells every night as I cry myself to sleep, felt unloved and unappreciated every single day in my marriage life. Until one day, I asked him why he (my husband) has stopped showing me he loves and care for me like he used to. He neglected me and stopped talking to me less and less. He showed me in so many ways that other things and people are far more important than me. He told me out loud that he had fallen out of love with me back in 2016. It was like a knife stabbed in my heart. He said as long I live with him, he will take care of me financially but the love he once had for me will never come back.
Thanks to his honesty, I learned to care less about him. I learned to love him less. I learned to be mentally readily to move on without my husband who once used to be my everything. After feeling depressed with a miscarriage in 2016, I left my husband with my daughter to teach in Texas for a year. I wanted him to live by himself to rethink what he wanted in his life. When we were together, he neglected my daughter and me as if we do not exist. He lived his life like a single man. It was all about work, leisure, soccer, his friends, and whatever he was attached to on this phone. Ah, chasing those Pokemons on his phone. (Yes, I feel my husband is a grown up child of mine more than a grown up man many times in my married life.)
I got myself pregnant again. My husband promised to be a loving and caring dad and husband if I give him a chance and return. This was one of my stupidest decision in my life! I turned down a $55K teacher salary to move back to Florida to be a stay-at-home-mom again. My husband did became a loving and caring dad. But as a loving husband, love was just never there. Not only no love, but I lack the collaboration and appreciation I needed to continue this difficult journey of marriage and family life. Now don’t get me wrong. My husband is never physically abusive. He is a responsible and dependable man to his employer and friends. But as a husband, only I his wife, know what kind of husband he is.
The most heart breaking thing for me to face is how when we first met, he had nothing. He was just a newcomer to the US taking ESL classes. I was in college. I graduated before him. He graduated later and became an engineer. I loved him when he had nothing. When he had nothing, I was his world. But when he has everything, his love for me is no longer there. I no longer am anyone important in his life. I lost my trust and respect for him after marriage. He repeatedly say hurtful things and constantly showing me I am no one important in his life. It’s been ten years. I need an out.
Without Collaboration
I get that my husband doesn’t love me. But without the collaboration in parenting, it makes this stay-at-home-mom life not only sad and lonely, but also very frustrating.
I, as a teacher of the littles and parent, strongly believe in teaching my kids (whether my students or own kids), self responsibilities.
Without Communication
Strike one, I asked him nicely in a gentle voice to make sure our kids clean up their mess before he takes them out on the weekend. He totally ignored me. I told him if he appreciates me being here, then he needs to clean up his own mess and help wash the dishes if he eats my homemade food. He totally ignored me. He even gets upset coming home from work seeing a mountain load of dirty dishes and plastic food containers he added within two days in a row. With four people eating in a family, what makes it right for a husband to expect his wife to do all the dish washing? With or without him, I will still do the grocery shopping and cooking. Why can’t he be appreciative by helping out with such a small task?
Strike two, okay so by the second time, that angelic voice in me is gone. I raised my voice louder. He still ignores me and dare questioned why I am cranky. He questioned why I get frustrated and upset easily. He questioned why I have to “sound so mean”. What kind of stupid questions are those if he chose to ignore me when I tried to express my concerns, need for his collaboration in raising our kids in a gentle soft spoken voice in the first place? This repeated situation happened too many times. I am just so wordless with this man I called husband.
Strike three: Okay, trying to communicate upfront in a soft gently voice didn’t helped. He always ignored me. Getting upset afterward and starting to raise my voice didn’t help, he ignored me. Using a permanent marker to write my message on the wall inside the house didn’t help, he pretended to be blind.
I give up trying to communicate with this man I called husband. I am exhausted, tired, and sad.
Without Appreciation
People who knows me see me as funny, outgoing, adorable, down to earth, responsible, loving and caring mom, an alcoholic teacher, an organized freak, a plant nerd, and a straight forward honest and trustworthy person. But to my husband, he makes me feel nobody special, an unimportant person in his life. Nothing sweet or positive ever comes from his mouth. It’s all complaints and criticism.
No one is perfect. Not me, not him. So I chose NOT to complain to him of things that makes me upset. Yet he tries so hard to find every way possible to complain and criticize me and never see anything positive.
My hobby has always been crocheting. But I gave up my personal hobby because it isolates my family. So I put my dedication into growing an edible garden. Edible gardening is my way of showing my love for my kids and husband. My garde is my place where I feel calm, it’s a place where I can burrow my sorrow and tears when the man I once loved and respected so much became someone so heartless and selfish. Just because I don’t make a paycheck does not mean I do not get tired and stressed from “work”.
The husband said he likes eating more healthy organic homegrown vegetables than meaty dishes. So I invest in the time and effort to collect and buy seeds to grow an edible garden for him to enjoy. I collect and grow fruit trees for my kids and family to enjoy. But what do I get in return? He complained I spent too much time gardening with no productivity. He said gardening is a waste of my time. That is the last straw. All my effort and dedication into building an edible garden is my work of love for my family which includes him. His neglection and heartless hurtful words over the years has proven that my time living with him has been nothing but a waste of my time.
So now, I quit. I quit trying to show my love to a man who never deserves my love, time, and devotion. I sold the fruiting Maria Black Avocado tree I planted for him and me. I sold and quit growing anything he likes in this lifetime. Call me childish but no man deserves my time and dedication growing anything for him if he does not appreciates any of it.
I spent time grocery shopping for the best ingredients, to cook decent homemade meals for him. I cook and store and pack the food in containers ready for him to grab and go. Oh my lord! No one in this life loves me enough to cook and pack food for me to take to work, but I am doing this for this ungrateful man who never care about my feelings. He never appreciates the things I do and complain and complain. As a result, I quit.
I cook food with meat and plenty of protein for my kids. The man complained why there’s so many meat and not much vegetables. So I buy vegetables for him. He refused to eat it and let it go bad. He see me throwing out the rotten vegetables and complained I am wasting his money. Oh all hell broke loose. As a result, my husband has taught me to love him less, care for him less, and to be a strong woman and leave him once I can get my job back in Texas. The more I think of this man I called husband, the more upset and heartbroken I feel.
It’s hard to love someone who does not love me or appreciate anything I do anymore. I am blessed with my two children who love me. Their love for me kept me from being depressed living with my husband.the past years.
My Kids’ Responses
My ten-years-old daughter told me that if I ever leave daddy, she will always be with me. She has seen me cry silently since she was three years old. She remembered. She said, “Mom, I don’t care what is going between you and dad. I don’t like to see you sad and hurt. I remembered seeing you cry since I was three years old. If you decide to leave daddy because he doesn’t love and appreciate you, then leave. I don’t care. I just know wherever you go, I will follow you and be with you because I love you. Grace’s words of comfort melted my heart. I am able to go on with the life I have today thanks to the love I felt from my kids.
As for my little man, Ethan cried when I asked him whether he wants to live with me or his dad. He asked if we will still be a family? I told him if I leave his daddy, I will never want to see his face or hear his voice again. It hurts to think or remember about him. Then my six-years-old son started to cry. I apologized and told him I will not ask him this question again. I told him when he grows up, if he wants a happy family, he needs to make sure to love and cherish his wife no matter what. I am like a duck stuck in muck right now.
My Plan For a Better Future
This mama just can not handle it anymore. I feel sad, hurt, and lonely living with such an unloving man I called husband, a man who have once showed me what love is and made me felt special and needed in his life. I am just a nobody important to him now. I want to leave, but I can’t because I do not have a job to support myself. I need to get back to teaching full time to be able to support myself and take care of my kids when the time to leave is possible. Once I can get back on my feet and be financially independent, that’s when I can move on with the next chapter in my life.
Wish me luck! Please pray for me to get a full time teaching job again! I will always be a Kindergarten or first grade teacher since this profession is very meaningful to me and the purpose why I feel I exist in this world. Besides teaching little people how to read, write, and do arithmetic, I find it so important to teach the little people self responsibilities, respect for self, respect for others, and respect for nature.
In order for a happy marriage life to exist, all three components of love, collaboration, and appreciation must exist. This is the lesson I have learned in my marriage life.
