The question We married young and quickly after a whirlwind summer. I had just turned 17 and he was 21. It felt like the greatest love affair. Intense. He opened me up to a world of freedom to discover myself – parties, being on the road, and so many wonderfulinteresting people.
Fast forward 20-plus years and two children later and I sit here looking at my life, yearning for that summer of love again. To go back to that happier time. Instead, I find myself full of regret, with resentment bubbling deep inside.
We live in isolation, with no friends. Socialising is expensive and with only my income for the past 15 years, it is one of the sacrifices we made. Work used to be my escape, my chance to be with other people, but since the pandemic hit, I’ve been working from home and this is now permanent.
During this time, I have discovered I can’t stand my husband. I still love and care for him deeply, but I can’t bear to be around him. I’m ambitious and want to be free to do things. He wants me tied to the house serving him.
We have very different ideas of what our partnership should be and no amount of talking, explaining how I feel, acknowledging his feelings, ever seems to change anything.
I fear we are no longer compatible. I don’t want to lose him, but how long do I go on being unhappy in myself? I’ve dedicated my entire adult life to him – his needs, making him happy. When do I get to be happy?
Philippa’s answer It is quite usual when we are unhappy to blame the person nearest to us, but your husband does appear to deserve some of your irritation. You love and care for him, you don’t want to lose him but, on the other hand, you cannot stand to be around him – and if he is insisting that your main purpose in life is to serve him, I’m not surprised.
If he is coercing you to never change things or otherwise forcing you to live a life you don’t wish to lead, then you need to get out or get him out and keep the children with you. Have a look at womensaid.org.uk. It’s about coercive control and if it rings bells, get help. But if you are just waiting for him to agree with you, then you must do whatever it is you want to do and he will have a choice about whether to stay with you, or to leave. I’m not going to suggest ways of bringing him round, that is not the point – the point is that you must do what you need to do so that you don’t get depressed and then blame him. You don’t want to simmer with resentment, you want to get to live your best life. It doesn’t sound like he is going to agree that this is what you must do, but you can do it anyway. I’m hoping you have more agency over your life at 37 than you did at 17.
The word “obey” has been removed from the marriage service, but sometimes it takes more than omitting a word to overcome centuries of tradition. We tend to unthinkingly follow the examples of our parents, who are following their parents in turn. If you need my permission to disappoint your husband’s expectations, I give it. I want to encourage you to be as sociable, ambitious and as adventurous as you like – but I expect you still want his blessing. What if I put it like this? Would you want your son to have the expectation, like your husband seems to have, that his feelings are more important than his future partner’s? Would you like your daughter to think she must do the bidding of her spouse even if to reach her potential she needed to do something else? It is time to break this cycle of love and obey; you can just love.
You are nostalgic for your 17-year-old self and your summer of love. That excitement would have been partly fuelled by the infatuation you get at the beginning of a relationship when erotic love and discovering each other keep things exciting. And partly because it is easier for a 21-year-old to impress a 17-year-old girl than it is a 41-year-old to impress a woman of 37. Sustainable, mature love is more about caring and doing things for each other than the heady, infatuated initial stage. It also means supporting each other to find fulfilment. However, if the caring and support is only going in one direction, from you to him, and you never get to be the priority, it doesn’t look like a mutually loving relationship – it looks like you are being a martyr. You don’t have to play the martyr. You can be ambitious and strive for what would fulfil you – and you can even do that and stay married.
If you give yourself permission to live the life you want without his blessing, and get to live it, it is very likely you won’t find him as irritating as you do now – you might even warm to him again. He may even discover that his world does not fall apart when you get more of your needs met and reach for your goals. I want you to fall in love with life again. To answer your question, the time for you to be happy is now. Don’t wait for him to come around.
If you have a question, send a brief email to askphilippa@observer.co.uk
