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"Can This Marriage Be Saved?" - Ladies Home Journal On-Line
LYDIA'S TURN, Part One: “I feel like the character in the movie Network who leans out the window and bellows at the top of his lungs, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!’" says Lydia, thirty-seven, a feisty, outspoken woman. I’m sick and tired of being a doormat, getting stepped on by my husband and everyone else. . . especially his mother. The woman is toxic; she criticizes everything about me—my mothering, my housekeeping, you name it. Since the day we married, I’ve bent over backward to please her and follow her orders. Clearly, she never thought I was good enough for her son. So the other night, when I overheard Richard on the phone with her, I knew she was complaining about me, and I just lost it. I’m not proud of my reaction, but I couldn’t stifle my feelings any longer. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the good little wife—running a perfect household, being the perfect partner—and never saying what I really thought or felt. But lately, I haven't been afraid to speak up. Richard says I’ve changed over the years, and he’s right. I’m not the submissive little girl he married seventeen years ago. Therapy had a lot to do with my changing. I started about a year and a half ago, when I was overwhelmingly sad and felt useless and unimportant. I spent years being a stay-at-home mom, and my boys were growing up and didn’t need me as much anymore. Most of my friends had either started working or gone back to college again. Suddenly I found myself with very little to keep me busy. It was time to think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life, but all I saw ahead of me was this gaping hole. Ever since I was little, I hated being Lydia. My parents never made me feel loved or even wanted. In fact, both of them told me I was ugly and stupid and selfish; can you imagine saying something like that to your own child? They treated my sister and me horribly, and they fought viciously and endlessly with each other, too. I’ll never understand how my mother could have put up with my dad, he was so verbally abusive to her. Needless to say, I was desperate to marry and get away from them. I met Richard on a blind date the year after I graduated from high school. At the time, I was working as a data-entry processor at an insurance company. We went to a friend’s Halloween party and I was smitten; it was lust at first sight. He also showed an interest in me, and became the first man who ever paid so much attention to me. Richard is very quiet, gentle and kind; I couldn’t help falling in love with him. We dated for a year and then married. Those first few years, I thought I was happy. I fell automatically into the role of the good little wife, having babies and taking care of the house. But as the years went by, I became less and less happy and fulfilled, and now Richard and I spend a lot of time fighting. Our biggest fights are probably about my mother-in-law. Richard never stands up to her or defends me, either. In fact, whenever he speaks to her on the phone, he never even mentions me by name. . . ever! Instead, he’ll say, ‘I just came back from seeing a play in the city,’ or ‘I spent the weekend at a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania.’ It’s always ‘I,’ never ‘we,’ as if I don’t exist. Do you know how that makes me feel? Another thing we fight about is how to raise the kids. I know he loves the children—he always used to do fun things with them like coach their Little League games or pile everyone in the car and head for an amusement park. But when it comes to the hard stuff, like discipline and setting curfews and getting them to sit down and do homework, I’m still the one to make the rules and issue the punishments. Why can’t he speak up once in a while? I hate being the bad cop, but if I didn’t keep everyone on a schedule or remember when things had to get done, nothing would get done." DR. PAUL MOSCHETTA: Discipline has become a huge issue for these two, as it is for many parents. Lydia and Richard often disagree on how to handle the kids, but since they never talk out their differences, they never resolve them. DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA: Lydia feels that the way responsibilities are divided now is unequal and unfair. All the fun stuff is on Richard’s list, all the difficult decisions on hers. Discipline isn’t the only issue being argued over in in the Cromwells’ marriage. DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA: Lydia had slipped into a real depression. For years she defined herself by her role as a mother. It made her feel important, loved and appreciated—feelings she didn’t get from her marriage to a man who, as far as she was concerned, was unresponsive and out of touch. But as the boys became increasingly self-sufficient, and as many of her friends went back to work, Lydia felt a huge loss. Most likely, this, combined with the ever-growing problems in her marriage, precipitated a midlife crisis of sorts. In marriage, it is essential that we be able to nurture each other; that’s the spiritual part of marriage. Not many couples realize that or tend to give it importance. But being able to nurture someone else, and being able to receive that nurturing, is essential for feeling like a whole, happy person. DR. PAUL MOSCHETTA: Now, of course, Lydia also shows us how our childhood comes back to influence how we behave as adults. Lydia grew up having not very much self-esteem. She wanted desperately to be loved and nurtured, and her dream was to have a marriage and a house with a white picket fence and a family. That was her goal. She imagined that if she could obtain that, happiness would follow. Lydia was willing to sacrifice her own feelings to play a docile, subservient role to get the feeling that says, “I’ve finally arrived. I can have some nurturing that comes to me from my own efforts." DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA: But the mistake Lydia made was believing that in order to get nurturing, you have to give up who you are. In fact, it's when you know who you are and are able to stay centered that you’re able to give and receive nurturing. She lost herself in the marriage. DR. PAUL MOSCHETTA: That’s what we see here in this story: A woman who thought she could almost trade her self-esteem to get nurturing, and found out she couldn’t really be something she wasn’t.
LYDIA'S TURN: Part Two “Not only does Richard have a problem with disciplining the children and dealing with his mother, he also doesn't like it when I spend money. Yes, I like to go shopping. It makes me feel better to buy a new sweater or handbag when I'm depressed. But when I do, Richard has a fit. He just doesn’t like either of us to spend money. I can tell he even hates it when I suggest we go out for dinner or see a movie. Ever the accountant, he duly notes every penny that comes in and goes out. I want more out of life, more out of my marriage. I want to go out more, to travel, to do fun things. But how can I when Richard is a stick-in-the-mud when we're together? Often, he's like a statue, cold and unyielding. Our sex life used to be great, but over the years, it’s become perfunctory—for both of us, I’m certain. There are still times—occasionally—when our lovemaking is satisfying, but usually, I have no idea what he’s thinking or feeling. I can't make love if I can't communicate with someone. “He claims he wants to stay together, but I don’t see a lot of evidence. In fact, I don’t feel that he loves or cares about me anymore. “I don’t like to issue ultimatums, but I don’t see that I have much choice. The only time Richard takes me seriously is when he's pushed against a wall. So here it is: I love my husband, but either he changes and meets me halfway till we’re equal partners in this marriage, or I want a divorce.” DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA: Right now, Lydia holds out little hope for her marriage. She’s unveiled a long list of complaints—from money to parenting to sex issues—and places most of the blame for their problems squarely on her husband’s shoulders. More important, she’s terribly sad that the man she loves doesn’t seem to want to be involved with her, to live life with her. However, issuing an ultimatum and threatening to leave is not the right thing to do in this case.
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