Sex Q&A: Will He Change?

Understanding a Difficult Partner

Jane from Toronto asks:

Wow, I just read your response to: Sex Q&A: Help for the Sex-Starved Partner! I would like you to tell me like it is as well! I met and married my husband in three years. Since we have been together, he is in debt but is opposed to letting me help him negotiate with the people he owes money to. Instead, he says he has to go away to work, or work in our city 24/7. I asked him, “If you can cover for this guy at work to spend time with his family, why can’t he cover for you so you can spend time with me?” He said, “I like my job and I want to be at work.” He also says that nothing is wrong in our relationship. He has a lot of issues though. He drinks and does drugs, is irresponsible with money and won’t talk to me about problems.

When I met him, he was single and had never been married and didn’t have kids. He is 45. I have kids and they are 21. He enjoys their company. If I complain about his working, he says “It’s my job.” If I say, “Well, I’m looking after your dog. I cook for you, clean for you, etc.,” he says, “Well, I didn’t ask you to.” We have gone to see a minister who told him he needed a slap in the back of the head. Needless to say, he doesn’t want to go back to see him. I guess with what I wrote, I am answering my own question, but here goes nothing!

Will he change? If not, do you see us ending our marriage and if so, when and will I ever find a man who appreciates me? I feel physically sick and emotionally unwell every day. He is a nice guy. Everyone loves him, but they don’t see what I get to see. My life on this earth has been very difficult and I just want to know if I will ever find happiness.

Liam’s Response:

Greetings, Jane. I appreciate your desire for a candid answer and will do my utmost to provide one, as well as the options you have regarding a future course of action. Always remember, the best way to approach a psychic reading is not to inquire about absolutes in future outcomes, but to seek insight as to the probable results of certain courses of action. In pondering your situation, I feel that I’ve a got a good grasp of the patterns and energies involved. Your perception of marriage and relationships is like most in Western culture. You really believe it’s all about your personal happiness and fulfillment. And you think that if a man really loves a woman, then he’ll change for her, slay dragons for her and move Heaven and Earth to make her happy. Isn’t that what happens in all the movies and romance novels you’ve been digesting since the age of 12?

Nothing in our early lives prepares us for the reality of relationships. You signed onto this marriage as an agreement to partner with a man you knew to be a hard worker who was paying off debts he’d accumulated before he met you. As for all the other problems you enumerated in your description of him, you knew all about those too. He never lied to you, and he isn’t lying now. When he asked you to join him in marriage, he asked you to accept him as he was and be his partner. You agreed. Now you’re unhappy with the deal.

I think one of the biggest problems here is that pastor you mention, or, rather, what that situation represents. No doubt you took your husband to someone you were pretty sure was going to support your position and you set him up to be attacked on two sides for all his many faults. And now he won’t go back. I wouldn’t either if my wife pearl-harbored me with some holy man and made me feel like an idiot. You, Jane, are a woman on a mission, intent on forcing your agenda of wants and needs on another. Your desire to force your husband to spend time with you in some model of social convention has become an obsession. And the irony is I don’t think your husband ever disliked spending time with you, but the more you press him on the issue, the less he wants to be around. You’re the one ruining this marriage. He’s the same man he was before and he doesn’t understand why you’ve come to resent him so much.

Now, I know a lot of folks would tell you your husband is absent and non-supportive, and you’re not happy, so it’s okay to get divorced or whatever. You could very easily justify that decision and get loads of social support for it. The choice is yours to make. There’s no right or wrong path. You can take the easy way out,trade in your spouse and go forth to find what you think is a more acceptable social model. But the same thing is going to happen again. You’ll fall in love and you’ll get married and then you’ll find some reason why this new guy doesn’t make you happy. Or you can stay and fight for the team.

Being on a team means sacrifice. And it means accepting that others have shortcomings. It means not giving up, even if you’re losing the big game. I know you love this man. And I’m not dismissing your issues. But you need to be practical and self-honest. Your man will change in his own time according to his own will, especially as he gets some of these debts under control. But if you keep pushing, you won’t be around to see the better times as his wife.

Liam

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