Nina asked: Hi, my name is Nina, and I would appreciate getting some help and advice.
My husband Brent and I have been happily married for over 20 years, and we have 2 great teenagers, our health, large extended families, good jobs, a nice home, a safe neighborhood, are active in church, and take several fun vacations each year. I have been a loving and attentive wife, and Brent has been a good and decent husband.
The problem is that Brent says he no longer wants to be married to me. I am deeply concerned that Brent is becoming mentally unstable, or perhaps it is a mid-life crisis (he’s 50).
Brent has been becoming increasingly restless over the past year (he claims that he is lonely), just because I do not enjoy passionate kissing or foreplay and refuse to pretend that I enjoy any of those activities… and I have never enjoyed any of those activities nor pretended otherwise.
Several times recently, Brent has stated that once our youngest teenager moves out of the house in a few years, he will be leaving also. His rude and mean words are breaking my heart, and I cannot believe what I am hearing. It make take a few days before he apologizes and promises that we’ll be together forever, but then the cycle starts up all over again when he gets mad because I still won’t kiss him passionately.
For the record, Brent can make love to me anytime that he wants to; subject to a few minor restrictions which have been in effect since our wedding night. I flatly refuse to let Brent do any of the following activities to me: long kisses, wet kisses, French kisses, sucking on my lips or ears, breathing on my face, doing anything with his tongue, taking a shower together, or touching me anywhere near my private parts (breasts or pubic areas). I also flatly refuse his constant requests for me to do any of those activities to him. Brent even gets insulted just because I don’t want his face near my face for any longer than I can hold my breath, because then I need to turn away so I can start breathing again.
We are good Christians and we were both virgins when we got married. I never let him do any of those activities to me before we got married, and he must have wrongly assumed that I would want to do any of those activities after the marriage ceremony.
Now Brent claims that he hates our marriage, because he is lonely and he believes that I view him as a perverted creep for all of the activities that he has been asking me to engage in for the past 20 years. Well, I don’t view him as a perverted creep but I am certainly not going to start pretending that I enjoy those activities. I love Brent unconditionally and want him to love me exactly the same way.
Telling Brent that I love him and reminding him that we got married “for better or for worse” in a union blessed by God no longer seems to have much of an impact on Brent. I have informed Brent on numerous occasions that he needs to pray more and read the Bible, but those suggestions were not appreciated and have been ignored.
The distant past seems to be a sore point for Brent. I have told Brent numerous times that I am sorry that I laughed at him 20 years ago (after we had been married for a few months) when he told me he was lonely, wanted passionate kissing, and suggested counseling. So what if I refused to go with him to counseling for 5 years? Nobody is perfect. Yet, Brent keeps bringing up that incident and will not let go of the past.
Speaking of the past, Brent had a girlfriend 22 years ago, who was apparently very good at pretending that she enjoyed passionately kissing him. They would kiss for hours, according to Brent, and he never forgot her. Brent even searched for her and found her on the internet last year. She’s divorced and available, and that fact has certainly not helped Brent’s unstable mental condition at all.
Understandably, I am sick and tired of being compared to some young floozy that Brent knew 22 years ago.
Brent has been moody lately, becomes quite mean and nasty, and gets very upset whenever we try to discuss his perception that I do not measure up to his impossible demands. He withdraws, won’t talk unless I speak to him first, pouts, makes only minimal eye contact with me, rarely cuddles with me in bed anymore, and generally acts like a dullard. Brent claims that he feels like he has never been within a mile of my soul, and also claims that we don’t even know each other (neither of which do I understand).
Brent does not seem to appreciate any of the non-stop work that I perform: cooking, cleaning, laundry, ironing, buying presents for our gigantic extended family, paying all of the bills, teaching Sunday School, teaching Vacation Bible School, reading the Bible and praying every night, volunteering at the kid’s school (even when I am not feeling well), and that is all in addition to my full-time stressful job. Nor does Brent appreciate in the slightest bit the love notes I make f
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