My husband (32M) and I (32F) have been married for four years, and we both come from Catholic families. Before he moved here on a fiancé visa, we had only met in person four times (normal for our culture).
I grew up with a lot of physical and emotional abuse. My parents beat me very cruelly for normal mistakes/decisions anyone would make. I would always dream of my prince to sweep me away and save me from them and how we would create our own little happy family. I started dating my now husband. He told me he found me to be beautiful and thought my curvy beautiful was attractive. Then I gained 80-90 lbs during Covid. Because we were long distance, I was so scared of what my boyfriend would say but he never said a word or made me feel bad about the weight gain. My mother told me my boyfriend only wanted a green card because no one could truly love someone who looked like me. My father said he felt sorry for my husband for having to look at a body like mine in bed. Despite fights where I found him texting another girl in my apartment immediately after we first had sex, and me catching him in a lie about using coke, I stayed because I felt like he was so kind to me and that he was safe space away from my family. I shared my pain and insecurities with him. I wanted to believe I had finally found someone who loved me.
Before our wedding, there were two incidents that I overlooked. First, he got angry because I was being wasteful for having leftover ketchup on my plate and told me I couldn't leave until I finished it. I cried while licking ketchup and eventually threw the plate in frustration. Another time, while assembling furniture, I laughed after he finally accepted a suggestion I had made several times. He told me to look in a mirror and asked who could possibly find me attractive. He later cried, apologized, and promised never to say anything like that again. I believed him and went through with the wedding.
Throughout our marriage, he repeatedly criticized my weight. Twice before sex, he removed my clothes and then pulled me in front of a mirror, pointed out parts of my body, and asked when I planned to lose weight. He claimed he was trying to motivate me, but those moments made me feel broken. I always dreamed of having a husband who secretly took pictures of me because he loved how I looked candidly. Instead, mine would randomly show me photos and say, "This is what you look like. Why can't you just lose the weight?" During one fight, he said that even when I was skinny, I was only OK-looking and that he didn't understand why people called me beautiful. I felt even worse about myself because I believed he was as disgusted by my appearance as I was.
For the first year and a half, I paid all our expenses, used my honeymoon savings to visit his family, and even paid to bring his brother to the US as a surprise. When my husband got his first full-time job, he used his first paycheck to visit friends rather than do something special for the wife who had supported him. I kept hoping that if I asked for less, never requested dates, vacations, or gifts, and made myself small enough, he would finally be happy with me.
Whenever his comments hurt me, he would apologize and say he had been cruel and stupid. I would be upset for a few days, then push through.
Everything changed when my father was placed on a ventilator with a life-threatening infection. My husband chose to travel overseas for a friend's wedding instead of staying with me. His friend had actually encouraged him to stay by my side, but my husband went anyway. When I called him crying after speaking to the doctor, he said I was bothering him and ruining his good time, then hung up. I will never forget sitting on the toilet, sobbing and feeling completely abandoned.
I wanted a divorce, but my father told me I was in my 30s, fat, and would never find anyone else. He said my husband could easily find a beautiful younger woman and that I would be the loser if I left. When we went to the courthouse, my husband begged me to stay and promised to change. Three months later, during an argument about our lack of sex, I cried about always having to initiate intimacy. He responded that maybe if I were better-looking, he would have f**ked me more. That destroyed my self-esteem and changed how I felt about him. When I told my parents, my father again advised me to stay, suggesting that losing weight might make my husband treat me better.
I stayed because I felt having something was better than having nothing. About ten months later, I was laid off. That same day, my husband jokingly asked how I could afford brunch with my sister now that I was unemployed. That was my breaking point. I told him I was done. How could he question my spending on the day I lost my job after I had covered all his expenses for a year and a half?
After asking for a divorce, I confided in my trainer, who lives abroad and whom I've never met. He admitted he had liked me for a while, and I realized I liked talking to him too. I developed feelings because he treated me with kindness and respect. When he wanted to talk sexually, I refused to go further because I wasn't comfortable doing so before my divorce was finalized. I had no intention of meeting him or doing anything sexual before then. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong by talking to someone who genuinely seemed to want me. I started feeling happier again- glowing and taking care of myself. Even my husband commented on how much I changed.
This experience also made me angrier at my parents and husband for making me believe no one else could ever want me. It showed me how wrong and cruel they had been and that there were other possibilities for my life.
When my husband and I went to finalize the divorce, he begged me again to stay. I told him about my feelings for the trainer. I blocked the trainer, although it was incredibly difficult, and cried for weeks afterward.
Since then, my husband has started therapy and genuinely acknowledges how cruel and messed up he was. He wants to improve himself and save our marriage. However, even five months after blocking the trainer, I still think about him every day. I care about my husband and love him, but I'm not IN LOVE with him. I feel irritated when he touches me and have no desire to be intimate with him. Yet I feel guilty because he is genuinely trying to change. I know love is more than a feeling; it's also a choice and an action, especially when things are difficult. What Should I Do? It’s wrong to leave a marriage just because some guy made me feel desired. and I don’t even think he was serious about me. But I don’t feel like being intimate and the thought of feeling this way for the rest of my life makes me anxious and sick to my stomach.
TLDR: Husband spent three years being selfish, leaving my side when I needed him the most, and insulting me. Now he is trying, after I asked for a divorce, and another man expressed interest during our separation. Am I throwing away a marriage that is still salvageable for a fantasy dream of "the grass is greener on the other side"?
