CAN THIS MARRIAGE BE SAVED?
Ladies Home Journal On-Line
NAT'S TURN, Part Three:
“Right now I feel more like a money machine than a father or husband. I make a good living, but there is never, ever enough. Joan is spending money faster than I can make it. I don’t know where it goes, and when I try to get her to keep track, she forgets or deliberately deceives me. Sure, she told me she was giving our daughter some money. I figured fifty, sixty dollars, right? Well, try six hundred dollars! Did she think I wasn’t going to find out? She’s also gotten our credit rating all messed up because she keeps putting off paying bills. We decided that was her job, so I don’t understand why she’s not doing it.
Look, I know she doesn’t spend money on herself; she spends it all on the kids. A lot of the time it's because she just can't say no. She's been overly permissive with the kids for years. She never asks any of the children to do anything around the house, and if they ask for something, she runs to buy it. She shouldn’t be their servant.”
The amount of time I spend in the apartment has been blown way out of proportion. I thought having a little place to stay in the city would ease my stress because I wouldn’t have to go back and forth. But now the apartment is another source of tension between us. Of course, Joan is exaggerating when she says I spend the whole week there. I have never stayed there more than two nights a week.
Even at home, we never have time together. We have absolutely no privacy. Joan leaves the bedroom door wide open. . . all the time. The kids just march right in. I’m probably closer to John, our youngest, than any of them, but I’ll be damned if I want him sleeping on my bedroom floor any more.
What can I say? I have a wife and five kids, and I’m lonely. I feel like I don’t have a friend in the world. Joan is a wonderful mother, but once in awhile, it would be nice to have her say I love you. If she can do it for the kids, why not for me?”
DR. EVELYN MOSCHETTA:
Nat, like many men, feels the burden of financial responsibility--more so given the extra-large family he and Joan are raising. Nevertheless, problems may arise if a husband becomes too work-focused.
DR. PAUL MOSCHETTA:
Clearly, the apartment is a good idea gone sour. But it is symbolic of this couple’s almost total lack of communication. When they do talk at all, they discuss only mundane details of their lives. What they need to do--what every couple must do--is take a regular reading on the state of their marriage. Whether it's five minutes or fifteen a night, they need to carve out time to ask themselves: How are we doing? Is this how we envisioned our life together? Would we be happier if something were different? What can we do to make that happen?
Nat’s complaint is legitimate--and one we hear from countless husbands whose wives have found it difficult to integrate their maternal role with their sexual role. Often the women who used to dance till dawn now fall into bed, exhausted, well before midnight. Joan must realize that she needs to make her bedroom a haven for her and Nat, not a community rec room.
Joan's Turn, Part Two
Joan's Turn, Part Three
Joan's Turn, Part Four
Joan's Turn, Part Five
Joan's Turn, Part Six
Joan's Turn, Part Seven
Nat's Turn, Part One
Nat's Turn, Part Two
Nat's Turn, Part Three
Drs. Moschetta's Comments
