Brain Fertilizer

In this episode of “Ask Dr. Helen,” Dr. Helen responds to a guy asking about long-term bachelor-hood by saying that 10% of the population simply should never be married.

After many years of painful experience, I’ve finally decided (realized?) that probably I’m one of them.

I’m excellent at attracting women, but lousy at keeping them.

But I’m already in a marriage. To a wife who is deeply unhappy in our life, and deeply dissatisfied with me as a husband. I am willing and eager to change myself to help create an environment that will be more conducive to happiness, but I apparently have significant shortcomings that I am unable to overcome. And in retrospect, it is these same shortcomings that have contributed to the failure of every romantic relationship I’ve had.

…now, it is just barely possible that I’ve merely found the wrong women.

But I find that to be increasingly unlikely, the more I understand women.

I am weak in a relationship, passive. I don’t want to offend or be overbearing, but have gone too far in the other direction. I’m a nice guy, and try hard, but women cannot respect a doormat. And yet, a doormat I am, and a doormat I shall probably always be. As best as I can tell, it comes from:

1) A deliberate, conscious attempt to eliminate the negatives of a typical male (callousness, infidelity, tendency to use violence to express anger)

2) A mother who was unable to control her anger, leaving me terrified of female rage

3) A mother who was unable to control her anger, which has resulted in my inability to establish proper boundaries of self and self-respect, in the clinically-identified typical response to emotional abuse

4) A genuine reluctance to impose my preferences on someone else, arising from a focus on being with someone as a source of happiness, rather than a personal need/desire to engage in any specific activity or pursue any specific life goal.

So, if I am correct and I shouldn’t have ever gotten married, what do I do now?

It’s quite possible the situation may resolve itself naturally, i.e., she decides to bail. If so, your proper response should be congratulations, not condolences, k?

Why don't I bail?

A combination of my sense of responsibility and hope.