Help, I am stuck. DH and I have been married 4 years, together 8. I have a huge, big, gaping wound about not being prioritized in my marriage. I know this, my husband and I talk about this, we have been in therapy, talking about it there as well. In sum, I feel that when my husband is presented with a choice between me and any other human being, he picks the other person. This has been incredibly difficult because he has literally dozens of acquaintances, in almost every city we could vacation in, who we then must go see. Last year, the two of us took off work and planned a day at the theme park. Lo and behold, one of his college friends is in town (an hour away from the theme park), so we had to cut our theme park day short to go visit them. None of these friends ever visit us, or make any effort that I can see to be any part of our life. I feel that we are not building the life and community locally that I want us to build, especially given that I moved for his job and left my life behind. Part of the constant choice to prioritize others, he has said, is that he wants to be efficient, and maximize the use of the time to see his friend. Part of it, I think, is insecurity over what the friend will think if they aren’t prioritized. Part of it, at least with his family, was enmeshment. It has really caused a lot of hurt feelings from me. I don’t expect that I will come first every single time, but I do want, maybe even just one time before we start a family, to feel picked first. My absolute fantasy is that I felt like my husband wanted to be spending time with me, over and above everyone else, just sometimes.
We have had a lot of issues with this. I’m really hurt. This year, I asked if my husband would limit his friends trips to one, so that we could spend more time in our community together making friends, and use our PTO to vacation together. He agreed and decided to go on a bachelor party in March. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but it was his one guy’s trip and I wasn’t going to micromanage him. It was a friend who was not close, and who showed his true colors on the trip in any case such that we are not associating with him anymore. Then, I learn that one of DH’s friends from his master’s program was getting married on our 5th anniversary. DH did not ask me if I wanted to go, he assumed we would go, and then started talking about going to the bachelor party as well. That’s when the fight started. He told me all about how, if he didn’t agree to be in the friend’s wedding, the friend might not be friends with him anymore. Or he would simply tell us to celebrate our anniversary at another time (which my husband thinks is completely reasonable). He told me that he would “risk the friendship if I made him.” So I have not made him.
Now, its been months. I am unable to even engage with this trip (that I am supposed to be going on) without feeling like shit, and sometimes screaming and crying about it. I don’t like the person that I am about this issue. Its effecting my health, my sanity, my ability to do other things. I’m so overwhelmingly hurt.
Now, if DH drops out of the wedding, it doesn’t help me. We made a plan to take a trip another time to celebrate our anniversary. DH is having a nice gift made for me, and I appreciate it. But I wanted to be picked first. If he drops out now, I do think he fucks over his friend (not that I care), and I feel like he will only do it because I can’t get my shit together. He won’t drop out unless I ask him to, consistently. I feel like shit asking him to, because I don’t feel picked if the choice is “I’ll risk the friendship if you make me.” I want to be wanted first.
Is there any way that I can make this horrible feeling stop? Is there any benefit now to telling him not to go? If I do, I actually feel like I’m stealing. There is no way that I can think of where I celebrate our anniversary with him and feel like he wants to be there. He is watching this crush me and he still won’t say no unless I go to him and make him, even though this has made me miserable for months. What do I do to mitigate this? How can I find some peace here?