[Motorguy]

Well that's always a guys dream to marry someone like his mother and women married someone like there father. This happen more then we know my wife is so much like my mother a face of a angle mouth of a sailor and attitude to go with it all. That's what attracted me to her from the start it's all been good for all these years lol.

[KMonte85]

I find certain traits in my husband that are also present in my father. But I haven't really thought about if I consciously or subconsciously married someone like my father... I think, because I love my dad, that I probably found someone with similar traits because that's what I wanted in a partner.


They share a lot of the same good traits, but their not-so-good traits are different.

Dream - it's evident by your second post that you're not satisfied with the level of interest your husband has in you/your marriage. Have you talked to him about that? Just because you married someone who has fallen into a similar behavioral pattern as your father, doesn't mean your doomed to have your parents' marriage. You two can turn it around, if you're both willing to. And the first step is communicating how you feel with your husband.

[effy2014]

I didn't want to marry anybody like my father and my husband was nothing like him when we met and got married. But after 10 years, I feel like I am living with my father!

It sounds like he was exactly like your father only you didn't have enough information to know about your Dad's courtship behavior. It is so difficult to evaluate people in the courtship phase of a relationship -- we tend to become who we always wanted to be. Once things settle, we become who we are. I think Little also raises an excellent point -- our partners behaviors also affect our own. Pollon's implied question (why do you put up with his behaviors) is an interesting one because, on this forum, you are one (if not the most) intelligent, perceptive and assertive women.

If you want it to be different, you are probably going to have to stop being your mother. That might mean rocking the apple cart and stop enabling his behavior.

That will likely mean making EVERYONE uncomfortable and putting some fear in him.

Much like courtship, change of behavior based upon fear is usually not sustainable. At least that was my conclusion. For me, after 8 years of marriage (which included 4 years of marital therapy) I announced -- in therapy, of course, that I was done. The first words out of her mouth was "You know, I can work on [insert name of issue]" Really? I never truly believed that change was possible and that we would settle back to the patterns I could no longer deal with.

[DreamP346]

Pollon's implied question (why do you put up with his behaviors) is an interesting one because, on this forum, you are one (if not the most) intelligent, perceptive and assertive women.

Single answer: children.

Maybe it's a bit of karma coming back to bite me. I used to treat men terribly. I mean, I didn't do it intentionally, but I did step on other people's emotions. Used to drop men without a second thought. Never been dumped. Never had my heart broken. I guess it's time for my own medicine

[KMonte85]

Well, Dream... you didn't have anything worth caring about so much before. Now you do, and it's difficult to deal with, because hey, when the going got tough before, you just got going! Now you've got someone you'd rather stick with than run from, and that's scary and confusing and difficult to navigate.

So the question is... you've identified some behaviors you don't appreciate in your spouse. You're feeling overlooked. Now what? Let's not call this Karma rearing its head, as that seems a bit defeated. Karma you have no control over. This problem? You have influence over this one.