Unhappy Marriage: When Only One Spouse is Horse-Crazy

Yesterday I wrote about a couple of my friends who are going through divorces for many reasons. Ironically, the descriptions fit several of my friends clear across the country. It's sad how the reasons for divorce are eerily similar no matter where people live. But sometimes the divorce is only thought of, but not gone through...what, in my circles, is the main reason for unhappiness in a marriage?

I received a phone call yesterday afternoon from a friend I'd not spoken to in years. No reason except that she lives a couple of hundred miles away and is in a different part of her life. A friend if I need her, but time and distance keep us apart. We started talking about her horses (she has Morgans, of course) and how her husband refuses to help her with her horses or even join in a ride or enjoyment of them. They've been married 30-odd years, and he's only gotten worse about not giving her any money for the horses, constantly badgering her to get rid of them, and, perhaps most telling of all, not celebrating with her the little things--a welcoming snicker or the warmth of a mare's breath.

I don't get it.

I always think that there must be something fundamentally wrong with people who don't love--or at least appreciate--the majesty of a horse. Of course, it's true, I'm biased :), but still... :) :)

Seriously, though, how can someone totally ignore and deride something that is so intrinsic to the happiness of the one you profess to love? But perhaps that's *really* the problem.

He doesn't love her anymore--if he ever did.

He is comfortable in their life. They are financially secure, nice home, nice cars. He spends time doing his favorite hobbies, and, when he comes home, he has a lovely wife who's made dinner for him for a relaxing evening watching television. He doesn't see the need to change anything, and he'd rather get rid of the "nuisances" and the waste of money that could much better be spent on cars or a new golf club, or the newest and greatest computer gadget. He doesn't understand that those nights when his wife can't sleep that going to the barn and listening to the rustling in the straw and the sweet, musty scent of a horse's hide is worth thousands of dollars of therapy.

He doesn't understand, and he doesn't want to.

I wonder what that says about whether he understands his wife--and whether he wants to.

The sad part? I know of several other women (and a couple of guys) in the same situation. In long-term marriages where only one of the partners doesn't even give lip service to the joys of his/her partner's life. For most of my friends, it is horses, but it could be anything that makes the other person happy.

Those women (and men) are like secret smokers, trying to hide their addiction from their spouse. Downplaying the horses, hiding expenses, enduring the cold--or blank--stares when the horses are mentioned. Constant negativity on something that is so important to someone would force anyone to make a choice.

Choose the spouse--someone who thinks only for himself, who simply doesn't understand and doesn't care about the things that make her happy. He doesn't care if she shares his passion because they are two people living together living two separate lives.

Choose the horses (or other enjoyment)--and lose decades' old relationship, financial and emotional (?) stability.

But it isn't easy, is it? It isn't easy to get out of any relationship, even one with emotional abuse. Constant digs and nudges at your self worth. Knowing that what matters to you is irrelevant to the person you've vowed to spend your life with. But he vowed to love and to cherish you too.

My friend has lived with this for thirty-odd years, knowing that she would have to put up with his not caring. Not calling if one of the horses obviously is colicking. Not watering on a hot July day when the horses drink more than she thought they would. Not feeding one night in a year so that she can stay out and share a drink with a high school friend. Not mourning the loss of a stillborn foal.

I don't know how she stays. I don't know how she handles the letdowns. The hoping, wanting just once for him to share with her the kindness and joy found in a horse's eyes.

One of my friends didn't stay. She is divorced now from a man she married more than 20 years ago. He ridiculed her body, her every action, the meals that she prepared. He would allow her to lie awake at night worrying how to pay for hay when he had tens of thousands of dollars he wouldn't let her use. "That is her problem," he told me once.

Isn't marriage supposed to be giving/receiving 110%? Celebrating the joys and mourning the losses together? I'm often told how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband who does share with me the ups and downs and joys and challenges of having horses. Would he have them if I didn't want them? Probably not. Did it get to be too much when I was pregnant, and I couldn't do anything in the barn? Yes, I'm sure it did. Did he do it anyway? Yes.

But do I do the same for him? I try. I don't golf. I love to watch golf (Go TIGER!), but I don't play. I don't share that joy with him, but I don't scorn the fact that he does. No, I go with him to the golf show, go to professional matches near us, and if I can't, I encourage him to go without me.

Ever since we were first married, he has played poker with a group of his friends every month or six weeks. Only two or three times in the last 19 years have I asked him not to go, and I had good reasons to ask. I understand that his time is vital to making him happy. On the same token, he doesn't say anything when I visit with my friends once in awhile. It is a give and take. I prefer to share my life with my husband--including my passions, which, of course, includes our horses. (Yes, *our* horses....)

That's what being married is about. At least *happily* married.

That is what I thank Doug for...and I wish for my friends. And if that means leaving a marriage, then that's what they should do. Life is too short to not enjoy the pleasures that make us happy.