Lonely and Empty

by Judy
(Illinois)

My husband has only been OTR for a year. Before that, he had the normal 9-5 and home everyday job. He says that he chose truck driving for our family, but I think he did it so that he could run away from our unstable marriage and the responsibilities of being a husband and father.

He talks to one of his trucker buddies on average, at least an hour every day when he's out. I'm lucky if I get to talk to him for 30 minutes a day. He won't even talk to our daughter over the phone.

He chooses to be out for two months at a time. He's leasing now, which was completely against my wishes. I thought that I had talked him into waiting, but he went and arranged it all anyways. I hate it. He grosses on average around $3000 a week, but we only see between $1500 and $700 of it. It's completely ridiculous.

So, he's gone for six to eight weeks at a time. I read so many happy stories from wives whose husbands come home and are all over them, or stories of wives complaining that their husbands want sex so much when they are home. Mine is the complete opposite. In the year that he has been OTR, I get one short little quickie, that I have to initiate by getting on my knees. And whenever I try to push for something a little more intimate than that, I get a pissed off and annoyed husband.

I tell him how I feel about everything: I've told him how betrayed I felt when he completely disregarded my feelings and concerns and went lease op. I've told him how the lack of sex has made me feel rejected, unwanted, undesired, unloved. He says that he is sorry I feel that way but nothing ever changes.

I love this man with all of my heart. We have been together for almost 13 years and married for almost 10 of those years. I don't want to leave him, but I can't take this pain anymore. I feel abandoned. I feel like I am nothing more than a roommate, a placeholder, and when he holds me at night while he is home I feel like I'm just a big warm stuffed animal.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but I know there is nothing wrong with him that would cause the lack of sex. Everything works just fine. He just doesn't want to make love to me, at all. It hurts that he doesn't talk to me, it hurts that he won't make love to me. It hurts that he won't talk to our daughter on the phone, except to yell at her when she's not listening to me while I'm on the phone with him.

I'm losing him. I can feel it. I don't know what to do anymore.