[SamGirl]

My husband & I have been together for 8 years, married for 4. His sister died unexpectedly 5 years ago, he's still just coping and not moving on.

About 18 months ago an old female friend of his (let's call her Trish) - who he's known since she was born & used to babysit - had a crisis where her husband tried to commit suicide and failed. Since then her husband has been threatening to take their son away from her and generally being a nasty piece of work, and making her miserable.

Trish now lives with her parents and has a sister that she is very close to. Unfortunately for me, she seems to rely on my husband to help her with her husband & all the related problems. At first I was OK with this, I've know her & her family for almost as long as I've known my husband so was happy to help in any way possible. It's now been going on for over a year and nothing has changed in her situation, she's not doing anything to help herself and she only goes to my husband for help, not her parents, not her sister.

In the meantime, my husband has been pulling away from me for quite a while. I have been very concerned & felt like it's been getting worse with his relationship with Trish - he stopped kissing me properly, just little pecks. On quite a few occasions over the last 6-8 months I told him that I felt like I was losing him to Trish - he told me that I’m not losing him, especially not to Trish as she’s like a sister to him.

About 2 months ago he told me he wasn't happy in our marriage and felt like we were just good friends living together and sharing a bed. I reminded him about my concerns over the past few months about losing him to Trish and he said that I was losing him to him, not Trish.

We've talked a lot about the problems and found that a lot of them are just little things that annoy him that could be worked out. But we also both noticed that the intimacy has gone out of our marriage which is not good and needs sorting out.

The problem is, I can't be intimate with him due to his relationship with Trish; the relationship is making me very uncomfortable. He's changed since Trish came back into his life, he’s started hiding his phone at night when he used to just leave it hanging around, he sometimes leaves the room very quickly when he gets a phone call & hides who it’s from. I’m getting very suspicious.

When I told him that his relationship is making me uncomfortable his response is either “She’s like a sister to me, nothing is going on”, or he gets angry and tells me I’m being ridiculous.

His relationship with her is making me very unhappy, I can’t get past the feeling that she is coming between us, when she needs him he’s there straight away. And it’s not just dealing with her husband, it’s things like taking her shopping around a gardening centre as she doesn’t know what she needs – can’t she get her family to take her??

My husband can see how upset it’s making me, but when I asked him to stop the relationship for just 2 weeks so we can concentrate on our marriage without her he said “No”. He got really angry and said that she needed him and he wasn’t going to let her down.

I feel like he’s chosen her over me. Is he trying to replace the loss of his sister with his woman?

What can I do now? I can’t live like this anymore, sometimes I just want out.

[talaniman]

When the talking stops, you back up, and take a break while you work through this emotionally, without his influence. Are there kids involved? Do you have family you can visit? Do you work? How old are you both?

[SamGirl]

There are no kids involved between my husband & I, but this may be another issue - Trish has one and he's expressed a desire to want one too. I've always said I don't want any & made sure that he understood that at every stage of our relationship.

I have family just over 100 miles away who I have visited (left last week for a couple of nights), but it means taking time off work, which is not really an option at the moment.

We both work, he's self employed in construction, I work for an international trading company.

My husband turned 40 this year (his sister didn't make it to 40 and it was really hard for him), I've just turned 35.

[talaniman]

While I think its possible he may have "latched" onto this girl, as a sister, he may actually resent you for trying to get him to ignore her and her business. That's why I think your focus should change from her to something else. You said you have known her family for a long time, so I am guessing no obvious boundaries were crossed, but my point would you both seem disappointed that things are not the way you want them to be. That breeds resentments that have a way of influencing your thinking and attitude, given that you argue over someone you see as a rival, and not as he says a "sister". That should have been put to bed a long time ago as you know the family well.

If there is nothing going on, making her a focus of your inability to communicate is a serious mistake, and causes problems, and there is nothing like a suspicious, unhappy partner. I think it has distracted you from seeing something that's a lot more important, and that's your home life, and the way you interact together.

Not sure what the solution is, but I would have to get it in your mind that this Trish is no threat to you. Then maybe you can do something about your own unhappiness when you have facts and not feelings.

Do you have good friends, besides work nearby, or a social life that keeps you busy? Just want an idea how you balance your life, or are you isolated, and dependent on your husband, for any kind of life besides work.

[Jake2008]

I have to disagree.

For your husband and Trish to be so close, intimately close, if not physically close, there has to be needs being met by both. If she were 65 years old, blind, and in a wheelchair with a flat tire, he would quickly get fed up with being the only one giving. And he'd be agreeing with you- she needs to find somebody else to lean on.

He is not helping her, in addition to maintaining his marriage. He is helping her by putting his own marriage on the back burner.

You are not going mad. This is what it is. The cell phone, the time he spends with her, the times he goes running when she calls for even the most frivilous reasons (plants for her garden), and the anger he shows toward you for asking simple questions that any woman would ask, is really masking his own actions. If he gets angry at you for even suggesting that Trish is causing problems in your marriage, he is trying to cover his tracks by making it seem like YOU are being unreasonable, jealous, and petty.

Personally, he may not have actually slept with her. She very well may be leading him on, and he's falling for it, thinking that, hmmmm maybe I'm falling in love with her, and he's holding on to all these threads with her. Love does crazy things to people.

If it were me, the next time he goes over to her house to 'help' her, I would show up about an hour later, and bring coffee and donuts, and offer to help her plant her garden. Chit chat the two of them, and pretend nothing is wrong.

I would consider asking her out for lunch, just the two of you, and tell her exactly how you feel about things- in a non-confrontational way. You aren't making any demands, just letting her know that you know what's going on, and you are a very big part of this.

As to him not getting over the loss of his sister after so many years, that to me at least, is another excuse to spend time with her. He is shooting you a line of bull. He needs to talk to you, not her.

Time to get to the bottom of this.