5 Married Behaviors that Would Have Made Me Run From My Husband While Dating

Instead, I crawled under the covers with my newlywed tears.

I didn’t date a good guy. I dated a great guy. Everyone loved him. I loved him. No one had a bad thing to say about him. He was a tall handsome drink of water with a charismatic demeanor.

And then…

I married him.

“What happened?” I say to my husband.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“What happened to the great guy I dated for almost six years?” I say. “It’s like I dated one man and married another.”

“Oh,” laughs my husband. “I was in camouflage to win you over.”

It was a brief moment of consciousness for a man who lacked introspection.

An admission that I was speaking the truth.

If I were to be completely honest, there was a moment during our engagement when I first noticed this change. It’s a crystal clear memory. Because I found his behavior so cold and removed.

My mom had a seizure before we were to be married.

She didn’t want me to postpone the wedding despite her health issues.

I lived a little over an hour from home.

I planned my wedding alone.

I didn’t feel sorry for myself because I was so thankful my mom was still with us. I was incredibly grateful to my sisters and brother who lived nearby and were taking care of her. They all had a lot on their plate.

I had gone home for a month and then returned.

It wasn’t the way I had expected to go dress shopping.

Or take care of all the other bridal details.

But I had my mom and that’s all that mattered.

I had a lot of great friends but I had made my bridal party my sisters and my husband’s sisters. The two friends who were in it lived several states away.

“Will you go to the florist with me?” I ask my then-fiance.

“I’m too busy,” he says.

“It’s kind of sad doing everything alone,” I say. “It would be nice to have you come along.”

“I have work,” he says.

“So do I,” I say. “The appointment is after work.”

My then-fiance was extremely cold.

He refused to go with me.

It was one lousy one-hour appointment.

But he didn’t have the time or the empathy to recognize my situation. I brushed it off because of course there are far worse problems than planning your wedding alone.

I had a big close family that’s why it felt sad to me.

So that was it.

The only indicator of the husband to come.

And I completely missed it.

I believed he was a busy self-employed man. I needed to do my own thing. I needed to get the job done. I needed to be grateful. It wasn’t the end of the world.

But then…

I married him.

Believe me, I would never have stayed with him had we been dating.

I would have run for the door.

There was something about that vow and the whole ‘I’ve committed myself to this person for life’ thing that made me tolerate the intolerable. It made me stay.

Well, that and a healthy dose of confusion.

Trying to discern the man I dated from the man I married.

It made me abandon my always-healthy self-respect.

Below are the 5 married behaviors that would have made me run from my husband while dating. Instead, I climbed under the covers with my newlywed tears.

Trying to make sense of it all.

1. Talking to me with authoritarian words and tone

My husband suddenly spoke to me with a cold intolerance.

We are in the first few months of our marriage when my husband runs to the grocery store. When he arrives back home I realize something I need is missing.

“You forgot to get one of the things I asked for,” I say.

“You want something in the future,” he says with an unnerving outrage. “You go and get it yourself.”

My husband’s anger is palpable and somewhat not befitting my crime.

I’m stunned.

He’s putting me in my place.

Or should I say making it clear what my place is?

Within a year or so, I asked something else of my husband. Honestly, I don’t remember what it was. I was too shocked by his response to remember anything else.

“You’re a big girl,” says my husband. “I’m a big boy. You don’t ask anything of me. I don’t ask anything of you.”

Gotcha.

I guess this whole marriage thing just meant we go our separate ways.

Noted.

I can’t ask a single thing of my husband.

2. Giving me the silent treatment for weeks

There were times my husband didn’t speak to me for weeks as a newlywed.

We were in our second year of marriage when my husband failed to come home one night. I woke up at about 4 a.m. and was frightened to not find him there.

He rolled in around 9 a.m. absolutely unapologetic.

I was a wreck.

“I thought you were in an accident,” I say.

“I was playing cards all night and then we went for breakfast,” he says.

“Who does that?” I say. “Who stays out all night when you’re married and doesn’t call their wife?”

“Don’t you ever speak to me that way again,” he says.

For the next three weeks, my husband refused to speak to me.

It was agonizing.

I’m talking extreme silent treatment.

He didn’t even say, ‘Can you pass the salt?’

He turned his bad behavior back on me. Again, he had never done anything like this while we were dating. Let alone give me the silent treatment and ice me out for nearly a month.

I never worried about my husband cheating.

It still didn’t make it right that he stayed out all night.

But it became clear my husband would ‘teach me a lesson.’

If I ever crossed him.

3. Walking out of the room while I was talking

My boyfriend never walked out of a room while I was talking.

My husband mastered the skill.

I could have been talking about nothing or something. It could have been a casual conversation, a story, details about an event or night out, or it could be an argument.

It didn’t matter.

He walked away from me.

I cringe when I think I actually followed him.

While we were dating I would have told him to take a hike. I wouldn’t have followed a man from room to room attempting to get his attention or complete a thought.

My husband was making it clear he had no interest in what I was saying.

Or that he had zero respect for me.

4. Falling asleep while I was talking

My husband would fall asleep while I was talking to him.

Bear with me, because this may not ‘appear’ to be a big deal.

I didn’t think it was at the time.

I thought my husband was a busy man. At least, that’s what he always told me. I thought he was simply exhausted. And the man who walked out of rooms would tell me I chose the worst time to talk to him.

Looking back, maybe it’s because I thought it was the only time.

It took the loss of my mother and father who died six months to the day apart from one another to realize how unnatural my husband’s behavior was.

To give it some context, I wasn’t a nighly Chatty Cathy.

I wasn’t beating down his eardrums regularly.

In the days after losing my mother, I couldn’t contain my grief.

I sobbed the moment my head hit the pillow. Not to mention, during the day. She was my whole world. She raised us after my dad left when I was just five years old.

“I can’t believe you fell asleep,” I say.

“What?” says my husband.

“Seriously,” I say. “How do you fall immediately asleep within minutes as your wife is crying hysterically over the loss of her mom?”

“I was tired,” he says.

I’m stunned.

How do you watch someone you love lose both of her parents in her twenties and have no empathy or compassion? Instead, he had no time for me.

The guy I dated seemed to care.

The man I married could’ve cared less.

5. Everything was all about him

The man I married made sure all things were about him.

I dated a guy in what seemed like a mutual relationship.

I married a man who made it clear things were going to be about him. What he liked. What he wanted. What he thought should come first. What his schedule was.

I wanted my cat. He said my mom would have to keep it. I wanted a dog. He said I would have to wait until we had children one day. I loved the Maryland beaches I had grown up on. He said they were ugly and we would go to the Jersey Shore.

I wanted a charming old house. He wanted a new townhouse. I loved antiques. He said they were old and smelly. I wanted a new car. He said I didn’t need one even though I was working and it was my own money.

I wanted a room painted. He said he was a busy man. I wanted him to pick me up from surgery. He said he was a busy man. I wanted to pursue my own dreams. He said I should work with him to build the business.

It made sense.

The other four things I wouldn’t have tolerated clearly made a statement.

This is a man who is about one thing.

Himself.

He courted me while dating.

Once I married him I was along for the ride.

I dated one man.

And then…

I married him.

There’s something about that vow and the whole ‘I’ve committed myself to this person for life’ thing that makes you tolerate the intolerable. It makes you stay.

And abandon your otherwise healthy self-respect.