I am posting this in hopes of gaining some understanding of where my relationship stands, particularly why my spouse is distancing herself the way she is, and what I could /should do to repair our marriage. I’d like to start by saying we both Love each other, there has been no abuse, wandering, etc., actions that have strained our relationship. Here is my story (sorry about rambling): A little background - My wife and I have worked together (in the same office) for 11 years, we started dating 9 1/2 years ago and married 8 years ago. We do not argue much (have only had maybe 3 fights ever). We have a son who is 16 (he is my step son but I consider him my son), we wanted children together but after 2 years of trying she was eventually diagnosed with low egg count and can’t have children, she wanted to get a donor egg but I resisted because of the cost (like 50k). I take care of the home maintenance and improvements, and do all the dishes, most of the cooking, taking out all the garbage; she takes care of all the school activities/requirements, does my sons and her laundry regularly (but rarely does mine) and cleans the house when we have people coming over, but not much more than that. About 2 ½ years ago, we bought a much more expensive house, and at around the same time my job duties and expectations got drastically altered and I felt tremendous stress and I began to suffer from depression. I then began to hide from life as much as possible, a regular day had me going to work, coming home, making a cocktail (@ 2 or 3 a day), sitting on the couch and either watching TV or playing games on my iPad, until it was time for bed (although I would do chores). I obviously disengaged from life, only going out to the occasional family or friend activities, I would go to maybe 1 out of every 3 outings, and no longer did anything by myself other than sit on couch. I gained about 20 lbs, although I wasn’t in great shape prior. During that period of time, my W and I did not fight, we would kiss each other hello and goodbye, occasionally hold each other when out and about, but there was very little communication going on between us and very little intimacy (maybe twice a year, very little cuddling), I knew that I wasn’t doing much living, but I was so disengaged from my wife that I thought we were good. My Wife joined the volunteer firefighter department and started fire training 2 months ago, and that currently takes ALL of her time; she only spends about 10 hours a week at home with me and son where she isn’t studying.
1 month ago we went out with family to my sons NHS induction, and I noticed my wife was ignoring me, such as she didn’t say hi when she arrived (I had gone early to take my son), she didn’t want me in the picture of her and my son next to the NHS sign, etc. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, because I felt like she ignored me the whole night. The next day I didn’t want to say anything I would regret, so I gave the silent treatment, which she noticed and did the same to me, then at night she went to fire class, so we weren’t able to talk. The next morning my anger had waned, so I made her coffee in the morning (which I do every day), and told her that I was sorry for the silent treatment yesterday but I was upset and didn’t want to say something I didn’t mean. I told her I’d like to talk to her that evening after work. While her and I were having dinner (I’ll call D-day for now on), she asked me what I wanted to talk about and I told her that I felt like she had disengaged from me at the NHS function, and that it had hurt me. She replied that for the last year and a half I had disengaged from her and our son, participated in almost no planned activities, that there was no intimacy between us and we were more like good friends than husband and wife She said that she tried to be supportive over the last 1 ½ years of what I was going through, but she felt like my entire life was sitting on the couch watching tv and playing games, then stated “so yeah, I have disengaged from you”. For the most part everything she said was spot on, I knew it because I thought it about myself, but I could tell for the first time how much it had hurt her. I stated that I first noticed her disengagement 2 days ago and I was now talking to her about it, then asked her why in 1 ½ years she never brought it up and talked to me about it (I know that harboring feelings like that can kill a relationship, and was upset that she never addressed it straightforward and allowed me to make a decision to change or not to improve). She said that although she never came right out and told me how she was feeling, she would try and encourage me to do things and I wouldn’t, and that when she would try and initiate intimacy I would roll over and go to sleep, and that she would put pretty dresses on and model them for me but I would never comment on how beautiful she is (fyi – my wife is way out of my league looks wise, I’m not bad but she is crazy sexy, inshape and young looking, she frequently gets confused as my daughter, she’s 40 and looks 25)
After that conversation, I went into a deeper depressive state, pretty much lost control of my emotions, and convinced myself that since she waited 1 ½ years to address these things that hurt her, she was done with our marriage and it was just a matter when she would leave, not if. So I started analyzing everything she did, or didn’t do, and so began my extreme begging, pleading, basically pushing her away. I immediately started working on my wrongs, I started exercising, stopped drinking, hanging out with my son (who immediately saw the changes and commented to my wife). I would try and initiate intimacy (because that’s what she wanted, right?) and she would stop me and give some excuse, so I would try again the next day and next, rinse and repeat. When asked why we couldn’t be intimate the first answer was I didn’t say that, then it became all these changes are too much, I don’t know how to handle all of this, and now it’s because it’s been so long I just don’t desire physical intimacy right now.
Ok, going to try and stop rambling, here are the cliff notes of the month since D-day:
• I have been reading all about marriage repair, I’ve gone to a therapist twice and my therapist wants to meet with her before meeting with us both at same time, so she will be going. • She is in a great place personally, meeting goals (becoming a firefighter), in great shape, hanging out with new and old friends; I’m trying to find myself, exercising, working out, but I’ve lost contact with my own friends over the last few years when I was depressed and never wanted to do anything. Basically she is in a great place, confident, and I’m insecure and find myself being clingy to her to reassure me. • I feel like I am doing everything I can to improve myself and our marriage, but I feel like she is not doing anything, and even putting our marriage on back burner to everything else. • I believe her when she says I have nothing to be jealous about, but she is always on her phone, and I am pretty sure she is communicating through group me but I don’t have access to that account to check, if I did, I would secretly check it. • She starting going out with her fireclass or people from the firestation as a group to local bar/restaurant, about once every two weeks, stays out to about 1:30am (this caused me to be insecure and start distrusting her, I had convinced myself that she was interested physically or mentally to someone else, and in our 8 year marriage she had never gone out with anyone but close friends I know well). She has opened up to me about who goes and what they do, and I feel better about it now, and trust that she won’t cheat, but it still hurt me when she goes out without me, since I tried for a week to go on a date with her and she had to cancel (I’ve given up trying and she hasn’t asked me out). Also, on the night we were supposed to go out, she had to take a fire test online, so while she was studying and taking the test, I was on the couch and fell asleep. When she finished, she saw that I was asleep and went to a local bar for about 30 minutes to watch a UFC fight by herself before she had to go pick our son up from a party. I happened to wake up and was confused when she wasn’t home, I did find my iphone and found out she was at the local bar, and when she didn’t tell me after getting back, I called her out on it. She later told me it really upset her that I did the find my iphone thing. • Prior to D-day, my wife did not shy away from any attention from me, and if I wanted to initiate intimacy it was not an issue, now it’s not an option, but no information from her on why other than that it’s been so long she doesn’t feel into it. • Snuggling is ok, but she said yesterday my constant hugging and touching is too much, so yesterday I decided I would back away from everything but snuggling (I feel like we need to keep some physical contact to be healthy) • I have slowly gotten out of my deep depressive state where I couldn’t control my emotions, and feel like I’m doing much less to pressure her; I stopped needing to always ask her why she did this or that (I still want to, but I’m much better at not expressing it). • I don’t feel like she is putting any effort into repairing us (I sent her an email and it took her two days to read it), says she didn’t have time to read it before, but she spent tons of time on social media(it’s always been an issue with me how much time she spends on social media). • Whenever I ask questions about what she wants or how she sees us repairing us, she says she has to think about it, but then never comes back to me to tell me anything. • She says that I don’t need to worry about her leaving, that she wants to work on our marriage and be close again, but she is overwhelmed with work and fireschool and just needs time to get through all of that (I think that our marriage should come first). I feel as though if she was showing me love and affection, that I could wait on doing the hard work of both committing to make things better, but I feel like there is no emotional or physical connection with us right now, and it is hard for me to believe that waiting is a good thing. • At this moment, She says ILU when coming and going, she kisses hello and goodbye with a hug, but no other physical contact initiated by her. She is ok with snuggling. She talks to me, but only non-emotional stuff, not anything about how she feels, what she would like, etc… Any deep conversations I have to initiate, and they annoy her. • Some things she doesn’t do hurts me a lot, for example I’ve made it clear that I hate that I have gone to bed alone every day for the last two weeks, she is either in class late, out with her classmates, or home and goes to bed much later than me; last night we were both home (after I had decided to disengage from her) so I walked by her in the other room and just said goodnight and kept going, she stopped me and said she thought I would come give her a good night kiss so I did, but she made no effort to go to bed with me so I didn’t have to alone. She gives me something (kiss goodnight) but not what I’ve told her I would appreciate.
That’s a lot of information, I’m not sure what is useful and what is not, but please ask questions if you don’t understand anything. I’m trying to figure out what I should do at this stage. Not sure if I should try and disengage from her more, or just keep things were they are if they are going ok (but nothing seems to be improving); I really want to ask her if I can read her group-me texts but not sure that she would be ok with that; I deep down believe there isn’t anything bad in there, but I can’t help but want to have firsthand knowledge about what it is she is always talking about on her phone, and with whom. How bad would it be to ask, I’m pretty sure she would get angry if I ask, and I honestly don’t know if she would even let me which might make me more suspicious.
M - 9 1/2 years 5/5/16 - Bomb drop - 3 week EA 10/31/16 - We sold house 01/10/18 - D Finalized
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
Hi Coconut, I'm relatively new here too, so my only words of wisdom would be to get the Divorce Remedy book by Michelle Davis Weiner read it three times and then you will most likely know what to do. One thing for sure, be grateful you have what contact you do have now...you sound like a 'pursuer' like me. Be careful you don't pursue too much. Get the book. Watch Michelle's videos on youtube. I am sure some vets on this forum will come by and make some great recommendations. Good luck!
Man - I wish I was as aware of what is going on as you are about a year ago and tried to fix things then. In some ways it sounds like my story in that I was both not a part of my W's life and clinging at the same time. It ended up driving her away and into the arms of another man.
I would suggest looking around this site and in the books for some of the articles about the "Walk Away Wife" (WAW). The advice I've gotten and tried to follow is to stop focusing so much on my W and to focus on GAL and rebuilding the "me" that I used to be. I need to do this both to become a strong and independent enough person to stand on my own and to hopefully become a person that my W would be happy to be married to again. This also means giving her the space to discover who she is herself.
Good luck.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
It sounds like you are in a much better position than some of us. If W asks for space, give her space. Have no expectations. If you get positive responses from her, keep doing things that will result in positive outcomes without talking about the R. Keep posting, you will get good feedback from vets on this site.
H-46 XW-38 T-7 M-6 S-9,8,8,6,4 S 11/30/15, I filed 12/8/15 EA 2/1/16 D dismissed 3/24/16 PA 3/18/16 confirmed 4/22/16 XW files for D 4/1/16 - D final 11/17/16 Finally moving forward...
I was in your exact shoes 6 months ago, right down to me being the one who was not into it sexually. I blew it bigtime, and now I am one step away from being divorced.
I think like others have said, the jist of it is, you have to get back to being you. You can't force her to be attracted to you again. She has to decide that you are worth letting her guard down for. Focus on the GAL, listen to her, but don't pursue. You've got to figure out who you were and get back to being that guy. You will be happier, and she will notice.
Me: 38 y/o W: 38 y/o Together: 10 yrs Married: 7 yrs S1, D3, S15(hers previous, I adopted May'15) WBD: Sep '15 W's EA confirmed Oct'15 W Filed Dec '15 Personal awakening Mar'16
Dang it, I have been strong for the last few days, but had a moment of weakness today. I went online to pay phone bill, and noticed my wife had almost 900 texts this month, and only about 20 of those are with me... I automatically wanted to go into detective mode, so I sorted the texts by phone number and put it in excel spreadsheet and emailed it to my self as I was leaving work. On the way home I was in turmoil, I don't want to feel like I need to check up on my spouse to trust her, but at the same time if there is/was an EA I feel like I have the right to know. I think I would understand based on my past checking out, it would be hard but I feel like I could move past it if she could.
Anyway, I narrowed my choices to forgetting about all the texts or talking to her about it... Against my better judgement, I asked her about it. I started by asking her if she would tell me about an EA if there was one, she said there isn't one and she would tell me, and when I told her why I asked she stated that as her firefighter class leader, she is constantly texting everyone in the class about requirements, sending reminders, etc. I believe her, but know kicking myself because I knew I shouldn't have asked her about it, and asking her didn't do anything for me anyways. Grrr
M - 9 1/2 years 5/5/16 - Bomb drop - 3 week EA 10/31/16 - We sold house 01/10/18 - D Finalized
Just keep POSTING and one other bit of advice from Wonka that I totally agree with.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
Get DR/DB book. Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
We have seen too many Marriages blow up in pieces after the WAS discovers the DB site or DR book. Why is that? It is because the WAS thinks, erroneously I might add, that you are "manipulating" them back into the M.
Keep the DR book and DB site very close to your vest.
900 texts? Sounds fishy to me... My WW said the same sort of things when her phone was going off all the time. I'm not telling you what to do, but that is a lot of texts for a person for work. There is some pattern in the numbers..
Ralph88 Me 40s W 30s, D5 D3 , M7 T9 2013 B drop 1, EA found 2016 B drop 2, EA/PA? 2/16 Physical Seperation 2/16 I filed for D 4/16 PA Confirmed
Me-LBH, 48 Spouse-WW, 48 Married for 19 years Son, 12 BD #1 - November 1998 (EA 7 months after wedding) BD #2 - November 2015 (same XBF EA) WW filed D February 2016 WW moved out April 2016
