Wife is having doubts about our marriage....

[exasperated]

Hello everyone. I'm new here and looking for some advice. I'm 30, been married almost 7 years. My wife recently (about a month ago) told me she is having doubts about our marriage. At the time she told me she didn't have an agenda or necessarily want to separate, divorce, anything like that, just that she wanted to talk about things and see where I was on things. Since then things have elevated and what was once "I don't know what I want but I am not ready to give up" has turned into "I want some time separate to see if I want to work on things. But, I'm not ready to give up."

 

The last few years have been very hard in a lot of ways for us, we've been fairly broke a lot of the time, she was in a full time, unpaid medical internship for a year that had a really long commute and she was very unhappy in. During that time she was very unhappy and took a lot of her frustration out on me. After that internship she found a job close by, her spirit seemed to be improving. Then the economy fell apart, and my work slowed WAY down (I am a freelancer). In 2009 I have had about 1 weeks worth of work. (I try to get work all day every day, everything has been falling through). Throughout all this she seems to have been getting more and more negative, depressed, angry (all things that are very unlike her). It has gotten me down too, but not to the degree it seems to be effecting her.

 

When we talked about things about a month ago, she said she had built up a lot of resentment and anger towards me over little things and it has added up to something huge. When she sees me, the resentment, etc is all she sees. I made it clear that I am committed to her and I will work to change the way she needs and since then I have been busting my ass to do that. But it's like the fact that she got all this stuff off her chest has liberated her to just be hateful, mean, rude, etc to me all the time. It's like things are even worse now.

 

I asked her to go to marriage counseling, she agreed, then by the second session said she wasn't ready to work on things and wants a trial separation, to see decide if she wants to work on things.

 

I know she is in a very unstable place emotionally, mentally, etc (which is very unusual b/c she is normally very together, confident and secure in herself). I want to help her get to a place where she is more stable, grounded, happy, and then we can work on our marriage. I want to put her first, really help her with what she needs. But I don't want to be jerked around, manipulated, taken advantage of.

 

What should I do?

[Jonesey]

Hello,

 

I totally understand what you are saying and going through. I went through the same exact type of situation last July and it was very painful and difficult. My wife said similar things and I was the only one trying to make it work. We tried marriage counseling and she only went twice and then the counselor decided to drop us because she was "done" and needed IC.

 

After about 2 months, I found out what was really happening. She was having multiple EA's before we split. I then caught her with one of those EA's in her apartment and it was very clear at that point for me. We didn't talk at all for a few months except child stuff and polite hi/bye's on exchanges. Then, all of a sudden, she started coming around and we eventually tried to reconcile. I noticed her BS and bad habits did not change at all once she was "back in" and it went downhill from there. We have separated again and she was the one who made the first move again. What is different this time is that she told me that she was interested in someone else and was leaving me to see where it goes with this guy.

 

I would advise you to find out the REAL story behind your wife's behavior. It sounds like you are being misled and being strung along while she is having some kind of affair. If it is happening, expose it to everyone once you find out, go 100% N/C except for child and work on yourself and your life. You cannot do anything but move on and put her out of your life.

 

I hope this helps and I know it is easier said then done but you gotta take the steps to better your life and not be strung along by this woman.

 

Take care....

 

J

[TaraMaiden]

The impression I get, is that she has actually already abandoned this marriage and would like it to terminate.

 

Fighting for your marriage on your own, is pointless.

Your choice seems to be then - let her go but refuse a divorce?

or let her go but then grant her one?

I suspect once she is out of a constrained relationship with you, she will opt for nbeing on her own.

 

I could be completely mistaken. You must know her better than I....

But do you suspect I am near the truth?

 

_/l\_

[exasperated]

Hey. Thanks for taking the time to respond and sharing with me.

 

It doesn't seem very likely to me that she is having an affair or interested in someone else. For one, I am not sure when she would have the time. Being a freelancer, I am usually working from home, and her job is a clock-in clock out type situation, it's probably not happening at work, and outside of that, when she is out of the house she always lets me know where she is going and is reachable by phone, text, etc. I just don't see where she could fit it in her schedule.

 

As far as her being already checked out of the relationship goes, while I do realize that is a definite possibility, if that is the case, it is only very recent, we had both been working on things pretty intentionally up until this conversation a month ago. The impression I get is she is just so clouded with anger and resentment towards me as well as personal emotional issues that she feels incapacitated.

 

I do realize that I can't work on the relationship alone, but I do feel like I can support her in getting the help she needs to get on more emotionally stable ground and support her as she tries to understand the issues she is facing and secondarily how that is effecting us, her perception of me, etc. I want to understand how to love her unconditionally and be supportive without being walked on.

[TaraMaiden]

providing you know she will (not 'could', 'will')do the same for you, this will be constructive.

 

if however, the effort is entirely one-sided, and you will be the operative one looking for ways to mend the relationship - then I fear you will be disappointed.

Forget it.

 

You are two people in a rowing boat.

One oar each.

 

It will not work with only one person rowing the boat....

[where is my life]

I agree with TaraMaiden. I am going through the same thing right now. Don't give up but make sure you are both working together on it. There is a lot of great advice on here. It has helped me deal with this by posting on these forums, hopefully it will help you as well. . Hope all goes well.

[Windy27]

Hey. Thanks for taking the time to respond and sharing with me.

 

It doesn't seem very likely to me that she is having an affair or interested in someone else. For one, I am not sure when she would have the time. Being a freelancer, I am usually working from home, and her job is a clock-in clock out type situation, it's probably not happening at work.

 

Why is that? Because ALL her co-workers are female? Because NONE of her customer/clients are male? What about people whom she deal with or interact with, like the mail man, the copy clerk, etc.?

[KTMRider33]

It doesn't seem very likely to me that she is having an affair or interested in someone else. For one, I am not sure when she would have the time. Being a freelancer, I am usually working from home, and her job is a clock-in clock out type situation, it's probably not happening at work, and outside of that, when she is out of the house she always lets me know where she is going and is reachable by phone, text, etc. I just don't see where she could fit it in her schedule.

 

 

.

Whilst I don't wish to be a doom monger, I was in exactly the same situation a month ago, got the same speech, tried everything to help save my marriage, but found out a month later my wife had been having an affair, I honestly thought how did she find time.

Lots of posters on here told me she was having an affair, and usually the speeech, I need space etc, is code for I have emotionally attached to someone else.

I hope I'm wrong for your sake, and you may not like the thought of checking up on her but it may be wise.

[Athena]

 

What should I do?

 

Get a PI on her to find out if she is having an affair.

 

If you cannot afford that right now (and I urge you to try find the money for it) then look into all the ways to spy on her when you are not around her.

 

Most telling are cell phones, phone records, cash withdrawals from the bank, emails (esp a new email account you don't know about), and Emotional Distancing...

Look at her behaviors... is she unseemingly out of place happy? Does she disappear, act furtive, secretive?

Most of the time it is a lover at work... has she changed her work habits from a few months back?

 

Check this out 100%... don't write it off as an impossibility... seems very strange that she is so quick to walk... there must be someone else there...

[exasperated]

Thanks for all the feedback and advice.

 

While I don't think that she is having an affair, I obviously am not ruling anything out at this point.

 

 

In most of the ten years I have known her she has been probably the most emotionally balanced and stable person I have known, over the past couple years, as some stresses from work, finances, etc have set in she has become less and less so, to the point that she is now a bit of an emotional wreck.

 

Basically, she has not said she wants to end things, she has said she is not ready to give up on us. But she has said she feels so clouded by all these emotions (from things between us and the stresses mentioned above) that she doesn't feel like she's able to work on things or really even process them. She wants some space, but still to spend time together, go on dates, talk, but not have to be around each other as much, to try to break some of the perceptions she has about us, undo negative patterns and routines, as well as to process the things she is going through mentally/emotionally.

 

I've encouraged her to start seeing a therapist/psychologist/counselor, and she has agreed to. And told her that once she gets to a more emotionally stable place we can see about working on us.

 

When we married we agreed to better or worse, obviously this is worse, and I want to stand by her, but I don't want to be naive or oblivious to the possibility that she is making all that up to get out of our marriage or something. She has told me on several occasions recently that there is no one else at that if there was she would have broken it off with me before starting anything, and obviously those are just words and could easily be lies. But really my concern is not so much an affair as it is how to balance being there for her and loving her like I promised to do with not being stupid and getting taken advantage of.

[KTMRider33]

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t186953/

 

Please read my original post, what you are saying is just what I was living a month or so ago.

She will lie to you and say all of the I need space platitudes but don't believe it, find out for yourself.

Like you I would have said my wife was the most caring, loving, stable woman I had ever met........now she's like an alien.

Some label it Mid Life Crisis, I don't know what makes people change in this way, I really hope there is nobody else, because if she has given her feelings to somebody else it will be hard if not impossible to find a way back.

All you can do is give it your best shot

[quankanne]

a bit of a different POV:

 

seven years, huh. As I seem to recall, that's about the time married couples hit a point where the thrill of the honeymoon has fizzled, real life has walked in and thrown you some whammies and you're looking at your relationship with a jaded eye. What you are going through isn't unusual, and you CAN improve the relationship, but only if both parties are willing to fight/work at it. And it sounds like your wife is just too tired to even do that. Don't give up, though, but look at options that'll help you enrich your marriage and get the focus back where it needs to be.

 

I'm a huge proponent of Marriage Encounter, a retreat weekend for couples offered by my church. Pretty much it's a three-day event where the husband and wife focus solely on their marriage and learn tools to communicate better. For us, it gave my husband insight into my idea of marriage (raised Catholic, thus it is a sacrament that you don't just wiggle out of "just because"), and it helped me to be more understanding of him and HIS ideas/fears. We're not perfect by any means of the imagination, but that retreat has helped us keep it together by reminding us to focus on the foundation of love, rather than the problems that plague us. We've been married 17 years, and attended our ME weekend 10 years ago, when we hit a plateau similar to what you and your wife have.

 

counseling is good, but I think there are negative connotations connected to it ~ that something or someone is "wrong," therefore you need to go before someone unknown person who is going to straighten y'all out, when really, it's just learning how to communicate with each other better.

 

if your wife is hesitant to continue counseling, look at other options: I've heard several posters rave about Marriage Builders the way I do about ME ... there are so many options out there, that surely your wife and you will find something you feel comfortable with.

 

if there is not another party involved (i.e., an affair), the problem simply could be that things don't look like they're ever going to get better because it seems nothing changes. Getting into a good program to help your marriage is like adding a couple tablespoons of sour cream to a box cake mix batter: What is good on it's own takes on a whole new dimension that everyone notices.

 

good luck, and don't let fear overwhelm you, especially when there are so many nay-sayers trying to convince you that your wife is screwing around on you. My guess is that she's met a brick wall and doesn't know how to climb over or go around it, hence the problems you're having.

 

q

[carhill]

I asked her to go to marriage counseling, she agreed, then by the second session said she wasn't ready to work on things and wants a trial separation, to see decide if she wants to work on things

 

What should I do?

 

Give her what she wants. Do not sacrifice yourself at the altar of the resentful, emotionally unstable wife, trust me

[soserious1]

You've been married 7 yrs, your wife is a medical professional, you do freelance work but have been basically not earning any money for several months.

 

I can probably tell you why your wife is resentful.. she's picturing short term unemployment becoming a long term situation and had decided that she doesn't want to be responsible for supporting you, nor does she wish to leave herself in the position of having to pay you alimony which becomes more likely once you've been married 10 yrs.

[carhill]

Considering he supported her during her quest for her medical credentials, he'd likely have a legal claim based on that support, regardless of the current marital dynamic.

 

BTW, my wife is playing the 10 year game too, so I'm a bit more up on this stuff than I'm letting on...

[LucreziaBorgia]

It doesn't seem very likely to me that she is having an affair or interested in someone else.

 

It isn't supposed to seem likely. That's how they keep them going for so long. I would definitely find out what is behind this with no further speculation.

[Sands_of_time]

OP--with time, all will be revealed. Maybe even in the next couple of weeks. If there is a "secret" that she is hiding, it won't be hidden forever. I hope for your case that when the door gets opened there is nothing for you to look at and there is no "purple elephant." But prepare yourself for the fact that the ugliest, meanest monster may be behind the door when it gets opened.

 

Try to get tough mentally. It will only help you in the long run.

[soserious1]

Considering he supported her during her quest for her medical credentials, he'd likely have a legal claim based on that support, regardless of the current marital dynamic.

 

BTW, my wife is playing the 10 year game too, so I'm a bit more up on this stuff than I'm letting on...

 

If she ends it now, before there are children involved and before he's gotten too comfy as a house husband chances are good that she won't be saddled with paying him life time alimony. A lot would depend also on what she's carrying in loan debt and MD's usually begin their careers with plenty of debt. Having to give a settlement is one thing, having to settle and to pay alimony over and above rehabilative alimony is another.

[Admiral]

Hurry up and leave her, if she was attracted to you, she would not want a trial separation.

[carhill]

Having to give a settlement is one thing, having to settle and to pay alimony over and above rehabilative alimony is another.

 

He sounds employable and is working sporadically, so her lawyer would likely assert such to minimize any such long-term payouts. His claims to a percentage of her practice is another matter.

 

OP, do you think she's getting help? She might not be having an affair, but she may be in contact with, and complaining to, outsiders, perhaps about your lack of "support" and they're filling her head with ideas. This can be a real sticky wicket when it diffuses her loyalty to the M.

 

I'm going to stick with my prior advice and add to get legal advice regarding the support you provided for the family while she pursued her professional degree and how that and time affect your situation. Knowledge is power

[exasperated]

OK. Thanks everyone for your feedback.

 

So I did some digging, and I don't know exactly if she has had a physical affair yet, some interesting things have developed. I am going out of town soon, and I found an email from a guy, who was planning to take her on a date that night, it fell through and he was emailing to say he couldn't make it.

 

I confronted her about it, she said that they met once in a bar, have emailed and text messaged some and talked on the phone a couple of times. Apparently he knows she is married but is still interested.

 

She claims she has not so much as even held his hand, and that if it worked out to go on a date with him she was going to tell me first. Obviously I don't necessarily believe all this, but anyway...

 

She said she wants a separation. I told her that I would agree to it if she would agree to a few weeks of time apart where she did not talk with this guy and then after that we can proceed and see if she wants to do the legal separation. I asked her to tell him that she could not talk with him for at least a few weeks b/c she was working on some things with me. She said that if he contacted her again she would do that and forward the correspondence to me, to let me know she did it.

 

After this talk I went for a walk and came back after she had gone to bed. I did some more digging and found that she had sent him an email, while I was out, saying they couldn't be "facebook" friends b/c I must have figured out her facebook or email password, then she told him that she did still want to be friends with him, and that seeing him in person is better anyway.

 

Should I bring this up now? Wait until maybe I find a little more stuff out? I would like to know the full extent to which she is involved with this guy. But I don't really expect her to openly tell me. I can't really afford to hire a P.I. Also, should I postpone my trip? There is a work interview involved but I can always say I had an emergency come up and need to reschedule. Part of me wants to have some one else talk to her about it, to see if it can wake her up to how insane this all is. Help.

[LucreziaBorgia]

I would do whatever necessary to bust up her plans. Whatever you find, print it out - or if you don't have a printer, email the content to yourself or save it to a disc.

 

She is not going to tell you anything that she doesn't think you already know, or what she thinks she can get away with. She knows you are on to her, so she is going to go deep underground with it, and take greater pains to hide stuff from you. Time for some personal PI work: keylogger, gps, voice activated recorder, sperm detection kit, whatever it takes. DO NOT LET ON THAT YOU ARE INVESTIGATING. Pretend that you are fine with what you already know, and play dumb.

 

I can tell you this: she would not want out of the marriage if she wasn't damned sure that there would be a man waiting to catch her on the way out.

 

Once you get the hard evidence you need, then you take it first to a lawyer and get some divorce papers written up based on what you find. Make sure she gets screwed to the wall, and then you present her with the evidence and the papers at the same time.

 

Give her a kick out the door, square in the ass so that she lands flat on her face. It will be the only thing that will be enough to wake her up from this and make her see what she is really doing.

 

The OM will probably not be pleased to know that she is going to be dumped in his lap, with all of her responsibilities, no place to live, and a sh*t storm following her around.

 

Things will blow up for her. Then you can start working on repair.

[seibert253]

I would do whatever necessary to bust up her plans. Whatever you find, print it out - or if you don't have a printer, email the content to yourself or save it to a disc.

 

She is not going to tell you anything that she doesn't think you already know, or what she thinks she can get away with. She knows you are on to her, so she is going to go deep underground with it, and take greater pains to hide stuff from you. Time for some personal PI work: keylogger, gps, voice activated recorder, sperm detection kit, whatever it takes. DO NOT LET ON THAT YOU ARE INVESTIGATING. Pretend that you are fine with what you already know, and play dumb.

 

I can tell you this: she would not want out of the marriage if she wasn't damned sure that there would be a man waiting to catch her on the way out.

 

Once you get the hard evidence you need, then you take it first to a lawyer and get some divorce papers written up based on what you find. Make sure she gets screwed to the wall, and then you present her with the evidence and the papers at the same time.

 

Give her a kick out the door, square in the ass so that she lands flat on her face. It will be the only thing that will be enough to wake her up from this and make her see what she is really doing.

 

The OM will probably not be pleased to know that she is going to be dumped in his lap, with all of her responsibilities, no place to live, and a sh*t storm following her around.

 

Things will blow up for her. Then you can start working on repair.

 

I agree with most of this, but first I would let her know you want to repair whatever is broke in your marriage, but you do not approve of this "friendship" and you want her to end all contact with the OM.

This puts the ball in her court, so if things blow up, it's her fault, not yours. You laid out your wishes up front, so when she falls flat, she can't blame you, though she will try.

 

Also, I don't think I would act as though everything is normal and play dumb. I would 180 her azz to death. If you're not familar with the 180, research it on this site. It's worked for many a brother and sister here.

 

If she wants to pursue this seperation, fine, she leaves, you don't. As Lucrezia so eliquently puts it "Give her a kick out the door, square in the ass". Don't know if I would be so extreme, but she would come home from work one day, and find her stuff on the curb in front of the home, with the door locks changed.

 

Anyway, this is no longer about her, and what she wants, this is about you. If you want to work through this, you can, but there are things you need to do to insure this. If it doesn't work, then you will be a stronger person in the long run.

Good Luck and God Bless

[exasperated]

Thanks everyone.

 

Last night when we talked I made it clear that I would give her some space/time if that's what she really wanted, but in the context of that I wanted it to be a few weeks where we still saw each other some, talked, etc, and then at the end of that few weeks or a month came back together and talked about how we are feeling about things. I asked that during this time she break off all contact with this other man. At first she agreed, then was kind of back pedaling, then agreed to not see him, but said she might still talk to him or email him. Then finally she said she would break it off with him during this time.

 

But as I mentioned, the email I saw later that night did not sound like that. Then today he sent an email asking what was going on with us. If we were still living together, trying to work on things or not, that type of thing. Then I saw her reply where she said that we are still living together but only for logistics reasons, while we try to figure out a place for one of us to stay. She told him we are not trying to work on it anymore and that we both hope things end.

 

Obviously that is not wholly true and varies between twisting facts/half truths and outright lies.

 

Also, this is sure a lot of contact for a promise that she would break off all contact.

[Athena]

She shows a willingness to deceive you, so things go her way.

 

What do you want to do now that you see she was lying to you about giving the two of you a chance, and to try cut out contact with the other man? Clearly she is giving the OM signals that everything is a Go-ahead for the two of them...