"I need space and I don't know if I love you like that anymore! !"

[geneboy73]

Hi everyone!

 

I am new here. I've been reading the posts and this looks like a nice group to get some feedback from. This is long, sorry!

 

Basically, my wife has given me the "I love you, but I don't love you" speech and she is looking to begin a trial separation ASAP. We have been married 2 years and together for almost 4.5 years. I am 33, she is 27. We moved out to the west coast together for my job and we got engaged rather quick (8 months of dating) and we were the hap-happiest of couples for a long time. Since we moved back to the east coast, things have gotten odd. We've always had difficulties in the sexual category. I'm in the mood, she's not or I'm aroused, she's not and vice versa. No one takes the whole blame here. It's something we always struggled with.

 

3 months ago I got the "speech" followed by the urge to separate if we can. She said she'd felt that way for a while and that she had sex with me to please ME and she really felt no desire to do so. I held off. It's been 3 months and we've gone back and forth about it. I almost bought a house and moved out. I dragged friends, family, etc into the fray (bad move) and then things got ugly and then resolved themselves for a while.

 

I have been in therapy for 1 month (+ a session 2nite!) We have been getting along great, but she feels no desire to do anything intimate with me. She is very "I'll go to therapy when I want to/you can't force me" right now and she feels this separation is what we have needed for a while.

 

I can't help but feel this is a lot my doing because of many reasons:

1.) When something is wrong, I want to fix things and I can't EVER back down or let things go. 2.) When we had sexual issues or a lack of sex, I ended up being driven to to "taking care of myself" like back when I was single. Then when we were trying to be intimate I'd get anxious ("stage fright") when things weren't going right and lose my mojo or just not be as aroused as I'd like. Yes I used my science background to finally identify why this was happening...

 

I feel terrible about this and I talked to her about it. We talked last nite and she understood and saw how that would affect things. After our talk, the separation issue came back and she is looking for apartments.

 

I am sick and sad about this and I don't want to lose her. She is desperately asking for the space and wants to take is back to the "beginning" of things and date. I tried to talk about how we are going to do things during this trial sep, but she gets mad.

 

Please, if you've been here before or have any advice, I'd love to hear it. I feel awful and I want to make this trial sep work because I truly can't imagine life without her. I feel like I've found the one I have always been looking for and now she doesn't love me like that.

 

Please help, I don't want to lose her!

[LucreziaBorgia]

Is there another man in the picture that you know about or suspect?

[geneboy73]

No.

 

She said there is absolutely no one else. No new numbers, no suspicious calls, or emails that I know of.

 

She said she does not want to cheat on me and that I need to trust her.

 

She just needs space and wants to go back to the feeling of "dating".

 

We never once broke up. She did that a lot with previous guys.

[Gunny376]

First off welcome to LS.

Your fear and desperation of losing her will in and of itself cause you to lose her.

 

The more you try to force her to stay in the marriage, the more and faster you will drive her out of the marriage. In all likely hood, she made the decision to leave the marriage months if not years ago.

 

All the talk about "I love you but I'm not in love with you" and "We need to separate, and will date is nothing but total and complete "fog-talk" and BS! Same deal with the therapist.

 

She's either (a) got someone she's seeing, (b) got someone in the wings, ©) wants to be single and free to pursue relations with other men.

I would strongly encourage you to get Dr. Phil McGraw's "Relationship Rescue" now available at WalMart in the paperback edition for less than $6. I would read it before pursuing additional martial counseling and IC.

 

Begging, crying, pleading, reasoning, talking with her? All that's going to do is piss her off, and aggravate and alienate her even more.

 

IMHO, the best thing that you can do for your marriage and for yourself is to let her go. But by God be a man about it. Don't go chasing after her.

For now I would read ilmw's thread ~ he's a good example of identifying your own personal weaknesses, overcoming them and building on them. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses and building on them is your best hope in dealing with and overcoming.

 

I'm going to be honest with you ~ once a couple separates, especially if it’s the woman that's wanting the separation? Its pretty much over. Just about anything you do or don't do, say or don't say can and will be used against you.

 

And, for the Love of God ~ don't beat yourself up over it. You, I and most of us here had perhaps 1/100th the knowledge, experience we needed to be successfully married in the first place.

 

What you need to be concentrating on right here and now is you and in getting your head and life together ~ without her. You need to regain your balance and your center of conscious.

 

Anyone that comes to LS, that's gotten through this had a plan. Actually you need two of them, a Plan A, and a Plan B, A is for salvaging the marriage, and B is for the worse case? That is to say hoping for the best but prepared for the worse. Goggle Marriagebuiliders and Plan A and Plan B.

 

I would recommend you read Divorcebusting, and put that term in the search engine here at LS and follow the list of do and don'ts.

Most of what you're dealing with is the raw emotion of breaking up, and rejection. Part of it is nothing more than withdrawal from your addiction of her.

 

Your best allies in all of this is maintaining day to day balance in all aspects of your life and in-difference to her leaving.

And, you need to give up on this fairy tale myth of her being "Tha One" there is no "One" She's got nothing what you can't find just as much of ~ if not more, just as good as ~ if not better.

 

In relationships ~ the one that cares the least, controls the relationship ~ and that's not you. And, that is on such an elementary level. You need to evolve beyond that. A good example of that is StubbornbutNice's thread. She loves her husband, and initially wanted to save the marriage ~ but she's not so devastated that she's not in control.

 

Personally, IMHO and based upon my experience ~ I'd let her go, turn my back on her and forget about her. There's no shortage of women, and there are plenty of good women out there looking for a good man.

 

And, last but not least ~ your science background ~ that means your analytical more likely than not. Right here and right now ~ I want you to shut that part of your brain off when it comes to your wife and your marriage. You'll analyze it to the point of paralysis. The men in the white coats will come and get you and carry you away before you figure it out.

[geneboy73]

Gunny,

 

I have to say that your words were very helpful to me and they are what I wanted to hear. They are what my inner dialogue is saying to me on a daily basis and what I need to be listening to!

 

I am planning both A and B as we speak. I want to work on me first and my marriage later. By later meaning she needs to be alone a while to decide what she wants to do and to work through her own issues. Once we do that we can decide if the marriage is worth pursuing. I've done all I can do at this point.

 

She swears up and down that this is NOT an issue of her having anyone or anyone in mind or wanting to see "what's out there". She said to trust her and that she is not wanting to go down that route. I want to trust her but who knows what this separation time is going to do to things. Basically she wants to "date" me and that's what she keeps saying. She said she wants to use this break to take our relationship back to the beginning and rediscover her feelings rather than argue all the time and feel that lack of tending towards intimacy.

 

I want to trust her, but it seems hokey to me. I mean, if you have issues, you work through things TOGETHER like the team you signed up to play for.

 

I know what I need to do. I need to stay focused on me, my health, my career, and me right now. I need to leave her alone and stop chasing her and stop analyzing things into the ground. I analyze things for a living and yes I tend to look at problems to the sub-atomic level on a daily basis. I need to step back and give the space now and just be concerned with me. If she truly loves me, as she says she does, then she will use this break wisely and work out her ****. If not, it's over and I have to move on and find the woman who I deserve.

 

Speaking of moving, she is urging ME to move now. We are living in her grandmother's old house pretty much rent cheap. She is urging me to buy a house, which I can do SOLO, and live there and basically live between the 2 homes with her while we work on things. We talked about this before. Do I do it? It provides me with what I want, my own space and a home that the two of us can move into IF she gets her things squared away. She even goes so far to say that if we did divorce, she would not screw me over. She also talks about how we would work on the house together and do things when our situation is worked out.

 

I am confused about this issue. I'm being a little selfish in the buying a house thing. But don't I need to be a little more selfish now?

 

Talk soon.

[Not_That_Innocent]

Hi- I understand where your wife is coming from because I am in a similar situation w/ my husband. I love him dearly, he is a good man and one of the best things that ever happened to me. Problem is, after being together 13 years the passion started to fade. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we had difficulty communicating. My husband is the type who doesn't like to talk about his feelings and would often withold stuff from me simply because he was afraid to talk about it. The lack of communication ate into the intimacy, which ate into the passion. A little over a year ago I had a hysterectomy and after the surgery I felt a lot different. I craved sex and passion but didn't want that from my husband because there was no intimacy. I had sex with him, but only because I felt obligated. There were times when we would do it I would literally roll my eyes and think to myself "let's hurry up and get this over with." Let me say that the reason I felt obligated is because other than being emotionally unavailable, my husband is a good man. He is kind, honest, hard working, loyal - most everything that one could ask for in a partner.

But one huge thing missing for me is that I wanted to feel sexy, turned on, etc.

 

Last November I started a new job working mostly with males. Not to toot my own horn, but I am an attractive woman and the men I work with noticed me. It felt really good to feel sexy and to know that I've still got it. Then - all heck broke loose when one man in particular started giving me a lot of attention. Given my new found confidence, I started giving attention back to him. After about a month of just talking and being friends we ended up taking the relationship to the next level. I felt bad about cheating on my husband because it's not something I ever thought I would do. But then again, I felt good because this guy is hot and we were so good together sexually and the relationship gave me the passion and fire I didn't have in my marriage.

 

I ended up separating from my husband. Not because of the new guy, I mean he was definitely the catalyst, but I didn't move out because of him. I moved out because I realized what I was missing in my marriage was very important and as long as I don't have it I would continue to cheat. My husband knows about the other man (to some extent), but he is trying very hard still to win me back. The thing is, I don't know if I am in love with my husband anymore. Don't get me wrong, I love him, but I don't feel all giddy about him the way I used to and he knows this. We agreed to separate for six months and it's been almost a month now. We are still good friends and spend time together and talk on the phone a lot. I'm still seeing the other guy too, but it's nothing serious really - it's mostly just about the sex.

 

I share all of this with you because perhaps your wife has someone she is seeing on the side. You should ask her. And if she tells you that she's not in love with you anymore, as much as it may hurt it's probably true. I don't know what advice to give you as far as winning her back other than just give her the space she's asking for so that she can sort through things. You would hate it if you two got back together when she really didn't want to. It will only cause you more heartache. JMO

[Guest]

Gunny has some really good info. The "the one that cares less is the one that controls the relationship" quote is stuck to my monitor!

 

I understand what you're going through as I'm further along the same path. I took a lot of the advice I found on here (mostly same stuff my coun$elor was telling me btw) and I'm getting some positive results with my W and more important, A LOT of positive results with ME! It still doesn't make a damn bit of sense but here's my 5 cents.

 

1) Take care of #1, she sure is!

2) Look around, shop around, meet around, (just don't sleep around). Take a peek at sites like Match.com, and if you're like me you will see quickly that there are women all over looking for good guys. I'll say nothing more than it was a huge boost to my ego that I really needed and helped me to "grow a {bigger} pair" ;-)

3) Don't plead, beg, reason, analyze, or ask her why. Gunny is right, it will make you crazy. There is no reason for this other than she's bored and selfish and just like everything else in our disposable, flavor-of-the-day society. Ever hear the term "It's all about me"? Imho it's an epidemic.

4) While you're still together, do not kiss, hug, compliment, say "I love you" or do any of that old married stuff. However, do not ignore her, sulk, be aloof, or mean. I know it's hard but show her you are in control of YOU.

5) Get individual counseling first. It will help YOU much more (ARE YOU GETTING THE "YOU" THEME YET?) However I will say that our MC has been very helpful getting my W to see my side (and I hers) and also understanding that separation rarely is the fun time away women think it is, that it's almost always permanent.

6) Finally, if you must, tell her calmly and confidently to go. Tell her you will be ok without her (you will!) and that you hope she finds what she wants and that you will hope the two of you can continue working on the marriage. Leave it at that. Then move on to find whatever or whomever is next for you, and see where it all goes.

 

Good luck.

[1DeadB]

Sorry gene. It sounds to me like she is already gone and that she is just finalizing her exit plan.

 

A trial sep means...she's goes out and you sit at home and wait.

 

The sooner you realize that you need to get on with your life the better for you.

 

A sex therapist may help you at this point!

[Clavage666]

Sorry gene. It sounds to me like she is already gone and that she is just finalizing her exit plan.

 

A trial sep means...she's goes out and you sit at home and wait.

 

The sooner you realize that you need to get on with your life the better for you.

 

A sex therapist may help you at this point!

 

Can you see more than one sex tharapist??

[Gunny376]

This is most definately not the time to be making life altering choices ~ i.e. buying a house ~ until you've got your feet firmly on the ground and the dust has settled.

 

Most creditors find out that you're going through martial troubles ~ divorce ~ their like "Ah Hell, here we go!"

 

A lot of people that get divorce ending up needing a second attorney ~ a bankruptcy one!

 

Your wife is talking the talk ~ lets see if she can walk the walk? I would say that less than 1% can or do. Usuually, its just their way of easing out the backdoor.

 

I've been at this game long enough ~ if were me ~ I'd tell her to not be going ~ be f******* gone! And don't let the door hit you in the azz on the way out! But, then again, I'm a "softee!":p

 

To me? Either be part of the soulution and answers, instead of part of the problem and questions or be gone! Just that plain ~ just that simple!

 

Like I said, work on you first, and take this time to get your life squared away 24/7 mentally, mentailly, emotionally, spiritually, financially. You lived 28.5 years just fine without her, you'll do just fine the rest of your life with or without her.

[geneboy73]

She swears that "another guy" or "prospect" is not the issue and asks me to trust her and give her the space and time to think about things.

 

I know the red flags are all there and I am doing my detective work as much as I can without endangering things. I know it will hurt, but I need to know if something is going on.

 

What can I say though, it might be a possibility at this point since she has been spending alot of evenings out with new friends from work and wanting to go out a lot more and making herself look as pretty as she can.

 

From my talks with her sister and her friends, the "other" is non-existent and she is not a cheater from her history. She alwas has problem with her men and breaks up and get back together. We have never broken up.

 

My wife has never been a "sexual dynamo" and her libido has always been low. After 6 mos, I had to initiate always and ask for sex, which was usually turned down. She was assaulted on a vacation 1 year before we met. I suspect this is an issue and her behavior (tension/anxiety about sex) is consistent with aversion. She is also depressed and takes zoloft daily.

 

Enough science for now...

 

I am feeling a bit better, but i have waves of dread here and there. It's nice to know there are people willing to share out there!

[1DeadB]

Can you see more than one sex tharapist??

 

That can be an expensive hobby.

[Ireallyhatecheating]

Hi everyone!

 

I am new here. I've been reading the posts and this looks like a nice group to get some feedback from. This is long, sorry!

 

Basically, my wife has given me the "I love you, but I don't love you" speech and she is looking to begin a trial separation ASAP. We have been married 2 years and together for almost 4.5 years. I am 33, she is 27. We moved out to the west coast together for my job and we got engaged rather quick (8 months of dating) and we were the hap-happiest of couples for a long time. Since we moved back to the east coast, things have gotten odd. We've always had difficulties in the sexual category. I'm in the mood, she's not or I'm aroused, she's not and vice versa. No one takes the whole blame here. It's something we always struggled with.

 

3 months ago I got the "speech" followed by the urge to separate if we can. She said she'd felt that way for a while and that she had sex with me to please ME and she really felt no desire to do so. I held off. It's been 3 months and we've gone back and forth about it. I almost bought a house and moved out. I dragged friends, family, etc into the fray (bad move) and then things got ugly and then resolved themselves for a while.

 

I have been in therapy for 1 month (+ a session 2nite!) We have been getting along great, but she feels no desire to do anything intimate with me. She is very "I'll go to therapy when I want to/you can't force me" right now and she feels this separation is what we have needed for a while.

 

I can't help but feel this is a lot my doing because of many reasons:

1.) When something is wrong, I want to fix things and I can't EVER back down or let things go. 2.) When we had sexual issues or a lack of sex, I ended up being driven to to "taking care of myself" like back when I was single. Then when we were trying to be intimate I'd get anxious ("stage fright") when things weren't going right and lose my mojo or just not be as aroused as I'd like. Yes I used my science background to finally identify why this was happening...

 

I feel terrible about this and I talked to her about it. We talked last nite and she understood and saw how that would affect things. After our talk, the separation issue came back and she is looking for apartments.

 

I am sick and sad about this and I don't want to lose her. She is desperately asking for the space and wants to take is back to the "beginning" of things and date. I tried to talk about how we are going to do things during this trial sep, but she gets mad.

 

Please, if you've been here before or have any advice, I'd love to hear it. I feel awful and I want to make this trial sep work because I truly can't imagine life without her. I feel like I've found the one I have always been looking for and now she doesn't love me like that.

 

Please help, I don't want to lose her!

 

Dude....I want you to take this in a constructive way, that is one of the weakest, most metrosexual posts I have ever read, I am going to have to ask you to turn in your balls until you're ready to report back to duty.

 

You are a MAN, act like one, DO NOT chase, beg, plead, cry, etc. if she doesn't want you then YOU stop wanting her. Why would you want to be with a woman who has NO respect for you.

 

(Now picture me as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather)

 

I smack your face and say: Stop crying like a little girl and act like a MAN!

 

Her trying to let you down "easy" is a slow torture which she enjoys, what do you think her next little revelation will be? I'll tell you now:

 

I'm "with" someone else now-translation, I'm banging this guy so hard I can barely walk, I'm putting my tongue in places you can only dream about, etc.

 

RUN, don't walk to an old girlfriend, some chick who's been trying to bang you or to a prostitute and LAY THE WOOD LIKE A MAN, GET YOUR BALLS BACK. Tell her you're fine with her situation and have moved on, do NOT give her one more ounce of satisfaction.

 

Then MAYBE we will return you your balls and let you back into the club.

[1DeadB]

Dude....I want you to take this in a constructive way, that is one of the weakest, most metrosexual posts I have ever read, I am going to have to ask you to turn in your balls until you're ready to report back to duty.

 

You are a MAN, act like one, DO NOT chase, beg, plead, cry, etc. if she doesn't want you then YOU stop wanting her. Why would you want to be with a woman who has NO respect for you.

 

(Now picture me as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather)

 

I smack your face and say: Stop crying like a little girl and act like a MAN!

 

Her trying to let you down "easy" is a slow torture which she enjoys, what do you think her next little revelation will be? I'll tell you now:

 

I'm "with" someone else now-translation, I'm banging this guy so hard I can barely walk, I'm putting my tongue in places you can only dream about, etc.

 

RUN, don't walk to an old girlfriend, some chick who's been trying to bang you or to a prostitute and LAY THE WOOD LIKE A MAN, GET YOUR BALLS BACK. Tell her you're fine with her situation and have moved on, do NOT give her one more ounce of satisfaction.

 

Then MAYBE we will return you your balls and let you back into the club.

 

WOW!!!!!!!

[AnneB49]

Dude....I want you to take this in a constructive way, that is one of the weakest, most metrosexual posts I have ever read, I am going to have to ask you to turn in your balls until you're ready to report back to duty.

 

You are a MAN, act like one, DO NOT chase, beg, plead, cry, etc. if she doesn't want you then YOU stop wanting her. Why would you want to be with a woman who has NO respect for you.

 

(Now picture me as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather)

 

I smack your face and say: Stop crying like a little girl and act like a MAN!

 

Her trying to let you down "easy" is a slow torture which she enjoys, what do you think her next little revelation will be? I'll tell you now:

 

I'm "with" someone else now-translation, I'm banging this guy so hard I can barely walk, I'm putting my tongue in places you can only dream about, etc.

 

RUN, don't walk to an old girlfriend, some chick who's been trying to bang you or to a prostitute and LAY THE WOOD LIKE A MAN, GET YOUR BALLS BACK. Tell her you're fine with her situation and have moved on, do NOT give her one more ounce of satisfaction.

 

Then MAYBE we will return you your balls and let you back into the club.

 

I concur...all my single girlfriends bitch constantly about how hard it is to find a real man...you know the fix your car, beer drinking type...all the guys nowadays that are single are the shrimp sauteing, zinfandel drinking type...it seems all wrong...maybe that is why they are single...

 

maybe that is why she is leaving...

[geneboy73]

Dude,

 

ROTFL!!!!! I love the Godfather reference, you have no idea how that significant that is to me... I would buy you a beer if you were here right now!

 

I hear everything you are saying man, and YES, I need to be a man right now and remember that the whole time this garbage is going on. I found my balls and I wanna keep them...

 

I do deserve respect and I haven't been getting it. I do feel like she is looking for the back door and I feel like she is setting me up as a safety net in case her little "soul-searching" adventure is a wash. In other words, I want you out of the way a while and if something better comes along AWESOME, if not, I still have you, AWESOME and by the way, mind if I move back in and treat you like crap again. That is how I feel right now, this second.

 

I got smiles and looks from two cute girls today and it made me feel great and I know I can will move on at some point soon. I deserve better than this treatment and it's time to remember that every minute things feel bad.

 

Why do I have the feeling every time she says she thinks the sep idea is a "positive move for us" that she means that though and wants to use that time for working on us? She keeps saying that and says we will see each other a lot and plan things and do things and that this time will be good. She keeps talking about these European "Living Apart Together" (As Dane Cook says, Google that S!@T!) and says she wants to try that? Last week we were planning trips and talking about home buying later this year and how she thought things were getting better? WTF!!! That's why I am so confused. She goes back and forth so often. Maybe another reason I need to get away.

 

 

I will take your constructive criticism to hear. I never wanna hear about her "conquests" post ME!

 

Is it terrible I do the KEYLOGGER thing and just do a quick email check? She has been acting funny with the laptop and closing windows really fast.

 

Working on me now.-CAB

[Gunny376]

Dude....I want you to take this in a constructive way, that is one of the weakest, most metrosexual posts I have ever read, I am going to have to ask you to turn in your balls until you're ready to report back to duty.

 

You are a MAN, act like one, DO NOT chase, beg, plead, cry, etc. if she doesn't want you then YOU stop wanting her. Why would you want to be with a woman who has NO respect for you.

 

(Now picture me as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather)

 

I smack your face and say: Stop crying like a little girl and act like a MAN!

 

Her trying to let you down "easy" is a slow torture which she enjoys, what do you think her next little revelation will be? I'll tell you now:

 

I'm "with" someone else now-translation, I'm banging this guy so hard I can barely walk, I'm putting my tongue in places you can only dream about, etc.

 

RUN, don't walk to an old girlfriend, some chick who's been trying to bang you or to a prostitute and LAY THE WOOD LIKE A MAN, GET YOUR BALLS BACK. Tell her you're fine with her situation and have moved on, do NOT give her one more ounce of satisfaction.

 

Then MAYBE we will return you your balls and let you back into the club.

 

 

OoooooRaaaaa! Get some!

Ultimately, when a woman tells you she's leaving ~ all it really means when it comes down to the bottom of the pan is that you've got to get off your dead azz and go find some new girl friends ~

DAMN THE BAD LUCK!

[Ireallyhatecheating]

OoooooRaaaaa! Get some!

 

Ultimately, when a woman tells you she's leaving ~ all it really means when it comes down to the bottom of the pan is that you've got to get off your dead azz and go find some new girl friends ~

 

DAMN THE BAD LUCK!

 

 

Thanks Gunny, who better than a Gunnery Sargeant to be the "holder" of the balls. Do NOT let this guy back into the club until he has reported back at least 3 "kills".

[geneboy73]

Hey c'mon!

 

Gimme a little bit of a break. I AM that kind of guy and I feel I give her what she needs all around and that includes the sex part which I am sure someone was ready to post a reply about!

 

Sorry for the emo/metro post, but this is heavy crap right now and kind of out of nowhere for me! I have been cheated on before really badly by a girl who was "seeing the town" on the side. I have been down that road and it sucks.

 

What sucks more right now is the constant yo-yo she is providing for me. She's ok, then she's not... She's the type that nothing pleases her, NOTHING. Always bitching about this and that. She' either happy or not. If things end, I will move on and find a better person to love and a better person to love me. She will take her problems and put them in some other tool's shed.

 

I know you people have to be a little tough, I guess that's what happens when u post your troubles on a forum...

[geneboy73]

Sigh...

 

The hazing has begun!

 

When I have "kills" I will report...

 

For now I have to figure out what to do next. WTF do you do? Go live on your friends' couches? Go rent a place to myself?

 

I'm leaving town for a week though for a trip we were supposed to go on together to CA to visit friends. I guess that is a start.

[jmargel]

I think I could put it a little better in terms for you to understand. It's called 'Tough Love', and it centers around your spouse having to face consequences and responsibilities for her actions.

 

There could be a multitude of reasons why she wants to seperate, however not all of it is your fault. She has been placing 100% of the blame on you and you are there tolerating this. As long as you continue to do this, you are enabling her to re-enforce in her mind that she is right. That any actions afterwards are justified including dating others.

 

What you want to say to her is something to this effect: "Babe, I love you, that's something that doesn't need to be said, however your attitude right now is not something I care for. I am offering to goto Marriage Counseling with you, since I know we BOTH contributed to this, not just me. However if you don't want to goto marriage counseling then I will have to go on my own. There are no guarantees that I will be around when you decide you are ready again if that happens. I need to move on with my own life, especially since you don't desire to fix our problems right now.

 

Unless we get to the root of this problem and deal with it in the right way, then it'll just grow back and we'll continue to have this problem. If you really love me I hope you will join me in couseling with the mindset of fixing these things."

 

Make HER face the possibility of losing YOU. Not the other way around.

 

Honestly it sounds like she has some maturity issues as well. Give us a little more background on her personality.

[geneboy73]

Oh, one more thing, if I do end up "single" again, I should be OK and racking up some "kills" that you will hear about. I work as a scientist for a major university. There are plenty of ladies running around here and there is a very good dating scene in my city. When I went to graduate school here I had a FINE time and had some "kills" to be proud of. I was the bad TA who dated the cuties in class.

 

If things go sour and we split, I need to be THAT GUY again. That is one thing keeping me positive about things right now.

 

So, should we "separate" or one of us move out (which is probably inevitable), is it OK that I begin the "quest" and start maybe doing the online dating or start talking to ladies when I go out LIKE SOON? She says she isn't doing that on her end (repeatedly). Do I owe her that respect? Or do I put myself back in my old way of thinking, strap on that rusty set of balls, and get my ass back out there and get in the game?

[geneboy73]

Damn this stuff is addictive! Good thing its Friday!

 

Here are my replies,

 

"I am offering to goto Marriage Counseling with you, since I know we BOTH contributed to this, not just me. However if you don't want to goto marriage counseling then I will have to go on my own.

 

Unless we get to the root of this problem and deal with it in the right way, then it'll just grow back and we'll continue to have this problem. If you really love me I hope you will join me in couseling with the mindset of fixing these things."

 

I have spun it this way for sure, I am going on my own and it's helping me. She won't go to counseling. She feels forced. I really would appreciate if she did because it will help her. My therapist is great and he's telling me a lot of the same stuff I hear here (i.e. WORK ON YOU!)

 

"Make HER face the possibility of losing YOU. Not the other way around."

 

This is something I am going to hammer home for sure. I want her to realize this risk for sure, because it is true. Time apart will make this more likely for both of us and I am not going to sit and wait for the phone to ring.

 

"Honestly it sounds like she has some maturity issues as well. Give us a little more background on her personality."

 

My wife is a bit younger (6 years) and yes I think she is very immature about a lot of things. When I met her she was a partier. She likes to go out a lot and so do I. I work hard and I play hard, but I learned my lesson in grad school and alcohol is a force to be reckoned with and it needs to be respected. Her family has drinking issues and a dark history of associated problems.

 

Her dark side comes out in when she is drinking and it don't take much to bring it out (3-4 glasses of wine or beers, but she goes beyond). At times she realizes the drinking is in the way and she stops because she sees it hurting people around her. Sometimes she gets defensive though when I bring it up and she turns against me and says that I am "controlling her like her mom" and she pulls away. This is what she's been doing a lot since our troubles got worse a few months ago and when the sex took a nosedive. She is also depressed and takes Zoloft. Drinking + Zoloft is a no-no. She's very immature, she thinks the world revolves around her.

 

She get frustrated with things very easy and snaps at the simplest things. Then she feels like an ass afterwards. She has a "terrier-like" mentality. I know because we have a terrier or two... When she gets what she wants, she is happy, when she doesn't she pouts. Her folks spoiled her. They are good people but they never PUSHED her. C's were good enough. She could do better though but to them mediocre was good enough. In short, when something is hard, she quits. Jobs, friendships, relationships, etc... Scorched earth dude, scorched earth...

 

We got engaged and married pretty quick and I didn't get to see too many of these hang ups and I am a "fixer" so I thought she would improve and I saw her improve. We moved home and all hell broke loose.

 

I feel she is in a dilemma. This marriage thing is tough and you have to work HARD at it, but she is conditioned to quit when things get tough. I think she still loves me, but she is afraid to push herself and afraid to talk to a therapist and identify her issues because that puts the blame back on her. She doesn't want to put the effort into it and commit. I share part of the blame, but I am working on my **** and I am making progress...

 

Gunny and my therapsit said the same "you are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution."

 

Ain't that the truth...

[Guest]

Why do men always think women leave for someone else? why cant they just be unhappy?

 

 

First off welcome to LS.

Your fear and desperation of losing her will in and of itself cause you to lose her.

 

The more you try to force her to stay in the marriage, the more and faster you will drive her out of the marriage. In all likely hood, she made the decision to leave the marriage months if not years ago.

 

All the talk about "I love you but I'm not in love with you" and "We need to separate, and will date is nothing but total and complete "fog-talk" and BS! Same deal with the therapist.

 

She's either (a) got someone she's seeing, (b) got someone in the wings, ©) wants to be single and free to pursue relations with other men.

I would strongly encourage you to get Dr. Phil McGraw's "Relationship Rescue" now available at WalMart in the paperback edition for less than $6. I would read it before pursuing additional martial counseling and IC.

 

Begging, crying, pleading, reasoning, talking with her? All that's going to do is piss her off, and aggravate and alienate her even more.

 

IMHO, the best thing that you can do for your marriage and for yourself is to let her go. But by God be a man about it. Don't go chasing after her.

For now I would read ilmw's thread ~ he's a good example of identifying your own personal weaknesses, overcoming them and building on them. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses and building on them is your best hope in dealing with and overcoming.

 

I'm going to be honest with you ~ once a couple separates, especially if it’s the woman that's wanting the separation? Its pretty much over. Just about anything you do or don't do, say or don't say can and will be used against you.

 

And, for the Love of God ~ don't beat yourself up over it. You, I and most of us here had perhaps 1/100th the knowledge, experience we needed to be successfully married in the first place.

 

What you need to be concentrating on right here and now is you and in getting your head and life together ~ without her. You need to regain your balance and your center of conscious.

 

Anyone that comes to LS, that's gotten through this had a plan. Actually you need two of them, a Plan A, and a Plan B, A is for salvaging the marriage, and B is for the worse case? That is to say hoping for the best but prepared for the worse. Goggle Marriagebuiliders and Plan A and Plan B.

 

I would recommend you read Divorcebusting, and put that term in the search engine here at LS and follow the list of do and don'ts.

Most of what you're dealing with is the raw emotion of breaking up, and rejection. Part of it is nothing more than withdrawal from your addiction of her.

 

Your best allies in all of this is maintaining day to day balance in all aspects of your life and in-difference to her leaving.

And, you need to give up on this fairy tale myth of her being "Tha One" there is no "One" She's got nothing what you can't find just as much of ~ if not more, just as good as ~ if not better.

 

In relationships ~ the one that cares the least, controls the relationship ~ and that's not you. And, that is on such an elementary level. You need to evolve beyond that. A good example of that is StubbornbutNice's thread. She loves her husband, and initially wanted to save the marriage ~ but she's not so devastated that she's not in control.

 

Personally, IMHO and based upon my experience ~ I'd let her go, turn my back on her and forget about her. There's no shortage of women, and there are plenty of good women out there looking for a good man.

 

And, last but not least ~ your science background ~ that means your analytical more likely than not. Right here and right now ~ I want you to shut that part of your brain off when it comes to your wife and your marriage. You'll analyze it to the point of paralysis. The men in the white coats will come and get you and carry you away before you figure it out.

[Gunny376]

I'd be letting the Princess know that she can and will be replaced. She's still got this sophomoric mentality that as the female in the relationship that she's got the supply and you've got the demand. I'd be letting her know.

 

You've got to understand that you teach people how to treat you ~ and she's treating you the way that she is because she's learned from you~!

 

Time to pull some 180's and let her know that you're not playing that crap. One of the things that I do with women ~ is I keep the guessing. Its not playing games ~ its keeping them guessing and surprise of surprises? Interested ~ they never know from which direction I'm coming from. I say no when they expect yes, I say no just to say no? LOL. I say yes when they expect no because they've been hearing no so much. When they expect me to get mad ~ I laugh and smile, etc. The objective is to see what all the other guys are doing and do the oppossite.

 

With this little gal ~ I'd be telling her ~ "bu-bye! I'd be giving her the gift of missing me. She wants to seperate? I'd give her the seperation, but it wouldn't be on her terms and not her conditions.

 

OW? WTF, she expects you to be sitting around counting flowers on the wallpaper, smoking cigarettes until dawn, playing solitaire with a deck of 51? I don't think so. If she didn't want me ~ I'd get busy finding me someone who appreciate what I've got to offer, and it sounds as though you've got a lot going for yourself. A lot to offer, and trust me Pal there are plenty of women that wouldn't mind putting their shoes under your bed for a night or two.

 

She's got you sold on the idea that she's got the only supply of puddin' around ~ got a news flash there for you Slick! There's no freaking shortage of women ~ the world is covered up with them ~ about 3 billion of them. On top of that ~ you could be working at MikeyD's flipping hamburgers and you're still earn more money than half the people in the wrold (Recent UN economic report~ the average person in the world lives off of just $2 a day)

 

I've got a lot of respect for jmargel ~ he's a little more refined than me. Me? I'd be telling this gal ~ "in for a penny ~ in for a pound" ~ you walk out that door ~ all bets are off! Call it seperation, call it divorce, call it any damn thing you want to ~ me? I call it quits!"

 

I mean for real the amount of time, effort, energy, money that you would spend on getting this one back could, would net you 10 others that appreciate what you've got.

 

You're 33 and work at a major university and you're sweating this gal!? WTF Dude! I'd be telling this gal, "Nope! Sorry! You had your chance! Quit be selfish! Its time to give the other women in the world their shot!"

 

Finally, the really good thing about being a man ~ and going through this crap is that you learn a little, (mostly about how much you've got to learn ~ LOL! ) but the one great thing about being a man and going through a divorce?

 

YOU GET YOUR BALLS BACK!!!!!!