john73 Posted June 25, 2009 Posted June 25, 2009 Lately I have been thinking a lot about how our relationship started with my wife. We met in student party and immediately started dating. I was her 2nd. First one had been just one night thing. I had been seriously dating with two girls before her + one or two of short relationships. We were both kind of shy persons and I think one major reason for starting dating was simply availability of someone who seemed interested. Now, fast forwarding... We have been now together 14 years and we have one child (2 years old now). I am sure many married couples have problems when they are busy with kids. Still, what bothers me is that we have never questioned the reasons why we are together. We are both easy going and calm persons, so there rarely is any serious conflict. We would never end up breaking up because of argument. We neither have any big feelings (never had). The problem is that I can easily imagine myself happier with different kind of person. I have changed a lot during these years. Long story short: At some point I was very depressed and burned out. I even considered suicide. This continued for years until I tried leaving out gluten from my diet. It changed everything! "Official" diagnosis would be CFS cured by paleo diet. My happiness set point totally changed. I am much more active person these days and I really want to achieve something in my life. Unfortunately my wife is still more like quiet and easy taking person and I feel we are not that connected anymore (partly because our vision of ideal life is now different). To make things more complicated I have lately become more extroverted and I have received encouragement for my various projects from different people and now I feel that my wife hasn't been that supportive during the years (what did I know, I was introvert who never shared what I did with anyone). I don't yet even have the right questions, but here are some things I am considering: Should I try to somehow reconnect us? Am I risking breaking things in the process? (I kind of see our relationship as candle. Trying to make it burn brighter may burn the whole house down... we rarely talk about "big issues" and I am afraid that we may have more conflict there than is visible daily). Could more open relationship work (trying to keep our friendship, but let it kind of find it's place again)? How to look this from different perspective? Our daughter is very important for me, so avoiding any negative outcome for her is important. My wife is important also and so is my own happiness. Maybe the key question then is would we BOTH be happier together or separated (and still not ruin it for our daughter)? How do you even raise the issue without risking hurting the other one? (I kind of have a feeling that she might have similar feelings I have, but she might be more afraid of having to find a new relationship) What would your advice be? Any good books? Websites?
luvstarved Posted June 26, 2009 Posted June 26, 2009 Honestly it sounds to me like you two don't really even know each other. You have some impression of basic outward personalities but don't seem to have really ever engaged in any sort of intimate discussions about thoughts, desires, opinions. I think the first thing you need to do is a little soul searching about what you want. There is no point in trying to engage in some sort of mutual rebuilding with her if deep in your heart you know it is pointless and you will end up wanting to leave anyway. It's just a waste of time and potentially very hurtful to seem to want to get to know her better and work toward a better relationship just to end it with NAH! Not really interested... If you do decide you want to work on a more intimate relationship then there are all sorts of resources...maybe you could approach her with just the idea that you have been thinking and feel that you would like to kick your relationship up a notch by devoting more time to it and getting to know each other better... Taking some couple quizzes (His Needs/Her Needs, Dr Phil stuff, etc) might open the door to that...but um, don't put your hand on the knob unless you're sure you want to go in...
Author john73 Posted June 26, 2009 Author Posted June 26, 2009 Thanks for reply! I think you are correct about us not really knowing each other. Just saying that "I have changed, we are not compatible anymore, bye bye" would be the easy way out, but it could also be very hurtful. I think I owe her at least a change to see if we could be happier together. I really can't know her before I know her, right?
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