Friendzoned in marriage following accident - part ways? Depression effect?

[saltnpepper]

Pardon the extensive exposition.

 

This is a tough problem. In brief, I'm feeling rejected/friendzoned in my marriage. But the complicating factors of brain trauma, depression, kids, other stressers, and the possible side effects of the treatment of depression weigh in.

 

Background

 

By way of general background, we've been married about 20 years. We're about 55 me – 45 her, with 2 kids, daughter about starting to drive, son about in middle school. We're both private people. She's had a history of depression, has been treated lightly for many years, used to do really well. A quiet person, openly spiritual in a religious, demonstrative way. A great mother, reasonably organized considering the circumstances. HS education. I am slightly affected by what used to be called Aspergers. I am well compensated, outgoing, friendly, active, focused. I compartmentalize things in my life very well. Spent many years in jobs doing things I couldn't legally or ethically talk about with others. Can keep areas sealed off well. Like my father. I have a hard time reading some people, including my wife. I tend to suffer from some melancholy. Generally I get along very well unless some large load drags on me for a long time, which may be the situation now.

 

A few years ago we were doing very well. Athletics entered her life with the result that her energy level, engagement, and general outlook improved immensely. She spent much time training. I picked up the slack, and often trained with her. Then after a major event she completed in rather grand fashion – a big deal moment in her athletics – she had a significant accident, receiving skull damage, brain injury, and some other injuries that reduced her functioning. Initially I was primarily concerned with getting physical reconstruction completed, doing what could be done (little) for paralysis and loss of feeling. Mostly what could be done was surgical implantation of plates to hold head pieces together and studs to tie off torn ligaments.

 

Nobody briefed me on the aftereffects of traumatic brain injury. She became irritable (that is a very polite way of putting it), forgetful (running out of gas in the car, more than once), confused (half the things on the grocery list gotten; entire highlighted stops missed), and depressed (constant sleep, loss of interest, angry outbursts). During the main recovery period, I relearned cooking and generally took care of more things than I could successfully handle. Lots fell apart a bit and our business suffered monetary losses as a result.

 

She got treatment with Citalopram, an anti-depressant. She seems to do well on it, all things considered. Without it she falls apart, becomes angry, irritable, crazy. Seriously so. Impossible to bear with.

 

She's actually always seemed a bit angry under her lighter depression. Took me a long time to feel and understand what was going on. Usually below the surface. Doesn't seem to matter whether I'm doing something she probably is justified in being angry about or am just working along, loving her in a generally good marriage. Her anger doesn't seem connected with the outside world, just free floating and waiting to attach to something.

 

I understand that the anger and depression are linked, likely have nothing to do with me, may draw from chemical systems in her body or from her childhood. This realization helps greatly, but her anger is still a load.

 

I'm not claiming to be perfect. I do express affection daily, work to stay close to her physically, work dang hard. Attempt to get us to have new and enjoyable experiences. Attempt to get her exercising with me. Sometimes she'll go out and have real fun. It's like starting to push a giant boulder to get this happening. Then I'm back at the bottom of the hill, tired out, and the boulder is awaiting its next push.

 

I don't believe she's really come back from her accident. I recall her being interested in life more, in being more energetic, more interested in me. Now she mainly seems interested in the kids, in puttering along.

 

Depression effect?

 

I understand her lack of energy, failure to notice me, and all that are possibly part of being depressed. But she has energy for herself when she wants to. And for the kids. Getting energy for me seems more uphill. A lot more up hill.

 

I can't tell what's what. I do all I can to avoid thinking her downtimes are hostility or signals that she wants out. I know it's sort of natural with depression. My confidence in the whole relationship has been steadily dropping for many years, with the exception of her active period of training, when everything was heavenly, on its way up, bonding, laughing, enjoying our family. Until the impact, the blood, the ambulance, the surgery. And then the stupid depression pills. It only took 6 months for the blood to wash out of the road. I don't know that it will ever wash out of what used to be us.

 

I can't really know what she's going through. I've had bouts of depression, enough that I know the flavor of it and the resistance. But her level of disfunction lies outside of my experience. She knows I am working hard to help. She smiles. Sometimes I even get a friendly thank you.

 

I understand the whole thing is probably not personal.

 

Until late last year I was fine. Constant support, taking on the family, work work work. Probably didn't take enough time for myself. Somehow as she ramped up past a certain level of functioning things changed. Perhaps I burned out on the effort. And now I feel my love and support and efforts don't make any difference. Maybe I've caught depression myself.

 

I keep thinking maybe the person she was before will come back. But that was a depressed person, too. And things have changed in her. She's not the same. Her brain got rattled around a whole bunch.

 

I suspect that staying home with her so long didn't help, and I've been getting out. That helps. With complications.

 

Friendzoned, sort of

 

Mostly I feel friendzoned. She's affectionate, but usually in a distant way. She'll snuggle if I start it, but that usually stops pretty quickly. She might kiss if prompted, but it's polite.

 

She might be pushing me away. My favorite chair is an example. I have a little hearing loss and loud squeaky noises hurt. I also like a pleasant environment. In the last year she got a noisy little bird. Cute thing. Without notice, build a stand/cage system next to my chair. Then she got a mouse, one of the smellier creatures. I am in that chair. The mouse is smelling bad. I agreed to the bird, but I agreed to the bird in my son's room, not next to my head. I never got asked on the mouse. My things are generally “in the way.” Well. They were there first, she puts things beyond them where my things will be in the way. This passive-aggressive stuff.

 

Regardless, we still seem to be great friends. Except she shuns sex most of the time. Can go an entire period to period cycle without sex. This could be her medicine, or the depression.

 

When we do have sex it's technically better than ever. She really does whatever she can to get in the zone, to make it very special, she does things she's been shy to do before, and seems to orgasm more easily. She's pretty hot. Very warm, open, touching, long lasting, intense, fabulous. Her focus seems mainly inward, but she reaches out very hard at those times. I feel some kind of barrier, and it's not dying out. She's distant, even at the closest moments. And too soon she's back to her side of the bed, and I'm making her hot and could she have some room.

 

Mostly though, she doesn't take hints on going to bed early. She'll flirt all day and then be too tired. She rarely (once that I can remember since her accident) initiates sex. A polite kiss at bedtime seems an imposition.

 

Even in conversation, she's lively for a while, but then conversation lags. Prefers to be working on computer, facebook. Reading. Connection breaks relatively quickly. This isn't what happens with my friends, few as they are.

 

Overall, she prefers to stay at home, sleep late in the mornings, putter around. Seems her world got very small and is only slowly expanding, if at all.

 

I seek and desire physical and emotional closeness. I walk up and quietly hug, make eye contact. Smile. Chat. Flirt. Not constantly, but always show affection. I don't have to fake this or make an effort, it's natural.

 

She seems to be receding as a mate and becoming a friend. This is not a sudden new thing, but is a continuing trend I've been fighting tremendously hard for years. Before the accident, I thought we had it licked.

 

Family

 

On the other hand, my daughter loves me, although I am mostly taken for granted. We love backpacking and music. But soon she'll be gone, grown up.

 

My son has light Autism. He is opening up to me more and more. Daily contact seems very important for him. He's very like me. He's a quiet loner, but I'm training him to be with people.

 

We do things as a family mostly when I organize them. Little happens except routine unless I do it. Vacations, trips, out to dinner, go to mountains, go to beach, go to mall. Unless it's a school activity. This gets to be old.

 

Outside interests

 

My family mostly wants to stay at home. They're quiet people and we live in a peaceful place. The kids are justifiably tired from school. When there's no school they need a day of rest, then I can take them out. My wife is often willing to just rest at home.

 

In contrast, I love the peace, but need to get out. Most of my friends moved or live too far off for any but rare contact. So I've gotten new ones and taken up activities. Usually activities I'd really like to have company with, preferably my wife.

 

I go to concerts, ride a bicycle, go on motorcycle trips. Hike. Visit the library. Usually alone, sometimes with a family member. Too often along. I've made an effort to meet interesting people. Typically I get to know them, develop a friendship, then they move.

 

Relatively recently (at 55, I tend to let things move systematically rather than rushing) I developed a close relationship with a younger academic person. I used to be an academic. More a discussion-shared interest-advisor type thing in general character, given our substantial age difference. This was intentionally and explicitly platonic (we're both involved otherwise) as agreed to by email. The relationship became (no flames please) non-platonic. We have a strong connection, stronger than either of us are familiar with, ever. But we're involved elsewhere and so on, so we're currently on break to work things out. Physically separated. She's not a beauty, not the right age (over 30 years apart), not planned, doesn't make sense, seemed to be no reason to think we'd be attracted. A long term relationship would seem quite a challenge given our other involvements and momentum. And the difference in life timing, since I'm older than her father. We're fairly bemused by the whole thing: neither of us are prone to fooling around, falling in love, or any of that nonsense. And it violates our carefully thought out ground rules. So much for planning and logic. The energy between us defies logic and exceeds what I thought was possible. The ease we get along highlights the uphill slog I face with my wife. I'm not under the illusion that ease would last forever.

 

Path forward?

 

I'm not interested in leaving my wife. I can't see that she's much interested in being my wife, at least not in all the ways one normally thinks of that relationship. I could, as far as I can tell, build myself a cabin next door (I have the land), visit for dinner and evenings, spend the rest of the time living a separate life. And pretty much we'd each have what we have now. Maybe she wouldn't mind just being friends and raising our family that way. It's not that many more years until the younger is in college.

 

I suspect if I asked her if I was being friendzoned that she'd go ape ****. Be the perfect lover and wife for about 2 weeks. Then drop back pretty quickly. This has happened in various forms before. We're just who we are where we are in life.

 

And I'm lonely. I miss her. I miss our training together, the woods. I really miss her initiating things. I was always getting dressed to go training with her. Now I've been attempting to help her locate her training clothes and so on for a month. Whatever I gather she disperses. Resistance. Then I'm tired, discouraged, and just as lonely.

 

It's a bit of a sticky thing. I'm stuck here. Do I continue to pour energy into a hole, where some comes back, but I'm gradually being worn down? Is it even possible to transition to a friendly relationship and step back? Functionally, getting divorced would increase our costs a great deal with insurance and so on. Probably the logistics could be worked out.

 

I find writing about setting her free to find what she wants feels good. I get the impression she wants something else. Hey, I offer to figure out a way for her to go to school, to get training, to do anything. But I can't decide for her, make her apply, drive her to classes, make her take notes, and take her exams for her. It can't be a ride I design and take, has to be hers. I am even willing to just take the whole family and raise the kids. Leave her completely free. She can fly away. With a big piece of my heart, but I want her to be happy.

 

My nice gf highlights that I can be happier. I don't have illusions about playing house with her. Although I know some make that kind of thing work. Mainly it's demonstrated how hard I have to work to squeeze a little bit of love and affection and happy togetherness from my wife, how distant she's become. The gf and I understand this, and a break was certainly clearly needed. Think we both got a little bit goofy for some time there. Reality slid back in reasonably quickly. It's not as if everything at home came apart when a gf arrived – the home stuff has actually improved a bunch as I've been a little happier!

 

Feedback

 

I welcome thoughts, experiences, suggestions. I'd rather not be flamed, called a cradle robber, blamed or otherwise lambasted. This is tough thing to bear, supporting a spouse through injury and recovery, then finding she's sort of not there any more. The only similar thing I've experienced is watching people I love and know slip into dementia and gradually disappear. Except here the disconnect with our shared world was instant, and the recovery gradual.

 

And I do love and miss her very much. I wish she'd just come home. But I'm losing hope.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

Wow, thanks for sharing such detail.

 

 

As I first began to read, I was starting to get the feeling that you weren't being very fair/good to her in the aftermath of a trauma that was neither her nor your fault.

 

 

At any rate I see your post as a very clear example to others of scenarios to consider before saying: "... until death do us part".

 

 

I don't even flinch about the affair that you had with someone so far-removed from your age, in large part just to share physical affection when your wife seemed to be rendered incapable or disinterested of/in same.

 

The one line in your prose that sticks with me, is where you suggest that if you protested having been "friendzoned" she would... be the perfect wife and lover for about two weeks.

 

This was the first hint in your long offering which suggested she has that capability. As it reads for much of the way, your wife was just someone who had an unfortunate accident and you were rendered to have to deal with the aftermath, "alone" in many ways.

 

SO, you mention you don't want to leave her, AND you mention (imply) that she (has the capability to) "be the perfect wife and lover for about two weeks"...

 

 

This is all a recipe for marriage counseling...

 

and the two of you seem to have less on the line (thus less pressure) than most do when approaching marriage counseling.

 

I have the expectation that your wife has a number of thoughts, feelings and resentments that she would like to express outwardly, mostly toward you, but she too needs the help of a professional just to express them.

 

We can't really glean from your words what HER take/position/place in life feels like, after the accident, and perhaps it has caused a self-confidence wipe-out which you've been unable to assess completely.

 

IF this woman has the capability to be "the perfect wife and lover for about two weeks", then you should sooooooooooo see a marriage counselor !!