In-Limbo Posted September 18, 2011 Posted September 18, 2011 Hi, newbie here. Name's Al. 'Relationship' details are married for 18 months and together for 8yrs total. Wife had gone through G.I.G.S only 5 weeks ago. Prior to that our relationship had become complacent and there have been significant changes in her job that empowered her. There was some emotional cheating involved on her part while she had gigs, but it didn't get too heavy. But her wanting to live "unattched" was too strong for her to ignore. 2 weeks ago we finally came to an agreement to separate, where i proceeded to tell her that I will need to move on to someone new as quick as possible so i can get over her and heal as quick as possible...and there will be very little to no chance of us getting back together. She told me that me saying that really hit home for her and she basically regreted the decision to separate. She contacted me 2 days later saying she wanted to come back and make things work, which i agreed to. We told each other that through all the drama we fell OUT of love with each other to some extent. That was broken and we agreed to do our best to try to fix it. Part of the process is that she must find time to do her own thing, like go out with girlfriends more, take more weekend trips with her life-long friend, to make our relationship less complacent. We started going to a marriage counsellor, our 2nd session this week - last was 2 weeks ago. For me, working on our marriage has consumed me. I have read so many articles and explored this site to get some 'help'. She has done very little in terms of exploring other avenues of guidance and has said that she's getting by day to day acting like nothing happened in the hope that we gel back naturally and that the next counselling session will be an added bonus. In the mean time, she is loving going out with her work friends at least 3 times a week and is even planning on flying over east soon over a weekend to meet up with her life-long girlfriend. In my opinion, I thought that she could also make fixing our marriage consume her like it has me. But it just seems to me that our marriage is playing 2nd fiddle to her doing her own thing. Am I going crazy over nothing, or am I wasting my time here? What is everyone else's take on this?
smudge21 Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 At a guess, I would say she at first went looking elsewhere for something she wasn't getting at home (affection... attention... whatever) and didn't really think of the consequences of her actions until you told her you had to move on. That hit home hard and she realised what she was about to lose. So you got back together and decided to work on things. However, by getting back together she's settled again into the routine and lifestyle that may have lead to her getting GIGS in the first place. She feels that everything is fine once again and she can go about her usual business, whereas you obviously are in a totally different place. You need to sit her down and explain your feelings on this as it's clear that unless the issues are sorted now, then it could end up with another split between you two. She needs to know that. That's just my impression of it from what you told me...
smudge21 Posted September 20, 2011 Posted September 20, 2011 At a guess, I would say she at first went looking elsewhere for something she wasn't getting at home (affection... attention... whatever) and didn't really think of the consequences of her actions until you told her you had to move on. That hit home hard and she realised what she was about to lose. So you got back together and decided to work on things. However, by getting back together she's settled again into the routine and lifestyle that may have lead to her getting GIGS in the first place. She feels that everything is fine once again and she can go about her usual business, whereas you obviously are in a totally different place. You need to sit her down and explain your feelings on this as it's clear that unless the issues are sorted now, then it could end up with another split between you two. She needs to know that. That's just my impression of it from what you told me...
Author In-Limbo Posted September 27, 2011 Author Posted September 27, 2011 (edited) Sorry for the delayed response. There's been a bit going on. Thanks for your response, smudge21 I think that she's finally realised that fixing us should be more priority. She'll make more effort in concentrating on doing things together, instead of looking forward to doing things apart. We've gone over a few things, especially expectations of each other in the relationship -in terms of boundaries and "deal breakers". At the same time we've agreed to try to live day to day like we used to do in the days when it was 'really great'. However, I feel that not knowing exactly where we went wrong to make things between us stale, we'll probably find ourselves in the same predicament within a short time frame. And I fear that, with her new lease in life - going out and having fun with others - she'll find somesort of comfort in getting close with another man again. At the same time, I find it difficult in approaching her with 'text book' ways to help usbecome really close again. She finds ithard to accept the clinical process of telling each other how we feel, what our emotional needs are etc. Are there easier ways for me to approach this? Edited September 27, 2011 by In-Limbo
Author In-Limbo Posted September 27, 2011 Author Posted September 27, 2011 What does G.I.G.S. stand for? "Grass Is Greener" Syndrome Covered in this thread, with different views fro mdifferent people: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t279056/?highlight=grass+greener
KathyM Posted September 27, 2011 Posted September 27, 2011 Hi, newbie here. Name's Al. 'Relationship' details are married for 18 months and together for 8yrs total. Wife had gone through G.I.G.S only 5 weeks ago. Prior to that our relationship had become complacent and there have been significant changes in her job that empowered her. There was some emotional cheating involved on her part while she had gigs, but it didn't get too heavy. But her wanting to live "unattched" was too strong for her to ignore. 2 weeks ago we finally came to an agreement to separate, where i proceeded to tell her that I will need to move on to someone new as quick as possible so i can get over her and heal as quick as possible...and there will be very little to no chance of us getting back together. She told me that me saying that really hit home for her and she basically regreted the decision to separate. She contacted me 2 days later saying she wanted to come back and make things work, which i agreed to. We told each other that through all the drama we fell OUT of love with each other to some extent. That was broken and we agreed to do our best to try to fix it. Part of the process is that she must find time to do her own thing, like go out with girlfriends more, take more weekend trips with her life-long friend, to make our relationship less complacent. We started going to a marriage counsellor, our 2nd session this week - last was 2 weeks ago. For me, working on our marriage has consumed me. I have read so many articles and explored this site to get some 'help'. She has done very little in terms of exploring other avenues of guidance and has said that she's getting by day to day acting like nothing happened in the hope that we gel back naturally and that the next counselling session will be an added bonus. In the mean time, she is loving going out with her work friends at least 3 times a week and is even planning on flying over east soon over a weekend to meet up with her life-long girlfriend. In my opinion, I thought that she could also make fixing our marriage consume her like it has me. But it just seems to me that our marriage is playing 2nd fiddle to her doing her own thing. Am I going crazy over nothing, or am I wasting my time here? What is everyone else's take on this? She is investing too much time in other people and other relationships, and not enough time in her marriage. If she wants her marriage to survive, she needs to give that the priority in her life and invest most of her time in reviving her marriage. I can see that you would be very frustrated, since she seems to be stringing you along, not wanting to lose you, but not doing what it takes to stay married and build your relationship. Let her know that in order to have a healthy marriage, she needs to invest a lot of time in nurturing it and in giving the marriage the priority in her life.
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