Pete33 Posted December 12, 2012 Posted December 12, 2012 HI, I'm new here and I could really use some outside the family advice, because after a fight I began having this sinking feeling my marriage is doomed. When I tell you the backstory, I have no doubt you'll say, well of course it's doomed! But bear with me. My wife and I have been married for 4yrs, together for 5yrs. We have a 3yr old son. We met and hit it off and fell in love, but she was still attached to that on/off/on/off/on/off dysfunctional ex-bf relationship. I found a couple months into the relationship that she was still some times seeing him, and caught a text on her phone asking to see him friday night. I left then and there, I have cheated once in my life, and I felt so horrible about myself I never did it again, loyalty is a big effing deal to me. ....she fought to get me back saying this thing with her ex is unhealthy and all her friends tell her that too, and she was sorry that she doesn't know why she keeps going back to that drama relationship. I decide to give her another shot, and it was great for many months, we decided to get married.....(because we're idiots, or I am) We were living together and we're planning a wedding, then one night she says she's been feeling "confused" and needs to go think, she leaves the house with her wedding dress on the door and her dog in the house and her rings on the table, said she was going to her moms. She was not, I found out the next day she slept at her ex BF house. We split up obviously, and her family warns me that this is what she does.... She comes back and after a week of back and forth, she says she was just scared, cold feet. Because I'm an idiot and I love her, and feel that old cliche' "i can see the girl she can be" I take her back, and months later we get married.... A few weeks after we're married, she's feeling confused again, and says she needs to go think, she doesn't go to her ex's but does see him... about a week later, she says she's pregnant. *It's definitely mine* She decides to come back and then after a couple weeks, I never hear about the ex again. We go through the pregnancy and have our son (who is now 3), everything in our relationship gets better, and better. And for the last 3 yrs, it's been only getting better on all fronts, financially, how we feel about each other, our family life, everything. My wife suffers from I'd say from some daddy issues, men in her life have never been only platonic, she was a go-go dancer for a short time and this was because of the attention she needs from men. So she has these emotional periods that pop up in arguments, where she says our marriage is a mistake, that she's not always sexually attracted to me, that I sometimes suffocate her, and that I want us in a bubble (i don't I go out and I want us to go out, she has no friends, I do) She's been feeling like she has no social life, or the one she wants, and I push her to go to this crossfit, a weight training, body sculpting class, which I do sometimes too, it's coed. She does, and loves it. She's been getting more social and she's made a friend, a guy trainer, he's a short bald guy, but attractive, and I've met him at the gym along with the other men and women... she's been saying it's just friendly and they have a good deal in common the same sign and all, and I 've been uncomfortable, because I'm think, well you've NEVER had strictly platonic guy friends, never, any guy friend you've had there's been physical contact..... So even though she is night and day from the woman of 5 yrs ago, I still feel a little nervous, I actually think she's just craving social interaction but am nervous about her first friendship this guy form the gym that I don't really know, and all the guys there request her friendship. She says it's hard to make friends with women. My wife doesn't get that there's a reason making friends with guys is easy for her, she's hot, maxim magazine girl hot, and she's bubbly and approachable. And she's got a naturally flirtatious personality, not just with guys, just generally. she's a girlie girl, not a "guys girl", like my sister who can hang with guys and just be one of the guys. I tell her, you think I'm being suffocating, but when you never have guy friends then suddenly you do you're asking me if I can copy a cd for him. I say you "can have guy firends" but thats broad statment, we are married, and some things just aren't appropriate, and I have to wonder why none of the women in the class are becoming friends and all of the guys are requesting yours? So she's been more social lately and she's started saying, I'm felign that crazy feelign she used to feel, like she's gotta get out, being a mom is too hard being a wife, and sometimes she doesn't have that "fire" for me. Is our marriage doomed? I don't want it to be, but I feel like monogomy, long term relationships is jsut not somethign she's capable of.
BetrayedH Posted December 13, 2012 Posted December 13, 2012 Get the book, Not Just Friends, and both of you read it. Preserving your marriage is about setting and keeping boundaries.
Author Pete33 Posted December 14, 2012 Author Posted December 14, 2012 deniumchick, Thanks for the reply. I have not remotely given up on our marriage, and neither has she, we both feel like we went through quite a lot early on and got through it to this point and don't want to waste it, we had everyone in my family against us marrying and hers, and for the last 4years we've been proving them wrong, and they've admitted they are happy they were. The other night we had a talk, and she's admitted that she's started to have these - 'I want to go out and feel that newness feeling'. And she didn't think that was normal, and she's got some insecurities, and she started feeling like her feeling that way was an extension of not wanting to be married or not loving me etc etc. But I guess she spoke to a friend who's been married for along time who said that she feels that way too sometimes and that it's normal, esp when you're a mom, you're working so much, you've got a husband, it can get overwhelming. So she has done some soul searching and realized, she said, that she's never been in a real relationship, not really, she's always needed attention from more than one male source, so that she can feel good about herself, feel attractive. She said that she's not going anywhere, and she's not going to pursue a closer friendship with this guy at the gym, because she said that I was right, that she was putting herself in "a danger zone", and needs to find her self worth in healthier ways, and that she knows if she can't do that with me in our marriage, she'll never be able to do it anywhere else, she said that she realized this is a pattern that she needs to break, these feelings are normal, but ACTING ON THEM, is unhealthy not normal behavior. She said she doesn't want to be her dad, who in the first few months of a relationship is in total love, but as soon as it becomes a real relationship that requires work, he's gone and has been married 4 times. I had a terrible dad, a cheating, alcoholic dad, with the biggest heart in the world, and my mom waited 12yrs for him to be the man she saw he could be, which he never became. So maybe I found one that can be the person I know she is at heart, because she seems to want to be that person too. thats not a bad sign. She goes to the gym at 6am, then to work by 8:30am, then picks up the boy by 6pm, and he's been a handful lately, and she doesn't have much time to be social, it's all *responsibility all the time*, so I think a lot of this last month has been overwhelming.
LoveTKO Posted December 14, 2012 Posted December 14, 2012 You failed to set boundaries early on in the relationship by taking her back everytime she went her ex to sort things out. This is who she is...period. A leopard doesn't lose its spots. I don't think the issue is with her but you need to figure out why you settled for such unstable and immature individual. She laid the card right there on the table for you before you got married, but you decided to risk it anyway. She sounds like someone with BPD.
pteromom Posted December 14, 2012 Posted December 14, 2012 I don't think it is doomed. I think your wife desperately wants PURPOSE in her life. In the past, she looked for purpose by attracting the attention of men. Now she needs to find a new way to do it. I would encourage you to help her find female friends. If she's a flirty beautiful woman, it's not gonna be easy for her to fit in with the mom crowd. She needs to find a hobby-based group with common interests (and ONLY women) so that she can connect with women and make some true friendships. You also need to make sure you and she have date nights, where you treat her like a princess, flirt with her, and make her feel beautiful. This will help reignite the passion between you and will help her feel ALIVE.
Recommended Posts