Lost that lovin' feeling quickly after separation...is that common?

[ncfc1]

In the two months since my separation I've developed a bit of a theory about the values that each spouse brings to a relationship and how those values effect the success of a marriage. I could be completely off base or trying to generalize a specific experience, but here it goes:

 

My family is full of long marriages. My parents are going to celebrate their 50th next year. Aunts and uncles and grandparents stayed together through thick and thin. Of course sometimes I wonder why they stayed together but I knew that only the husband and wife in marriage know the the truth about the choices they make.

 

My wife's family is full of broken marriages. Her mother and biological father divorced while she was a child. Her uncle has had three wives. Most of her longtime friends have had multiple marriages.

 

My thoughts are that I have learned values that our promise to one another requires that we stick it out as far as we can and only separate after all other options have been explored.

 

My wife seems to be running from our marriage at the first signs on trouble. She doesn't seem to want to try. I think she learned values that say if you aren't happy, just move out and move on. Don't look back.

 

Is this an understood idea and I'm just stating the obvious? It is a revelation to me. If you think there is some merit to this idea, is there any hope for a successful "mixed" relationship (one spouse that learned long-term marriage values married to another that has short-term values)?

[ncfc1]

oh, and I forgot to mention that my wife left her first husband after two years without even trying to work things out.

[sumdude]

In the two months since my separation I've developed a bit of a theory about the values that each spouse brings to a relationship and how those values effect the success of a marriage. I could be completely off base or trying to generalize a specific experience, but here it goes:

 

My family is full of long marriages. My parents are going to celebrate their 50th next year. Aunts and uncles and grandparents stayed together through thick and thin. Of course sometimes I wonder why they stayed together but I knew that only the husband and wife in marriage know the the truth about the choices they make.

 

My wife's family is full of broken marriages. Her mother and biological father divorced while she was a child. Her uncle has had three wives. Most of her longtime friends have had multiple marriages.

 

My thoughts are that I have learned values that our promise to one another requires that we stick it out as far as we can and only separate after all other options have been explored.

 

My wife seems to be running from our marriage at the first signs on trouble. She doesn't seem to want to try. I think she learned values that say if you aren't happy, just move out and move on. Don't look back.

 

Is this an understood idea and I'm just stating the obvious? It is a revelation to me. If you think there is some merit to this idea, is there any hope for a successful "mixed" relationship (one spouse that learned long-term marriage values married to another that has short-term values)?

 

I've had the exact same thoughts myself . My and my ex-wife's family histories mirror those of yours and your ..umm.. stbx's..

 

I don't think you can generalise it too much because I do believe that people can certainly overcome or not follow the paths of thier ancestors.. however we do learn about marriage and relationships as children from our families.

 

After all my ex left me suddenly and without warning... her mother did the same thing to her father. A bit too much of a coincedence I think. She ran when things got rough for a while. I'm far from perfect and was in a bad place but I know I'm a good man and treated her well regardless of what I was going through at the time. Also, my ex though not married before had left a few long term relationhsips as well as having been a 'runaway bride'. But love was blind and I chose to believe that our relationship was different than all the others she had before and those of her parents. In the end past actions and history proved more powerful .. and predictable. I could say I should have known.. others on the outside tried to warn me... oh well..

 

At the moment though I'm not seriously dating if i do ever consider marriage again I will seriously take into account her family history and past relationships. I missed or chose to ignore red flags with the last one.

 

For me if I commit to life with someone I tend to mean it. It's what I was programmed to believe. So I can either choose to take the modern 50/50 definition of marriage as a 'well if I don't like it I can always just leave' or go with what I believe in and hope someone else believes as I do. There's always a leap a faith in there somewhere..

[sumdude]

oh, and I forgot to mention that my wife left her first husband after two years without even trying to work things out.

 

yeah...... i guess now you might see that in a different light than how she may have explained it to you back in the day?

[T L]

In the two months since my separation I've developed a bit of a theory about the values that each spouse brings to a relationship and how those values effect the success of a marriage. I could be completely off base or trying to generalize a specific experience, but here it goes:

 

My family is full of long marriages. My parents are going to celebrate their 50th next year. Aunts and uncles and grandparents stayed together through thick and thin. Of course sometimes I wonder why they stayed together but I knew that only the husband and wife in marriage know the the truth about the choices they make.

 

My wife's family is full of broken marriages. Her mother and biological father divorced while she was a child. Her uncle has had three wives. Most of her longtime friends have had multiple marriages.

 

My thoughts are that I have learned values that our promise to one another requires that we stick it out as far as we can and only separate after all other options have been explored.

 

My wife seems to be running from our marriage at the first signs on trouble. She doesn't seem to want to try. I think she learned values that say if you aren't happy, just move out and move on. Don't look back.

 

Is this an understood idea and I'm just stating the obvious? It is a revelation to me. If you think there is some merit to this idea, is there any hope for a successful "mixed" relationship (one spouse that learned long-term marriage values married to another that has short-term values)?

 

Hi, My parents have been married for nearly 40 years and my X's for over 30 years and all the grandparents being 'till death do us part'. I think my very short lived marriage to my X meant little more to her than a chance to have a big party and to dress up for the day and play princess, I dont think I will ever understand where she got those values from.

[sumdude]

Hi, My parents have been married for nearly 40 years and my X's for over 30 years and all the grandparents being 'till death do us part'. I think my very short lived marriage to my X meant little more to her than a chance to have a big party and to dress up for the day and play princess, I dont think I will ever understand where she got those values from.

Seems like current society is all about short term things.

 

So much is placed on getting married, the wedding planning and the wedding day that the marriage seems to become an afterthought.

 

Add the fact that most romatic movies have the happy ending be the wedding day whereas it's just the first page of the script. TV shows like "Who's Wedding is it Anyway.", "The Bachelor" and other crud like that don't help either. We all want evey day to be full of love and romance with a perfect mate that reality seems pretty boring after a while.

 

Hey why not get married the odds are 50/50 it'll last. We could start a new reality show in Vegas where folks place bets on whether or not a couple will make it.

 

..times have changed I guess... and I'm only just about to turn 40.. yikes things change faster every day..starting to sound like my grandparents did LOL

[ncfc1]

Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. Been busy with work, which is good thing.

 

For the past few weeks I've been feeling pretty good. Keeping minimal contact with my wife and looking to the future with optimism. The last two days, though, I've really been getting down. Think I'm grieving again about the woman that I thought I knew and loved. It's been years since she was with me. Almost can't remember her. But I miss her dearly. She was the love of my life. The person that she has become is such a mess. Making bad decisions left and right and so very negative about everything. She refuses to get help for her mood depression / mood disorder. Don't know what to call it because she won't see a doctor to be diagnosed. Even her parents can't persuade her to get help. My therapist suspects that personality disorder might also be a possibility.

 

I don't really think about her very much and can't concern myself with getting her help. She won't listen to anybody. My mother-in-law called me today on my cell (she never calls my cell) and left a message simply asking to call her back. My stomach just turned over and over because I was afraid that she was going to tell me that my wife had done something terrible and was dead or in the hospital. Turned out to be nothing, but jesus my instant reaction scared the hell out of me. My wife has made suicidal statements to me on several occasions. When I told her how much her saying those things concerned me she always replied that she doesn't mean anything by them and that I'm overreacting.

 

I feel a bit guilty to feel good about not having to deal with her mood swings and negativity on a regular basis now. I still care about her a great deal and want her to get help. But until she is ready to do it on her own nobody is going to convince her otherwise. She may never get to that place. I have to move on.

 

The feeling of grieving for the loss of my partner of 14 years is subtle. Probably being brought on because in the last two days I've experienced some major accomplishments professionally. Huge victories. But no one to share them with except coworkers. No one else at home to share my happiness. That's probably the source of my melancholy tonight.

 

My therapist says I'm doing just fine. Still working out regularly, eating well, going out a few nights a week. Like to think about meeting someone special, but I can't bring myself to do anything about it. Even though I know our marriage is over in some ways I still consider it cheating to date someone else before our divorce is final (ten months away at least). Time by myself is important and for the most part has been good so far. Just these last few days have been hard.

 

Well, that's all I have to report. Thinking of this post as therapy in a way. Just a way to get these thoughts out of my head and communicated to whomever wants to read them.

 

The LS community has been very, very helpful. Thank you all. I keep reading and will post to someone else's thread soon, once I feel that I have a grip on my own issues and can positively contribute from my experience.

[ncfc1]

Don't have any specific question for the forum, but posting on my thread helps every few weeks. My situation with my wife at this point is not very different from many others on LS.

 

When I've had any contact with my wife over the past two weeks (about three times) she continues to get emotional (crying) and then angry (raising her voice). In fact, this morning we ran into one another in town and before I could even finish saying hello she was crying!

 

She is extremely negative about everything in her life right now. Looking back it is obvious to me that her negativity dragged me down with her quite a bit. I believe that her negativity is a symptom of her depression. She still refuses to accept the fact that she can't fix her depression on her own. She's adamant about not seeing a therapist and constantly says that she's against taking any kind of prescriptions.

 

For me, now that I can recognize how her negativity/depression has effected me over the past few years, I will have to say that therapy, psychiatrist, and taking whatever prescriptions are suggested are the first non-negotiable terms to working on us getting back together, if she ever expresses her wish to try and reconcile. She probably will never accept those terms, so I'm doing my best to move on.

 

One of the thoughts that nag at me are whether I'm already so far gone from the relationship that I won't even have any emotions left to try and reconcile. I guess that's the chance all couples take when they separate.

 

Another nagging thought is that when she chose to leave our house and relationship rather than give up her relationship with her "friend" she was the one taking the guilt of ending the relationship. If she wants to reconcile and I don't, then I have to assume the guilt of ending the marriage without trying to make it work. I'm not playing the victim at all right now, but it does make it easier for me if she never wants to reconcile and we dance our separate ways to divorce.

 

Am I overanalyzing things? I'm trying not to worry about something that may never happen, but I do believe I owe it to myself to discover exactly how I feel about trying to work it out or divorce. In previous posts I stated that I wasn't going to pressure myself into making a decision about how I feel about reconciliation. But I can't get it out of my head.

 

Don't have a therapy session until after the first of the year. So thanks for listening to help me get through Christmas. Any input, opinions, or strategies for how to handle my confusion over how I feel is appreciated.

[GonebabyGone]

Sounds like emotional withdrawling long before you realized it to me. She wants the excitment, the thrill, this other guy give her, but stability you give her as well. Cant have it both ways.

 

Right after my husband left he said he didnt love me anymore. I dont know how anyone can turn off their emotions so quick. I know i cannot. Still to this day five months down the road of seperation he is angry with me and it was his own doings of leaving.

 

Whether its depression or a mental illness....Your wife nor my husband seem to be able to process their own feelings. It's not your fault and you cannot make her be able to do this.

 

The less contact you have will make things easier.

[ncfc1]

Thank you, GoneBaby. And I'm sorry for your pain. The way you described how our spouses aren't "able to process their own feelings" is a good way of thinking about it. Hadn't considered that before. Well, thanks again. Stay strong.