18 years and now I want to leave?

[applecore15]

Okay, this is stupid long, but I'd appreciate if you can give me your thoughts.

 

My wife and I have been together for almost 19 years and married for almost 7 of those years; no children. For year's I've felt my love leaving and now I'm stuck in the stay / leave, fix it / too late, love will / won't return limbo.

 

Brief (but long) history: We got together when we were 18. We got along well for the most part, but for the first 5 years or so I never told her I loved her. I said I didn't want to say it if I wasn't sure I did love her (in retrospect, don't know why she put up with that). Then I broke up with her for a year, but we continued to see each other exclusively, so it wasn't really a breakup, just a mental one. Then I asked her to be my GF again. Then about a year later I told her that I finally did love her. A few years later I asked her to marry me and we got married 2 years later.

 

Throughout several points in our relationship I had been unhappy because she was a very negative and depressed person. To some extent I understand that I didn't always make her feel special, but as therapists say, you have to love yourself before you can expect someone else to love you. I think that was part of the issue. She never loved herself. For 18 years of our relationship, even through the good times, she would continue to say that she was worthless and I was going to leave her and I needed to be with someone better than her. I constantly told her she was pretty and talented and smart. She just didn't believe it. As the relationship went on, I started getting discouraged with telling her anything positive and I started to not tell her negative feelings I had because she would completely overreact. So I started to close down completely.

 

As a side note, she has only had a few random jobs for no more than a few months at a time. We met in art school, but she doesn't do any art because she feels she's not good enough. Just no motivation in life. She sleeps in till noon, does a few chores around the house, goes buy stuff because she can't stand being at home, then waits for me to come home from work. She has no close friends and certainly none where we live. She's kind of driven away most of my friends with her negativity and get's real upset when I want to do something without her, which is only a few times a year. So, basically, I am her only life. I'd say house chores are 50/50, but I work (and take on freelance to help with money), cook when we eat at home, and help with the dishes and pets.

 

Anyway, after I decided/realized I loved her I hoped her attitude and emotions would change. But didn't really. Then after I asked her to marry me, her father got sick and passed away after a year. We got married and I hoped that would help her realize I DID love her, but no change. She just seemed so miserable at our wedding. Then a few years into the marriage I was really starting to get fed up with the negativity in the relationship. On several occasions I suggested she seek counseling, but as with everything else, she came up with excuses as to why she couldn't/wouldn't/didn't want to do it. It wasn't till a couple years ago that I decided I wanted a divorce. Then literally a week or two later, her mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. I stuck around because she has no friends and only had her mom. She has a huge half family (2 half brothers 17+ years older with family) that she's reluctant to get real close to. Her mom then passed away 9 months ago.

 

She started seeing a couple counselors after her mom passed away, and she is actually getting better. Her attitude and motivation have really picked up. But my love hasn't. About a month ago I put a deposit down on an apartment to move out, told her about it, and over the next few weeks we talked about lots of past and present feelings. I felt like for the first time in probably 15 years that I could talk to her about her and me and she was actually listening. I feel very relieved to have all of it out there, but don't feel like the love is coming back.

 

Anyway, to make a long story just a little longer, I think I stayed in the relationship because I'm a helping type of person. Maybe I felt I could help her. Now that she IS actually getting better, I feel I'm ready to leave. She understands now how so much of her negativity was just sucking the life out of me for so long. And for so long I've been feeling like there's someone out there that I would be much happier with and same for her. And that it might be the best thing for her in the grand scheme of life to move to be close to the family she does have left.

 

I read someone say to know if you truly don't love someone is to imagine your with another man, kissing another man, making love to another man, and if that doesn't bother you, it's probably over. I would say this is the case. I know I would be fine leaving her. There have been quite a few temptresses, but avoided them because of my love and dedication. A couple years ago there was a co-worker that I started having real feelings for but I put the breaks on that. That's what really started making me think about what was going on in the relationship. Then I started seeing a counselor every few weeks for about a year.

 

I guess I'm looking for insight and opinions as to one way or the other. I have the same cliche "I love her, but not in love with her" story. I feel like I have nothing left to put into the relationship even though she's finally coming around. But I also feel like I've really started to realize what kind of personality I'm most attracted to, and it's not my wife. At what point can you ask someone to change to make you happy before you're asking them to change who they are?

 

Thank you again in advance for your comments.

[coolheadal]

Why don't you stay in the marriage with her. So much bad vibes from her family passing away can cause all sorts of issues in a persons mine. The way you have describe your wife sound like me a bit. But still it takes to make this marriage work though. You seem to be drifting away from her the way you have posted in the above post. Have you found someone else better than her or do you feel like you should stick around?

 

Why did you pay down on apartment? Has your wife changed her appearance since you been married.

 

When last did you take out on a data again? Make her feel special? Travel to new places. Get on a plane or ship and sail around the ocean and do things more closer together. Turn of the Sunday Football game and take the wife out dancing or even go bike riding.

 

Just have to find things to do. If she's depressed their or pills for that. Though those pills will make her dopey. My sister-in-law who married into my wife family has to be on them another wise she'll go crazy!