ruledbypluto Posted January 1, 2013 Share Posted January 1, 2013 Hi all. First post here after doing some lurking. What a wonderful site! This is going to be long (I apologize) but I don't have anyone I can talk to about this. We've been married about 13 years, together for 15 and have an adolescent child. Generally our relationship is friendly/amicable, but that's the extent of it. If I had to make an assumption, I think she feels the same as I in that if we didn't have a child, we probably would have divorced by now. I've been travelling a lot in the last year for work which is atypical for me and its effects on our relationship have been noticable, but not in the way you would think. I am now the one questioning whether or not we should remain married. All of the time I've had on my own in the past year has given me a lot of time to consider my life, my marriage, my child, my future and my happiness. We've been to MC twice in the past, always with the same general issues-lack of intimacy on both of our parts and my general 'tone' when we talk. The counseling, in my opinion, hasn't changed anything in our marriage. I do try to communicate better, but yet I always somehow wind up of being accused of sounding terse. For the last several years, a lot of our communication has been strained and it always seems like we're both in some sort of 'contest' when we're communicating. I can get pretty sharp with my tongue - not loud and obnoxious, but very harsh. She has a tendency to talk to me like she does our child; feeling like she needs to correct everything I say or do that might not be appropriate or to her liking the instant she sees the need-regardless of who's around. I don't mind getting corrected when I've got it coming but I feel like there's a time and place for it; and that's when we have privacy. Not when our child is present, or friends or family are around. Even my child has mentioned things to me about my wife and how she has a tendency to be over-bossy. We had a disagreement a few months ago and she brought up two questions-should we go back to MC? And if not, maybe we need to both agree (before it's too late for either of us to find happiness) that we just weren't meant to be married? This was the episode that finally got me thinking about the possibility of divorce. I don't think either of us has a lack of desire;it's simply a lack of desire for the other. Years ago, I had an affair and we went through counseling after that and to her credit, she did more than I deserve to get past that period in our lives. But our relationship now is really no better/worse than before the affair. We've tried the date nights and going away together without the child, and the last time we did, we planned a night of intimicay that only led to awkwardness and disappointment for both of us. That was about 4 years ago and we haven't tried since. In looking back at the beginning stages of our relationship, our intimate connection was only 'ok' and I'm sure she would agree to the same. It's never been much better than that and frankly I don't think we are that compatible; intimately or emotionally. We were both in our late twenties when we first met and I'm sure we were both thinking that we were past the dating and game-playing stages of our lives and were interested in finishing college, starting our careers and having a family. So, we did what we both thought we should do, and that was to get married. I was considering proposing to her, but she found out and so to save a surprise for one of us, she proposed to me. Of course I said yes, but over the last few months, I've been struggling to determine if she had not proposed, would I have gone through with it and asked her to marry me. I don't know. In all of our past disagreements and counseling, she seemed to always be the one more open to the idea of separating, while I was always adamantly against the idea. I'm sure my apprehensions were the same as experienced by many others - the uncertainty of change, effects on children, financial impact on all. I think I always believed, and tried to convince my wife of the same, that not ALL marriages were as they're portrayed on TV and in the movies. I think we both felt that we did our part, went to counseling, talked openly about things that bothered us, but then let things return to 'normal' as that seemed to be the easiest thing to do. Now I'm questioning the rationalizations that I've been telling myself all of these years and am starting to think that maybe it IS reasonable to want/expect/desire a relationship with a partner that makes us ache when we're separated, make us feel like the only man/woman alive, want to be with them every possible moment. I'm struggling with this and know I can't delay having a discussion with her indefinitely-it's not fair to her. Just hoping that the collective knowledge and experiences of all of you folks might help me gain some additional perspective before we have 'the talk'. Thank you all for any input or advice. Link to post Share on other sites
whichwayisup Posted January 1, 2013 Share Posted January 1, 2013 I would tell her exactly what you wrote here. Be honest and speak from your heart. Link to post Share on other sites
Mr. Lucky Posted January 1, 2013 Share Posted January 1, 2013 ^^^^^^ This. And her response will go a long way towards determining what the next step would be... Mr. Lucky Link to post Share on other sites
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