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#1
Reading through these forums, this is a question that has been talked about a lot. However, I'm literally 3 hours after my wife told me she wants a divorce.
Roll back 2 1/2 years. My wife told me she wanted a divorce then while we were meeting with our counselor. I was able to get her to commit to continue trying. I went through weekly counseling sessions and we had joint sessions every 2-4 weeks. Three months ago, things were absolutely great. I've radically changed how I am and the owned and addressed all the issues I knew about. I continue to work on problems, many due to an emotionally abusive childhood making me controlling and also prone to saying hurtful things when our fights escalated. We went away for a several week trip in July. Just before this, she brought up a major issue she had regarding finances. I reacted poorly and it escalated. We were going to cancel the trip but then talked about everything and I thought it was resolved. We had a wonderful time, got along fabulously and seemed pretty happy. We got back last week and I asked her "How are we doing?" She said that she wasn't sure. Apparently she went to the counselor last week and was asked "If your husband changed everything about himself to what you want, would you feel close to him then and want to be with him?" She thought about it and, since she told me 3 hours ago that she wants to split up, the answer was no. I'm hopelessly in love with her. I've changed not just for her, but to become a better person. There are still attributes to my personality that apparently exist. The biggest one is that she's scared of me. Scared of my reaction when she brings something up that could create conflict. She doesn't want to live in fear. I understand this. As hard as it is, about an hour ago I told her "I accept that you feel this is over. I understand there are still things that are between us. I regret the hurtful things I've done and want to atone for them," I've put together a list of hurtful things I've done and outstanding issues that I know of, along with a list of positive qualities I bring to our relationship and things I still need to work on - like mutual respect, communication, humility etc. I shared this with her. Basically, we're talking for an hour and then taking a break. Her big thing is that she doesn't think I can change and it's not right for me to continue to change. I need to be who I am. However, from my perspective I love her to the moon and back and know I am a better person because I'm with her. I do not want this relationship to break, and we've put 2.5 years worth of work into it and got to a good place which has regressed and dredged the original issues back up. I know a lot of people are going to say, to sum it up, know when to quit. You tried already and it didn't work. There is no second reset switch. Move on. But I'm not ready to give up. What can I read? What should I say? We're seeing the counselor again tomorrow and Monday. I do not want to plead and cry and guilt her into sticking this out. I want to respect her decision, but proffer my own middle ground and try to find a way to fix things. What are your thoughts? |
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MickeyCheeky, TunedOut
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#2
Hi marriagekeeper. Sorry to hear you are having trouble with marriage. That must be rough.
I am not sure what the solution is but does it seem that no matter what you do your wife is not content. You seem to be bending over backwards and she seems to just keep dangling the D word. One thing to ask, is this life of being in uncertainty and futile attempts to satisfy her really worth it. There are probably lots of factors to consider like if you have kids or property owned in common. I would ask her with the counselor there,. "What exactly would make you happy with our relationship?" Then I would ask myself is this humanly possible or not and will she just keep moving the goal posts when you approach giving her what she wants. __________________ Super Moderator Community Support Team "Things Take Time" |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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#3
Hello marriagekeeper: I'm sorry I don't think there's a lot I can offer with regard to your circumstances. But I noticed this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to Psych Central.
Here's a link to an article, from Psych Central's archives, on the subject of discernment counseling. Based on what you wrote in your post, it sounds as though something of this sort may be where you & your wife are coming to at this point. Within the article there are links to several additional sources of related information: When One Spouse Wants Out of the Marriage But the Other Doesn't My best wishes to you & your wife. I hope you find PC to be of benefit. __________________ "I may be older but I am not wise / I'm still a child's grown-up disguise / and I never can tell you what you want to know / You will find out as you go." (from: "A Nightengale's Lullaby" - Julie Last) |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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Grand Poohbah
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#4
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If you overreact then you do need to continue to improve that and anything else she complains about that is legitimate but we can't make other people love us and desperation is unattractive. If you are always the one trying to please her and she doesn't give back to you in some way then it will hurt even more if/when it ends. Keep trying but don't try too hard. It is very hard to love someone who does not love you. Hopefully she still loves you but if she does not then staying with her will be just as hard (only the pain is not all at once) as the divorce. Hugs. |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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#5
I'm DEEPLY SORRY for what you're going through, @marriagekeeper! Like CANDC, Skeezyks and TunedOut have already wisely said better than I ever could... you can't really force her to Love you. It seems like you're trying your best to make her happy. That's TRULY admirable - it really is! But if she still refuses to stay with you after ALL of this, perhaps the best thing to do is to truly let her go. I understand that's REALLY painful but unfortunately in some cases there aren't too many alternatives. I want to make clear that it is NOT your fault this is happening. Everyone has some flaws. You're doing good by acknowledging and by trying to work on them. You're only human after all! If this isn't enough for your Wife, though, perhaps the "spark" just isn't there anymore. You can try to ask her if there's ANYTHING you can do to still save your marriage, but if she's firm on her decision, then perhaps it's best, for BOTH You and Her, to just let it go. I'm REALLY HAPPY that you're going to see your Counselor soon at least! Definitely talk things through with him! Hopefully you'll be able to find a solution. If you don't, take your tiem to grieve, but remember that Life isn't over. You can STILL Live a good Life by YOURSELF so please NEVER give up Hope! Not to mention you may STILL find someone else for you! Keep working on yourself like you're already WONDERFULLY doing ALL and ENTIRELY by YOURSELF! Please keep us updated on your situation if you wish to do so. Things will get better one way or another. I'm SURE of that! Feel free to PM me ANYTIME when you need Advice and Support. I'm sure PLENTY of other wise, wonderful posters will gladly HELP YOU OUT as well! Sending many safe, warm hugs to BOTH you, @marriagekeeper, your Family, your Friends, your Wife, your Counselor and ALL Of Your Loved Ones! PLEASE KEEP FIGHTING AND KEEP ROCKING AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN LIKE YOU'RE ALREADY WONDERFULLY DOING ALL AND ENTIRELY BY YOURSELF!
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Grand Poohbah
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#6
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MickeyCheeky
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#7
In counseling I would ask her if she still loves you.
__________________ "I carried a watermelon?" President of the no F's given society. |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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#8
Maybe a little insight from a now EX-wife that was kinda in a similar place as your wife.
For me....every issue that came up chipped away at my RESPECT for my now EX. He even swore he made the changes that I said were necessary but honestly I never saw them. For me.....it was 33 years of this but the last 13 were the final straw. Bottom line is that even if he had been capable of making the necessary changes the respect was already lost & no marriage can exist without respect as the foundation. Even love doesn't fix lost respect. It sounds to me like your wife MAY be at the point I finally got to when I left & her telling you that it isn't fair to make you change sounds like just a way she is trying to hurt you less even though she has had enough & really just wants out. If counselling hasn't helped in this amount of time....there may just be a lot of unspoken (maybe she isn't aware) emotions that are going on inside of her at this point. It took me years after I left my H & lots of good therapy to learn all the emotions I had wrapped up in wanting out of the marriage. It is never simple & always more to it than meets the eye. Sometimes just cutting your losses is the best solution. You can't make something work when the other person has had enough __________________ Leo's favorite place was in the passenger seat of my truck. We went everywhere together like this. Leo my soulmate will live in my heart FOREVER Nov 1, 2002 - Dec 16, 2018 |
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MickeyCheeky
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#9
I think the obvious point in this is.....
She’s scared of you at times over having a discussion you obviously have problems with. How can you expect her to want to stay with you ? Okay you have grown as a person, made changes and that’s wonderful !!! As a person once in a relationship with a person that I did fear at times there was no way I could stay. Good luck __________________ Helping others gets me out of my own head ~ |
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eskielover, MickeyCheeky
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#10
Thanks for all the replies. Before she told me she wanted to split up she said she loved me, cared for me deeply, but didn't feel we're compatible any longer. I disagree.
I appreciate what people are saying regarding moving on, but we're still talking and the changes she's looking for are ones which would make me better as a person overall. I'm not ready to move on and would love to hear ideas on some of the questions I ask below at the bottom of this message, I also appreciate that people are saying I'm a good person. I like to think that I have a good heart and try to do the right thing, but I also grew up in a very emotionally abusive household with a single mom and while I've been in therapy for it for years and have either managed it or repressed it, it leaks out every so often. We saw our counselor Friday and it went okay My wife and I have been communicating verbally, but she likes to take her time to process and react so we've also been communicating via shared diary entries. She's let me read through the past couple of years of her diary entries and they are eye opening. Today I wrote a very thought out message about trust and relationships. I said she needs to figure out for herself whether she can trust me again, but I laid out elements of things I could do to regain her trust (accept responsibility, own it, apologize, honesty between partners, keeping promises, realizing things will never be the same, it will take time, keep words and actions consistent). I also put in a list of why it would be positive to be together (share loving and caring, learn and grow, support each other, share companionship and fun, loving and physical intimacy), and a large list of the actual approaches we should take together to be successful at this (issues to work on, how we could communicate, weekly discussions to see how we're doing, and a bunch of more practical stuff that she was upset about). She read it, cried while reading it, finished it, and then put on a happy music playlist on spotify and watched funny videos on Youtube. She wrote down some stuff but said she'd share it with me tomorrow as she was feeling drained after today. She left her computer on, open and sitting on our kitchen island when she went to bed. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but I couldn't help but see what she wrote. She literally said that I'm saying all the right things, I fully understand her pain, what caused it, and that I'm willing to fix it. But that she's done. She doesn't want to try any longer. And that she doesn't believe me when I say I'm going to actually do this. She called me ridiculous and said she begged me in the past to help with things but I ignored her and treated her like a lesser (I don't feel I did, but her perception is the important thing - not mine). She said that when she thinks about staying together she cries. When she thinks about living alone she's happy. She said that she looks at me and has zero belief that what I say I'll do will stick. Her biggest overarching issues right now are the trust issue with regards to me still keeping up with being a good person (helping out with stuff, not making her scared to talk to me about conflict, letting her be her, etc.) a year from now, and the fact that she's tired and doesn't want any more conflict. She doesn't want to hurt any more. One of the issues we have is finances, and we have a large sailboat that we spend a bunch of money on each year. Tonight, I emailed 2 boat brokers asking if they could tell me their value and their cost structures and I cc'd my wife on the emails. I also told her "There's not much I can do to gain your trust through words, but I just cc'd you on two emails to boat brokers in Annapolis to get their info about putting Pelican up for sale. I don’t need any of these things. Why it took me til now to know... means I’m an ***...I will give it all away today to have you. Just watch... you are all that matters and I’ll go down the list one by one and show you... and if I can’t get it done by Monday... then I’ll continue Tuesday. And Wednesday and I won’t stop until all of your needs are met." So here's my question. One of her questions to the counselor is if there's a middle ground between not leaving and separating. We're working on our house in order to sell it, but we won't be doing that until the Spring. Our counselor didn't have any ideas. I mean, we can stay living together but if she's closed off to me and not open to any form of reconciliation I don't know what that would do other than make things worse. Does anyone have any ideas on some sort of middle ground? I've also thought about suggesting a marriage retreat or 2-3 days of intensive counseling to just get everything out.. I'd love to hear any ideas you have. I'm sure many of you probably think I'm stupid, but we've been together for 27 years and married for 22 years. I am still hopelessly in love with her, and what she wants, as I said, are things that would make me better as a person so I'm absolutely willing to change them. |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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#11
She may be interpreting your desire to continue the marriage despite her preference to end it as some of the controlling behavior she doesn't like. Allowing her to act on her request for a divorce instead of trying to persuade her to do what you want to do seems like it would demonstrate that you are not trying to control her. I am not sure you can save the marriage when one person wants to leave it
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky, TunedOut
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#12
GOOD NEWS (FOR ME). SHE'S STAYING!!!
I'm sure people are going to say I'm an idiot for wanting this. Wanting to be with a woman who wants me to change so much. People should accept you for who you are. However, in my case, as I mentioned, I grew up emotionally abused (my mother was, later in life after I moved out, diagnosed as severely manic and severely bi-polar and while I was growing up she had zero medication). I have certain tendencies in my behavior that show themselves when things escalate and result in what could be considered mild forms of emotional abuse (trying to score a point to hurt someone). I also prefer sitting on the couch to going out, don't like doing housework so I don't, etc. The changes she's asking for are are ones that will make me a better person overall. What finally helped? Well, one of our big areas of stress has been finances. We don't have money saved for retirement and should have hundreds of thousands saved by this point in our lives. We have a large boat and spend a lot of money on it. We don't use credit cards so our fluid debt is not big, but we also spend enough that we don't save. We were already in the process of downsizing our house since our kids have moved out, but the boat and some other stuff are big stresses. However, the boat has always been my sanctuary. We lived on it for several years (on purpose) with our kids and went cruising the the Caribbean and back. I have dreams of moving back onto her when we retire. Those dreams used to be shared, but the financial reality has changed them. So basically I told her that I'm willing to sell our boat and our other few big expensive things. What I've been doing with our finances obviously hasn't worked and that I am open to her ideas. That I'm up for moving into a small house (which is what our intent was anyway since it's just the two of us now), selling the boat, putting money away for retirement and getting rid of our financial stress. She feels that by doing that she will have the emotional energy to help me become a better person. Without it, all she saw was that we'd still have major stresses in our life in addition to me, and that she could get rid of all of that by living alone. If I'm willing to subscribe to her plan of the next part of our lives, she's willing to give us another shot and truly invest back into the relationship. I'm actually OK with selling the boat. One, it's just a thing. Second, we take 4-6 week trips on her every Summer, and when we did our trip this Summer I hurt like hell afterward. I realized she's not the boat we'd want for retirement anyway. However, selling her will definitely leave a void in my life I need to fill, and I need to be careful that I don't resent my wife for MY choice to sell the boat. Anyway, hopefully I'll never be back here again. I appreciate the help and thoughts everyone provided!!! |
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MickeyCheeky, TunedOut
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MickeyCheeky, TunedOut
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#13
I'll also add a few things that helped me for people who may read this thread at a later time:
And here are some of the things I suggested to my wife to make sure I don't screw up this chance. Issues to work on
Communications
Finances
More practical stuff:
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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#14
I wish I could give you good advice but I'm in the exact same boat as you are. Divorce is hanging over our heads atm and it's a horrible feeling at the moment. We've been together for 13 years and married 3 and I am madly in love with her. I never saw anything but our lives... together. I don't want to lose her but she has already said that she loves me but is not in love with me and that it's not fair for her to stay because I deserve someone who loves me 100%. She has also told me that even though I make her 80% happy is it worth staying when there is a possibility that she could leave and find someone that makes her 90-100% happy. She has also told me things that make me sound like the biggest, most selfish asshole in the whole world and I feel like ****. Why would she stay with me if I was such a worthless asshole? And how do I even make her 80% happy?
But what I don't understand though, is that she only says that when we fight and will later tell me that she makes her happy and that she needs to decided if I'm worth giving up for a possibility of greater happiness. My friend say that I shouldn't come in second in my relationship (there was an affair involved and I felt like I came in second in my own marriage... long story.) and that I shouldn't stay with someone who is looking for better things and just keeping me around till then. However, when we're together and we're happy it's the best feeling in the world and I can see/feel that she is happy too. I know I should have greater self worth and leave, but I love her too much to just throw it all away because I do think she is not only the love of my life, but my best friend as well. If we divorce she wants to stay friends and I just can't do that. If we're done... we're done. I can't be with her in just a friends capacity and that makes me sad because I would lose both my wife and my best friend. What we have agreed on is to take it one step at a time. Day by day. I am working on a lot of things, things that she says annoys her or have made her lose faith in me. We both want to try and fix our marriage and she says if we stop fighting it will help her to fall back in love with me. I honestly don't know if we'll be together this time next year but we're working on it and she is now wearing her wedding ring again, so that's a good sign I guess. If you need someone to vent to, or talk with someone who is kind of in the same boat, please feel free to private message me. __________________ Morality plays on stages of sin -Emilie Autumn |
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MickeyCheeky
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#15
@LacunaCoiler
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__________________ "I carried a watermelon?" President of the no F's given society. |
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MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky
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Grand Poohbah
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#16
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Wow, not that many women would live on a boat with kids! (We had a sailboat before we had kids and I can't imagine raising kids on a boat) It sounds like your wife can be flexible about many things too! I have been married 31+ years and sometimes adjustments have to be made that are not easy. You said you aren't planning to come back to PC but if you do--I hope it all works out for you and your wife! |
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MickeyCheeky
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#17
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I actually think I'll be back. Not right away as I want to focus on my marriage and myself, but if I can give even one person inspiration and help turning a "I'm going to leave you and will not change my mind" into "I feel like we're closer than we've been in over 15 years".. She's really sharing with me all her issues. She's getting everything off her chest. I don't like hearing everything, but I feel like we finally have a relationship again.. She's also fine with me telling her my issues with her and our relationship so we can incorporate them into the melting pot. I'm a very blessed person. |
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