Dissolving marriage…

I feel like this is a place where I can safely let out a few things. I’ve been married 14 years as of April. There is no passion left between either of us. Conversation is limited. I had a night out with the guys a couple days ago, and upon coming home I was drilled on who I was with, what I did, and where I stayed (all of which she knew ahead of time). Feels like everything we once had in common no longer exists. I don’t know, anymore, if I’d be here without the kids. This is the one place I know I can reach out where she isn’t. Hate to bring up such a serious conversation, but im at an end and I know this is a place where I can vent without repercussions. Is this normal at this point in the marriage, or should I just accept the idea that we’re heading towards a dead end.

PS, if I felt like I could talk to her about this I would, and that has to speak volumes…

I feel for you and your family. For your kids sake I would suggest a marriage counselor for starters.

14 years must have some real blessings. Marriage is very tough and requires a lot of effort on each spouse’s part. I am always finding changes I need to make in my own life in order to have peace in our marriage – 43 years in June. You can’t change her, only yourself. I find Christian values to be a tremendous help in overcoming marriage relationship issues. Although Christian marriages fail at the same rate as no christian, I believe it can work all things out given a full commitment. If you have interest, I can help you locate the spot on the spot in Scripture to start looking for help. PM me for more info and some web pointers for some Christian marriage help.

Your situation sounds difficult….sorry to hear about it.

No great words of advice but It seems that sometimes people( and I don’t mean you ) think that getting divorced will fix the problems….when I think it only makes them worse….and complicates the situation even more. I come from a divorced family and I think it effects the kids it ways we don’t know.

I hope things get better for you……communication is hard sometimes but its great tool.

I would highly suggest a marriage counselor. If you both want marriage it will happen.

Thanks guys. I have never considered divorce as an option. Coming from a divorced household, I promised myself that I would live miserable before getting divorced. Appreciate all the kind words. We’ve made it through some pretty difficult times, but that seems easy in comparison to a lack of interest. Guess we’ll see how it plays out. Gonna go fishing!

Discover and remember what this means – every woman wants to be passionately pursued. They want to feel wanted. Find ways to pursue her…the “inside” her. Get out together. Express your desire to make an effort – that will give her a sense of value and being pursuit. Check out a book called The Love Dare. It’s a 40 day pursuit of your spouse that will change how you view yourself and her. http://thelovedarebook.com/

Good luck.

I too feel for you and your situation. Divorce is never easy. Try to remember why you fell in love with her. Try to remember that you didn’t love everything about her, and she didn’t love everything about her, but the good things outweighed the bad. Focus on the good things.

Even after a divorce, you’ll still have her in your life forever, as you will be in your children’s lives.

As hard as it can be, strip away all the BS and talk to her about what you are really feeling.

Sounds to me like she still cares or might not of been concerned about what you have been up to. Remember hearing a quote or saying one time about marriages having good years and bad. Got to say that seems very true to me. Sure am glad my wife stuck with it through some of my bad years because we are having some great ones now that I wold not give up for anything.

One thing that kept me going with the marriage was the idea of someone else involved with raising my children. No way did I have children for someone else to be a parent of. Cant imagine the feelings of failure that would of come with.

Hope the best for you two and your family. Never did marriage counseling ourselves but it might be a good idea. Hope you have other family to talk to also about this. Most marriages seem to involve a lot more people than just the two.

Check out this book. The-Love-Languages

It was a great help for us! Going on 11 yrs now

Sometimes people get stuck in a rut. Marriage counseling is a good idea, but both parties have to believe in it and be willing to go all in and listen to a 3rd party. Some people go to counseling only to get someone to validate their feelings, but don’t listen to changes they need to make or problems that they bring to the relationship.

Sometimes it takes changing things up a little. Do the things you would if you were dating a few weeks and try and light a fire. Sometimes you do those things and you start to realize how you took for granted the relationship and you start seeing the other the way you did when you first met. The deal is it will take some effort to get it back to being effortless and natural.

Best of luck to you! Life is too short to live that way with someone as important as a spouse.

I’m sorry to hear of your marriage difficulties. I believe an unhappy marriage is not a normal marriage. Passion may lessen with time, but there should always be that spark. Everyone deserves to be happy and it’s important to take steps to ensure both of you are happy. I know it sounds impossible sometimes, but don’t stop trying to communicate with her. An angry woman may hide it well, but a part of her IS listening. A marriage counselor is a fantastic idea and I highly recommend giving it a try. They can help give you and your wife the tools you need for better communication, and that alone will do wonders for both your stresses and frustrations with one another.

It may sound cliché, but if she’s bugging you about where you’ve been and who you were with – it’s a small (albeit somewhat annoying) sign that she still cares. When she has NO interest in what you’re doing and who you’re spending time with, that’s when it’s possible that she’s thrown in the towel.

Best of luck to you both and I do hope everything works out for the best. Everyone deserves to be happy. Even you.

I can only speak from experience about this. It is such a private and serious thing to happen between two people that once had strong feeling for one another.
When I went thru this, there was no love left between us, we went to a physiciatrist. He was a help, but in the end we separated, I continued to see him, and it was really a load taken off me when we separated.
He had me write in a paper pad just my thoughts and everyting that bothered me.
It is amazing what comes to mind when a person is all alone, no one to intimidate you, you are just writting your own thoughts and feelings.
No one else sees this except your loooney doctor as I call him. He would never ctiticize anything I wrote. Boy I sure got a lot of things about my life and things between me and my once dearly belowed.
Long story short, you should seek some help outside of your family. They can look at everything from a whole different prospective.
At one stage of this marrage breakup that I had I even considered suicide. So it is a very serious thing.
Outside of the family help is the best thing that I can tell you to get.
Just my take on. Hope this helps you a bit.

Roger

Scrap your plans of a family vacation. Pick a surprise trip for a week, be it a cruise, Florida, Alaska or anyplace she might enjoy. Tell her to get vacation time but don’t tell her where she is going. Make this a complete mystery trip. Line up some place for the kids to stay and don’t worry about them. Leave your cell phones at home. If you have an emergency do it the old fashion way, use a land line. (this may change if you have little kids)

Point is………..get away from everything you and her know. After 2 days you will start to relax and enjoy each others company again. After 5 days you will start dreading going back home. This time will be like when you started dating, no outside concerns like jobs, kids, family ect. just you and her. If you fight for 7 days……….well you have your answer then. Move on.

In this day & age the above trip sounds impossible, it’s not, just have to work on it to get the peace of mind you deserve. Good luck.

Definitely seek out a counselor…..
It’s like throwing up, You hate to do it, but you feel So Much Better after you do…
Good Luck and Good thoughts sent your way…

Role playing can be a good way to keep the passion alive. But keep in mind… make sure she is aware. If you show up pretending to be someone else… she may take you for crazy and you will end up committed.

On a serious note… seek outside help. You do not need to convince her to go to a marriage counselor. In fact.. seek help for yourself first. Go see one by your self and relieve yourself of some of your thoughts and feelings. A couple sessions alone can do wonders and have you thinking clearly before you ask her to join you. It will also speak volumes to her that you sought help for your marriage without her buy-in.

I won’t tell you anything that hasn’t already been said- BUT… Falling in love is easy, it just comes naturally. Falling out of love is even easier, especially when the effort isn’t given from BOTH sides. Sure there are struggles we all face in a marriage, be it money, careers, kids, possibly addictions, the list is endless. The stress that comes from it then drives a wedge between our spouses and us, eventually to the point possibly of where you are at. Then, nobody talks, there isn’t any intimacy, and you turn into just being roommates doing your own thing, driving the wedge in even further…

You’ve made it this far- you owe it to each other to try to work this out, and get your happy marriage and life back. Your kids are all the more reason to try even harder!!! They need both parents in their lives- EVERY day!!! Communication is paramount- tell her you love her, tell her she looks nice in this outfit or how she fixed her hair, tell her that she made an excellent meal, COMMUNICATE!!! Help out more at home- you live there too, you helped to dirty those dishes- help clean them. You helped to dirty those clothes- help to wash them. I could go on and on about helping out, but my point is, is that it’s the little things that women need…

Sure- as men, we do allot. Mow the grass, shovel the driveway, etc. But remember that women do just as much as we do, probably more. Appreciate what your wife does for you and for your family.

I wish you the best of luck with your marriage and keeping your family together. Pull that wedge out- communicate….

Been there, done that….feel your pain. I moved on. Found a wonderful woman that helped me heal….much better now, still close to everyone. Good luck.

I’ve been with my wife for over 30 years. Took me about 25 years to realize you can’t make someone happy. You can contribute to their happiness, but you can’t force them to be happy. That came from the most in your face doctor I ever went to. I was having serious issues that ultimately were a result of stress. Simple statement- though powerful and true. Control the things you can do something about. The things out of your control are not your problem- let someone else deal with it.
At a time when I felt out of love and that she didn’t care, I found out how wrong I was. She just wanted to feel like she was the most important thing in my life. When I just did the little things like compliments and flirting, I was really surprised how quickly that reciprocated. I think women compare their value too much with others and other things. They don’t realize it, but I’ve seen 30+ years of it. Be passionate about how much she means to you and she should rekindle that love. People naturally fall in and out of love. Marriage is sharing, not a job. A job is like a book. Exciting beginning, plot, and ending. Sharing is taking a daily interest in the things that are important to the other person and contributing to the positive and overlooking the negative.
Counseling is a great option to generate communication.
Best wishes to you

I think most have stated this already. 14years is a long time and for you her and the kids I would say you should seek marriage couns. Friends family ect. There will be nothing worse than ending it without trying everything first. I’m not blaming just giving advice look back 14 yrs on how you were ? Flowers, dinners, dates the things we do as men also fade good luck

I will second the Love Languages book, it has to be a team effort though.
Another thing I remind myself frequently is a phrase I’ve come across in the last year. “Marriage isn’t about you.” It is about the one you are with. The best thing you can do is try, the worst thing you can do is nothing at all.

Think a huge turning point in my marriage was when I started to focus more on what she did right than what she did wrong. She didnt run around on me, didnt have a drinking problem, could not ask for someone better to take care of the kids. That really helped put things in order. So the house wasnt kept the cleanest, dishes not always done, money managing skills not the best. To me all that and more came second to having the kids well taken care of. Sure couldn’t expect her to be perfect because I wasnt even close.

One other very important quality she had was putting up with me.

Quote:

---

14 years must have some real blessings. Marriage is very tough and requires a lot of effort on each spouse’s part. I am always finding changes I need to make in my own life in order to have peace in our marriage – 43 years in June. You can’t change her, only yourself. I find Christian values to be a tremendous help in overcoming marriage relationship issues. Although Christian marriages fail at the same rate as no christian, I believe it can work all things out given a full commitment. If you have interest, I can help you locate the spot on the spot in Scripture to start looking for help. PM me for more info and some web pointers for some Christian marriage help.

---

X2

PM sent, call me if you need a ear. Been there, done that, Married now for over 16 years.

Divorce is not easy.

Let’s just face it, ALL women are nucking futs. The way they think, react, express feelings drives anyone insane. So if you divorce find someone else go through the whole love phase and the nucking futs will just come back in different form, different family, but the batshi# crazy will still be there. Stick with the one you got and figure it out. I’m from divorced parents as well and what my siblings and myself DIDNT see growing up screwed us up more than anything else. Good luck man.

Marriage counseling is an excellent idea. I would add that one of the benefits of being the one to suggest it is that YOU will always know that you made the difficult first move to try to save something that’s obviously important to you.

That should not be taken as a weapon which you should use against the other partner, but rather it should just be an affirmation of your own commitment. Because commitment WILL be important throughout counseling.

To answer your two questions:

1. No, this is not normal. But it is also not uncommon.

2. No, you should not just accept defeat and the end of your marriage. Marriage is a choice. It happens because the partners choose it, and it continues because the partners choose to continue.

There are only two ingredients required in any marriage: Love and commitment. The tricky part is that BOTH partners have to have and maintain both of those ingredients.

I would also leave you with one other thought. Because many people find themselves in dire straights before the idea of marriage counseling and therapy takes root, I think that leads many to think it’s a million-to-one longshot that it will work. In reality, that’s not the way it works. A committed couple that is open to change and hard work, will succeed. The odds of success are created by the couple, not by chance.

Grouse

Based on the volume of responses here, you can see that your situation is not uncommon. I agree with many here so I’ll just summarize 3 main points,

1) Focus on yourself – don’t sit back and hope she changes. Change what you’d like to about yourself and rely on yourself for happiness.
2) Communicate – don’t be afraid to get her agreement on recent loss of spark and her opinion on why? You might be amazed that by talking you’ll find the common ground or answer.
3) Do make her the center of your life (plus kids). Fish/hunt second, family first. Men are hardwired to think of themselves first, it’s a primitive survival trait. We have to work to put others first. Doing so will pay off big!

‘Vike’
so many good things mention here for you to work on. for me it was Me! I had so much stress in my job > I shut down. I got help. Lucky me she cared, but she already knew something wasn’t right. It was tough.
Also, I don’t know it was so much what I did, but more what I didn’t do. I changed me, I stopped ‘flying of the handle’, stopped yelling and being pissed off. I re-learned how to communicate gently and lovingly again. the 26th of this month is 35 years. 1 Cor. 13:4-6
We quit arguing. Now we discuss the issues, what ever they are. We never go to bed mad. Hug, kiss, to be continued the next day, but consensus is better than giving in or giving up.
Keep date night alive! If that hasn’t happened in a while, pick a night this month, then two the next, and the next thing you know it’s every week.
Don’t try to do everything thing at once. Everything at once didn’t get you where you are now. We guys always want to fix it. Find out how ‘we’ can fix it and work through those issues…
“May the Force be with you”

Here is some information from the “Man’s bible”…

SHOPPING MATH
A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he needs.
A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn’t need.

GENERAL EQUATIONS & STATISTICS
A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.
A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

HAPPINESS
To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little.
To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try understand her
at all.

MEMORY
Any married man should forget his mistakes, there’s no use in two people
remembering the same thing.

APPEARANCE
Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed.
Women somehow deteriorate during the night.

PROPENSITY TO CHANGE
A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.

DISCUSSION TECHNIQUE
A woman has the last word in any argument.
Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.

A ton of good advise here. I can also say been there done that. One major factor about counseling is If your partner does not want to be there and try to mend things it isn’t going to help.

My spouse of 30+ years,is very selfish and self centered. He went to counseling but never shared anything and would never give the therapist a straight answer to a question. He is an extremely intelligent man. He is extremely ADD and will not be medicated. He will not be told what to do and is married to his job. He will be the first to admit the work thing. I have changed leaps and bounds over the past 8 years. I have made peace with my mistakes, with God and our kids. I was pretty uptight with the kids when they were younger because I had them 24/7 do to my husband and his marriage to his work. I have changed all that and am very pleased with the new me. As for him he says he has forgiven me but, I know he has not, because I still put up with all his faults and am a happy person and he chooses not to mend the marriage. SO… Both parties need to be willing to change and forgive and mend. Our children are all in their 20″s now and we still all fish together and vacation together and have a ball. I once told my husband he does not deserve to be married because his priorities are , in order, himself, his work, family, God and his wife, pretty sad. Sometimes it just isn’t you.

Wow, what a completely humbling and impressive bunch of responses! The very last thing I want is for it to end. Just want it to be like it was before. Lots of great advice here and I really do appreciate the outpouring of support! This is what separates our site from others. Thank you folks!!