Wife not wanting to work on marriage, in denial

[Dom R]

Hi AlaskaH,
I'm glad you took my message well, in the spirit it was intended.
I'm going to follow up with another "toughie" for you.
You wrote, summarized:

-I don't "like" my wife, I love her very much.

-When I was lamenting about not being there for the kids, it was due to the fact that ....

--I want more than a date, I want a life companion.

I hope you will reread my post, and reflect that none of that stuff that you wrote, contradicts what I wrote.
You "replied" to what I wrote, on the same topics/items that I wrote... but it seems as though my basic premises still stand unshaken:

you are looking at divorce, in order to "get something better than your current wife". Not because she is directly hurting you.
She is definately withholding things from you. So, you have painful regrets on what you might have with another person.
But, in contrast to many others on here... your wife is not DIRECTLY hurting you, by, for example, having an affair with someone else.

if you took the "easy way out" of divorce (which never is really easy), you would probably regret it when you came to your senses.

-The marriage counselor/family therapist told us both that raising the children in this situation (he has been involved with our situation for 2 years) would be just as harmful if not more than a divorce due to the non-resolution of all of these issues.

You went to a LOUSY marriage counsellor. That's just not true.
I'm sure that he makes a lot of money helping people "move on" and self-justifying it to themselves. but i'm guessing that the number of marriages he has actually HELPED.. is tiny.
Sounds like you should have ditched him a long time ago. Seems like he has been a major contributing factor in making your marriage WORSE: by not giving you useful help, and by justifying to your wife, her continued anti-marriage behaviour.


Your children are not harmed by the fact that their daddy is not sexually or emotionally satisfied by their mommy. What they care about, and need, is that both their parents live with them, and love them, and dont have violently scary arguments all the time.
If you two can just reasonably "get along" and be civil to each other, then they'll be doing ok.
If mommie isnt showing them enough love right now, and they are suffering from that... how is getting a divorce going to help that situation?

From their perspective, probably the most damaging thing, is that you "travel a lot".
You getting a divorce, and thus forcing a split between their parents, would hurt them 10 times worse.
Both because of the immediate hurt of a broken home, but also becuase it will scar their future potential for a good, lasting marriage of their own in the future.


In my opinion, the best thing you can do for them, is not to look for a new wife, but look for a new job.

Now, if you want to be selfish, sure, go look for a new woman, have fun, etc, etc. It will most likely be way easier, and more enjoyable to you personally, than trying to coax your hardened wife back to "life".

But if you truely care about your children's wellbeing... you gotta be unselfish.