Hello, welcome to the forums! Your sitch is eerily familiar to me!
Originally Posted By: WorriedUK
I am a Male (48), wife is 45. We have just celebrated our 20th Wedding Anniversary. We have been together for 25 years. Two teenage sons (15 & 17).
I'm 51, W is 48, we have 3 kids (S9, D16, D18) have been married 20 years and together 25. How's that for similar?
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In the last couple of months she had started to become distant from me, lack of affection, lack of interest in doing anything together. Getting annoyed with me and the children.
Yup, this part too.
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3 weeks ago, I sat down with her, told her we needed a talk. Asked her if anything was wrong, because she does not seem happy. She then hit me the bombshell that she does not know if she can carry on our relationship as it is.
Wow, it played out almost identical to this for me too. Except it was 6 months ago.
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My initial feeling was of shock, I honestly thought she was happy. We have no financial worries; have two gorgeous children, a lovely home.
Ditto. The thing is, she is NOT happy. And right now, she blames YOU for this.
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Many tears were shed in the next two weeks (mainly by me), I could not believe she would want to jeopardise everything we had build up during our marriage. The more I tried to reason with her, the more adamant she was that she wanted out of our marriage because she did not love me anymore.
Oh how familiar this all is! We went to MC, W seemed genuinely interested in giving it a shot, but whenever pressed about where she saw our M in the future she just kept saying "I don't want to try." After a half dozen sessions she didn't want to go back anymore and decided S was the answer.
So what do you do? Read DR several times. Keep the list of DB 180 tips (see Sandi's sticky at the top of this forum) handy and read them several times a day until you have the gist of them memorized. Live those tips!! Give your W loads of time and space. DO NOT move out. If she insists on S, tell her you support her decision, but SHE is the one that had to move if she feels that's best for her.
Since I'm farther down the road than you I will tell you this- your W is very confused right now. She may not tell you that, but inside she's confused and hurting. She knows she's not happy and that's driving her to leave. My W is just now discovering that I am not the source of her unhappiness. After nearly 3 months on her own she's just as confused now as ever and starting to realize she has to look inward to discover why she's not happy rather than outward.
Now I am not saying just to sit back and wait. Do take stock of what you did in the marriage to contribute to her feelings of unhappiness. Do 180's on those things. Do them consistently and over a long period of time. You're in a marathon, not a sprint. Expect it to take months before you see progress, and much longer for it to resolve one way or the other.
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Sadly, completely against all the advice given on-line, I pleaded with her, begged her to reconsider. I wrote her several letters, sent her flowers. All this did was put, in her own words, “extra pressure on her”.
Don't worry about it, nearly all of us did this before discovering DB'ing.
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She thinks I cannot change.
But you can. That's why it takes months, she's seen a certain behavior for years and when you change it she will think it's just tricks to get her back. It'll take months for her to start believing it's real.
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Currently trying to GAL. I am really struggling to get motivated, even though it is something I know I must do.
You really have to force yourself at first, but the more you get out the easier it gets and the more you start enjoying it and want to do it.
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Hopefully the Moderators will allow my posts to appear on the board without them being monitored first. This is a pain because they are so far down the message board I do not get any relies.
Just keep posting, they'll take you off moderation soon enough.
