Newlywed and in crisis

[funbun]

Thank you everyone. Sincerely. Your words help bring perspective and focus into my life. I needed it, as I tend to lose focus and start doubting myself over time.

Could you use some IC at the moment? Do you have some personal development goals and targets that IC would support you with? If so, then make that appointment. If you don't perhaps detaching and focussing on yourself means coming up with those goals. Who do you want to be? Your wife isn't a child and if she decides IC will support her in her goals, she is as capable as you are of setting that up for yourself. To be a married woman in a mature and adult relationship she needs to be capable of that kind of self reflection and taking of responsibility - you deserve to have a partner like that rather than a child who needs to be 'brought' to counselling. And you can't get her there no matter what you do: all you can do is get out of the way and let life work on her and her do with that as she will.

I went to the IC yesterday. We talked about a lot of things: letting go, my anxious attachment style, W's past withdrawal from R, and the unfairness of life. He commended on my ability to be reflective and for having processed so much. That felt nice, to know that I did something right.

One of the things that IC said that resonated with me was "You should trust your W to have the capacity to handle all of this on her own". I had the notion that being the husband, the man of the house, I have to take responsibility over W (culturally too, that is expected here in my country). I learned that some problems are not mine to "own". I can help or offer advice to an extent, but not in a way that jeopardizes my well-being.

And there are two ways to look at your sitch in the frame of "life's not fair". Yes the specific circumstances of your sitch are tough, no question. But would you rather she go along with the marriage, unhappy, for the next 20 years, and then pull the plug? I feel that was my sitch. I think my W started having doubts not too long after our wedding. I think she saw getting married as the destination instead of the beginning of a journey. For 20 years we had fits, starts and stops, problems, anger, resentment, passive-aggressiveness, strife because of these doubts, and her wrong idea of getting married, being married, and marriage in general. I think there was a limerance addiction she had and once we settled into the drudgery of married life, she started to regret her headlong rush to get married. About 9 months into our R she started making noise about wanting to get married. As if getting married were the prize, the goal, but she really didn't have a plan after that.

So as much as it would have hurt for her to pull the plug early on in the marriage, how much more pain and agony did I endure because she waited 20 years to finally throw in the towel? When we had a child, and were heavily invested in each other's lives in all the ways 2 people that are together for 2 decades are. You talk about being attached to her family, imagine knowing them for 22 years?? Now let's juxtapose my sitch with yours. Imagine that you pull the plug yourself, decide to move on, follow through on D, and start dating. Meet a gorgeous new woman, date for a couple of years, get married, have kids and spend the next 2 decades in a healthy, happy marriage. Which one of the two guys, you or me, would you want to be?

So while right now you have an attitude of "why me"? In 20 years you may turnaround and realize what a gift she has given you! That being married to someone who doesn't want to be married for 2 decades would be a lot of pain, frustration, anger, and turmoil. That someone in my sitch 2 years ago would have jumped at the opportunity to have had their WAW/WW that apparently never wanted to be married to them to have 5 days in pulled the plug so that they could have moved on, while young, to a happier life. So while you are in tremendous pain, it is similar to removing a bandaid. Would you want someone, 5 days in, to start slowly pulling that bandaid and prolong the pain for 20 years? Or to have someone 5 days in, just rip it off and have it over with quickly?.

Steve, these are wise words coming from experience and hardship. I truly value what you have said here, it helped, thank you for this. I took the time to read your first thread, I can't imagine the frustration you went through all those years and I agree with you, I do not want that for myself.

You used the word "limerance" here. I didn't know what it meant, I looked it up. It sounded like what I am having (though not to the extent your wife did). I have been wondering why have I stayed in this R for so long even though there were red flags with W: the intimacy issues, love not being reciprocated, W's distancer behaviour. I thought about what broken part of me has prevented me from seeing this and breaking off the R earlier on before getting M. What broken part of me has kept me going even though this R is unfulfilling. It seems like I was living in a world of fantasy. That I loved the idea of W. That I believed too much in W being the one for me. I was in love with her best qualities too much that I ignored or justified the bad ones. I am going to work on this going forward.