I have recently married a young beautiful woman (married for several months now). We are both in our late 20's and have been together for 5+ years now. As every couple we had our ups and downs, but we always had fun moments, inside jokes and shared our passion for travelling, board games, music and other things. However, things took a negative turn in recent months.
Last year we have created good memories by taking items from our bucket lists together and organized the wedding to every small detail together. Our wedding took place several months ago and everyone said we looked truly happy. I thought she would be the one and dedicated all my love to her. However, immediately after the wedding something has changed. She became colder and colder until about a month ago she decided to leave our home (living together for 4+ years). We have been separated for more than a month now. She is stating that she lost her feelings and will not get them back. That I am the wrong person for her and she does not love my anymore. She told me that trying to save our marriage will change nothing and she is 100% confident in divorce.
For several weeks now, she has been saying that we should divorce and that the marriage was a mistake. I asked several times to work on our issues and to solve them together, but she is refusing and has been mostly silent on our relationship topic apart from several discussions. She is refusing couples therapy and just wants to end it badly. Even in this situation, none of us can say any particular bad words about each other. She is not specifically blaming me for obvious negative traits, I am not mad at her. She just wants to find "herself" and needs to be selfish for once.
She is telling me that her life is great apart our relationship, but her close relatives are stating that she is different from the times when she was happy and her usual self. She also had a heavy loss in her family early last year and even mentioned burnout at some point. Now, it seems that she wants to shake things up heavily. She has booked several impulsive vacation trips which is quite unusual for her and seems to be running away whenever opportunity arises. Also, made several big purchases in a span of a month. Lost a lot of weight naturally.
One day she is stating that she is tired from everything, especially her work. Another day she is saying that she has never been as delighted and positive as right now. One day we have normal conversation and she even hugs me/initiates contact herself. The next time she is cold and avoids me.
She constantly comes back home to take a thing or two, but never takes all of her stuff. Also, whenever we discussed filing for divorce, she mentioned that there is no rush and we can file it in the future. I am trying to give her the full support and validate her feelings these days and not force anything. Giving her the space to travel and do her own thing. I am attending IC.
I've been reading the forum and implemented quite a lot of ideas into our relationship over the past several weeks. Especially remaining calm and maintaining self-control during our conversations. No rushed words, trying to avoid being needy or controlling. Giving her the space and mostly waiting for her to contact me. However, most of the comments on these forums are for couples that have been in marriage for years or are at a later stage in life. Not sure if I should apply everything given our short-term in marriage and age.
Any tips from the veterans on what would be the best steps in this situation? Should I pay much attention to little details (i.e. if she wants to hug or avoids hugging, her removing wedding ring) or it is better not to focus on those?
Thank you. Any advice would be heavily appreciated!
From your experience, does it mean that the only way is to divorce?
I will rephrase what is said here. Since I can not also pick lottery numbers or predict what the winning numbers will be.
Most people that come here end up divorced. Understand that the name of the board is DIVORCEBUSTING. MWD nor I believe in divorce.
Will you end up divorced? If I was a betting person I would bet YES. Is that the end of the story? Maybe yes maybe no. Here is where you get a say in this. That question is why this board is here.
One of my good friends from here divorced(a bitter contested one) and now is remarried to his spouse. Their are many examples of reconciliation and success stories.
Love is a choice and you have to choose to Love everyday. What that looks like is up to you. You can't control others - only yourself. So many of us do not choose divorce. We can choose what happens after that.
The normal advice is that the LBS gets to choose in the end. And if you have not yet gotten to choose then it is not yet the end.
I know that this is all hard stuff. All you can do right now is to make yourself into a person that only a fool would leave.
You may be on moderation for a while, which just means your posts are to be reviewed by a moderator before getting displayed. Moderation is usually removed after new posters have created 5-10 posts.
Once your thread reaches 100 posts, it will be time for you to start a new thread and continue on that thread. It is a good idea to link your old thread to your new one, and even link the new one back to the previous one. That makes it easier for the folks following your story. (There is a help thread on linking in the sticky threads at the top section of the forum’s display.) A moderator will “close” your old full thread which prevents further posting to it. It is still available to read.
Post in small frequent replies on your thread. Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down.
Post on other people’s thread to give support.
Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL).
DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
Talked to a lawyer. He told me not to sign anything on separation agreement. She can sign it herself and initiate which would give me better chance to negotiate good terms for me.
I will stay silent for now and not initiate any convo's.
Follow lawyers advice and your own advice to yourself
Stay silent - this is a good example of doing nothing is doing something.
Having plans show her you’re busy have a life and are not waiting around for her to change her mind. That makes you someone of value. That’s not pushing her away.
You go to this dinner 100% she will kick you in the nuts metaphorically speaking.
An affair is the futile attempt to fix themselves. To try to find happiness. Not realizing healing and happy come from within.
110%… you’re a wise man DNJ!!!
The affair is an attempt to fix.
The victim story is because they then want their train wreck to be someone else’s fault.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again … the BIGGEST problem with modern society is 90% of people refuse to own their behaviour. Everyone wants to blame, be a victim and get all their friends telling them what they’re doing is okay.
Completely not caring about her would deviate from my core beliefs.
No one said anything about not caring about her.
Originally Posted by TellMeSo
The last time she was mad at me I was completely calm talking back to her. I am just keeping my care and emotions for myself.
Yes. This how to be always when interacting with her.
I Would also focus on not taking blame for her emotions.
Originally Posted by TellMeSo
The last time she was mad at me I was completely calm talking back to her. I am just keeping my care and emotions for myself.
Her emotions are hers. Calmly accept them. You can acknowledge them. "You sound frustrated" etc..Everything in the validation thread. During this phase, I would not even verbally share your emotional state with her. Everything is amazing in my life right now is what you should be projecting to her.
What works best is that which you can control - your thoughts, actions, and reactions. The two stated pathways are not mutually exclusive. One can stick to their values and principles, and let their spouse do whatever heavy lifting towards divorce that they feel they need to do.
Originally Posted by TellMeSo
I am trying to justify her actions myself to understand why this happened better.
I found rationalizing and understanding good things to pursue. Not so much justifying or demonizing their spouse’s actions, rather working to understand how and/or why they could do the things they do.
Detachment is no longer being uncontrollably dragged about by one’s spouse’s behaviour and words. Moving ourselves into a more rational realm helps alleviate the emotional responses and triggers and fears.
Understanding is a basis of empathy, compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness. An interesting journey seeking intellectual understanding while simultaneously emotionally letting go. In my view one should seek both of these while also figuring out their convictions. That is a lot on one’s plate, and it takes a while to sort it out. One has to go slow. For you can only eat the elephant one bite at a time.
