first of all I said I have first hand knowledge of many broken marriages fixed up including my own marriage which has gone thru hard times. We've been married 27 years so I think I have some idea of better or worse after raising three teens all at once in the midst of it all.

When I say thru the grapevine, it's usually a fairly close association not some far off thing. I've also heard countless testimonies on Christian radio from a show called "Family Life Today." They are in the business of marriage counseling and have chronicled some really bad, bad marriages that made it. Sure, I don't know them personally but listening to their stories I have no reason to doubt them.



No, I would say, like I did above, they need to get some help, not just give up like you're proposing. You're saying...cut and run, now! Running from your problems isn't going to solve anything and the kids are always the ones who end up paying the most. I agree with Charles on this one.

Well greywar, Again, I can understand your point. But I have be logical and believe that your ability to meet people who have had problems and never been able to resolve them is limited so I can't take your words as absolute (I like that word) to every relationship since, like KFC, I too have seen marriages come back to life after years of downhill problems.

However I will say I am not naive to believe that I can try for another 20 years in the hopes I may still be able to save this relationship by then. I just have to make sure we cover all the bases before we decide to mess around with our children's future. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Not the end of the world. But I am a firm believer that I cannot judge people simply because they did something that would be suspicious of something bad. Innocent till proven guilty. I can't say just because she spoke to a total stranger that she is looking for a new romantic relationship. It's not like she hid it from me, I asked her and she told me without any type of fear. She is just very friendly and likable, unlike me who am very good at not making friends. LOL. She just lacks some basic logic when it comes to her actions, she is sometimes a bit too innocent in what she does. Just like at work. She sometimes walks from her job to the train station if she misses the shuttle. It's only a 10 minute walk, but what she does not understand is that she is walking thru the parking lot of the business centers between her job and the station, these are not crowded areas and are actually somewhat away from traffic and pedestrians so she runs the risk of having some stranger jump out from behind a car or a tree and harm her and there may be a chance no one will hear or see anything happen. Especially when she works overtime and gets out close to dark. She just seems to miss the point that it's dangerous and I have told her this already and hope she gets it before anything happens to her.

Well that depends on your sources, whether you trust them or not. Here I am getting the scoop from you. Should your opinion on this matter carry as much weight as a friend of a friend too?



This is not about teaching our kids to be doormats, it's about teaching them to look for solutions to their problems rather than taking the easy way out just because they discovered something they didn't like about their significant other. If the human race was to simply give up at the first sign of trouble our divorce rate would be 100%.

 

This only works when people actually want help. Unless the situations is *dramatically* different from what Charles has desacribed, his wife is already out of the marriage and has moved on. She just hasn't told him about that fact.

 

Maybe she really isn't how Charles is describing it, but if she is she won't want "help" because to her she isn't involved in anything that needs fixing.

This is true. The first thing a good counselor is going to ask is if they want help. If they don't, they are wasting his time. We ran into that once way back years ago. A couple who were having marital problems met with my husband and I at the husband's request.

It was clear within moments that while the husband was all for doing home repair the wife was done with the marriage. Her body language and expression left no doubt. We realized we came over for the husband only. When we left we asked her and him to think about if they really want to work on this marriage. It was obvious. They got a divorce and their kids paid the price. It was bad.

Well, this actually seems more complicated than this. You see, I do sometimes get this feeling that she is "out of the marriage and has moved on" but it is her the one asking for help. We have spoken about our problems and I asked her directly what she wanted. I asked her if she wanted to end this and move on and she said she wanted to work things out. She did pause for a moment before saying that but then I have also found myself thinking twice before I answer and I really would like to make it work. But I am also willing to move on if it seems hopeless.



This could be true. But as long as she is willing, so am I. I found myself in a similar situation before where my ex was trying to end the relationship and I refused to give up. She was willing to give it another try but I eventually came to the conclusion that I was not making any progress so I went to her and told her maybe we should move on. A few months later she told me she regretted it but it was too late. I had already jumped on a plane and left New Jersey and moved to Miami. She was upset that I had moved so far away. I was hurting for a while but got over it.

If I see no point in this, I will simple make the same choice and move on. Of course I won't jump on a plane and move away again. For now, I chose to make an effort to try and work things out.

I appreciate your comments greywar, it's good to keep an open mind in these kinds of situations and not be blind ourselves by our love, but for know I choose to give her the benefit of the doubt before I make a hasty choice.

I think the not paying attention thing is probably a vicious cycle.

You feel ignored, so you think, hey, might as well entertain myself. She sees you unavailable which reinforces her choice to devote her attention elsewhere.

I think Jythier has given some good advice.

I don't agree that staying together is always best for the kids, because a really dysfunctional or abuse relationship can be far more damaging.

Best wishes. Definitely do some reading and get some professional help. Counseling can be really wonderful, or at the very least enlightening enough to show you when it's time to call it quits.

Oh, and I agree...getting and giving phone numbers to random guys she meets = not a good sign, and being ok with that under the guise of giving her the benefit of the doubt is simply being a doormat and giving her unspoken permission to continue.

Thanks Tex! You know, I may be on JoeUser right now, but I'm also rubbing my wife's feet!

Hi Charles, sorry your having such an experience in your marriage. I'll give you my two cents, since you're written about it.

One from my own personal point of view and experience, as the wife in a marriage having experienced the unwittingly neglect of my husband (he didn't realize he was being neglectful, a couple of years ago. I didn't realize it was happening because being busy with kids, and going to school, and work and other stuff, you begin to notice the times hubby would rather spend with his friends, hanging out than with me, the times that I wanted to do things go places, that he has no interests in. I started to go with my friends, or the kids and just forget about him. But wanting to save my marriage, I had had enough, and I took a stand and we were able to make it work again. There have been some trying times in between, but we sticked it out, most important of all is because we communicate. We might yell at each other in the process, but we make it be known what we want and what we expect and most important, we say I'm sorry if either hurt the other.

From my brother's point of view, he is in the same situation you have found yourself in. They are both Christians (at least I can't vouch for her anymore) and he found out by accident what we all knew already, that she was cheating on him. I can't say and I'm not saying your wife is doing the same. However, my brother's wife became emotionally uninvolved in him, their children and their marriage. She totally ignored him, no matter what he has tried to do to save the marriage, she has no interest in him or the marriage. He has accepted that he can do nothing, their pastor can do nothing, and unfortunately, no one else.

You can try to save your marriage, as you love her still, make the effort to woo her again, start small, and just do stuff together, one thing at a time. It doesn't mean you have to spend a lot of money, just start doing small things for her, help around the house, plan quality time together, do something different in bed (hey, sometimes you guys are in your own little world and forget the woman is there), bring her something she likes, take her to something she likes, most importantly, talk to her, with love and patience and see what happens. Also, get the professional help, whether by your pastor, or that pastor at the new church, or even a marriage counselor, as you plan to do.

If after all your efforts, she has not changed, or doesn't show an inclination of wanting to 'kiss and make good' then there's nothing you can do.

Once the woman has made up her mind, that is it, you have to call it a day. There is just no way that I would out of respect for my hubby (and I've met a few guys in my lifetime) take another man's phone number and be on the phone with him for hours, right there at home! No way!

I looked in a mirror - and saw this entry by CharlesCS.

Having been in your computer chair, I pretty much concur with TW and Jythier.  Some people call it "growing apart", but it's more correct to call it "continuing bad habits".  Short answer:  counseling.  If you're willing to do what it takes, then that's what it takes.  And be ready to have some self-image battering, 'cause you're definitely exacerbating the situation but you don't want to see/admit it (Lord knows, I didn't!). 

Flashback:  2004.  Almost every evening found me in front of the PC.  Gaming, surfing, whatever.  Wife was doing household stuff or watching TV back in the bedroom.  I taught at the time and had a horrid schedule:  8am - 12pm & 6pm-10pm daily, most Fridays off.  I was also the lead tech for the school's systems, senior tech instructor and network admin.  By the time Friday rolled around, the LAST thing I felt like doing was dealing with people!  So I played on the 'puter.  After a while, Wife stopped asking me to go anywhere or do anything because she got tired of hearing, "I'm too tired, baby - maybe next time" or "I'm kinda stressed, now it not a good time!" or worse, "In a minute, honey!" ('cause a computer minute is like, 2 hours). 

Eventually I noticed that she was doing things without me - it seemed she was shutting me out of her life.  So I pointed out to her that she was excluding me from seemingly everything.  Of course, in my "pointing it out" it was made clear that SHE was shutting ME out and this behavior needed to stop.  My computer time, tiredness, etc. had nothing to do with it - I was the victim.  She....ahem!...disagreed.  Vigorously.  Loudly.  Vociferously, even.   Recognizing that there was just no dealing with her in her current state, I gave up and went back to the computer. 

Rinse, repeat.  I always had a perfectly good reason for not interacting with her at that moment,  she got tired of being denied my wondermous prescence and managed without me, I got upset at not being included, we argued.  Groundhog Day for about 6 years.

Oh, we didn't always argue.  We did eke out some good times.  And the sex (when it happened) was pretty good but there was an underlying feeling of it being more a case of "because I"m his wife and that's what I'm supposed to do" than a case of "Take me!  Take me now!".   All our interactions had fallen into this sort of routine; everything seemed to be happening because we were dutiful spouses and parents,  not because we wanted to. 

Just as in the old joke about the farmer and the mule, it took a 2x4 across the head to make me see the light (I prefer my metaphors shaken, not stirred).  This particular 2x4 was an IM log I'd chanced across while cleaning Windows cruft from her laptop.  Yeah, I was nosy.  Damned good thing, too!  It was a conversation between her and a guy friend that I knew pretty well.  She was explaining to him her feelings towards me (I would have loved to have seen the preceeding exchanges of text but they were garbled.  The critical part, however, was perfect).

Not having time to read it all just then, I sent it to the printer and picked it up on the way out the door to work.  Traffic was reasonable for a change and I had a few minutes before class started so I pulled the printout from my bag and commenced reading.  Then read it again.  Several times.  In a nutshell, she felt I'd been pulling away from her for years.  She even detailed for him WHY I was doing so - incidents from my life before her (including things that happened between my first two wives and I).  My first thought was "What is she talking about?".  Second:  "She's nuts!"  Third:  "I'm not doing that! (Am I?)".  Fourth:  "Uhhhhhhh...."   Fifth:  "OH FECAL MATTER!!"

As it happened, she had taken the day off.  I told the boss I wasn't feeling well and left.  Ya know, it really IS hard to drive with tears in your eyes!  I got home, told my very worried-at-my-state Wife that I'd had an epiphany, poured about 3 fingers of scotch, drank same, repeated, then sat down with her.  I cried.  I groveled.  I apologized.  I abjured myself.  I abased myself.  I cried.  And she....she forgave.

12 years of marriage had passed with me thinking the world was rosy while she grew more and more unhappy.  I didn't see that I was adding bricks to the wall between us; certainly I didn't intend to!  After awhile, she got tired of trying to break the wall down because I was a better builder than she was a breaker.  She 'cared for me, would protect me, defend me, take care of me, stand by me.  But she didn't love me'.  She had tried for years to '"give him my love but he didn't seem to want it anymore.  So it just kind of died away." 

I couldn't see the truth until I saw her side of things.  When we'd tried to talk about relationship issues, I was hearing her through the filter of past wives and past lives.  My mulish-ness drove her to emotionally closing herself off from me.  Her sense of duty, the kids, the marriage vow she intended to keep all prevented her from leaving me but she wasn't happy.  Mea Culpa.

I've never told her about seeing that IM.  I just told her that a light had dawned; a realization hit.  It's true, I just haven't explained what the catalyst for my mental metamorphasis was.  So here we are, four years later, still together and much, much happier.  Once we both understood how our actions and words were impacting the other person, we were able to find compromise and common ground.  Fortunately, I stayed awake in my psych classes and was able to understand the dynamics of the relationship once my rectal-cranial inversion had been....er,...'rectified'.  But some counseling is an option always on our table should we think we need it.

YOU, CharlesCS, need it.  You and your wife need a counselor.  You need a referee, a mediator, a advisor.  Because you are right.  And she is right.  And you are wrong.  And she is wrong.  A professional counselor can help you understand how to deal with all of those scenarios.  Humans are like living Heisenberg Uncertainty Principles - we can't fully understand the situation because we're in it.  The outside observer - with no vested interest in either side - is needed to provide the guidance we need to gain understanding.  It's not an admission of failure, or fault, or of some defect in you.  Seeing a counselor is nothing more than being intelligent enough to realize that the relationship between two people is dynamic and complex and that sometimes, you just gotta call in the pros.  Do you think poorly of your callers when they have a real, complicated problem?  Or are you glad they called the expert when they needed to instead of trying to fix it themselves and completely trashing the system?

Several things you've typed, and the defensiveness in some of your responses, are EXACTLY what I would have said/done before I read that IM log.  'I have met the enemy, and [sometimes] he is me!'.  Reading your post was like waltzing down Deja Vu Lane.  You said that the wife was willing to get counseling and you said that you were willing to get counseling.  So put down the remote, skip the frag-fest and GO.SEE.A.COUNSELOR.  Don't try to tough it out or fix it yourself.  The situation is bad but not quite yet ready for lawyerly interventions.  When you're really sick, you see a doctor because they're the experts.   Your marriage is really, really sick, Charles.  Go see the marriage doctor before it needs a hearse and not an ambulance.

 

Thank you for all the comments greywar, TW, Jythier, forever and especially AnonTech.

There is so much truth to what you all say and I am now compelled to make another article to explain some more details of my relationship with the mother of my children for the past 11 years. Chances are once read, many will believe that I am still fighting a battle I have already lost several times over and probably just consider me pigheaded. And chances are you may be right. I will say more in that article.Thank you.

We already do, Charles. We already do.

Lovingly, of course.

Been hanging around with LW lately haven't you? LOL