Can you salvage a marriage that is falling apart?
October 6, 2023 5:43 AM   Subscribe

I’ve hit a wall in my marriage and I don’t know how to move forward from here.

We’ve been married for three years, together for six. The past three years have not been easy due to external circumstances, we had to deal with a lot of stressful situations which put a strain in the relationship. Most of the circumstances that caused the strain have improved or been removed, but the cracks from the damage are showing.

My husband has always been more emotionally resilient than me, and in the past it felt like a helpful balance to my anxiety, which at times during the past two years got out of control. But now his resilience is starting to read as cruel and indifferent to me and I keep questioning daily if I should consider a divorce.

Over the past year he is growing steadily more indifferent and dismissive of my needs and feelings and our discussions always end up in fights because he gets defensive. I feel that due to my battle the past year with anxiety, which I now have under control, I’ve lost my credibility with him and any issues I have get chalked up to me overreacting or blowing things out of proportion.

I just don’t feel connected anymore. He likes to play video games or watch his own shows most afternoons/evenings. I love going for long walks outside, which he loathes, and whenever I ask him to go with me he complains that he finds them boring and I can just go on my own. He seems happiest when he’s playing video games with his friend which hurts my feelings and I feel like anything that has to do with me or our house is a chore he does to get it out the way and go back to his favorite activity. We’ve had numerous fights over his gaming and at some point I just gave up and accepted it.

What precipitated the latest argument is that he came home from work the other day and was texting on his phone and didn’t greet me. I was right there in the living room and said hi to him twice, he kept texting and looking at his phone. When I asked who is he texting he said I’m annoying him and he never says anything when I text people. Then he announced to me that he was texting an old friend of ours (more like acquaintance at this point) who is back in town and we’re going to see them on the weekend. The friend visiting is a man and I don’t have any concerns at this point that he’s met or talking to another woman. But this was just another example to me of how he’s always happier to talk to friends/other people than to me.

We also already had plans for that day long before he heard the friend is coming, and when I reminded him he said it’s not a big deal, we can do that another day. I got upset and told him he should had asked me first before making plans with said friend because we already had things we need to do on the weekend, which led to another argument that I’m being unreasonable and if I don’t want to go so badly he will cancel.

My issue is obviously not about visiting this friend, it’s about not being asked beforehand or him not caring about plans we already have. But anything I say or ask for just registers as an unreasonable request now.

I will grant him that he struggled too during the year when my anxiety and panic attacks were at their worst but I tried to shield him from it mainly because he didn’t know how to handle it. I relied mainly on my family and friends for emotional support.

Also, for full disclosure, during that time I had an emotional affair with an old crush. I’m ashamed of this and I eventually snapped out of it and ended it. Nothing physical ever happened, I didn’t even see them in person, but I did it and during that time I was in such a dark mental place that it was the only thing that brought me any joy.

Despite all this, I do love my husband and thought I never told him about the emotional affair, I chose him. I wasn’t always a great wife for a year or two when I was struggling almost daily with panic attacks. Perhaps that has caused him some emotional fatigue.

I feel like we’re growing apart a bit more every day and he is not noticing it or not caring at all. When I bring it up he says we have are fine and I’m creating issues out of nowhere. I’m heartbroken and feel like a failure. We want to have a kid and talk about it all the time but I just don’t know anymore if that will happen. Also if we divorce him I will have thrown away six years for nothing! I’m 35 and I very much want a kid and this may mean that will never happen for me and that thought is unbearable.

I tell myself to be pragmatic and just deal with it, maybe im asking for too much emotionally and maybe that’s not what marriage is about?

I’m deeply unhappy but don’t trust my feelings and I don’t know how much is self inflicted and how much is truly because of our issues. My battle with anxiety the past years left me emotionally frayed and maybe my resilience has dropped so much where I’m not tolerating things most people don’t even register as problems.

I know this is a very chaotic wall of text and I don’t know what my question is, I suppose how do I decide what the hell am I supposed to do at this point?
posted by Riverside to Human Relations (38 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
If he can't look up from his phone to say hi to you what makes you think he's going to pay attention to a kid?
posted by kingdead at 5:50 AM on October 6, 2023 [55 favorites]


Gently, the thing about throwing away six years is sunk cost fallacy. If you stay and are miserable for the next twenty.... wouldn't it be better to say you saved yourself twenty years of feeling unloved than that you wasted six, if you left today? I mean you can try couples therapy but it sounds like he doesn't agree there's a problem so I think you might be happier if you just left. You deserve to feel loved.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 5:58 AM on October 6, 2023 [64 favorites]


First of all, I'm sending you lots of hugs.

"maybe im asking for too much emotionally and maybe that’s not what marriage is about"

You're asking for what you're asking and your marriage is about what you want it to be. Every couple gets to decide what marriage means for them as a couple, and each person what it means to them personally.

Now that we got that out of the way: You have a problem with something in your marriage. Your husband doesn't agree. You can either try to get him to agree with you about having a problem in the first place, or do what you can on your own side without him changing his opinion or his actions.

If you can get him to agree that there's a problem (maybe by the time-honored tradition of threatening a divorce if you two don't work on this), then you can try couples therapy, marriage counseling, working through relationship workbooks etc. But again you'll be running into a problem of the other party possibly not being willing to do the work.

If you're the only one thinking there's a problem and willing to work on the problem, you can try individual therapy, books like "Divorce Busting", resigning and accepting the things you now see as issues, and finally, divorce.

All of these choices are equally valid, but please do remember we only get to live once, and it would be nice if we could do it in good, heart-warming company.
posted by gakiko at 6:04 AM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]


I do notice that the love you say for your husband appears only in paragraph 10 of your summary - sandwiched between a lot of other information that seems to indicate your relationship is going in a direction where neither of you are happy. To answer your question: yes, I think you can salvage a marriage which is falling apart - but only with considerable effort from both parties - and usually with third party help. Balancing what you raise as positives with that you state as negatives and blockers: I would say things don't look positive.
posted by rongorongo at 6:05 AM on October 6, 2023 [5 favorites]


Good lord, please don't try to salvage the marriage to this indifferent lout, salvage your own precious, beautiful, potentially joyous life. You deserve so much better than this. Your emotional affair and how he was unable to help you through your own anxiety and distress is definitely a sign you need a lot more than you'll ever get from your current stone of a husband.

I think your husband has fallen out of love with you but lacks the courage to actually say it, instead disappearing into his own world of video games and acquaintances, and is icing you out in hopes you'll leave him.

The best thing you can do is start thinking about the next phase of your life and how you can get there as quickly and safely as possible.
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:05 AM on October 6, 2023 [23 favorites]


PS. And please for the love of all that is holy, don't bring a child into that mix. Children do not make relationships better, they do not fix any problems in relationships, and if you think you're having problems now, whooo boy, wait until you try to co-parent with an unwilling ex partner.
posted by gakiko at 6:07 AM on October 6, 2023 [58 favorites]


Do you have any kind of dependents? What’s your individual financial situation? I’m asking these questions because yours has a lot of examples of emotional discord but I’m not seeing much about logistical stuff. Like, if you separated, would there be any serious practical problems, like lack of housing or job security, custody of any pets or care for any dependent adults, health insurance issues (that I assume help pay for anxiety treatment), and so on?

35 is young. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I know plenty of people who became parents well into their 40s. There are other options too like surrogacy, adoption, being a really amazing step mom, centering childcare professionally, and more. What feels unbearable to you when married to this guy could very well seem viable if you’re in other more loving and fulfilling relationships. If you are worried about having wasted six years with him, why would you not worry about having wasted a lifetime with him? In short, DTMFA.

Like, okay, nobody here can actually give you a right or wrong answer. We don’t know your husband, we don’t really know you. It could be that he is having his own struggles with mental health, that the marriage is also not what he had expected, and so-on. But if both of you aren’t all-in on committing to working through this stuff together, why would you stay? You can work on your stuff by yourself, as you have proven capable of doing with your anxiety. If you asked him to attend therapy with you to work on your communication together, would he agree to it and actually follow through? Does he care enough to put the work in? It sounds like he does not, from your question. What about him makes you think he would have the commitment and follow through for being a father, if he can’t care for a home with you? There very well may be stuff. You’ve written your question while in some amount of distress, after all, and can’t convey everything. But if the stuff isn’t blatant, if you have to think hard and rationalize some of it… it’s probably not true.

Take care of your physical needs right now. Keep yourself fed and watered, be somewhere pretty every few days, spend time with friends, talk with your family, pet animals, make time for creative pursuits, listen to music, sleep as well as you can. If possible, spend time away from your husband and try to let yourself feel your feelings while you maintain your body for a little while. Give yourself the space and time to make decisions with confidence.
posted by Mizu at 6:11 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


This doesn't sound...great. That said, I think that if he also recognizes that you're drifting apart and doesn't like it, you can turn things around. I speak from somewhat related experience of periods of "drift" in my own long-term relationship. It is possible for one or both parties to form habits (like gaming) that aren't really what we want to be doing in a big-picture sense but that are enticing and least-resistance when we're tired or bored or sad and then those habits get a grip on us so that they can feel more pressing than things that we value more in our hearts. He may not be a lout, he may just be in the grip of some really bad habits. If he wants to kick those, he can.

If you can have some good, frank conversations with him where he concurs that this is part of a pattern of distancing, you can come up with a plan to spend more time together, etc. If he doesn't see a problem at all, that is probably not a good indicator of a future together.
posted by Frowner at 6:21 AM on October 6, 2023 [20 favorites]


Oof, I could have written this exact question a year ago. I'm sorry to tell this, but he doesn't like you anymore. He may love you, but he doesn't like you or respect you. He is showing you, repeatedly through his words and actions, that he is done with this relationship. You need to belive him and go.

Yes it will be hard, and he may even pretend to be surprised or try to turn things around. But do yourself a favor and just leave. If he 'tries to change', it won't last for more than a month or two before slipping back into this.

Go, find someone who actually likes you, that wants to spend time with you and enjoys your company. Life is too short to waste it on crappy relationships.
posted by ananci at 6:33 AM on October 6, 2023 [23 favorites]


You need to talk with him directly and kindly about this. It's a problem you both have to be on board to address, and you need to have agreement about the approach(es).

Also, for your own info: Defensiveness blocks intimacy. (It's a kind of secret-keeping.) Here's a blog that talks more about the impact of defensiveness on relationships. Highlighting that you need to be careful about how you might choose to bring this into conversations with him because, defensiveness.
posted by interbeing at 6:38 AM on October 6, 2023


Your experience sounds eerily similar to mine, although I had many, many more years in the relationship: anxiety, unsupportive partner who became dismissive and aloof and resentful about basic household tasks, having to seeking the support I needed outside the relationship, the whole nine. We divorced recently and it has been incredibly liberating and has improved my anxiety tenfold and I'm having a blast on my own. Not going to say the divorce was easy, but I'm much healthier on the other side and do wish we had done it sooner.

If he didn't know how to support you through a difficult personal time that really only involved your own mental health, he's not going to have the tools to support you, or any family you might have, through future emotional difficulties (at least not without a ton of work, which it doesn't sound like he's interested in doing).
posted by Ms. Toad at 6:42 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


Only you can say what’s a dealbreaker for you.

I will say my spouse reacts to some kinds of stress by distancing and zoning out so some of what you describe is familiar. He’s also someone who can only do one conversation at a time, and that’s how he is on text sometimes. He knows it bothers me so he works on it. I’m not minimizing your feelings here, though. I’m just wondering if this is a change or to some degree how he operates. Also, is it constant or just at a peak right now.

For us, the repairs in our marriage have usually come from turning towards each other. Research shows that if couples try a new thing (new to both of them) together it sparks a lot of the same chemicals as falling in love. So sometimes if we’ve had a patch where we’ve had trouble connecting we’ll go try something new like axe throwing together.

For me, I also try to start saying “yes” more when things get tense. For example, the friend thing…I don’t know what your other plans are, but it sounds like your spouse may an overture to include you, even if it was telling and not asking. If it’s truly in conflict with plans, I get it. But if you could shuffle the schedule, it might be a way to do something fun together. I find if I break the conflict, especially if I’m like “I feel overwhelmed at everything on our plate this weekend, but if it’s important to you for sure let’s work it out,” he usually meets me more than halfway.

And to me that’s the critical thing. If you can try a week or two of behaving “as if” — you know, all the little self-censoring moments because he’s gaming obsessed so you don’t ask/tell/poke him or plop down and grab a controller or whatever you two do for fun that you both like — and he starts returning the vibe, then I think you have a chance to address the deeper stuff. If not, that’s information too.

Definitely do not get pregnant with this guy unless things improve.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:43 AM on October 6, 2023 [17 favorites]


Best answer: This dynamic is very similar to my ex-marriage in its final days, except my marriage was much further along this road. I'll tell you what I recommend, and then I'll describe what happened in my marriage and you can see if any of that sounds familiar.

Recommendation: Tell your husband that your relationship is in trouble, your marriage is about to end, and you want to save it, if he is willing, by going to couples counseling NOW. Don't use different words. Don't use extra words. Don't soften the blow. Speak this exact sentence to him. In whatever conversation follows, resist the urge to defend yourself or list his faults or even make peacekeeping statements accepting your share of the blame, etc. All of that is a distraction. You will not be distracted. Just keep repeating, "Yes, you're right, and that's why we need to treat this as a relationship emergency. I hope you're willing to try couples' counseling."

If possible, find a marriage and family therapist (MFT) who advertises that they practice EFT (emotionally focused therapy) and/or Structural Family Systems therapy. But any MFT is fine, and any licensed professional is better than no professional help. Please do not seek out a relationship "coach" or any other unlicensed provider.

When you're in therapy, please be brutally and bluntly honest. Do not try to protect anyone's feelings. Your honesty is what will save your marriage, if it can be saved. And pay attention to how you both are engaging with the therapy on a meta level and whether both your attitudes start to shift in about 3-4 months. Your work won't be *done* within that timeframe, but you will know by then whether your marriage can be saved or not. For example, if either or both of you are angry, resentful, and committed to bearing grudges, or if either or both of you feel like this is a chore and are happy when you find an excuse to blow it off, the marriage can't be saved. Only 50% of this is in your hands. The other 50% needs to come from him.

Good luck!

My experience: What you describe re:indifference and ignoring you is VERY familiar to me. My ex actively refusing to notice me, even to the extent of basic courtesy, and becoming hyper-defensive when I pointed it out -- was one of the first signs of impending divorce, appearing about 3 years before the marriage finally ended. At first he stopped showing affection entirely and stopped greeting me when I came in the door, and quite soon after he would also barely tolerate affection or greetings from me towards him. If I gave him a hug just walking around the house, for no reason, he'd stand there waiting for me to let him go, and then walk off slightly annoyed because I had interrupted him.

Just as you described, he would not look up from his phone or laptop if I was sharing good news. Later on, if I shared something difficult with him he would do the exact same thing - like one time I was worried that I was about to lose my job, I was hugging him by the shoulders and holding back tears, but he physically pushed me away and said, "Why don't you talk to your therapist about this?" and then walked away.

Almost everything I did or said made him angry - even if I was trying to be nice. I would plan a date, arranging for childcare and buying tickets and everything on my own, but he would get angry about how I didn't consult him. If I did consult him, he would get annoyed with me for suggesting a date at such an inconvenient time (it was never a convenient time).

I spent about a year telling him, explicitly and regularly: "I think this relationship is in serious trouble," and "We need counseling," and "I don't feel loved," and "We need counseling," and "Have you noticed how you only interact with me affectionately when you want sex," and "We need counseling," and "We are heading towards a divorce," and "We need counseling," and "This isn't what love looks like, this isn't what marriage should be like," and "We need counseling." He never agreed to go to counseling. He invariably brushed me off as oversensitive, overreacting, overemotional, etc., rolling his eyes and often getting annoyed that I even spoke up.

Then I threw in the towel and said I wanted a divorce immediately. He was shocked, shocked beyond words, claimed that I was utterly blindsiding him, and became desperate to save the marriage. He would "do anything", he promised tearfully, begging me to stay literally on his knees. We went to couples' counseling for about five months. Unfortunately, he was just too angry with me for whatever reason, too rigid, too strongly defended, too resentful - and all of this he couldn't articulate or even admit to, it was just obvious from his behavior and he kept denying it through gritted teeth.

Like, one time he was asked to plan a date for us as his "homework". We went to a tea-and-guided tour at a local historical mansion/museum, but while we were at tea, he sought out another couple to sit with (even though there was plenty of seating) and during the tour he wandered away from me for ~90% of the time. It could not have been clearer that he was too anxious or angry or just unwilling to actually spend time with me. After we went home, I pointed it out to him, and he got thunderingly angry with me that nothing was good enough for me and couldn't I see how hard he was working, which to me just underlined how bad things were. He hated hanging out with me so much that this was *work* for him!

A couple of months after that, I threw in the towel for good, told him this was clearly not working, and I was leaving. Once again he was devastated, crying, on his knees, begging me to stay. Again I was "blindsiding" him. But what was apparent to me by then is that even though he was desperate to remain married to me for whatever reason, he didn't love me and he definitely also realllly disliked me. And in any case, it wasn't important how he "truly felt". The fact was that he was treating me with disrespect, callousness, cruelty, and (on his best days) indifference. And couples' counseling was not helping him overcome or change any of these behaviors. So I was done.
posted by MiraK at 6:58 AM on October 6, 2023 [56 favorites]


Best answer: I like MiraK's suggestion, except I would preface that question with the first primary question: "Do you even want to continue being married?"

He sounds checked out to me. And sometimes people check out because in their own perspective they've tried really hard and it didn't achieve whatever in their mind a successful relationship should be and don't know what else to do, OR they've gotten into the marriage and found it is harder than they want to work and they're done. Either of those states cultivates contempt and resentment that only grows if unaddressed.

But some people, once the seal is broken on Not Talking About It, are encouraged to try with guidance of a professional or trusted mentor. Some aren't, though, it's too late or maybe was always too late from the start, and you can go to therapy at that point but the goal should be to navigate the dissolution with the least amount of additional damage.

In any case, your partner is treating you like an annoying roommate, and that's not how we treat people we love. That's not a problem you caused all by yourself, and not a problem you fix all by yourself, if indeed it is fixable. I would start by asking him if he even wants to fix anything in the first place, or if he's just done.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:13 AM on October 6, 2023 [15 favorites]


With the very kindest of intentions: I strongly feel like you buried the lede of daily panic attacks. That points to mental health in a state that masks and overwhelms anything else, especially the delicacy of love.

I can only guess that almost every interaction you have with him, and your feelings about him, and his feelings about you, are very colored and determined by daily panic attacks and whatever is driving them. That seems like the thing to address first, and see where the marriage is after that.
posted by Dashy at 7:24 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


Response by poster: > I can only guess that almost every interaction you have with him, and your feelings about him, and his feelings about you, are very colored and determined by daily panic attacks and whatever is driving them. That seems like the thing to address first, and see where the marriage is after that.

Answering to Dashy only to clarify that I do not have panic attacks anymore. I went through a very tough period where I was suffering them for almost a year but things are under control now and I haven’t had a panic attack in more than a year.
posted by Riverside at 7:31 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]


If you want to try to save your marriage, have 'date days' where you can't do your thing and he can't play video games at least one day a week to reconnect. If he says no or only does it lackadaisically , then don't waste your time on marriage counseling and just get a divorce.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:46 AM on October 6, 2023


Best answer: I have a couple thoughts, as a person who's been through a divorce. A lot of my thinking comes from discussions with a therapist, discussion that have been very helpful to how I think about relationships in general. I venture to say that your situation points to a very common struggle: you and your spouse aren't communicating well. Your needs, feelings, resentments, all of it, they're not registering well for either of you. There are strategies for addressing miscommunication. There are no strategies for arriving at the conclusion that you don't want to be in a relationship with this person.

Something jumps out at me: speaking about your issues as if they are gospel. When I would come to my therapist with written statements like this:

Over the past year he is growing steadily more indifferent and dismissive of my needs and feelings and our discussions always end up in fights

They would come back to me with revisions in all caps like this:

Over the past year I FEEL LIKE he is growing steadily more indifferent and dismissive of my needs and feelings and I FEEL THAT our discussions always end up in fights, EVEN THOUGH I KNOW THAT'S HYPERBOLE.

If you think of your problems as ways of speaking about how you feel, rather than trying to justify yourself in absolute terms, you can find a path toward techniques to speak about those feelings in a way that doesn't impugn your partner. You meet in the middle, and that middle is an agreement that you're different people who expeirence the ame circumstances differently. Work with that, if you want to. If you don't want to, though, don't! But at that point you're communicating that your interpretation is more relevant to you than the shared experience. That, I think, is a clear indicator that you're maybe looking less for reconciliation and repair, and instead you're holding out hope for your spouse to move over to your side of the interpretations, abandoning their own perspective. So that's a question: can you tolerate hearing and accepting your spouse's version of the edited text above? Because that's a thing you can do together.

I say that because I notice something in how differently you talk about your emotional affair relative to the complaints that you've described. In my reading, you diminish or minimize the impact this emotional affair may have had within your relationship. How would your partner describe it? Are you open to hearing how they feel about it without insisting on your interpretation of its impact? You both experience these things differently, and it can be complicated to get across that gap. It's a path that comes with hurt feelings and a willingness to trust that your partner wants to see you both heal the relationship rather than seek ill of one another. That's a judgment only you can make.

Sometimes people are just so over a relationship that it's not worth doing this work. Hearing how people feel about you can be unsettling. It's work. Are you up for it? If you don't have interest in that work, that's a legit time to say so and call it a day.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 7:59 AM on October 6, 2023 [19 favorites]


From what you’ve written it sounds like he is completely disengaged from your relationship and isn’t open to your attempts to talk about your unhappiness and dismisses you when you try. I subscribe to the (Gottman institute) idea that a healthy relationship is built on consistently kind and engaged responses to ‘bids for connection’ - his refusal to even respond ‘hello’ when you walked into the room on that occasion is a very literal illustration of how this isn’t happening for you. That’s an expression of contempt, which I don’t think a relationship can survive.

In your situation I would leave, but before taking that decision you could also consider couples’ counselling. For that to happen, you don’t try to gently convince him or hope he’s open to it (clearly he won’t be) - sit him down and firmly say something along the lines of ‘I am very unhappy in our marriage and things don’t seriously change then I’m going to leave. I’m open to trying couples counselling before that if you are able to commit to coming to X number of sessions and participating fully in an attempt at saving this relationship.’ If he says anything other than ‘I didn’t realise it was so bad. I’m sorry and I’m willing to work on it’ then consider if it’s a better investment to spend the money on counselling or on leaving/getting divorced. It really sounds like he needs to change basically everything about how he relates to you in order to be a decent partner, and if he can’t even acknowledge that then he is a lost cause.

35 isn’t old, you could have changed absolutely everything about your life and be far happier in a few years. Also, it’d be cruel and irresponsible to have a kid whose father would be likely to be this shitty to them and definitely to their mother.
posted by chives at 8:13 AM on October 6, 2023 [4 favorites]


Best answer: I just don’t feel connected anymore.

That does seem to be the main problem. Because the main example you gave, while not an example of great behavior on his part, is something I could see my partner doing (or even myself doing), and it not being a big deal. If a friend (even good acquaintance) is going to be in town, plans get changed. My partner and I also don't have a routine of greeting each other when we get home. But, and this is key, we do feel very connected to each other.

I'm pointing this out not to argue with you or suggest you're wrong in anyway, but just to suggest that it's possible your very real/valid/strong feelings may be less about a specific instance like the example you gave, and about a larger problem. You're better off hashing this out with a professional (therapist), but if I had to guess, "the year or two" of almost daily panic attacks that you felt you needed to hide from him because he couldn't handle them, is the scar in your relationship that you haven't fully recovered from (even if you've recovered from the panic attacks) and potentially your husband hasn't recovered from either. Has he ever shared with you what those years were like for him? Have you talked about it much, or is it a topic you both avoid?

Even if your husband doesn't agree there is a problem in your marriage, if you tell him you are feeling extremely alone in the marriage and miserable, does he care? If he is cold and uncaring in the face of your suffering, that's a very bad sign - there have been times in my seven-year relationship that I haven't totally understood why my partner is so upset and vice versa, but we always care when the other person is upset.

In short, I agree with those saying that you shouldn't settle for being this miserable. If he's willing, you can try couples therapy, and if he takes the couples therapy seriously, there is always a chance you'll make real headway. But it's also possible couples therapy will give you clarity on needing to get a divorce. Finally, if kids are really a strong priority, consider freezing your eggs now if you can afford it- that can take the pressure off a bit. Good luck.
posted by coffeecat at 8:14 AM on October 6, 2023 [4 favorites]


Even if your husband doesn't agree there is a problem in your marriage, if you tell him you are feeling extremely alone in the marriage and miserable, does he care? If he is cold and uncaring in the face of your suffering, that's a very bad sign -

I agree. If there is coldness in response to this, I wouldn't bother with counseling. It's done.

I'm sorry you're going through this.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:16 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


if we divorce him I will have thrown away six years for nothing!

I was going to mention the sunk-cost fallacy, but others already did, so here's something more positive:

Those years weren't wasted. You did what felt right: you loved someone, you married them, you did your best to build a life together in some sad & challenging times. You survived those times. That's not nothing.

As Frowner says: the relationship may be able to be saved, but only if you both want to save it. If you both find a way to balance doing your own thing with doing things with and for each other.

But if it ends, it still meant something.

Relationships (not just romantic ones, all human relationships) have a lifespan. It's rare that you get lucky and the lifespan is the length of your own. But shorter relationships still have meaning, and still leave us with things to be grateful for.

In this case: you now know more clearly what you want and need from a partner and from a relationship, and what you are not getting.

he struggled too during the year when my anxiety and panic attacks were at their worst but I tried to shield him from it mainly because he didn’t know how to handle it. I relied mainly on my family and friends for emotional support.

A wide support network is healthy and good to have. Respecting your partner's capabilities is also good. But part of me wants to say, if he didn't 100% have your back during that time, this isn't the guy.
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:24 AM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]


You had an emotional affair because your husband is not emotionally available to you. I don’t think he’d going to change but you certainly can try with therapy if he’s motivated. I’m sorry that he’s not!

I’m 40 and would also like a child so I totally get those fears of yours. I am so, so, SO glad I did not have a child with any of my exes because it would not have been fair to the child. I probably won’t have kids because I only want to do so with a great partner. However, if the biggest priority is having a kid, you can do so on your own. I can’t say what’s right or wrong for you, staying or going, but I can say that adding a child to this dynamic is only going to make things worse. Being single is great in many ways and even that loneliness is better than the loneliness and rejection you are feeling right now in this relationship. It sucks when life is hard! You certainly deserve more happiness than you have right now and I hope you can find it — you will!
posted by smorgasbord at 9:36 AM on October 6, 2023 [2 favorites]


I think you should start making a concerted effort to do things together which you both enjoy. You are in a rut after a lot of difficult years when he may have felt like a caregiver to you, and to break out of it you need to make some happy memories together.

After a few months of that, if things have not improved, you should let him know you are unhappy enough to consider leaving and see how he responds.

RE children, you definitely don't want to bring one into this marriage as it is now. If you split up you can have one on your own; single parenting is hard but it's worse to have to coparent with someone you don't want in your life.
posted by metasarah at 10:19 AM on October 6, 2023 [3 favorites]


I do love my husband

This part of your post is incomprehensible.

I agree with what metasarah and tiny frying pan said just above.
posted by JimN2TAW at 11:12 AM on October 6, 2023


I'm not certain what I would advise if you were a friend (How unhappy are you? How unhappy is he? etc.).

If you are interested in an outsider's perspective of things to try (a few other people have suggested this above) - date and/or activity night, a minimum once a week, so you can have mutual activities together and ideally, it will lead to pleasant interactions and/or understanding. Alternate date planning and in the beginning - take him on a walk (but talk to him first to find out if there is a place you can take him or an activity you can do walking that you both could enjoy). For the other date, he introduces you to a video game and you play with him (I noticed he plays a lot with a friend, so he gets something out of interacting with others in a game.)

The other thing I would consider doing is couple's therapy, mainly for the communication aspects. It is hard to gleam from reading your description, but I can't help wondering - is his reliance on video games for fun? Or is it a coping mechanism and if so, why? Are there better ways for you both to communicate, whether it be a spontaneous friend is in town or the texting thing?

Finally, are you both happy in this relationship? Do you both still have empathy, compassion, and understanding for each other? Or is this so painful that it is better to part ways? (I wouldn't ask these last set of questions until the dates and some therapy... or not if you are that unhappy now). Good luck.
posted by Wolfster at 11:19 AM on October 6, 2023


I saw something on the intertubes lately where someone said they couldn't believe how many men just don't like their wives and girlfriends, and then gave lots of examples, and it was shocking, just as your example of how your husband sometimes speaks to you. This is your partner, your spouse, your person, and he tells you you're annoying? Fuck that shit. I mean, look, if someone had a really bad day once a year and said something mean like that, and then quickly apologized and tried to repair, that'd be one thing. But he just tells you you're annoying? Let me quote the poet Lizzo:

Woo girl, need to kick off your shoes
Got to take a deep breath, time to focus on you
All the big fights, long nights that you been through
I got a bottle of Tequila I been saving for you
Boss up and change your life
You can have it all, no sacrifice
I know he did you wrong, we can make it right
So go and let it all hang out tonight
'Cause he don't love you anymore
So walk your fine ass out the door


Assigning blame isn't super important (sounds like you each did some wrong and didn't repair or reconnect).

What's important: getting past this notion that you should stay in a unhappy marriage for a decade or more because you've already been in it for a few years; moving forward now. What's most important: DO NOT HAVE A CHILD WITH THIS MAN. Certainly not now, and maybe not ever.

Now, I do think individual therapy for you each and couples counseling would be a good first step, if you need to feel like you did everything you could. But I also want to encourage you to move ahead with confidence. The time to get out, to make the best of your life, is now, or very soon. Don't triple down by having kids. He won't get nicer. Read about the Four Horsemen by Gottman.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:55 AM on October 6, 2023 [12 favorites]


(Also, you don't have to tell us, but be honest with yourself: did the emotional affair cause the problems, or was the emotional affair a way of escaping what was already a lackluster or disconnected marriage? Were you trying to wrench your way out of your marriage?)
posted by bluedaisy at 11:56 AM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


This man would be a nightmare to try to parent with. He'll be playing video games while you do literally everything, and whine when you ask him to do anything.

When I bring it up he says we have are fine and I’m creating issues out of nowhere.

If one spouse says a marriage isn't fine, then it isn't fine. He's dismissing you.
posted by Mavri at 12:24 PM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]


The heavy hitters in couples work are the Gottmans and their cental hub is the Gottman Institute.

They used to do weekend long seminar retreat type things but I don't know if that survived Covid.

In any case, they've written a lot, including research and self help materials and they have an active training program and have a list of Gottmans certified therapists.

I'd suggest you check them out, as they really have done a lot of work in this arena and know what they're doing imo.
posted by jasper411 at 1:19 PM on October 6, 2023 [1 favorite]


Start using the word divorce in conversations. Use the word when talking to an individual therapist and use the word in talking to your husband. Try on the idea.

I think I used the word divorce in conversations for a year or so before there was a final incident that resulted in me separating from my husband. I was confident that I made the right choice because I had spent so long in the trial phase.
posted by shock muppet at 1:21 PM on October 6, 2023 [4 favorites]


Hi. I'm going to be really honest. You can salvage a lot of shit with people who love each other, but what you're describing ain't that.

And look, I get sunk costs. Trust me - I knew early on my marriage was on fire but I also didn't want to get out of it because man, I really wanted a kid, and man, I didn't want my marriage to have been a failure, and eh, what was really out there for me?

I wasted ten years of my life in something unhappy after I knew it was a problem. Six months after the divorce was initiated, I got into an emotionally fulfilling relationship that was fucking worlds better than any moment of my marriage. But I could have been getting into that relationship years earlier, if I had had the courage to just leave.

You need and deserve someone who is always excited to see you, always excited to talk to you, always excited to hear what you have to say. You don't need this shit. Get out. Memail me if you want to talk in detail about why I say this, but trust me, get out.
posted by corb at 3:16 PM on October 6, 2023 [9 favorites]


A friend of mine just got back from visiting her parents who are in their late 60s and have been married for decades and who really seem not to like each other. They aren't very nice to each other, and they bicker a lot. My friend enjoys spending time with them individually but hates being with them together. We have talked about why on earth people would stay in relationship with someone who isn't very nice to them and have a hard time being nice to their kids when around each other. Why is staying miserable and together somehow noble? Why do we value longevity in relationships over connection and kindness?

It's really hard to break an attachment like that. It's hard to feel like we were "wrong." But you know what's worse? Your kids not wanting to be around you and your spouse because you aren't kind to each other. There's nothing good for you or the kids about that.
posted by bluedaisy at 4:11 PM on October 6, 2023 [8 favorites]


He's clearly not participating in improving things, and you'll need him on board with change before you're going to get any change. He sounds like someone who is not very emotionally aware or literate, and it sounds like he always has been.

There's a phenomenon that I've read about (I don't have a name or anything, I'm sorry), where when one spouse is ill or very high-needs for a long time, the other spouse learns to turn off their needs and separate their emotional well being from the relationship. Sometimes that's in the context of caretaking, where they can feel like more of a parent than a partner, but sometimes it's just more of an emotional separation. Then when the unwell spouse recovers, there can be a LOT of rebound emotion from the well spouse--frustration they hadn't felt safe expressing, selfishness where they felt like they couldn't express needs before, anxiety that whatever was happening might happen again.

It doesn't sound like he did much caretaking, but I do think that if there was a year where you were having daily panic attacks, he probably got used to separating his emotional state from yours, if not entirely suppressing his feelings. He couldn't come to you for support and didn't know how to support you through what you were going through, so he got used to this way of living where there are all these walls.

So if there's going to be emotional intimacy again, it's going to require active effort. But he doesn't sound emotionally intelligent enough to realize this and act on it. So he's just keeping himself cocooned and safe, and feeling attacked when you come near him, and he might not realize that there was a danger that's over, and that behavior is now maladaptive.

This doesn't change the fact that he wasn't there for you when you needed him, and he's not seeing what's going on now. But it does seem like he might be the kind of person who would not recognize this pattern unless it's pointed out explicitly, and who might have a lot of unlabeled feelings about what the two of you have been through.

I don't say this to say you should stay with him or that he's not being a jerk. I'm saying that he's been through some things, too, so changing the emotional rules in your house without explicitly talking about it might feel more threatening than anything else to him right now. Just a filter to look at things through, when you approach him.
posted by gideonfrog at 6:17 PM on October 6, 2023 [7 favorites]


I hope this doesn't sound harsh. Crashed and lost a long comment. Anyway, where was he and what was he doing over the past few years when you had an emotional affair and spend years having almost daily panic attacks - and doing whatever you did to get that under control. Do you really think that didn't effect him? (It may have made him decide you weren't the one for him, which is why he checked out. But there may well be more to it)

You say this his way of being "felt like a helpful balance to my anxiety" which makes me think you gave him the job of not being reactive.

Most of what you describe as what he does could be either here or there, in general, but if it makes you feel ignored than he should address that. (Old friend from out of town, made plans in spite of having plans, then agrees to cancel with old friend. Honest mistake? Or dick behavior and attempt to cover up dick behavior?)

If not therapy, at least you need to have a frank talk. Or write him a letter. Because you are not okay. And that needs to be fixed.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 7:27 PM on October 6, 2023 [6 favorites]


Maybe he needs to go hang at a cowboy ranch to get things sorted out
posted by zenon at 8:08 PM on October 6, 2023


I'm so sorry, this all sounds really hard.

>how do I decide what the hell am I supposed to do at this point?

Ask yourself, do I want to be in this relationship, as it is, for the rest of my life? Do I want to raise a kid with him, as he is right now? Can I trust him to support me if I'm pregnant, and through labour and delivery and the hell and joys of having a newborn?

>When I bring it up he says we have are fine and I’m creating issues out of nowhere.

Are you OK with his response? Are you OK with his general treatment of you, and that he's completely checked out of the relationship?

I'm so sorry but it seems like he does not want to be in a relationship with you. If that's the case, why isn't he asking for a divorce? Because he'd rather put that responsibility on you.

Are you in therapy? If not, that might be a good idea.
posted by foxjacket at 4:15 PM on October 7, 2023


Coming in late on this - I've gone through a divorce. Just to give you some background - my partner was generally anxious and having panic attacks, and generally critical of me, but still said our marriage was a good one, or at least good enough to continue; I was the one who, for months, said I wasn't happy. I don't know if they still really liked me towards the end, but I really didn't like them, though I could not completely realize or say that at the time.

My advice would be to try a trial separation. Is there a friend or family member you could stay with for at least a month? Or can you afford to rent your own place for a few months, even if it means pulling money out of a retirement account? My marriage might have been over already, but I still wonder if getting that space between us, not having to lie next to them every night knowing things I was unhappy, might have changed things. Separation does not have to end in divorce, but realistically, know that it might.

Good luck.
posted by Second Song at 6:45 PM on October 15, 2023


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