 No more love - Need help
My wife of 4.5 years fly into town last week and told
me she no longer loves me. I had moved away for job
reasons and she was to join me. She gave me no other
reasons for this until we had a fight. Most of what was
said was do to anger and confusion on my part. Hopefully
o hers too, She had already planned to fly out the next
morning(she was to stay for 1.5 weeks). At this time I do
not understand what she was trying to accomplish. She
deplores the idea of divorce and has told this to others.
At this time I stuck in limbo as to what I should do. My
feelings are that I still love her, but other feelings
lead me to believe that she is gone for good. The move
may have been what scared her, I have thought of this.
But she would not tell me of her reasons for this
suddenness.
I would hope that anyone who reads this can comment or
share their feelings about this. I you can see I am at a
critical junction here.
 From: somebody's
mother
Dear Need Help, How awful for you! I can imagine that
this surprise from your wife must have felt like a punch
in the stomach. First, my heartfelt sympathy for how
difficult things must be for you.
Next, let me say that guessing at reasons for your
wife's apparent change of heart probably won't do much
good. You'll work yourself into even more of a frenzy
over the stuff you imagine to be the reason and reality
is already hard enough!. You can ask, but if she won't
tell you, then try and set the WHY aside for right now.
I can't refer back to your letter as I write this, but
I think I remember you saying that you moved for a job.
Does your employer offer an employee assistance program?
If so, you may have access to immediate, free
counselling. If you can get your wife to go with you,
great. If not, go alone. (You need SOMEONE to talk to,
and if your wife can't be the one, then a counsellor can
provide a much needed sounding board for you.)
One bad habit I have when I argue with my spouse is
that I keep pressing him when he needs distance. The more
he pulls away, the harder I try to bring us back together
-- which only makes him pull away more. When I make
myself remember that I can't control how he feels
(especially not by fighting with him!), then the argument
almost always becomes a discussion, and we move away from
who did what wrong and start talking about what we want
to happen now.
If your wife doesn't want to tell you the reasons for
her feelings, then pushing at her to do so is probably
only going to make her retreat farther to avoid telling
you. Instead, try telling her you want to move into
'solution mode.' If it were me, I'd probably say
something like "When you said you didn't love me, I
got hurt and scared. I kept thinking that if I could
figure out why, I could fix it. I understand that you
don't want to tell me, and I accept that When you feel
ready to talk about where you would like to go from here,
I'd like to talk with you." Then do whatever it
takes to wait without pestering until she's ready.
I'll be thinking about you with wishes for the best.
From: Bernd
I like the response by "Somebody's Mother".
Here's some thoughts from me. I remember times during
our marriage when I struggled with the question of
"how happy am I in this marriage?" I also
remember splitting up with my high school girlfriend
after being on my own at university for about 6 months.
Time alone has a way of bringing home some fundamental
questions inside that we try to avoid looking at closely
in a relationship. It sounds like your wife has been
doing some soul searching, and she realizes something
important seems to be lacking in her relationship with
you. It's not uncommon for people to assume they feel the
emptiness because they've "fallen out of love".
This is what I consider a wakeup call for both of you.
You have no control over what she decides to do. If she
uses the insights she's gained to delve in deeper inside
herself, and find out the true reasons for her emptiness,
your relationship stands a chance in time. If she decides
to hunt for someone that she feels WILL make her happier,
then my guess is she'll have missed a great opportunity
to discover some important truths about herself and love.
But once again, you have no control over her choices, nor
- in my opinion - should you try to influence her to do
things YOUR way.
You DO however have control over what you do about
this painful time in your life. A good therapist can help
you uncover why this caught you so much by surprise, and
what unspoken issues were present in your marriage that
contributed to this turn of events. Learn what you can
about yourself and love, because whatever you choose not
to look at honestly and learn from, you are very likely
to repeat in your next relationship, or in a continuation
of your marriage. There are also some very good books on
relationships that will give you some insight - they
helped me a ton.
One final note. I believe we deserve to be loved
simply because we exist. If someone says they don't love
you, that says more about their ability and capacity to
love at this point in their life, than it does about your
worthiness to be loved. Give her the space to do the soul
searching that she needs, and give yourself the same
gift. That is treating both of you with love, and gives
the best chance for miracles to happen. Good luck.
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