Talk About Marriage - View Single Post

Adament · 06-08-2012, 10:24 PM

Im new to the site, however i have read alot of posts to try and figure out my situation and how to deal with it, without having to post. However i have not quite found a thread to help me with my own problem thus the post. And thus the story begins :-).

I am 22 years old my wife is 20, we got married 2 years ago after dating for a year. I am in the military and though i have never deployed we did spend alot of time away from each other while we were dating. We started out like every new couple starts out. Madly in love with each other, hearts on our sleeves and forever in our minds. Both of us were so certain that we were each other's soulmates. That our love could get through everything. However after we got married and she moved in with me (1100 miles away from everything shes ever known) we had some amazing times, again just being open with each other, finding the little things that we didnt like about each other from living together we noted them and told each other them. Then i started to pull away, close myself off from her. I was unhappy about alot of things that she did or didnt do. She noticed that i was unhappy about these things and did everything that she could to fix it for me. Over the time we had our ups and our downs, much more ups than downs :-). Both of us trying to fix whatever imperfections the other saw in us, but she did this more than i did. I feel as if maybe because i had some life experience before we got together that maybe she felt that i was right and whatever she felt was wrong. Im not sure. However getting into the thick of things. Into year two i continued to close myself off and question weather our marriage was what i wanted. I stopped putting her first and put myself first which has never been the person that i am. I started doing things to keep myself happy and not caring about her feelings and she simply backed off and let me do what she thought was making me truely happy. She stopped trying to fix the issues that she had in our marriage to sacrifice for me. Over the last 8 months her grandpa (who was also her father figure) has been dealing with a particularly bad case of leukemia. At this point we are still miles away from her family (which is a very tight family) and she really starts to get unhappy. This is what i have found that definatly made her unhappy.

1. We had been trying to have a baby for a year and instead had 2 possibly 3 miscarriages. It was devastating to both of us and i did everything that i could to console her through all of these.
2. For the majority of our marriage i had been slowly growing more emotionally distant from her, and stopped taking care of her needs and doing everything i could to make her happy.
3. Her grandfather slowly dieing.
4. She knew that i was trying to figure out if we were a mistake.
5. She was miles away from her family her friends and she was living with someone who can be a complete jerk sometimes, and really sweet others.
6. I was trying to teach her how to cope with pain and unhappiness, and ended up physically hurting her. Though not on purpose i would never purposely hurt my wife physically or mentally. However i did end up making her feel like i was trying to hurt her when i was trying to help. This happened maybe 3 times and it wasnt from fighting it wasnt from me being angry or trying to control her. I didnt do anything like punch her or beat her but i held her down and i can honestly see why she would be scared and hurt from it.
7. I had threatened divorce while i was pulling away from her.
8. I had stopped caring about her, and her needs to try and figure out why i was unhappy
9. She felt like she was the only one putting any effort into us.
10. She was working full time and going to school full time and had no time to spend on herself taking care of her needs. (she also hated her job)
11. She started seeing a counselor because she wouldnt tell me what was making her unhappy, or she didnt know. She got diagnosed with depression and started having to take medication for it.

All of this led up to last month her grandpa was in the worst part of his leukemia and so we got her a ticket home, she quit her full time job (at request from me because i had started to come around and notice how unhappy she was and try to fix things)and she went home to see him and help take care of her family while they go through this rough time. While she was there she began to realize that she was happier there without me. She started seeing her friends and everything that her friends have gotten to experience living on their own and she just over all felt happier there. One night after about a month of her being back home she called and told me that she wants to stay there, go to school, live on her own and figure out who she is. Naturally knowing that she was unhappy with me i called and i asked questions like why do you need to do that there, why cant you do that here? so on and so forth. I got out of her that she felt like she would be happier alone instead of in our marriage she needs space and she needs to figure out if being alone is what is going to make her happy. She was now doing what i was doing over the period of our marriage. She finally opened up to me and told me all the things that i had done in our marriage that made her unhappy. She opened my eyes to the man that i had turned into. Over that day, that night, and the next day i finally did my own soul searching. I found out that i was unhappy with myself because of the man that i was now. I was emotionless, i was selfish, and i wasn't being true to my beliefs or myself. I decided that there is no way that i could possibly be happier alone, and that this was my wife, my soulmate. I found the man that i have always been again in our old letters. I found the caring, selfless man that i had always been before our marriage, before i joined the service. I decided that that is the man that i want to be and that that was the man that i am. The one who knows he is married to the love of his life, that has full faith and trust in his feelings, who wears his emotions on his sleeve and cares for everyone else more than he cares for himself.

I decided to go to her, even though she asked for space, i decided that it was my time to finally put the effort in and fix my marriage or i was going to lose my soulmate. After arriving there she was very distant, after trying to talk through things with her i found that she was pissed that i didnt give her the space that she had asked for. That i was doing this all for myself and not for her. I told her no i do this for us because i dont want our marriage to end, and i know that you feel the same way because you have been fighting for this for the last year, doing everything that you could to try and fix things except telling me what was wrong (until now) so that i could help fix us. On top of her being pissed at me i found that she was talking to an ex of hers, who is currently dating someone else. They are just friends, however she says that she still has feelings for him and she always will. She told me that she loves me but she doesnt think that she is in-love with me anymore. Then she told me she wanted a divorce, and i fought again to save our marriage. I told her that i dont think that that is what she truly wants, then she convinced me to give her, her space and let her figure everything out so that she doesnt make a rash decision. I spent two days away from her durring my trip there, after that two days things seemed like we were getting back on the right track. We made love multiple times while i was there (over a period of two weeks) and every time we did I felt like it was passionate and that we connected again. We both climaxed (her multiple times) every time we made love and we have always had a good sexual relationship. I feel like that is the best way for me to connect but i understand that she needs more than just a sexual relationship. I tried to convince her that i am changed and that I am proud of the man i see in the mirror now. However she isnt convinced that I will last like this.

I am completely sure that if we can work through this (from what ive researched its the disillusionment phase) and figure out that we are soulmates, and that we want to stay true to our vows, and we do love each other, that we can make it through any and all of lifes obstacles and have a marriage that we both are happy in. I found out that what makes me truely and completely happy... is making my wife, my significant other, my soulmate, happy. Making her day wonderful and amazing no matter what it takes out of me. I understand that this is probably not healthy, but it is truely what i know makes me truely and completely happy. I love my wife more than anything, and i want to help her work all of this out but she doesnt want my help. I want to help her figure out, what she needs to figure out in order to decide if she will be happier with me or without. If she decides that what will make her happier is me leaving then that is what i will do. I want to stay true to my vows and i dont want to leave her it will devastate me to do that but if that is what is going to make her happy in the long run it is what i have to do for the love of my life. Its been 2 weeks since i left her back at home to give her, her space and let her figure things out. Every time we talk it seems to me that she isnt actively trying to figure things out, and she is unable to make a decision. This makes me feel like she made her decision but she loves me to much to want to hurt me which leads me to believe that for the sake of her happiness i should just leave and not come back. I told her that today and she told me that.. she doesnt know if that is what she wants, so I'm stuck wanting to fix my marriage and wanting to do everything that i can to make her happy. Waiting for her to figure things that out that she wont open up to me about. Do i continue to just wait for her to figure things out or do i ask her to confide in me, that my only intention is to make her happy regardless of what it takes from me, i know that if she opens up to me that i can help her find her happiness because i feel like ive been where she is right now.

I dont know what to do here, and im hoping someone who has been through something like this before can give me some good advice. I love her and i cant imagine a life without her, but ill do anything to make her happy again. She deserves to be happy, she deserves to love life again, and i dont know that she will be able to in being with me.

Thank you for reading, and for any responses. If you have any questions i will be answering them as quickly as possible.

06-08-2012, 10:24 PM	#1 (permalink)
Adament Registered User Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: North Carolina Posts: 15	Married for 2 years, Need advice. Im new to the site, however i have read alot of posts to try and figure out my situation and how to deal with it, without having to post. However i have not quite found a thread to help me with my own problem thus the post. And thus the story begins :-). I am 22 years old my wife is 20, we got married 2 years ago after dating for a year. I am in the military and though i have never deployed we did spend alot of time away from each other while we were dating. We started out like every new couple starts out. Madly in love with each other, hearts on our sleeves and forever in our minds. Both of us were so certain that we were each other's soulmates. That our love could get through everything. However after we got married and she moved in with me (1100 miles away from everything shes ever known) we had some amazing times, again just being open with each other, finding the little things that we didnt like about each other from living together we noted them and told each other them. Then i started to pull away, close myself off from her. I was unhappy about alot of things that she did or didnt do. She noticed that i was unhappy about these things and did everything that she could to fix it for me. Over the time we had our ups and our downs, much more ups than downs :-). Both of us trying to fix whatever imperfections the other saw in us, but she did this more than i did. I feel as if maybe because i had some life experience before we got together that maybe she felt that i was right and whatever she felt was wrong. Im not sure. However getting into the thick of things. Into year two i continued to close myself off and question weather our marriage was what i wanted. I stopped putting her first and put myself first which has never been the person that i am. I started doing things to keep myself happy and not caring about her feelings and she simply backed off and let me do what she thought was making me truely happy. She stopped trying to fix the issues that she had in our marriage to sacrifice for me. Over the last 8 months her grandpa (who was also her father figure) has been dealing with a particularly bad case of leukemia. At this point we are still miles away from her family (which is a very tight family) and she really starts to get unhappy. This is what i have found that definatly made her unhappy. 1. We had been trying to have a baby for a year and instead had 2 possibly 3 miscarriages. It was devastating to both of us and i did everything that i could to console her through all of these. 2. For the majority of our marriage i had been slowly growing more emotionally distant from her, and stopped taking care of her needs and doing everything i could to make her happy. 3. Her grandfather slowly dieing. 4. She knew that i was trying to figure out if we were a mistake. 5. She was miles away from her family her friends and she was living with someone who can be a complete jerk sometimes, and really sweet others. 6. I was trying to teach her how to cope with pain and unhappiness, and ended up physically hurting her. Though not on purpose i would never purposely hurt my wife physically or mentally. However i did end up making her feel like i was trying to hurt her when i was trying to help. This happened maybe 3 times and it wasnt from fighting it wasnt from me being angry or trying to control her. I didnt do anything like punch her or beat her but i held her down and i can honestly see why she would be scared and hurt from it. 7. I had threatened divorce while i was pulling away from her. 8. I had stopped caring about her, and her needs to try and figure out why i was unhappy 9. She felt like she was the only one putting any effort into us. 10. She was working full time and going to school full time and had no time to spend on herself taking care of her needs. (she also hated her job) 11. She started seeing a counselor because she wouldnt tell me what was making her unhappy, or she didnt know. She got diagnosed with depression and started having to take medication for it. All of this led up to last month her grandpa was in the worst part of his leukemia and so we got her a ticket home, she quit her full time job (at request from me because i had started to come around and notice how unhappy she was and try to fix things)and she went home to see him and help take care of her family while they go through this rough time. While she was there she began to realize that she was happier there without me. She started seeing her friends and everything that her friends have gotten to experience living on their own and she just over all felt happier there. One night after about a month of her being back home she called and told me that she wants to stay there, go to school, live on her own and figure out who she is. Naturally knowing that she was unhappy with me i called and i asked questions like why do you need to do that there, why cant you do that here? so on and so forth. I got out of her that she felt like she would be happier alone instead of in our marriage she needs space and she needs to figure out if being alone is what is going to make her happy. She was now doing what i was doing over the period of our marriage. She finally opened up to me and told me all the things that i had done in our marriage that made her unhappy. She opened my eyes to the man that i had turned into. Over that day, that night, and the next day i finally did my own soul searching. I found out that i was unhappy with myself because of the man that i was now. I was emotionless, i was selfish, and i wasn't being true to my beliefs or myself. I decided that there is no way that i could possibly be happier alone, and that this was my wife, my soulmate. I found the man that i have always been again in our old letters. I found the caring, selfless man that i had always been before our marriage, before i joined the service. I decided that that is the man that i want to be and that that was the man that i am. The one who knows he is married to the love of his life, that has full faith and trust in his feelings, who wears his emotions on his sleeve and cares for everyone else more than he cares for himself. I decided to go to her, even though she asked for space, i decided that it was my time to finally put the effort in and fix my marriage or i was going to lose my soulmate. After arriving there she was very distant, after trying to talk through things with her i found that she was pissed that i didnt give her the space that she had asked for. That i was doing this all for myself and not for her. I told her no i do this for us because i dont want our marriage to end, and i know that you feel the same way because you have been fighting for this for the last year, doing everything that you could to try and fix things except telling me what was wrong (until now) so that i could help fix us. On top of her being pissed at me i found that she was talking to an ex of hers, who is currently dating someone else. They are just friends, however she says that she still has feelings for him and she always will. She told me that she loves me but she doesnt think that she is in-love with me anymore. Then she told me she wanted a divorce, and i fought again to save our marriage. I told her that i dont think that that is what she truly wants, then she convinced me to give her, her space and let her figure everything out so that she doesnt make a rash decision. I spent two days away from her durring my trip there, after that two days things seemed like we were getting back on the right track. We made love multiple times while i was there (over a period of two weeks) and every time we did I felt like it was passionate and that we connected again. We both climaxed (her multiple times) every time we made love and we have always had a good sexual relationship. I feel like that is the best way for me to connect but i understand that she needs more than just a sexual relationship. I tried to convince her that i am changed and that I am proud of the man i see in the mirror now. However she isnt convinced that I will last like this. I am completely sure that if we can work through this (from what ive researched its the disillusionment phase) and figure out that we are soulmates, and that we want to stay true to our vows, and we do love each other, that we can make it through any and all of lifes obstacles and have a marriage that we both are happy in. I found out that what makes me truely and completely happy... is making my wife, my significant other, my soulmate, happy. Making her day wonderful and amazing no matter what it takes out of me. I understand that this is probably not healthy, but it is truely what i know makes me truely and completely happy. I love my wife more than anything, and i want to help her work all of this out but she doesnt want my help. I want to help her figure out, what she needs to figure out in order to decide if she will be happier with me or without. If she decides that what will make her happier is me leaving then that is what i will do. I want to stay true to my vows and i dont want to leave her it will devastate me to do that but if that is what is going to make her happy in the long run it is what i have to do for the love of my life. Its been 2 weeks since i left her back at home to give her, her space and let her figure things out. Every time we talk it seems to me that she isnt actively trying to figure things out, and she is unable to make a decision. This makes me feel like she made her decision but she loves me to much to want to hurt me which leads me to believe that for the sake of her happiness i should just leave and not come back. I told her that today and she told me that.. she doesnt know if that is what she wants, so I'm stuck wanting to fix my marriage and wanting to do everything that i can to make her happy. Waiting for her to figure things that out that she wont open up to me about. Do i continue to just wait for her to figure things out or do i ask her to confide in me, that my only intention is to make her happy regardless of what it takes from me, i know that if she opens up to me that i can help her find her happiness because i feel like ive been where she is right now. I dont know what to do here, and im hoping someone who has been through something like this before can give me some good advice. I love her and i cant imagine a life without her, but ill do anything to make her happy again. She deserves to be happy, she deserves to love life again, and i dont know that she will be able to in being with me. Thank you for reading, and for any responses. If you have any questions i will be answering them as quickly as possible.