11-17-2008, 01:45 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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| Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 2
|  Not sure where we're headed
I found this board while searching for a marriage counselor and thought I'd put my story out here to see what people think.
We've been married for 10+ years and have one young child. As far as I know, neither of us has been unfaithful but we have really drifted apart. We now fight about every little thing. I believe that my wife seems to feel that her position is the only correct one. Her favorite word is NO and almost every response I get from her starts with that word. If I go ahead and do something my way, she'll go around and change it to her choice.
Our disagreements have gotten to the point that they all end in what I call the "nuclear option". Either I have to make a threat to get my view considered or she puts out a threat to get her way. It's always an extreme and almost never a compromise.
While we both have always worked during our marriage, my income has been much larger than my wife's (2-3x) and over the years, I've managed to step up my income (new job, new company, etc) to meet our/her next goal (house, trips, new bigger house, the complete remodel of the new house, child (medically assisted)). While neither of us has had to do without, I've always felt that her goals seemed to take more importance than my own. She's now running her own business while I've had to limit my career to positions that wouldn't force us to move.
I have recently (less then two months ago) left my job (a decision my wife agreed with at the time) and things have gone downhill fast. It may be because I'm now home everyday (used to travel 75% of time - turned down relocation package as my wife wouldn't move) or it may be that my wife is now feeling that she can run the show as she's now bringing in the money. In any case, we've put away for this type of situation so we don't need the income and I'm actually enjoying some time off after 20 years of work but she wants me to find something fast so we don't spend our savings. At the same time, she's already on her next goal - second child. Even with all the fighting and my statement that I"m not sure that I want us to have another child, she still pushes to go back to the fertility doctor.
Which brings us to another topic, sex is almost gone from our marriage. Before we agreed to try to get pregnant, we had what I think was an average sex life. Maybe a little too routine but... when she didn't get pregnant, sex became a serious issue with testing and timing and such. When she had to go to the fertility doctor, it stopped. She didn't want to do anything when she was in the program nor when she got pregnant. Two rounds (one miscarriage, one birth) took 2 1/2 years and after the birth she wasn't interested for months. It never got back on track after this. Either our fighting or my traveling keep us apart and we seemed to go weeks or months between. As I've said, I've always been faithful, but our fighting really crushes any desire to be intimate with her and my lack of interest just causes more fighting.
We have talked about counseling before but each time we don't follow through and get caught up in our busy schedules. My wife is also the type who "forgets" our arguments while I don't and they build on each other. So she doesn't understand why I'm still mad a day later after an unresolved fight.
I feel that we're heading down a path to separation. I've already moved out of our bedroom and into my home office room and I've been looking into a divorce but I'm not sure I'm ready to make that move. I'm not happy where we are today but I don't see it getting better any time soon. I need to make a decision on "us" before I can answer her request for another child. I'm just not sure what the answer is going to be.
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Re: Not sure where we're headed 
The only other thing I can add to this is do not start having another child until your marriage is back on track, that isn't going to make things better between the two of you.
