# Staying in a Loveless Relationship? Read This!



## Kauaiguy (May 8, 2011)

It's really a complicated situation. Damn if you do and damn if you don't.

My wife and I had been married for 33 years and I would say that 23 years of it were wonderful. Then suddenly things changed.

She became irritated with everything that I did. I used to whistle a lot and at first she loved it, then it became irritating to her. She would watch my every move and if I even twitched wrong she would get annoyed. That was the start.

Then she stop participating in everything we used to do. i.e. Bicycling, Walking, Kayaking, Swimming, going out to restaurants ..etc. In short she didn't want to do anything I wanted to do. I can't even remember the last time we had sex. Many years! Our taste in music and the things we used to enjoy doing together changed!

There was always an excuse why she couldn't participate in something I wanted to do.

She started locking herself up in a separate room and it got to the point where I only saw her maybe 1/2 hr each day.

I lived in that arrangement for at least 8 years and finally the first of this year, I approached her to see if we could do something about our marriage. The short answer was she wanted a divorce.

I asked her why and her answer was to bring back something I said back in 2006. Yes, I told her that we COULDN'T keep living like this and if this is the best we can do, then it may be better if we were to get a divorce. At that time, I also suggested that we saw a marriage counselor and she refused.

Apparently that upset her a lot but she was perfectly fine in continuing to live the way we were and did nothing change it.

I agreed to go ahead with the divorce since I was miserable living the way we were. Certainly things can't be any worse if we were apart. Can it?

Well now that we are DIVORCED, I can't for certain tell you that it's any better. The loneliness is pretty intense and I long for companionship. I don't have family here since we retired from California, neither do I have many friends because we haven't been here long enough.

Fortunately our kids have grown up and are married and living on their own. I can only imagine how it would be if we were younger and had kids.

So all of you considering separation or divorce, think about my situation, since so far ... it hasn't been greener on the other side. Someday, it may come to pass but it's been two months and I'm still feeling miserable! Time heals all wounds ... I can only hope!


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Think about moving back, closer to friends. Find a hoppy and get involved with folks that like the same things. 

Force your self to get out and meet people.


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## 827Aug (Apr 27, 2008)

You may also want to see an individual therapist to help you with the transition. Find yourself a hobby and immerse yourself in it. Doing volunteer work may also be an idea. Find things that keep your mind off your problems and will lead to interaction with other people.


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## nynaeve3 (Apr 12, 2011)

827Aug said:


> You may also want to see an individual therapist to help you with the transition. Find yourself a hobby and immerse yourself in it. Doing volunteer work may also be an idea. Find things that keep your mind off your problems and will lead to interaction with other people.


:iagree:

It might be the last thing you feel like doing, but getting out and being social/active is one of the best things to tackle low mood as doing little/nothing is it's own vicious cycle as it makes us feel bad, so we do even less, which makes us feel worse, and so on.


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