# Wife lost respect for me and fell out of love



## Seeking advice (Jul 19, 2012)

I have been with my wife for 5 years and married for close to 3. My wife came home on a Sunday afternoon six weeks ago and told me she wanted to separate and that she loved me but was not "in love" with me. She has felt ignored and that I was not capable of giving her the type of love she needs from her husband. I was completely blindsided by this and had an extremely difficult time coming to terms with the reality of this for the first few days and wasn't able to eat, sleep, or even process the different emotions I had been going through. I asked her to stay and she has but have come to accept that it has only been to keep from hurting me. Her emotions and feeling toward me and the situation are extremely hot and cold and it has been very difficult for both of us. She feels like she has always settled for what the man in her life wanted and has never had the opportunity to find out what makes her happy. She very literally does not know what she wants in her relationships or life in general. The only thing I think she may be sure of is that she needs to end our relationship so that she can find herself.

Since this began we have come to several revelations. My wife had lost respect for me in many ways. The one she has expressed was when we moved into our house about 2 years ago. My parents have always been very overbearing and coddling to both my sister and I my whole life and were constantly coming over to help do things around the house to try and help us out in way they thought we needed. They crossed too many boundaries for my wife and because I new that was a major way they show their love for both of us and didn't want to hurt their feelings I could never bring myself to express how their good intentions were affecting our marriage and her feelings. We finally had a blow out and I called them and explained how serious the situation had become and they have since gotten much better about this issue. However I think my wife felt I was not mature enough or man enough to stand up to them.

I have been in school for our entire relationship, first for engineering and then switched to teaching (high school math). I just finished my student teaching semester about a month before all this which had really taken over our life, i was working from 7am to 8 or 9 at night. My wife also went back to school to get her MBA about 2 years ago in a program in which she went non-stop every week for a year and a half. During this time she was working full time and doing schoolwork every night till at least 10, sometimes later. Thus we have had the strain of not spending enough quality time together in the past 2 years along with try to keep afloat financially. We were simply unable to do all the things she wanted to do until I could finish school and start making more money.

The week after I was offered a teaching position my wife came home and told me about her feelings and desire for the separation. We have come to realize that she had doubts about our relationship from the time we first moved in together and ignored them because she may have some codependency issues. She had been married before to a man that in many ways had the same types of personality issues that I have. I can be a very selfish person and while generally am very easy going I also have some control issues and have a difficult time when things are not "my way". I have been aware of this selfishness and truly tried to curb or diminish these tendencies. However, many times it is such a part of me that I don't even realize how selfish I am acting.

This the reason my wife wanted to separate rather than seek counseling. She feels that I do not have the capability of changing and that it is unfair for me to change my personality to suit her needs. I have found out that I did not understand the ways in which she needed to be loved as far as intimate communication, thoughtfulness, and creating romance between us.

I have found out that my wife had been in fairly frequent contact with her ex whom she had an affair with towards the end of her marriage and continued for nearly a year afterwards as the other man was, and still is, married. He completely broke her heart and she was never able to truly deal with her feelings for him since we began dating about 2 months after they broke it off. I read her journal that she has been keeping for about 4 years and found that she has always had very deep feelings for him and much of it talks like a scorned lover who has been taken advantage of. It has been very devastating for me to know that I have not been the true love of my wife's life. He finally stopped responding to her attempts for contact back in March which has been difficult for her.

This has cause a major trust issue for me and thus I have become very investigative into her communications to find out what else may be going on. She has been going out to bars with her single friends for the past few months and because I didn't want to seem controlling I never really said anything about it. I have come to find out from emails to her "wingman" girlfriend that she met a guy at a bar and a few days later had lunch with him. She is sure to tell her friend that it's not what it seems, just friendly, but he is just so cute and so easy to talk to. She loves how honest and real he is. I don't know if she has had any more contact with him because her phone is locked but I asked her who he was and if they had ever gone out because I saw his facebook profile repeatedly the past few days on the internet history followed by a search for why men don't call after a date. She lied to my face and said she had never seen him and he was just a friend she'd met at a bar. I saw in an email the next day that her wingman asked if she was still talking to him and that if she still had feelings for him that she needed to be honest to herself about that because that was not fair to me.

At this point I've done everything I can to make this work and realize that I can't make her love me the way I love her. I have asked her to go ahead and stay at her friend whom she was planning to stay with in the beginning and suggested we no contact for awhile so that she can figure out what she wants with any influence from my feelings. I am just looking to see what anyone who may have experienced something similar to this has to offer for their own experience. Sorry this was so long and thinks for your time.


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## Conrad (Aug 6, 2010)

How did her relationship with the last guy end?

Did she take up with you during that relationship?


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

Both of you are educated professionals.

1]You have major trust issues with her.
2]She has major issues with your " " masculine fitness" to continue being " her husband " , ie: the type of man SHE wants.
3]She has lots of room to " manoeuvre " in the relationship.
4]And you admit to having " personality issues."

Are you sure you want to win her back?
If there are no complicated issues like children in the equation,then it may be very difficult


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## Orpheus (Jul 6, 2012)

Sounds like you both have a lot of really complicated independent issues to overcome. In your situation, going no-contact is going to give you the freedom to address fixing the things you want to fix about yourself and the space to investigate the other stuff. You can't fix her; but perhaps the time apart will give her some better perspective. Though, she sounds like somebody that wasn't ever truly in the relationship.

Sorry for your pain. Welcome to the boards. Snoop around to some of the other threads and perhaps you'll find some solace and advice from similar circumstances.


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## Lifescript (Mar 12, 2012)

The similarities between your story and mine are staggering. My mother also stepped over boundaries and I faced a lot of problems with my wife because of it. Like you, I didn't know how to put a stop to it not wanting to hurt my mother's feelings. 

Apparently your wife checked out long time ago. Not only did her not forget about her ex but also dated another man while still with you. 

The best thing for you is to detach and give her space. If you want to fix things with her, this is the only option. Work on yourself and man up. 

Read No More Mr. Nice Guy. There's a ton of resources available to help you including our support.


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## Entropy3000 (May 11, 2011)

1) She is in a relationship with another man. This is a big part of her no longer loving you. 

2) Yes she does not respect you. 

3) This is her choice. Meaning you are now in the mode to blame yourself. She is also doing some amount of history re-writing.


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## Seeking advice (Jul 19, 2012)

Conrad, I met her about 2 months after she broke it off with the other guy and I didn't know about him till maybe a year after we were dating.

Thanks for the input from everyone, crazy as it may seem I think that if she can be open and honest about things I could forgive and regain trust in her. Unfortunately I think your right that she has already given up and I'll probably be the one who ultimately ends our marriage because she can't deal with the pain of hurting me.


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## Lifescript (Mar 12, 2012)

Seeking advice said:


> Conrad, I met her about 2 months after she broke it off with the other guy and I didn't know about him till maybe a year after we were dating.
> 
> Thanks for the input from everyone, crazy as it may seem I think that if she can be open and honest about things I could forgive and regain trust in her. Unfortunately I think your right that she has already given up and I'll probably be the one who ultimately ends our marriage because she can't deal with the pain of hurting me.


Another similarity. I met my wife months after she broke up with fiance who cheated on her with another girl.


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## Seeking advice (Jul 19, 2012)

So everything came out on Sunday when she came home from a trip to Tulsa with her girlfriends. She was texting me all weekend and I could tell she was actually beginning to miss me. She said she wanted to talk about the separation and that she really did miss me this weekend and wanted to try to work things out. I told her I felt the same but she needed to be honest about the guy I asked her about the other day. She said that basically they had been seeing each other very regularly for lunch and drinks and she had kissed him. After a very long talk I started asking more questions about the OM and asked her if she had sex with him and told her that right now is the time to tell the truth. She said he tried but she stopped him but they were naked together. This just about made me drop into a coma to think about, sex or not (and even wondering if that's true).

The next day she emailed her mother and told her what she had done and received a very loving but scolding reply back about how she could do something like that to me. She also emailed her wingman friend and confessed but was still angry at me for speaking to her brothers about it (when I only knew about the lunch date) and for snooping on her. She admits she would do the same thing but is still mad at ME.

She shared the emails from her mom and wingman and I replied back with a fairly harsh but loving reply myself. There was not too much yell at her the night before and I felt better expressing some of my emotion written so that I would not get too upset when speaking to her. We had a rocky start last night as she had a rough day with guilt and embarrassment and said as soon as she got in the car she cried most of the way home. She was in a very weird mood when she came in and blatantly acting as if there was nothing wrong. We went and sat in the living room and as we started talking about the affair she could not get over the feelings of embarrassment of the people who know and kept saying how everyone is always on the side of the cheated and again "no one knows how I feel". I came back at her telling her she has no idea how I've felt. The past 6 weeks have been living hell for me and I'm running around trying to figure out ways to bring her back to me and she out fing around on me the whole time. She says how she feels bad for the OM since she has also been in the role of the OW and knows how crappy it feels to be dropped like that. I told her I did give a care about him whatsoever. I asked her how she could do something like that to me and she said she just didn't care. To me it seems she still really doesn't care about me in this and is only concerned with how she now looks. She says she doesn't want to be a "cheater".

My biggest concern is if she truly wants to be with me or if she is just doing this to, again, avoid the problem. She seems to be more acceptable of the fact that "men are men" and we are just not able to know exactly what women want without them spelling it out for us. We finally did begin to have a pretty good discussion about us and our future and the rest of the night went very well. I have access to her cell phone now with her knowledge. She admits she has trust issues with people and that's why she feels the need for so much privacy in her life. I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions for ways in which we can work to rebuild the trust between us. We will be going together to her therapist after her next visit because she has not even told the therapist that she was having an affair the whole time. She really has privacy issues! Anyway, thanks for your time.


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## Lifescript (Mar 12, 2012)

I highly doubt they didn't have sex. Naked but didn't have sex. If she didnt to have sex ahe wouldnt have put herself in a position where she would end up naked with the guy. 

I think she doesnt care enough. Sorry man. This doesnt look good.
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## Orpheus (Jul 6, 2012)

Does sex really matter if she already agreed to get undressed with him? Excusing that away is sort of splitting hairs. I suppose it's possible to move beyond this but don't excuse it.
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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

They had sex. Theyve been dating for weeks, they get naked together. They've had sex.

She feels worse for the OM thn she feels for you. You got cheated on, the OM got sex, yet she feels bad for him. WTF?

This says the affair is still active in her heart and head. 

Do you really want to try with someone who thinks so badly of you? She sees cheatng as a valid option for her. She did it on her first husband, now you. Once a chater always a cheater describes her to a T.

You can't trust her not now, and not on the future, why would you take her back? So many better and faithful women out there.

Oh, get tested for STDs
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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

As for her having trust issues, seriously? She's the many time cheater, your the faithful spouse and she has trust issues?
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## keko (Mar 21, 2012)

Ha, naked but no sex? Yeah right.
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