# In a marriage crisis for 6 months - how long before signs of improvement with therapy



## rideronthestorm

Hi everyone,
I am 39, male and married for 13 years. We were in relationship for 4 years prior to getting married. We have a 9-year old daughter. Since the last 6 months we are in a very difficult period of our marriage as both of us openly debated whether we should divorce or not. Our marriage crisis finds most of its origin in a period of mental illness I suffered from 7 years ago. During that period, my wife stood gracefully by my side and made sure the household kept running, our daughter went to school, while I was getting the rest and help I needed. Needless to say I went through a period of intensive psychotherapy and eventually recovered as a better person, more balanced in life, stronger, with a sense of inner peace and a successful professional career. Unfortunately, I discovered 3 years ago that my wife was seeking comfort with her ex-bf and was exchanging sexually tinted messages/phone calls with him. After I confronted my wife with this, she said she was not having an affair but needed some level of comfort for the difficult time she was going through. She also told me that since my period of mental illness she was no longer able to see me as the man she fell in love with, but as the mentally ill person who might have a relapse any time. She also said she was no longer able to make love to me out of a sense of passion, but as one of the chores she is supposed to do as a good housewife. Ouch.
Since that turning point 3 years ago, I have done my uttermost to make things right and bring the old flame back to our relationship. I tried to show her I am a strong and good father, bought flowers, expensive jewellery, fancy dinners, outrageously expensive handbags, etc etc... I felt I was not getting much in return and our sex life eventually went from once per week, to once per month to once per 6 months. It is at this point (now 6 months ago) that we arrived at our marriage crisis and I told her I did not want to continue like this.

After a separate summer vacation for 2 weeks we both decided to give couples therapy a try. I made a strong statement in saying I do not want to give up on our marriage. My wife responded with "Yes me too, BUT...." Over the last 6 months we have seen our therapist on a 8-weekly basis. Our therapist also recommended that both of us should see another therapist individually. Both my wife and I agreed to do this. However, outside of our counceling there is not really any space in our relationship to talk about our problems. Whenever I try to talk to her she starts rolling her eyes and sighing. I have no clue as to what is going on with her. When I ask my wife how her therapy went I get responses like "It was nice. Insightful. Made me feel better." However, to me that could mean two things: either she is seeing things clearer for herself and perhaps it becomes evident we should break up. On the other hand, it could mean she sees way to improve our marriage and get out of this crisis? I never know. Also, there is no affection, no love, no sex anymore in our relationship now. Except for the obligatory morning and evening kiss. 

My main issues are: how long am I going to be able to tolerate this? It puts immense pressure on me and I feel lonely, unhappy and unloved. Although I committed to trying to work our marriage troubles out, I am torn apart by the question whether I should stay in this relationship or not. Perhaps I will be happier alone, or with someone else? Perhaps not.

I would be grateful if other couples could give the following advise: how much time should I give my wife before I could start to expect signs of improvement. How long will our therapy take before we can get our lives back on track? Is this as good as it gets and should I settle for whatever is left of our marriage? How can couples settle for a sexless marriage?

Thank you for your time and advise.

Chris


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## EleGirl

Here are two books that I think will help you... 

His Needs, Her Needs
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

Both by Dr. Harley


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## rideronthestorm

In the last couple of days I have been feeling profoundly unhappy, lonely and unloved. Why would I stay married if I may feel the same alone but at least have a chance of meeting someone with whom I could build a new connection?


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## sammy3

Chris, im sorry your here, but as you know yourself none if this just started. It all started, 7 years ago. It's so hard when feeling start to change for one person, and trying to bring them back sometimes is next to impossible. 

I hope your life gets easier for you. 

~ sammy


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## firebelly1

I'm debating this question for myself as well since my H and I are considering reconciliation, have agreed to be exclusive and do counselling sessions. It has a layer of difficulty for us because I had to take a job 700 miles away - so we have done two sessions of therapy via Skype. 

We went into counselling with the idea that neither of us wanted to continue doing it endlessly. We have particular goals in mind and had identified with each other what our major issues - what our deal-breaker issues are - before we went in. I had identified my major issue as communication and he had identified his major issue as my insecurity. After two sessions and the therapist's feedback we may have a new perspective - her opinion was that we have a pursuer-distancer dynamic and we each have a problem with defensiveness when we talk. So, I'm glad to have something identified, but still no solutions. (Only two sessions so far.) 

I had a similar experience with my H who said three weeks ago that he doesn't want to talk about our relationship issues outside of counselling and although I agreed to it at the time, I will bring up at our next session that I'm not fine with the deal. If we have counselling twice a month, that means SLOW progress. Also, what I think he is really saying is that he doesn't want to listen to me talk about things that bother me. 

For me, I will know counselling has worked or not when the counselor has helped us identify better ways of communicating with each other about things we conflict on (help us get rid of our defensiveness toward each other) and we've practiced them enough to feel like we've got it. 

In the meantime, though, it feels like I'm in limbo like you. What if the counselling just confirms that we should have never been together in the first place? Then we're wasting even more time. Neither of us is really happy with each other, but we've committed to not dating other people, which makes me feel more lonely than if I were just single. 

I've felt like if we could identify some yes or no issues, maybe it would speed things up. For us that includes whether or not he really still wants to have a child. When he initiated the split last year he said it was because we were unsuccessful at conceiving and he wants a biological child. Now, he's not sure. Being rejected because I couldn't produce a baby was bad enough, but I think he owes me a decision at some point and if he decides that he does, then we can just call it quits and be done with it. (I no longer want to raise any more children.)


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## Catherine602

rideronthestorm said:


> In the last couple of days I have been feeling profoundly unhappy, lonely and unloved. Why would I stay married if I may feel the same alone but at least have a chance of meeting someone with whom I could build a new connection?


Rider from what I haves read about relationships in books and online, a crisis like your break down yrs a go, may change how the person you married feels about you. 

Your wife saw a side of you that she did not know was there. At that time, she had to make a decision to love the person you are or not. 

She is being honest, she seems not to love you the way she you need. I am not sure it will come back, it is doubtful. Stop trying so hard, it will not get you anywhere except make you feel worse. 

Now it's time for you to decide. At 9 yrs olds, D will be difficult for your daughter. If you decide to D, do everything you can to make the transition as easy as possible for her. 

Read some books and speak to your therapist. Your daughter may benefit by short term of therapy to get her through. 

Make her first in your life, not your wife. Sounds like your wife is gone. Work on developing a strong sense of self esteem and independence. You've accomplished something that takes strength and you should feel good about that.

If you decide to leave, don't do it without a careful plan for your daughter. When your wife roles her eyes, it is a sign of contempt. Read about contempt in a relationship. It is a sign of profound lack of respect and love. 

Don't be sad, you have a happy future ahead if you, so plan well. You are not the man you were before your illness. Keep improving yourself. Get healthy so that you will meet someone who loves the new you, if it should it come to that.


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## rideronthestorm

Hi and thanks to those of you who have responded. This has been useful. Particularly, Catherine's view on the eye rolling and contempt. Another ouch, but probably one of the signs I was not reading properly. Or too confronting until someone finally spelled it out for me. I am writing this at a moment I was able to convince my wife to travel to the other side of the globe to have some quality time together away from D.
At the end of an otherwise lovely evening I was able to grab all of my courage together and bring up the marriage issue. Despite all the big money and luxury spending over the past few days I was getting nothing in return but more eye rolling, irritation, and frustration. A few minutes later on the conversation we are back to ignoring the main issues and everything is good on her end and it's all about the weather and what not :scratchhead:
Basically, I now understand I am supposed to shut up and wait until she has figured out what to do with her life. When I mentioned this to my therapist I expressed a feeling of being in the waiting room. For a LONG time. My therapist responded with thought that some couples eventually end up in the waiting room together, just feeling happy that they are not in the waiting room alone. Comforting thought, but still....
I will take on the advise given above and focus on independence and my daughter in the weeks to come. I think this will be particularly challenging during the holiday period coming up.
I am particularly interested in the followup messages to come how everyone deals with these challenges during times when we all need to be surrounded with TRULY LOVED ones.
Warm regards from the San Diego area
Chris


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## firebelly1

Not loving the therapist's reply. Seems to me you aren't wanting to wait in the waiting room and that you're trying to articulate for yourself and then your wife what you will need from her in order to decide to stay.


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## Keenwa

Hey Rider,

I am in a similar situation. I feel your pain, it is very hard. Very hard. I am the wife in this scenario. Not exactly the same but similar. My H is really trying and I feel so done, but sometimes my mind gets in the way and says to me "what are you doing? this is a nice guy!", but I don't feel it. And like you say, talking about the weather etc... well you can do that with anyone. What we are looking for is an intimate connection. I have a feeling that my H feels that connection and I don't anymore. We too have kids similar ages to your daughter. I don't agree about living a marriage in the waiting room, I know many people do it, but that doesn't mean it's right for you or me or anyone else who decides they don't want to live life in a nebulous state. A huge part of my therapy has been actually acknowledging how I feel, and giving myself permission to not feel connected to him, to say "it's ok to feel this way"... because I had been trying SO hard to stop feeling ambivalent about him. But truth of the matter is I do feel ambivalent. And I can't change that right now. Him trying harder and harder makes it only worse. I think the best thing he could do for me, is to tell me to go fly a kite.  In a nice way. 

I think a big part of what brought me to this place was like your situation, I had a period of disillusionment, my h lost his job, and did very little for 2 years. I was excited at first thinking he'd take some time to really figure out what he wanted to do, how he wanted to live, maybe we could move somewhere else, start a new life, but then I discovered he had no intention of doing anything different. Though when we were younger he had always talked about all these great things he wanted to do, travel, etc... I realized he was all talk and no action because when the opportunity presented itself, all he wanted to do was watch podcasts and walk the dogs.

I am really sad about it, but I also want to live a life that inspires me, and I also want my kids to grow up in an environment that is fun and happy. I am coming to terms with the fact that people come into our lives for "a reason, a season, or a lifetime" and that's true of marriages too. Sometimes we simply change over time and we take divergent paths. It sounds like you have done a lot of work on yourself, so no doubt you have changed over the years too. Maybe it's no longer a fit. I do think that children will always be happier in a home where their parent is happy, than in a home with two parents who are not. I came from a so called "broken home" and it was way better than the homes of my friends who had both parents miserable.


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## rideronthestorm

Most of you who posted were pessimistic on the outcome of our relationship and you were right... my wife suggested trial separation more than a month ago and after one week she made it clear that our separation is permanent and she wants a divorce. I haven't posted anything because my emotions were going into extremes, but I am allright now. Even found a new love in my life, a 16-year younger colleague.


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## Pepper123

Rider... sorry to hear about your M. Dating already seems like a bad idea, especially with a coworker. You should be focusing on dealing with grief and supporting your child. I'm sure you won't listen, but I felt a need to say it anyway.


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