# Can we reconnect? Help?



## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

I have posted here before on and off for help with little pieces of my marraige. We have been married 5 yrs, together 9 yrs, two preschool kids. 

I do not like my marraige. I am having a very difficult time pinpointing whether this dislike is OUR problem to fix, just MY problem to fix or whether its just something I shouldnt even bother with.

Things that I do not like - 

We have no mental or emotional connection. We do not talk except for about the business aspect of our life together. Bills, work schedules, kids immediate needs, etc. There is no other discussion. For example...he got a new job several months ago. I have no idea what he does there, who his coworkers are (he has never told me names or anything). I have no idea what he does between the hours of 7am-7pm each day. Same in reverse...he knows nothing about what I think about, my career, what future I would like for our children. 

Any attempt at conversation is always initiated by me, and promptly shut down by him. I stopped initiating and have kept things to myself for quite awhile now. Months have passed and I am starting to feel the chasm is unbreachable. 

We used to have sex 1x/week. It was fine with both of us. He doesnt have a very strong drive and neither do I due to SSRI's. Its been about a month now. I have a sex drive, just no desire to be with HIM. All I can think about when we lay next to each other at night is how I feel like I dont know this man and how did I get here. I have zero desire to sleep with him with this major disconnect going on. He wont push the issue, or dare speak a word of it, but I feel I know him well enough to know the sex part is bothering him. 

Despite many attempts to reconnect thru the standard date nights and initiating fun activities for us, it bombs every time. He usually appears disinterested and/or preoccupied when we are out. I try to remember what attracted me so many years ago. I can't remember. Literally. It feels like that was a different woman and a different man. 

This has gotten worse over the past 6 months. I took some travel assignments for work in the fall for the first time in my career. I thought the short trips away would refresh us and maybe bring us closer. It did the opposite. With each trip there was more distance upon my return coming from him. 

Shortly after my travel was over, he started going after a professional certification at work. He scheduled the exam without letting me know he was going to do it, then came home and announced he was going to need to be gone every evening after work and almost every weekend to study for the six weeks leading up to his exam. I wasnt thrilled but I didnt say a word bc I knew this was for his career. 

(It turned out he ended up studying at home that whole time, locking himself away from the kids and I in the house bc he couldn't find a suitable place to study. He really was studying that whole time.)

This meant I was essentially a single mom for 6 weeks. I had never taken on that role before. To his credit my H is a very involved father and has always shouldered 50% of the child care with no questions asked. So this was new to me. I was never a SAHM or anything. 

It was an extremely eye opening experience for me. First because I suppose I had always told myself I couldn't do it. I always thought I wasn't strong enough to be a full time working mom and care for kids on my own. We got into a groove a lot faster than I expected. Not only that but those six weeks, things were so peaceful, life felt easier. 

You see, my H has a very negative attitude most of the time. He yells at us all constantly over the tiniest things. He is often losing patience with the kids. I could feel the weight off our collective shoulders when he wasnt there. 

Now his exam has been over for 3 weeks and hes been back in our life full time. And I feel horrible for admitting this but I am not feeling any joy with his return. I went into the 6 weeks thinking I was going to be counting down the days to his return, and instead it wasnt like that. 

Maybe thats how he felt when I was traveling...relief and happiness that I was gone. Maybe thats why he never seemed particularly happy at my return. I dont know. 

So now I am having an internal struggle. The distance didnt do us any favors this past 6 months. The only thing I have not done, is taken any steps whatsoever to analyze our money situation to see if I could really afford it on my own. The thought has obviously crossed my mind because I am typing it here. But I have refused to do it, despite the urge, because I feel like the information would be dangerous to have. One step closer to making a break.

I am not sure what to do from here. I have no idea what he thinks. My opinion is that he doesnt really give any of this much thought. I dont think he has a clue we are standing on the deck of the Titanic. If I were to divorce him or even mention the word, he would be shocked. 

We had to go to my company christmas party last week, and we put on a good face as the happy couple there. For me it was painful. I have never been very good at acting and I wear my emotion on my sleeve. So being forced to pretend we were happy as can be was very hard for me. I think he could sense my discomfort as well but he never brought it up. 

Any feedback would be appreciated. I just feel lost at this point.


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

kag123 said:


> I dont think he has a clue we are standing on the deck of the Titanic.


I can guarantee you are correct. As a matter of fact, I'll go a little further. I can almost guarantee he thinks you guys are sailing into the sunset on the loveboat.

See if this helps. It should. If it doesn't strike a chord, something is wrong.



sh987 said:


> Prevent My Divorce: The Walkaway Wife Syndrome - YouTube


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Thank you for the quick reply. I am at work at the moment so I can't watch the video at the moment but I will take a look at it as soon as I get home. 

I have read this site alot more than I have ever posted on it. I have read this walk away wife thing several times. 

The thing I can't wrap my head around, is how we could possibly be coexisting sharing 90% of our lives together and have two vastly different perspectives on the health of our relationship?? 

No offense - seriously - but I find myself often wondering, is he dense? Or is he playing games with me...pretending everything is ok like some kind of twisted mindfvck? I dont think he has malevolent intentions so the answer that leaves me with is that he's truly dense. 

How do you communicate your problems to someone who refuses to be communicated with?

Its like trying to talk to an ostrich who has his head stuck in the sand.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Men often think things are fine until their wives are ready to walk away. Even when you try to discuss the problems with the relationship with them they may still think it's okay. They usually have to be hit with a 2 x 4 to get it. So tell him what you have told us. He'll either care or he won't. Right now you don't know. But once you do know you can begin the process of dealing with it.


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## grisha (Oct 24, 2011)

Hi kag123,
your situation reminded me of my marriage. Have you tried counselling? We were at the same place you are at now about 1 year ago. My hubby was not listening to me and I was so unhappy. I think you are absolutely correct in thinking your husband is incredibly dense. Mine was. It took me a lot of effort to get through to him that I was unhappy. I went to counselling by myself first. She taught me to be more assertive. Then my husband agreed to go as well. And he liked the counsellor. My husband listened to the counsellor a lot better, and I was able to speak more openly during our sessions with counsellor calling my husband out every time he tried to shut me out. I must say he learned A LOT for the sessions (we've been going for about 1 year now). Our marriage is a lot better, we are able to communicate. We still do screw up and start huge fights. The fights now hurt a whole lot more as we both know the way it can be, but at the same time we are able to get back on track relatively fast.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

We haven't been to counseling. I have thought about it, but have been hesitant. 

I am not trying to say that I dont bear some of the responsibility of the way things turned out. 

I suffer from anxiety and depression. I am under treatment for it - meds - which do help me a lot. But have never had a good experience with counselors thus far at least for IC. I know it's a trial and error process to find a good fit but to be honest I don't tend to have a lot of patience for that process. I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth. 

Also I have always been very thick skinned when it comes to showing emotion myself. I think and feel very deeply and tend to reserve those thoughts and feelings only for those who make me feel safe. Not judged or ridiculed. At one time my H was that safe person. Over time he has morphed to shutting me out and in turn I feel judged, and shrugged off...belittled. It enforces my tendency to fall in on myself when I am dealing with heavy stuff. I now withdraw and hide a lot of my deeper self from him. 

What hurts the most is I don't think he even notices! I think he really thinks the less we talk, the better things must be between us. I couldnt feel thats farther from the truth. I know myself....when I stop communication, its like a death knell. 

I dont want it to be that way. 

Part of the reason I have completely stopped initiating sex with him, is because I think it gives him a false sense of security. She's sleeping with me - everything must be fine! I don't want him to think things are fine. They are not fine. 

I think I overwhelm him in my complexity. At the same time I find him frustrating that he appears to have no thoughts deeper than the football line up this Sunday. It makes me question how we ever got together. At the same time I resent him for being able to be so carefree. Why can't I be like that? I blame it on my mental illness most of the time. I tell myself that my constantly churning mind is abnormal and pray for the meds to take it away.

They don't take it away entirely but it does numb me a bit, lessens the urgency of my thoughts and lets me have time to step back a bit.


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## Fordsvt (Dec 24, 2010)

Your hubby is very selfish. He needs to leave the house every night and weekend to study? Dump the entire house hold on you?
He barely talks to you?
Communication is about zero with you two.
Your sounding like a Walk away Wife in the making. He needs to wake up soon. But you need to force the issue. Not sit back and take this. Or, it will never change.


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## tmbirdy (Jul 26, 2011)

Openminded said:


> Men often think things are fine until their wives are ready to walk away. Even when you try to discuss the problems with the relationship with them they may still think it's okay. They usually have to be hit with a 2 x 4 to get it. So tell him what you have told us. He'll either care or he won't. Right now you don't know. But once you do know you can begin the process of dealing with it.


Yeah, I would definitely let him know that you are not happy with the way things are. I remember my brother calling me up a few months ago and saying his wife of 23 years was starting to tell him she was not happy and she kept that inside for years. I said to him, you better listen to her and not blow her off. If she is saying that to you, it's really close to her leaving. He agreed, but I was right, it was too late at that point, and they are now getting a divorce. I love my brother, but when I would come over I noticed how night after night he would be on his computer in the living room in his own world and very little communication between her or any of us. What surprises me is that he did not see it coming.


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## scatty (Mar 15, 2013)

Maybe he would respond better to a letter or an email? Lay it all on the line. Let him know that you need to hear what he thinks and feels. Maybe he feels the same way you do.


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## 3Xnocharm (Jun 22, 2012)

He honestly seems totally clueless, or he truly just does not give a damn. The only thing that is going to shake him out of his trance is shock...you need to lay it on the line, either you two get into MC and work on the issues, or you are pursuing a divorce. And you are going to have to be prepared to follow through. I tried several times with my first H to get him to take some action and work on things, and he dismissed me, then it rocked his whole world when I told him I was done and I left. By then, there was no saving anything, there was not a single thing he could have done to get me to stay with him. 

Wishing and hoping are not going to cut it here.


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## KathyBatesel (Apr 26, 2012)

kag123 said:


> Also I have always been very thick skinned when it comes to showing emotion myself. I think and feel very deeply and tend to reserve those thoughts and feelings only for those who make me feel safe. Not judged or ridiculed. At one time my H was that safe person.
> 
> *Something that I perceive in the paragraph above because it's true of me: It's quite possible that you felt ridiculed/judged/criticized on occasion, and then turned those few isolated events into something else entirely. Instead of those events meaning "he was being critical one day," you interpreted them as "he's not safe to open up to." This is where you've contributed to the current situation. You have withheld yourself from the relationship by not continuing to include him in your day-to-day details, and of course, he had no way of knowing that this was happening. *
> 
> ...


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## SunnyT (Jun 22, 2011)

kag123 said:


> Thank you for the quick reply. I am at work at the moment so I can't watch the video at the moment but I will take a look at it as soon as I get home.
> 
> I have read this site alot more than I have ever posted on it. I have read this walk away wife thing several times.
> 
> ...


Ya'll don't talk about it. So you are only guessing what he thinks or feels. Period. 

You keep assuming.... and you know where that goes. 

So.... that being said:

1. Go on as it is... 

2. Change what you are doing... (This takes courage whether you decide to change the marriage and be more vocal, or to end the marriage... either way it takes guts)

So things keep going the way they have been, or YOU change it. That's it. Period.


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## Coffee Amore (Dec 15, 2011)

scatty said:


> Maybe he would respond better to a letter or an email? Lay it all on the line. Let him know that you need to hear what he thinks and feels. Maybe he feels the same way you do.


I like this idea. A long time ago when we had some marital issues that he apparently seemed unaware of, I wrote a few brutally honest emails from my perspective. They were long detailed emails. They were very blunt emails. I didn't attack him. I just didn't couch it in fluffy, vague language either. In the emails, I was able to say things more easily than in person. I wasn't a walkaway wife, but I had some deeply held resentments. The emails were a wake up call for him. We then had some heart to heart conversations afterwards. The conversations weren't pleasant or easy for either of us, but it led to several good changes in our marriage that last to this day.


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

kag123 said:


> The thing I can't wrap my head around, is how we could possibly be coexisting sharing 90% of our lives together and have two vastly different perspectives on the health of our relationship??


I just got beat up really bad in this thread. 

http://talkaboutmarriage.com/ladies-lounge/148889-maybe-i-dont-love-him-anymore.html

I can be a bit rough, and my abuse pushed my wife away. Nobody wants to believe an abuser can give them advice. But it doesn't matter so much WHAT pushed a wife to walk. What matters is that I did it and the dynamics are the same. It's just a matter of degree. 

Anyhow, I lived with my wife for 10 years with that "Vastly different perspective". Our perspectives met in one horrible instance where my world crashed. I realized I had lost her at least 10 YEARS ago and didn't know it. Ever have your past change? I wouldn't have thought it possible until I lived it.

That topic gets touched on a few times in this thread. Note the other posters who's husbands were "shocked" when they found out. It's not just me. I've read it thousands of times here. Note in particular the abuse survivor who refuses to believe this is possible after witnessing it herself. It's an odd thing, yet SO important.


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

Oh. Just to confuse it a little more. He already knows most of what bothers you about him. Go ahead and put it in a letter so you'll have a baseline when this gets ugly. But he knows. He just doesn't know it has gotten this far with you. It's an occasional bother for him in an otherwise perfect marriage. You live it 24-7.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

*Re: Re: Can we reconnect? Help?*



MrK said:


> Oh. Just to confuse it a little more. He already knows most of what bothers you about him. Go ahead and put it in a letter so you'll have a baseline when this gets ugly. But he knows. He just doesn't know it has gotten this far with you. It's an occasional bother for him in an otherwise perfect marriage. You live it 24-7.


Yes I believe this to be true. 

I have been very vocal about things that I wish to see in our marraige. It's met with stonewalling. I am not sure that's the right term...he doesn't purposely ignore me...it's more like a blank stare. I can visibly see it doesn't click in his head. 

When that happens over and over again...I lose my will to keep bringing it up to be met with the same indifference. That's what I meant about not feeling safe to share myself with him anymore. 

I also feel that he percieves me as too critical. The only thing we really do talk about with any regularity is the business functions of running a household and raising children together. For example, we had a very long (civil) discussion about money today. It seems that any attempt I make to discuss a plan for our future is met with shut down and withdrawal from him. I cannot tell how to change my approach so that he will be more receptive and not feel like I am criticizing. I keep telling him I think very highly of him and it is not my intention to come off as "out to get him". He will say I am doing just fine and he doesn't feel attacked....but his actions speak the exact opposite. 

Still....the fact that he could STILL be so oblivious after all the talks we've had. It just boggles my mind. What alternate reality is he living in? Maybe you can help shed some light on that for me. 

If your wife tried to approach you many times asking for change....why did you shrug it off? Did you think she would just get over it and forget it after awhile? What about the marraige made you happy during that time?


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## MrK (Sep 2, 2010)

kag123 said:


> Still....the fact that he could STILL be so oblivious after all the talks we've had. It just boggles my mind. What alternate reality is he living in? Maybe you can help shed some light on that for me.
> 
> If your wife tried to approach you many times asking for change....why did you shrug it off? Did you think she would just get over it and forget it after awhile? What about the marraige made you happy during that time?


I answer all of that as best as I can in that other thread. You are going to say "but that OP's situation is different, that's not me. He was abusing her". And that is true. But again, the causes don't need to be the same. Both of you are being pushed away by someone who knows his issues, but doesn't know he's losing his wife.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

So, three days ago I very suddenly was hit with an extremely bad case of food poisoning. I haven't been that sick in more than ten years. 

Through the whole ordeal, my H was right by my side. Rubbing my back as I was getting sick, laying on the bathroom floor with me when I was too weak to move, bringing me a change of clothes and physically changing me when I passed out and threw up all over myself and all over him. He never flinched. He's seen me in compromising positions before, such as during the birth of our two children, but never quite like that. It was completely disgusting and embarassing now that I look back on it but he never even blinked at being right beside me the whole time. 

Sadly....thats probably the most physical contact we'd had in several weeks, when he was laying with me rubbing my back and stroking my hair. 

It seems like every time I get so frustrated that I feel like giving up, something happens like this that changes my focus. I know he loves me. He clearly cares about me, or he wouldn't have rushed to my side and stayed with me during some pretty nasty experiences that night. 

I so appreciated him being there because frankly I was pretty frightened during that illness. I dont remember being that sick ever. 

After I was better I did genuinely thank him for taking care of me. He was the one who brought me liquid and forced me to drink to rehydrate myself, and forced me to start eating again to regain my strength. He even took over the rest of the Christmas preparations that I could no longer handle as I recovered...wrapped all the gifts, took care of the kids, finished the shopping. 

Its just that I dont know how to keep that focus on feeling that he truly loves me when we begin to drift apart. I wish it didnt take something horrible for me to feel his love for me.


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## Fordsvt (Dec 24, 2010)

Well, your last post shows that he cares. Perhaps he doesn't know how to communicate or reach out to you anymore? MC would likely help you two a lot. It helped me see what my wife was missing from me over the past few years.


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