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You're responsible for helping to find the balance between yourself and your wife - hopefully something she's also okay with. You can't just be quiet in your own corner and expect things to get better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liberty2011
^^^ This is critical to the health of your marriage.
An excellent point, and the main reason a man cave or golfing hobby aren't solutions.
I think I massively failed to know myself when I got married.
That's too bad, OP. This is the prime reason why people say it's best for for most people to wait until they're 30 to get married. You know yourself a lot better by the early 30's, as a general rule of thumb. Maybe that's not your particular situation, but I'm just saying. I can't advise you on how to break it to her that you made a boo-boo. If you're concerned she'll take it personally and beat herself up, probably the best approach (once you get up the nerve) would be to open with something along the lines of, "Honey, I screwed up", and continue in that vein. Even so, as you know, this won't go over well. Good luck, OP.
afterthought: since you say you really enjoyed the bf/gf stage, where you were together most of the time, but still maintained separate residences, you could suggest that. It wouldn't go over well, but these days, some couples do maintain separate residences. This happens mainly in instances where both already own their own home, and neither wants to sell, and they both value having a measure of independence. But if it helps save the marriage, it's worth exploring.
I like the idea of OP getting some therapy. Tell your wife how you honestly feel, and ask her to bear with you for a short time, while you try to figure things out. Why throw away a good relationship that might make you happy if you understood why you feel this way?
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with not wanting to be married, but you owe it to yourself to find out what's eating you, and your certainly owe it to your wife.
Of course, you take the chance of your wife choosing that you are not worth hanging around for, but honesty is still the best policy.
Don't fall for the grass is always greener over a moment of "meh."
Are you depressed, mid-life crisis? Certainly do not make any major decisions.
You need to talk to your wife to see what can be changed to make your life more enjoyable.
I think you have been somewhat irresponsible, and can't believe you now have a turn around and know yourself a year and a half later.
It may turn out to be the case, but perhaps some effort would help before you blow up your life for good or ill.
I really feel bad for your wife.
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Don't fall for the grass is always greener over a moment of "meh."
Are you depressed, mid-life crisis? Certainly do not make any major decisions.
You need to talk to your wife to see what can be changed to make your life more enjoyable.
I think you have been somewhat irresponsible, and can't believe you now have a turn around and know yourself a year and a half later.
It may turn out to be the case, but perhaps some effort would help before you blow up your life for good or ill.
I really feel bad for your wife.
I agree, there are pro and cons to any situation. I firmly can see that the grass isn't greener, at least for my situation. I don't want to be out there dating. If something happens to Mrs. Chow and me, I'm really not sure if I would get back out there, maybe, but I have zero desires to be single and playing the dating game. But, that's my situation, everyone is different.
I suppose what I'm unhappy about... everyone told me that marriage would be so fulfilling, that we'd be happy, etc... .
Sometimes it's like that but more commonly it's a lot of work and a lot of self-sacrifice. If you went into this looking for your own happiness, then you probably shouldn't have gotten married.
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Originally Posted by redguard57
I just feel the whole experience is....underwhelming and miss my independence. I'll stay up late (like tonight) after she's gone to sleep just so I can get some alone time.
I understand and I think that actually can be quite common. Do you have the kind of relationship with each other where you can tell her these things? With my relationship, I was upfront with him saying that I really enjoy being alone so will probably want to feel that way again some times. I think you mentioned you both had decent jobs--is there anyway you can get away for a while? Like a week or so at a time. Would she understand that you need your time by yourself? I hope you can be open to her about your feelings. Most of the times, relationships tend to degenerate to being kind of tired of being around each other sometimes (sometimes it's most of the time, but hopefully not); I hope she's mature enough to understand that.
I really think you should be able to work something like this out; to me it sounds perfectly normal, but then I understand the really needing that independence kind of feeling. Yet I really hope you don't sacrifice your marriage because of this. I was with someone for a long time and then I was alone for a long time and I will say that even with the struggles of a relationship where you live with someone, that going through the ups and downs of that is way better than being alone (and I really enjoy being alone). So I'm willing to bet that if you do go ahead and end this you'll end up regretting it later on in life.
Everyone needs some time ALONE and my sister said to me years ago that her marriage lasted as long as it has is that she travelled worldwide in her profession and they were apart enough to appreciate each other when she returned. Sadly, she is very sick with MS and he takes care of her totally.
My folks were married 63 yrs and it was pretty bad. My dad was NEVER a family man nor much of a partner. He was married to the bottle.
So many stories out there and I guess there are some good marriages. I don't know many.
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