she said "i love you but i'm not in love with you"

[nigel250866]

where do i start.... after 10 years of marriage, 6 of which i can say were very happy my wife told me 4 weeks ago that "i love you but i'm not in love with you". I am devestated.
She says we have simply grown apart and with me working away from home for the most of our married life, she says she simply does n't need me for anything anymore. I have suggested counselling and she has agreed to go as i suppose a last resort try everything approach.

I suppose it all started 4 years ago when i forced her into an abortion, we had both agreed that we would not have anymore children and she fell pregnant accidentally. I did not want another child and after alot of arguments she agreed to the abortion. We already had two young children of 4 and 2 (both boys)and i was very concerned that she would not cope especially with me being away alot of the time and her only support was a mother who was not particularly mentally stable. After the abortion she became intraverted and finally after 3 months went and saw a counsellor who in one session gave her a different prospective on things, which turned her around. I probably need to say that she lives for the children and is a fantastic mother. Some 18 months later after lots of discussions re more children i relented and we agreed to have another, our daughter was born 18 months ago.

I have a quite stressful job and have been working very long hours and away from home during the week and then coming home at weekends. This changed approximately 2 years ago and i was away for 2-3 weeks at a time and then coming home for several days. We both agreed to this work pattern due to uk tax laws and having to keep under 90 days in the uk to avoid the tax implications. The financial benefit would mean that the schooling for the children could be paid for more easily and we could possibly move house to a better area.

My wife does not work and has the best of everything, she has expensive clothes and i suppose you could call her a WAG. The right mulberry hand bag and the Laboutine shoes etc etc... I have worked very hard to give her these things and she has looked after the children and the house. Until 4 weeks ago i thought we were just going thru a bad patch like all marriages but when the bombshell was dropped it all began to fall into place. The reluctance to kiss me passionately, the drop off in sex and intimacy, no touching or hugs. When we did have sex she would always do everthing to get it finished as quickly as possible.

I have never treated her badly (except for the abortion)and she says i have been "too nice" giving her everything she has ever wanted. Since the bombshell she has seen the other side of me. I am an all or nothing person and this total and utter rejection has hurt me more than i could ever imagined. I cannot sleep and spend my time trying to work out where it all went wrong. I have been very nasty, threatening (not physically), and i suppose an absolute B***d, my moods have been swinging from highs to complete lows. When i go home we just seem to dance round each other, she speaks to me but does not really talk and she says the only thing we now have in common is the children.

I do not know what to do, she says that circumstances have brought us to this place and its nobodys fault.

She also complains that when i am at home that i have no intrest in the family and doing the family stuff. To this end i have agreed to get fitter in order that i have more energy when i'm at home. Working 11-12 hour days for weeks on end takes it out of me and all i have been doing is watching TV.
So yes i can understand her point of view.

she says i'm quiet and don't talk when were with friends, again i hope more energy will help...

I have been very committed to my work and yes i have put that before family, but the work has enabled the family and her to have nice things and not really worry about money.

What i suppose i would like to know has anyone recovered from this situation in the past.. or is all lost?. I love her still, we were soulmates when we met and had a fairytale meeting and courtship thru to the perfect wedding and marriage until....

What can i do to make things right again?

Can the counselling help?

I feel absolutely lost....

What on earth are you doing calling her a WAG? She's a stay at home mum. WAG indeed.

You say yourself you've been a bastard...it sounds to me like she's made the right decision.

The thing is Nigel, you say you have given your wife everything she wants but I suspect what she actually wants is a husband that's there for her. I don't necessarily mean physically (as there are plenty of marriages that work very well with one partner working away from home) but I would imagine your wife is lonely? Misses you emotionally? It's bloody hard work being a full time mum and if you're not there at night she must get very little time to herself/to be herself. Are the material things meant to make up for what her life is lacking emotionally?

Maybe she feels that she copes just fine without you at home and you need to remind her what it is you bring to the party (and not financially).

Have you got any leave you could take? Maybe a week at home as a family with some time out as a couple could reignite the spark?

I'm a fella.

What are you doing all that work for? As in, what is the aim of it? Sounds like it has destroyed your marriage.

It does sound that you don't have much fun together if you just collapse in front of the TV when you are at home .

Me and my DH went through a very rough patch culminating in him having an affair, we had weeks of counselling etc. I am a SAHM with 4DSs and he has his own business so long hours and "we" got lost in it all. Now we put the marriage/relationship first above everything else because without the marriage/relationship where would the kids be IYSWIM. So we now try and get away for a weekend on our own every other month or so, try and get out once a week on our own etc. I have also started doing something for me again (horseriding) that doesn't involved DH or kids.

Everything is in the actions, DH was very selfish, self-entitled etc before, he has had to do a lot of self-analysis and has changed completely. I have also changed as well, I will now tell him when something is upsetting me etc. You may also find your DW has a lot of resentment/anger re the abortion. Our DS4 was not planned (I ended up with 3DSs under 5) and DH said he would rather I didn't have the baby as financially, physically (4CSs and severe morning sickness) and his work load, he felt it would tip us over the edge but he also acknowledged that if he pushed towards abortion (knowing my feelings on the subject) then we would have no marriage anyway.

Start with being kind and considerate to one another - it's all about the actions.

Good luck.

Nigel don your hard hat you will be lambasted for the abortion but presumably your wife could have simply refused it if she really felt strongly that wasnt what she wanted.

Some wise MNers will be along soon but I hope counselling helps although I am afraid it sounds as though caught up in your career you have failed to notice the demise in your marriage and prioritised the wrong things ie material things.

'I suppose it all started 4 years ago when i forced her into an abortion, we had both agreed that we would not have anymore children and she fell pregnant accidentally. I did not want another child and after alot of arguments she agreed to the abortion. We already had two young children of 4 and 2 (both boys)and i was very concerned that she would not cope especially with me being away alot of the time and her only support was a mother who was not particularly mentally stable. '

So, since then you've gone and been a man about it and gotten the snip?

Because if you don't want anymore children then you take responsibility for contraception, not leave it to her to sort it out and then have terminations whenever there's an accident.

Oh, well, you got four more years out of it than anyone would have gotten out of me, because I'd have told you where to go if you tried to force me to have a procedure on my body I didn't want.

I don't blame her!

I hope she gets a really good solicitor.

You seem to see her as nothing but an extension of yourself, calling her a WAG, assuming she can be bought with stuff (wow, you must think she's really shallow), insinuating she's not capable of coping without you around, never being there, bullying her.

Maybe whilst you away all the time she realised there's more to life than a person who thinks she's a wet girl's blouse and a WAG. When he's around.

surely he can't be real?

You need to do a whole hell of a lot of rethinking - I know we're all picking up on the WAG comment, but it is very telling. By thinking of her in those terms, you're showing that you haven't ever appreciated the endless hard work, the relentlessness and the monotony of being a stay at home parent with small children. And that lack of appreciation must have shown - while you were knackered and watching telly, she would have been desperate for attention, help and company.

Take a couple weeks off - spend one with the family, one with just you and your wife (and YOU sort the childcare), and hope for the best. If she does decide to walk away, be amicable about it - you fucked up (as most of us do at some point), and it may well be too late.

Look, Nigel, my DH often has a work pattern that sounds similar to yours and we both know it is bloody tough when one person is away all the time. To be honest it kind of reinforces for the person left behind how they are fine on their own. Independence is a good thing but spending so little time together it could be easy to grow apart. Add kids into the mix and it isn't going to get any easier.

You've got to knock the "being a bastard" on the head right away. Your wife has agreed to go to counselling with you which I doubt she would if she thought it was all over (unless you've "forced" her to agree to that too). Pressuring someone to have an abortion is a massive breach of trust and getting that back will be hard work.

So, listen to what she has to say at the counseller, try to remember the good things about your wife. If you treat her well she might just remember why she was in love with you you before. I'd consider getting a different job too. She might be quite happy to trade the new shoes for a husband who is around to provide emotional support, you know.

WAG?

Did I read that right?

' I am an all or nothing person and this total and utter rejection has hurt me more than i could ever imagined. I cannot sleep and spend my time trying to work out where it all went wrong. I have been very nasty, threatening (not physically), and i suppose an absolute B***d, my moods have been swinging from highs to complete lows. When i go home we just seem to dance round each other, she speaks to me but does not really talk and she says the only thing we now have in common is the children.'

So instead of suggesting counselling right away and being an adult and showing her you really wanted the marriage to continue, you acted like a teenager because she wasn't doing what you wanted.

God, I really pity this person.

And yes, I'd write the same things if we were talking about you in the role of the wife in this or a same-sex couple.

Being a decent person has nothing to do with gender.

ua i thought that it does read a bit chic lit lite
op the only thing you could do is try and talk calmly with your wife - however it does sound as if she's made her mind up, in which case being as mature and co-operative with her and the children re future arrangements will do more than words to open her eyes to the possibility that change is possible
even if your relationship as a couple doesn't recover you can then become amicable co-parents to your dc

You 'forced her to have an abortion'. Think about it, if your friend was in your position what would you say to him?

This doesn't sound like much of a relationship - more like some kind of 'deal' to me.

you've given her material things, sounds like you've put things like private education, clothes etc before having a happy life.

In some ways you sound aware of your bad behaviour, and slightly sensitive, but in others you sound very insensitive 'she doesn't work' (yet she's home with three young children) and you 'forced' her into an abortion.

If she's told you that she isn't in love with you any more, then it's probably too late to salvage any kind of relationship other than as co-parents.

It also sounds like your wife has had quite an unfulfilling life in terms of having any kind of partnership with you as a husband.

You "forced" her to have an abortion. Your words. How can she possibly love you after that? She has probably spent the last four years hating you and trying to figure out a way to leave that doesn't impact on the kids too badly.

Counselling might help, but if you're not prepared to spend time with your family and support your wife it won't.

Hassled idea of 2 weeks off is a good one. And start taking responsibility. Look after the children and let her have some time to herself. And stop calling her a WAG . That simple phrase makes me a little .

Even after all this, the abortion, your (by your own admission) acting like a bastard when she told you how she felt because you're an 'all or nothing' person, she's still willing to go to counselling.

This sounds like someone who's willing to do close to anything to keep her family together.

Says a lot about her, really, certainly more than a WAG tag.

Exactly what I was thinking, reality.

I can't help wondering if you're genuine

However the thing that crossed my mind with the "I'm not in love with you anymore speech" is is she having an affair? As I've heard that speech far too often on mumsnet for the original poster to then discover they're having an affair. I hope I'm wrong.

She sounds very neglected tbh the old adage on money cannot buy love, comes to mind. You need to really spend sometime together and start doing nice things together again. I really hope the counseling helps.

My brother and his wife came back from the brink of divorce with marriage counseling and their relationship is very different but better now.

Nigel hasn't been seen now for nearly three hours.

They're probably laughing about it on betfair or singletrackdickheads or some such site. I've had a look at those sites - oh my christ they're so boring, no wonder they feel the need to come on MN every now and again.

But in the event that this poster is legit, my DH also thinks that working 12 hours a day and earning a large salary is enough. It isn't. I know from my own experience. Maybe it's true that Women are from Venus and Men are from Uranus (close enough).

the op reads like a really shite novel with gold letters on teh front.

I am real and yes i f**d up, I have simply tried to do my best by the family and work hard to provide for them.

Dogfish got the WAG comment spot on, it was meant as a nasty or disrespectful comment.

I have to change and i am making plans to come back to uk to work and spend more time at home. One interview already and two planned. Although she says she does n't want me at home full time, so what an i to do??

I'm angry and hurting.... I dont think she has having an affair.... i have not found any evidence... and yes i have searched all her stuff... and i know that's not good and i should n't of but just trying to find a reason. Clutching at every straw and to find a reason for this mess.

I have asked her what she wants and she says she does n't know...