Suspect DW has lost interest in our relationship. Can I turn this around?

[bookerman]

I'm trying to come to terms with the idea that my wife has lost interest in our relationship. She avoids all physical contact with me, rejects cuddles and if she does accept, its very reluctant:stands stalk still with arms by her side. Sex has also been off the cards for almost 4 years.

I'm 36, she's 41. We have 2 kids (5 and 3) and we've been married for 5 years. I often work long hours, so often she's asleep or tired when I get home. Weekends are always spent together (all four of us). I usually get home to help with the bed time routine at least 2 or 3 nights a week.

Background details: we're both in good shape, not alcoholics or drug users. She works part time, I work full time. I'm not violent, I've not been having an affair and haven't knowingly done anything to change her view of me.

I have attempted to talk to her about it, but she brushes it aside. Says I'm being silly and that we just need to make time: when the time is made the plan always changes.

Really sorry to hear that Booker.

You sound like you're talking about how I was at the tale end on my rship with my ex. (Although he had been violent) .

Classic behaviour of someone retreating from rship. Have you confronted her about it? I think it's worth discussing in case she's got something on her mind she's not sharing

would you be prepared to go to Relate or any other counseling service, if necessary taking days off for it?

can you have someone else to look after your kids and go away at leasat for one night but preferably longer?

what does your weekend look like? who does what?

Sorry to hear your situation. It's particularly worrying she won't discuss it. But perhaps it is not quite as sinister as you fear.

Have you tried taking the kids out at the weekend and letting her have a lie in, long soak in the bath or whatever she wants? Spa day?

My DH and I haven't been that close lately, a combination of 2 small children, returning to work after maternity leving me exhausted, and the feeling I'm trapped in a job I don't like because of the huge mortgage. When I'm tired this is (obviously) all HIS fault. After a good few hours of unconsciousness I'm in a better place to discuss things.

If I were you I'd get her in a good place to discuss (sleep tanks full, long meal out, whatever) then tell her you know her feelings have changed, you are not prepared to go on like this and she needs to work on your relationship or it will come to an end sooner or later. Then see how she reacts. Could be innocent exhaustion / resentment or could be something more serious like OM. Either way I think you need to get her to the point where she has to tell you if she's already thrown in the towel or is prepared to work on things.

Good luck!

I think you need to keep making the time, even though the plan changing is frustrating this at present.

And use that time to get talking again. Lack of communication is a really bad sign. Are you getting time together when the DC are not underfoot? Does she get time off from the DC?

Thanks for your replies: Fozziebear, yes I've asked her about it, but she gets irritated and doesnt want to chat.
Anti matter: yes I would be prepared to go to counseling, but not sure she would. Mentioned it once before, it didnt go down well. Good suggestion about a break away, we do need something like that. I'm trying to plan one soon, its not something we've done before. Getting baby sitters is a problem for us.

Michaela, thanks. Good advice.

I do get a bit annoyed with the standard response seen on this type of thread so often of "take the kids out, do more housework, letting her have a lie in, do what she wants" because I have known many relationships where the husband has bent over backwards or already does 75% of the work in the relationship and it makes NO ODDS.

For whatever reason, she has checked out. It is exceptionally unlikely that anything you do will get your wife back as you knew her. She won't be coming back, OP. Be prepared to call it a day.

Your DC are still small - do they sleep well?

When is their bedtime? Even if you can go out only rarely, what do you do with 'grown up' time once they are safely in bed?

And even though finding a sitter is problematic, I think it is worth making an effort to do so even if only rarely. If you are the one to do this, you are sending a small message that time for a date with her is worth a lot.

No major expert here but didn't want to read and run. We had our kids later in life too and I have to say that I shudder looking back at those early days. Giving birth/raising babies battered my body and my confidence and my emotions more than I could ever imagine. There are so many decisions to make, so much to learn, my dh was also out at work long hours, so I felt that as I became more tuned into the kids needs and demands, and was at their beck and call 24/7, he was less so and we were miles apart in some ways.

Like your dw, I worked part time too. (It saved my sanity.) At work I could be in control of things a little, no one screamed or had a tantrum - well, not often - but it was exhausting also having to organise the childcare, and battle bouncy boys into the car to get them to the right place on time/collect at the other end of the day.

It does get better. Well done for trying to talk. I would strongly suggest that you see if you can book the odd day off work when your oldest is presumably now at school. Dh and I tried for some quality time together, but it is invariably at the end of the day when we were knackered, and frazzled from the days adventures/lego building/whatever.

Don't expect too much too soon - you might just use the odd morning to let her have a lie in/long bath/do some hovering/play with dc2/read a newspaper/go for a jog together, but it can be a way of sharing her day to day life and getting the building blocks back in place, as the foundations of your relationship. Intimacy can be rebuilt again afterwards, but my advice would be to start gently, offering her a break (and yes, I know that you work long hours, but IME being at home/juggling part time work and children left me feeling far far more battered than being off at work) try to get in touch with where she is/who she is now.

HTH

Thanks for all your advice and comments. Much appreciated.

Do you have to work such long hours? Could you work from home for some days? It sounds like you don't get any quality time together and have maybe forgotten how to be a couple, rather than tired parents.

Have you looked at businesses offering baby-sitting services, or could you ask neighbours or other parents at the school date if they know of any older teens or uni students who could sit for you?

Do you have any family who could have the children for a night or two to let you get some time away - nice hotel, meal out or gig, a bit of walking. Just to reconnect.

I'm a bit shocked at these responses, especially spa day. What the actual fuck. If the genders were reversed, he would be getting replies like... "Does your partner take phone to bathroom, changed passwords... Sorry, sounds like there's someone else"

Your wife has emotionally left the relationship, but you already know that. Time to ask if she wants to salvage it or call it a day. Don't spend your energy trying to modify your behaviour and work on your relationship unless she agrees to do the same. Because more you try (alone) more she'll pull away.

Jessica it's my response to is thread because it's not clear from OP whether the relationship is stale because it's in a rut with the demands of small children. There's a huge difference between that and a final 'checking out' from a relationship. If an OP wants help to salvage/improve a relationship, is it not better to explore that rather than say it cannot be done?

Perhaps it will prove a set of problems terminal to the marriage. But perhaps it won't, OP is asking about how to turn it round. And he may think it is worth making every effort.

gate, not date!

I agree with MichaelaS that you have to bring this to a head. Small children are time-consuming/energy-sapping & sex often goes on the back burner. But when the affection/cuddles disappear as well, you have a serious problem. For example, if she thinks the only reason you cuddle her is to lead onto (unwanted) sex, then she's going to shut down completely rather than be at all encouraging... pretty common. Also, you say nothing's changed but clearly it has. Either she's changed or you've changed or she's looking at you in a new light.

It's going to be a 'more in sorrow than in anger' conversation and if it's a case of 'making time' then go all out to create that space. Pack the kids off to granny or whatever, catch up on some sleep and then start talking. No-one sounds particularly happy, nothing seems to be changing and, if everyone carries on avoiding the problem or dismissing others as 'silly', it's a miserable prospect.

Possibility that there is another man - have you considered this OP?

Have you looked at her phone?

Could she be having an emotional affair?

Four years is a long time for sex to be 'off the cards'. Is this something you've been trying to talk to her about for all that time? Your eldest child is only five so that means things have been 'off' pretty much since you had children - is there any possibility that your wife is depressed and actually needs to see a doctor? Do you think your wife has clocked out of life in general, or is it just you?

I agree that you need to make time to have the DC out of the way and make her realise that you are not prepared to carry on this way anymore - and that 'the talk' needs to happen.

If another adult (with presumably a functioning brain) is clearly unhappy, I'm not sure it would help to offer to facilitate them going off to have their toes painted for an afternoon in a lovely pastel-shaded room.

Yes, the usual responses here highlight divisions of labour...because it's one of the most important things. So you work full time, long hours, she works part time.

Does that translate as: you both work, but all domestic responsibility falls to your wife?

Does she get to do a job and then come back to washing/cooking/shopping/the million other menial tasks which have to be done, whereas you get to come home to it all having been done, because it's obviously more logical that the person first home does it?

If so, that's particularly tough, because of course some of it IS logical. But it's grindingly FUCKING IRRITATING to be cast as the default skivvy, especially if the reason for that is that somewhere along the line you took the back seat with work not because you enjoyed pottering around the house, but because biology dictated that you be the one to wreck your body and pension plan in one fell swoop so that both of you could start a family.

Just saying that, in those early years of having the children, the way the cards tend to fall can look very, very unfair. Explore that first.

I'm afraid I sort of agree worh Jessica. It does sound like your wife has checked out and it will be hard to get it back

However, is there any chance your DW has PND? Your youngest isn't that old and it is perfectly possible to undiagnosed for a while. Has your wife list interest in other things too or just you? It could be your relationship is the last thing on her mind if she is keeping it together on all other fronts. Maybe in the juggling of everything it is the one ball she doesn't have the strenght to handle. If your DW is struggling and if she could be persuaded to go to the GP, you might get your wife back eventually although there is a danger she has bedn cut off too long to ever get back to where you were.

OP, I am in the same situation - my H has definitely emotionally "checked out" of the relationship. I can't offer any advice, just commiserations. Last night I also figured out that his (at best) mild aversion and (at worst) contempt is rubbing off on our small DD, and that in itself is very hard to bear. I think I have to accept that our marriage has ended as he is refusing to do any of the multitude of small things we could do to save it - even simply going on a date. If your wife will not engage with the simplest attempts to work on things, then you are alone in the fight to save your relationship, and it really does take two to make a marriage work I'm afraid! Hoping for the sake of your family that she will make an attempt to reconnect. Good luck!

If she doesn't welcome any cuddles or physical warmth from you at any time that is an extremely bad sign. And if she hasn't wanted sex with you for almost 4 years, well, I think she has switched off completely from you. To me, it looks like she stopped loving you some time ago and maybe doesn't even find you attractive any more. It's like she's fed up with you being around her or having any claim on her.
A marriage without sex and intimacy and warmth and cuddles isn't really a marriage any longer. Without actually saying it she's giving you all the warning signs that should tell you she doesn't want to be with you any more.
You can try things, such as suggesting counselling, but you don't even know what you've done wrong exactly, do you? But really it all sounds doomed to me and she's already made up her mind about you. Don't wait too long trying things; maybe best to cut your losses if nothing seems to have any effect.
Sorry to be so gloomy but I have bitter personal experience of this kind of situation. I'm a brief intruder here. Once when I stroked her hair affectionately she said, "Don't pat me, I'm not a dog." It's so hurtful to get that.
Just as a matter of interest have you really done without sex for almost 4 years at 36? Really? I wonder how you managed that! But that's private so no need to answer.

my DW and I are in the same position as you but our kids are a few years older and there is a sporadic sex life. nothing has really worked for us but i'd suggest you try for counselling with the twin aims of improving communication and trying to discover what lies behing the intimacy issues.

I would also search for threads on here regarding libido mismatch (regardless of gender) as MN is a mine of information and the checklist is covered: resentment, depression, physical or emotional affairs, control freakery, asexual, medical issue, past abuse, your own behaviour etc

never assume you know what is the cause but trust your gut instinct and never be afraid to ask questions of your wife (but as above, 'in sorrow not in anger' that is excellent advice)

but i'd also suggest you prioritise yourself for a bit - hit the gym, go back to a hobby and consider your own standalone relationship with the kids not neccessarily as part of a couple and not neccessarily as one size fits all in terms of how you interact with them

i say this last bit because you will need to have an idea of the strength of your relationship with each child to consider all your options fully

Another fellow sufferer. Sometimes I wish DW would have an affair just to prove she could be a lover, as well as a mother and friend. Anything to arouse the passion that I can't anymore.