(nearly) walk away wife - what chance over recovery?

[freddyf77]

hi everyone,

i am a despairing M42. My partner F35, not married, of 16 years tells me 'i love you but i'm not in love with you'. ok. we a re not married but other than the legal part i consider us hsuand and wife. she tells me she doesn't know what she wants so we really are in limbo. we still socialise together, go for walks and even have sex at times so i'm so confused. she is very distant. i love her more than anything.

i am freaking out but am trying to be very nice. I just want to fix it but need to not pressure her. It’s so hard while I’m so stressed. . She sees my overt kindness as temporary but i truly believe this is the wake up call we needed, and we can get through this if she will give us time. She feels old and that she’s running out of time. She’s young but can’t see it. but we got through it, or so i thought.

I have never been abusive. i have had anxiety which has limited our social life at times but i'm so much better than before and quite normal in that regard. i have over the years raised questions about wnating more intimacy but she never opened up all that much. we have had numerous IVFs that have failed (my sperm is the issue), and have worked together for nearly 10 years, with a long commute. so, in short, quite a lot of stress. i think work and IVF are the reasons for our probelms, rather than me being a bad partner. i can see i should have tried more with social apsect but i actaully thought she was content, going out with her friends and going on holdays with them etc.

She has a new job many miles away that starts in 7 week's time, and while that might give her some needed space, I am worried that she’ll slip away.
I read about ‘walk away wife’ and sometimes read that it’s reconcilable. Other blogs say not. Given that there has been no abuse, no cheating, very few big fallings out, and we still function in some ways, can I have hope?

I would really like to hear how others got through this sort of challenge.

IVF is hard on couples. Lots don’t make it.

If someone is telling you they aren’t in love with you any more, I’m not sure there’s much you can do to change their mind.

let her go so that she can have children.

There’s no way any censor poster would be told to let their husband go so he could have children. Horrible comment.

^censor = female. Not sure what happened there.

Thank you all for you comments. I appreciate your time. I'm probably going to go off line as I'm obsessing over this and need to calm down.
I'll let you know how it works out.

Apologies it wasn't meant to sound nasty. To me OP didn't sound overly concerned about having children but his partner obviously is.

@Mycatatetherat
Don't worry. Honestly, I have considered letting her go - not my decision what she chooses to do, obvs - but I just want to exhaust every option.
She deserves to be a mum. I just wish with ounce of my being it could be with me.

*with every ounce

Quite honestly "I love you but I'm not in love with you" usually signals that the person is at least interested in someone else if not actually having an affair. For which there is no excuse if she is that unhappy she should have been honest and left you if that's the case.

If not (and actually even if yes I suppose - but I repeat no excuse) then yes maybe it is because you haven't fully committed to her?

You're NOT married so you are NOT A husband and wife whatever you might say. It's NOT just "the legal bit" or "a piece of paper" it has real legal, financial and emotional implications. You're NOT as committed as a couple that's married.

You also say "there's been no abuse..." But I wonder if you've fully pulled your weight in the relationship? Lack of abuse is the absolute minimum! Do you care for her? Cherish her? Respect her? Do you SHOW that every day?

"It's cruel to waste a womans fertile years umming and ahhing." Definitely, and at her age and with the fertility issues you've had as a couple I wouldn't be surprised if she's giving serious consideration to taking her chances elsewhere. Did you consider sperm donation?

"claasic guy stuff. I didn't want a big wedding. I always said how much I wanted to be married, just not a big wedding.
I can feel you cringing already!" Was there no compromise discussed? This is something many men say when what they mean is they don't actually want to get married. Possible she thought that?

At the end of the day if she's had enough there's not much you can do.

These replies are quite harsh in my opinion!

Don’t let all the ominous “this is an affair” comments distract you. Most people have a strong connection and love for someone theyve been with for 16 years and find it very sad when they contemplate wrenching away, bu wrench they must because for whatever reason they are not “in love”. As other posters have said, she needs to atart quick to have children and in that sense she is old. She loves and will miss you deeply- you have been her adult life. The horrific and sad situation of disentanglement can make us all distant. Now is not the time to go searching for a man in the bushes like some foul play is involved. But now is the time to probably believe her. When people say they are “not in love” with you, they are aware of the bomb it puts under the relationship. She wants out I am afraid- and it doesnt really matter whether she likes someone else or is being brave and contemplating being alone rather than with you- she is rejecting this relationship, and that speaks enough volumes without you adding a thriller ending.

Im so sorry, and its tough- but if she says she isnt in love, she isn't.

Because she has used the classic cheaters line.
Have a read of THIS THREAD

Sorry @hellsbellsmelons is see that you are trying to help me, to defend me in some ways, but that post is complete garbage in my opinion. It portrays a dynamic where people who once loved each want to destroy the other. That might be true in some cases but it's simply not normal.

I begin to wonder if some people have been so badly hurt that they assume everyone is bad. I would think fighting for something should be the first action, but so many people seem to want to assume the worst based on a few clichéd words.

I might eat my words but my partner is a kind person and would not try to destroy me.

Hi @freddyf77 - Since you took the time to respond to my post, I thought I should do the same for you.

First, for those who are saying maybe there is someone else…maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. I don't think my OH would ever think I'd cheated. I didn't think I would. And ideally I would have loved to be able to deal with all of this before I cheated. I know that's the mumsnet line - why can't people work out their relationships before they cheat? Well...the problems had been there, but my expereince of a LTR is that those problems can be diminished on the day to day, and can unhappiness, and what I did ended up being an important catalyst for me to realise quite how wrong things were, and crank up the need to try and fix things. I know that a lot of people will say that’s selfish of me, but I realised that I had been saying the same things for a long time, and still trucking along. Being with someone else made me realise quite how much the problems in my relationship (and in particular the lack of intimacy and communication challenges) bothered me. The ‘affair’ such as it was confused me a lot at first, because I didn’t know how I felt, and made me question how I felt about my partner. But it also made me recognise that the problems we had were there, and that i owed it to the relationship to try. So I cut contact with OM, focused on trying sort things out with OH. That is hard though, because I felt like I was blaming him for my infidelity, even though we had talked about these things before, just very ineffectively.

If your DP has had an affair (however short) I can say that she might feel confused about how she feels, and also guilty and so unable to demand changes from you that would make the relationship work, because she feels unentitled to ask now. So the only solution seems to be to walk away. I have had a fair bit of counselling (on my own) which has helped me work things through. I haven’t told my OH – we have talked about infidelity before, and both agreed that, if it was short and of this ‘realisation’ type issue, we didn’t want to know, because it’s hard to both forgive and forget this sort of thing. But if you think you can deal with the answer, I would really recommend that you ask her outright so you can start to work things through (if you want to, after you get the answer) – but couch it in terms that opens the conversation. I know that’s really hard to do if you feel betrayed and hurt.

So that’s that. But maybe she isn’t/hasn’t cheated. I actually think it is, in some ways, more difficult if she hasn't. Because if she cheated, she's more likely had a sudden realisation which has confused her, and made unsure of how to act. If she's just been brooding on this for a long time, she may well have just come to the end of her tether and really made up her mind. I don’t know that you can fix it, in that case. But, importantly, if you want to change, change for you – not because you want her back. So, even if she walks away, and doesn’t come back – if you think you need to change, change. If you don’t, then don’t – but that also means that the relationship was doomed anyway, because you can't maintain change for someone else. You really can't. We are, to a huge extent, who we are - love can be a powerful motivator, but ultimately, you have to want to change for yourself, not for someone else.

thanks @CursedDiamond
you say your mistake was a catalyst 'crank up the need to try and fix things'. i'm interested to know why it wasn't a catalyst to leave?

comments like 'i owed it to the relationship to try.', i feel like we owe it ours, 16 years of it! it's just so hard to understand why OH doesn't see it that way too. this isiwhy i think it's a crisis and she CAN'T think clearly. maybe it's what you say, cheating, but i just can't see it. i know i should ask about it, i'm just scared it will offend her as it implies i don't trust her. i still do.

that's a good question. I think sometimes it's a catalyst to leave because people want a relationship with the other person/have fallen head over heels. I didn't want to do that - I knew it wasn't a 'real' feeling, and so forced myself to really work out what was going on in my head. And, being able to talk about it as well - i think sometimes people convince themselves that they have to end things. I was helped by one good friend who has kept the whole thing to herself, and counselling (and, to and extent, the OM, strangely - not that I talked about the problems in my relationship, but more he reminded me of the good things in my relationship), to work out what was really going on.

I think this would have happened eventually anyway without the affair. But I think by then things would have got so bad, I'd be walking straight out the door.

@CursedDiamond thank you. it's good to hear a positive outcome.

i really appreciate all the comments

I begin to wonder if some people have been so badly hurt that they assume everyone is bad.
One thing I learned from my ex's affair is that the world is not divided into bad people who have affairs and good people who do. People suggesting that she could be having an affair are doing so because they know how common it is, and are familiar with some of the symptoms. Not because they think the world is a bad place or are trying to scare you. Of course we're all seeing things through our own particular tint of glasses - hence people saying you must have been umming and aahing about children, as that was presumably their experience.

OP - only you can know the answer to how she’ll react to asking about infidelity. My partner and I are both of the view that fidelity over a long relationship is hard. We decided on multiple occasions to keep the relationship closed, but agreed that one off infidelity should be kept on the conscience of the cheater. Long term affairs a different issue. But if you are able to go into the conversation with that mindset, you don’t have to be accusatory. You can simply ask, with no judgment, if that is the reason she’s finding it hard to articulate. But, honestly, sometimes these things are just hard to say - and sometimes someone has been saying for a long time and is just done. You raise a number of issues - possibly your OH has had the conversations in her head, and just doesn’t want to talk anymore. Maybe She’s done the emotional work on her own, and her mind is made up. That’s a hard thing to hear and feel, though.

I should add, I have reached these points with my OH before over the years, always triggered by something. Usually, though, it was a huge fight as the result of something he did/said and then a week of mulling through whether I could do it forever due to differences. We have been pretty good the last 8 years without any huge bust ups - but I think that was actually part of the problem. No clearing the air, nothing forcing me to address the fundamentals, and isn’t slowly drifting apart. I think that was why the trigger was different, and it was a bigger shock to me (and him).

Hi all,
Thanks again for latest comments.
I've sent myself off camping to give OH some space.
I've been thinking about the other people in my OHs life.
I spoke to friend of ours today who says she truly hates her husband. I asked for her perspective. I worry for her, she's so low. I felt guilty for asking.
This friend is very close to my partner and although I love my friend, she is extremely vocal about how very much she dislikes her husband.
My other mate, again both the men and women are very close, have just split up too, with some cheating thrown in.
Then there's work, my OH is agony aunt for one lady, and there's a super negative guy always bitching in her office. The work is pretty annoying too.
So there's so much negativity all around her.

So, again I'm probably grasping, but how common is it for someone to take all that sadness and put it on their OH?

This must make her life quite misirable at times. And must surely have some influence.

Honestly- your last post sounds a little like you are grasping at straws- and in my experience - the "I love you but am no longer in love with you" line dosent always mean that there is someone else- it didn't in my case! In my case he was an alcoholic, though he hid it well, he had depression, anxiety, a gaming addiction, gambled, had a temper which came out at weird times, though I didn't know half of this when we got together- by then end he had lied to me, borrowed thousands off his brother to drink and buy games with, all the while lugging around rent arrears, no paid council tax and apparently a pathological avoidance of getting a job, or engaging with the gp about his mental health, in the end I had had enough- I did still love him- but I was no longer in love with him, and definitely not enough to fight for what- looking from the outside was a fundamentally unhealthy relationship-

you wife will either change her mind or she wont- but being in love with someone- once fallen out of, is very hard to gain back - and attempts to do so by the formerly loved party, will quite often be seen as you wife does- with suspicion and concern at it being an attempt to manipulate.

never the less- I wish you the best in whatever outcome happens.

*posted too soon-
I most certainly had not had my head turned - still cant bear the thought of being in another relationship where I end up being the emotional crutch. do-er for all the life admin crap for someone else- so - doesn't always mean head turned or cheating - just putting that there as well!!!!

@WalksWithDinosaurs thanks.
Seems like you put up with an awful lot. I'd like to think I don't have so many issues, not judging you ex of course but there was alot going on there. I understand you exiting.

An update: i have mentioned the cheating aspect and I am 99.9% certain that's not happening here.
I asked directly about kids, if she absolutely wants to have her partners baby, or if she would consider donor with me. If the former then we have to end it noe. But the latter is possible, problem is she doesn't know if she can fall back in love with me, or trust that I've changed. I believe we can but not over night.
I worry for her that if she leaves she might rush into a realtionship and get pregnant without knowing that person, in the honeymoon period. Or maybe not be able to get pregnant. And ultimately end up with/without child in an unfulfilled relationship. Our options are more knowable. Her choice of course but also my chances of being a dad are slipping away.
It might be madness but to show her how committed I am, too late probably, I'm putting deposit on wedding venue she wanted for next year. I believe it will go some way to showing I believe we can make it work. I might lose a grand but might win back my soul mate. Fair gamble I think.

It might be madness but to show her how committed I am, too late probably, I'm putting deposit on wedding venue she wanted for next year.

Terrible idea. Truly terrible.

You need to work out whether this relationship (if there even is a relationship) can be saved without the pressure of having to commit to a wedding.

Please don’t do this.

If she were saying we need to get married or split up, yes, it would be a good idea. But she’s not. She’s telling you she doesn’t love you any more. You can’t persuade her to love you by promising a wedding.

All your problems are down to lack of communication. You're twisting yourself around trying to work out what she feels, what her actions and words mean etc but without actually talking to her and of course vice versa. I really believe if she won't open up to you the relationship can't carry on because that's what relationships ARE - opening up to each other. So you're planning to book a wedding to show her something when you have no idea if she wants that at this stage. You need to TELL her how you're feeling about her. And if she won't talk to you do yourself a favour and call it quits. You're actually making it all your fault when there may be other factors involved anyway but you can't know unless she tells you.