I’ve never felt such heart aching pain

[Viscera]

I’m not sure we can get past this and it’s all my fault

I’m 47 and my wife is 45, we have three early teenage children who we both adore and have put before our own needs, she is a wonderful mother and has told me the same as a father.
But we have ignored our own relationship issues and never spend time together alone.

I have a senior management role, it’s hard, often complicated stressful work.
My wife did work pre-children but doesn’t now as she has a bad back and also supports her parents (early 70’s) navigate life. I love them too they are great people.

In the last 18 months I began to get resentful of her life where she has the freedom to come and go as she pleases during the day, I felt like a slave, stuck at a desk 50 hrs a week (plus commute and not having family time) paying all bills, taking responsibility of finances, remortgaging, budgeting etc. In my mind I was providing and she wasn’t ‘doing’ so my resentment increased.

I didn’t see the emotional support she tried to provide as important and thought it was just words.
I’m a doer and she is a talker but with a depth of emotion and empathy I just don’t have, she is wonderful.

I shut myself down emotionally, what little I have, but continued to parent and I think that’s what has broken her, to see that I can love unequivocally, hug, kiss, smile with our kids.

I’m rambling, my head is all over the place.
She took her rings off 10 day’s ago and has told me, through honest tears she doesn’t love me anymore, needs space.

I’ve rejected her so many times through stress, resentment and personal unhappiness, her hugs, affection, attention.

For the first time in 20 years I’ve opened up to her, to someone!
It’s illuminating rather than a relief, I know what we could be and I am excited… but it’s too little too late… I’m almost sure.

She has asked for space and I’m trying but in my heart I know it’s too late.
I’d swap a lottery win for her.

This has been so hard to type out and admit .

That sounds awful and I’m sorry you went through that.
I hope you are in a better place now x

Do you think one day you will fully understand, recover and forgive him?

I understand why he did what he did.

Forgiveness is an action tbh Do I love him deeply again, yes took about 4 years. I don't NEED emotional connection from him but I do still miss what we had together for the first decade or so.

Will I ever recover, I'm not sure tbh. It's changed me and that may not be a bad thing. I no longer take on any responsibility for his issues and I guess I'm more selfish about my needs.

I don’t think you sound selfish, you are entitled to take control of your life.
I wouldn’t want my wife to stay with me if she didn’t feel that connection

I’m so desperate to win her trust back, just a hug would blow my mind into orbit, I think I need to accept it’s over and let her go though

You can ask to do joint therapy to see if working it out is an option she will consider.

She will be emotionally detached from you and if she decides she's willing to try again it will be hard for her to take that wall of protection down.

It's worth asking and be patient whilst she considers her response.

I will ask her, she has suggested couples counselling in the past and I didn’t take her seriously, I didn’t know or wasn’t prepared to accept, we needed someone to listen to our problems

But here I am baring my soul to the internet, so desperate am I to keep her and looking for advice.

Your wife has asked you for just one thing. Space.

Why is it the One Thing that you won't give her?

All these posts about how sorry you are, what a mistake you made, and how desperate you are to keep her - you are still not listening, are you?

If you truly love her then put your feelings second just for once. Do as she asks.

I suppose the thing would be not to use comparison over whose part is easier to play, but to just tell your spouse you want to go part time. Yes. You don't want to be in the office for ten hours a day on Monday to Friday. You want to go into consultancy. You want to work three days a week.

I think every marriage scenario is different. Working at a high level might mean a big salary and it being easy to afford to cut down to three days working. After all, what is the point of having a great deal of money coming in, if one of you is miserable? An easy solution, it would seem. Live with half the money. Why, actually, do you and she need it all?

The situation might be complicated now, however. School fees and uni fees might be eating up a lot. You might have planned to give the kids deposits for their first homes. They might all be at top schools.

If you have both constructed this lifestyle which needs servicing, then the discussion should be about why you did it and whether it is now that important to you all. Do you need a rethink? But this would be an adult discussion and would be about a nuanced and costed appraisal of what the kids will need going forward. You and she won't need megabucks when the kids leave home - so what actually is keeping you in the office?

I think the comments about 'feeling like a slave' and her being free to come and go sound juvenile and facile. You've approached this discussion all wrong. It should have been a negotiation about your joint future and assuming you want each other to be happy.

Your tone suggests you feel she doesn't care about your mental and emotional burn out, but you haven't got the resilience to say that to her. She might be really nice to everybody else, but does she care about your wellness?

Your wife may be responsible for pushing forward the argument that your family must have this, that and the other, which requires a director's six figure annual salary. Instead of being childish and spiteful, you should have pleasantly asked her to justify this life plan which requires you to be burning yourself out and possibly damaging your physical health.

You have made this issue too emotional in the way you have discussed it with her.

Be truthful with yourself. Are you annoyed that, if she does leave you, she'll be ok financially, because you've nearly killed yourself moving up the career ladder? If you hadn't tried so hard at work, her situation would be like that of the posters who say they can't afford to leave their husband, since they never nurtured their own earning power. They might probably stay in the marriage, because it's the less daunting choice. That is not fair on her, if you think like that. She still has to dedicate the toil and effort to the kids that they are requiring. She's doing her utmost - in the manner needed, and commensurate with the crisis occurring. It's not right to think, that she isn't somehow matching your contribution. She can only do what needs doing at the time.

I am giving her space and time to think and reflect, I don’t know what else I can do

She had a well deserved night out last night, stayed overnight with her bestie, no problem.

I’ve been sleeping in the spare room.

During the day occasionally offering a hand hold or hug (rejected) to let her know that I’m not ignoring her and am here if she wants to talk

Yes but the internet is anonymous. Couples counselling will be a hell of a lot harder.

If you think reading this has been tough, having to hear unpleasant things coming from your wife is going to be a hell of a lot harder.

You're desperate to win her back. That's not love. That's wanting to be in control. You're hurt because you no longer have control over your wife.

Trying to touch her when she's asked you for space is super creepy, too.

And when people say you havent "seen" your wife, they don't mean what she looks like.

You had so many chances. She wanted to go to counselling and you refused. You treated her so badly that you killed her love for you.

You are getting too tough a time on here and need some balance. It takes two to make a relationship.

The bias against men on here means that you have been able to say that your wife got dressed up, went out with her friends and stayed out all night.
If that had come from a female about her DH there would have been so many claims that he is having an affair.

Be selective with what you read and the advice you take from here. Read it, think it through and consider it in terms of your real life.
This is too important to base your next steps on biased, harsh posters with a grudge because of their own background, rather than yours.

Yes couples counselling will involve both of you speaking painful truths - in front of each other and a third party. Way harder than posting on the internet when we hear only your part of the story.

Thanks @YukoandHiro. OP has had lots of responses but mine yesterday after ok might be more relevant to him. Esp that I now see that his wife has also been asking him to go for counselling for some time.

@viscera I think that point - that she’s been asking for counselling means this hasn’t come out of the blue. She’s been telling you she’s been unhappy for quite some time.

In your responses you talk a good game - lots od hand wringing and self blame but how about taking actual action. Finding a good therapist and asking her is she willing to do 3 months of counselling to see if you can repair things.

I must say I find some of the way you talk about her quite patronising “oh everyone loves her … even pets”. As though she was some kind of pet herself. Do you honestly value her as your equal?? something in your posts suggests to me you don’t. @YukoandHiro ’s point about language and your view of women is spot on.

If I was your wife, words would not help, actions would though. And by that I don’t mean buying dresses 😂.
Listen. Really listen. When she says ‘we could do with some bulbs for the spring’, what’s expected is a simple: What bulbs did you have in mind? god, it’s been years since I went to a garden centre, the cake always tastes better in a garden centre.
When she tells you you’re not listening, stop. She’s not testing you, you really are walking with your boots all over her. When she tells you things, it’s not giving you tasks and instructions, sometimes it’s just, you know, conversations. To her it’s important. Listen.
And that’s ALL, that’s all it’s needed.

My bet is that you never actually listened.

Perfectly put 👏

Christ. What a massive 'Yes but...' You really don't get it, do you?

Honestly, it's likely to be too late. She has probably been building this intention, resolve and hopes for many years. Every time you emotionally neglected her or fired a spiteful word, it's a little love lost and resolve towards freedom. She has possibly been waiting many years, living with pain and hurt in drudgery in the hope of being single and free. I get it. She wants to have no atmosphere of tension in the house, freedom to not be criticised and make her own happy way in life. And she can do those things single. I'm guessing she's not concerned about a big change in income as a big deal for her. She wants to be free.

So don't offer hugs or hand holds, that's so insulting to her emotionally intelligence and proven resilience. Give her space and respect. A lot of respect. See that she's single, intelligent and desirable, and ask her on a dinner date. She needs the freedom to flourish rather than he suppressed by her housewife role and your condescension towards it.

This reminds me so much of the 'had an affair and now I'm suicidal' from dm123455 two years ago.

See that she's single, intelligent and desirable, and ask her on a dinner date.

Probably already is having the dinner date- with J.

Looking hot and staying overnight with her bestie. Yikes.

OP, your posts sound so manipulative. You sound like the kind of eloquent man who can twist and gaslight and somehow figure out how to fit himself into the role of victim.

From the pps, it seems this is obvious to a lot of us.

If you want to see yourself as a good person, you should move out, give her the 50% of your financial and physical assets she deserves as one of two workers to provide for and run your family and household, and let her enjoy the rest of her life.

Eloquent? Nah, just run of the mill entitled little man.

I think what the op doesn’t understand is that his (stbx) wife doesn’t really care if she meets his criteria to be his dream woman.

I agree. Self-obsessed twaddle. Time to stop thinking about yourself, get off the computer and away from the desk you feel “chained to” and leap into action.

Something's brought this to a head.

I’ve been sleeping in the spare room.
During the day occasionally offering a hand hold or hug (rejected) to
let her know that I’m not ignoring her and am here if she wants to talk

Treating her like shit for 2 years and she's only just had the ephiphany of deciding whether she wants you.

Nah, I don't think so.