How to handle the uncertainty caused by DW rethinking our marriage?

[DiscontinuedModelHusband]

DW has raised some questions about our future and suggested she needs to work through what she really wants in terms of our/a long term relationship.

I'm unsure how to navigate this.
I want to give her time, but am struggling with the uncertainty, and have no idea how to act around her at the moment.

DW and i have been married 20+ years.

We met as teenagers, were in the same city at uni, and married soon after graduating.

We had DC1 a couple of years later, and further DCs followed over the next few years.

DW has a very complicated relationship with her parents (MIL in particular).
For the first 25+ years of our relationship I would say they were codependent, and extremely enmeshed.

Neither DW or I have had much in terms of non-family friendships (DW's never really had any, and my friendships tailed off due to MIL/DW pressure, and admittedly quite a lot of passivity on my part.

In the last couple of years, DW has joined an activity with a very sociable group. She's developed some quite strong friendships within the group (with both sexes, but mainly female).

During a similar timeframe, MIL has displayed some inexcusable intolerances (I've shared these before) relating to one of the DCs. This has to a large extent reshaped our view of her, but the scales have well and truly fallen from DW's eyes.

This has been aided/accelerated by the support/advice she's had from her new friendship group. To be clear - they're all lovely people, and the advice and support has been genuine and helpful!

Earlier this year, I had a couple of months professionally that were extremely intense, demanding, and not very enjoyable. I freely admit it did affect me at home, and although I was always present, I was somewhat distant and detached.

Immediately following this, DW had a similarly stressful period at work that lasted basically until about a month ago. She was similarly quiet, detached and distant.

We've had periods like this many times during our marriage. Normally we get through the difficult periods and naturally turn back towards each other, or one of us calls the other out, and we make a concerted effort to reengage with each other.

However, just before our recent family holiday, the distance came up between us in conversation, and DW stated she wasn't sure we could recover. That she had been re-evaluating a lot of things in her life, including the co-dependence with her DM, and whether in fact the things she's always wanted and valued were really her thoughts, or just her mother's.

She's asked for some time to work through this.

This has been a bit of a double-edged sword. I've been desperate for years for her to recognise the co-dependency, and to enjoy who she really is, and what she is capable of. But always acknowledged to myself that this might be a risk to our relationship.

Now it's happened.

She's been open about loving what we have had, and what we've shared and created, and readily recognises what i've contributed to this.

But we don't have much in common on paper in terms of interests.
She now has a full and vibrant social life. I don't. I have a couple of close long-term friends, but our contact is mostly by phone or text. We meet up maybe a handful of times a year.

The DCs are all older - either young adults, or on the cusp of. In the next 5 years, all will have finished their educations and will be entering the world of work, and will have lives all of their own - as we've always wanted for them.

DW is worried that we'll continue to become more distant from each other, and resentment might set in.

This is definitely a possibility, but we've always worked hard to make sure that doesn't happen. My sense however, is that DW might not want to keep putting that work in.

Things at home now are extremely awkward.
Neither of us really know how to behave around each other. We've always been very close and affectionate, but this has disappeared completely.

I veer from sadness, to anger, to overthinking about practicalities.

DW has committed to counselling to help her through this, but has set no timelines.

I don't know how long I can live in this situation, but I realise I can't dictate her timelines.

I don't know what to do.

This sounds very difficult, but you have to do some of what your DW has done: start engaging with the world outside your home and family. Do new things. Find and nurture friendships.

I think a lot for women in midlife do experience a resurgence of social energy and interest in the world, and rethinking longstanding family dynamics, once the DC meed them a bit less and they finally have some headspace.

You don’t say whether you’re a hetero or same sex couple, but IME men tend to go the other way, and rely increasingly heavily on their wives (and sometimes adult DC) for any social needs they have, and become, as you say yourself, quite passive.

Your DW is taking the opportunity to make changes and engage with the world - you can do the same, and you might both have more vitality and joie de vivre to bring home to one another.

Don’t just sit there worrying and waiting for her to make up her mind - not only is that an anxious place for you to be, but it’s passive and not very adult and not terribly sexy. It won’t incline her to want to stay. Think about what you might want from life, as a person in your own right.

It sounds like you've just grown apart, especially if you don't have much in common anymore as lovers (as in nothing in common apart from your children).

Your wife met you so young, that she may not have developed her adult personality ore interests at that stage, Her mother might have pressured her to stick with you, even if it didn't feel quite right. I imagine she might be quite curious as to what life could be life as a single person, sexually. It sounds like she didn't really have much experience of dating before she met you.

Or it could be the total opposite - I've read quite a few posts from women who completely go off sex and really just want to be alone and celibate. They acknowledge that their husbands haven't really done anything wrong, but they no longer have much in common and feel like they need a big change.

You're wrong about timelines though - of course you can dictate them! You're the other half of this relationship! To be honest, it sounds like your wife does want to end things permanently, or at least wants to separate, but it's a huge thing when she's been with someone for so long, and is probably sad and torn about it, given that you don’t really feel the same, so she's dithering about taking action.

In your shoes, I'd be willing to attend counselling, but it very much sounds to me like the main benefit of counselling for the both of you will be for her to realise that it's over. I appreciate that this doesn't sound like a benefit to you at all, but you don’t want to be in a situation where she dithers resentfully for a long time, or yo-yos back & forth between being single and thinking she can restart things again with you repeatedly.

I would view it as an opportunity to work on things yourself. Your friendships, hobbies and interests.
I’d also suggest to her that you do something together, like a new hobby or a family activity, because you will still share children and need to get along well.
You have both been taking each other for granted, because of life circumstances. This is the moment to wake up and get proactive.

It may not end the way you want, but it will have benefits anyway.

Giving her space doesn’t mean uncomfortably avoiding each other, it’s more about not pushing for commitment and reassurance.

Neediness is a really unattractive quality. Partners need to be independent and choosing to spend time together, not that it’s a default when there’s nothing else to do.

It sounds like your wife has been a wife and mother from an early age, has been somewhat isolated, and is now in mid-life re-evaluating what she wants from life going forward. In a sense, it's a classic midlife crisis. It's easy to drift along day to day when bringing up a family, it's busy and we just get through the days of work, school, extra curricula activities, homework, dinner, bed. There's rarely time to focus on our own needs or wants. Now your children are older, your wife has time to think about the life she's living and whether it's all still working for her.

I think you need to do your best to give her some time and space to work through this. Hopefully the counselling will help her sort out what she wants. In the meantime, focus on yourself - maybe take up a new hobby, exercise class or volunteer? Make some plans with friends and expand your social network too.

This sounds odd. She wants time to rethink, but no clarity of what this means. So she just announces this no commitment of her going to counselling or couples counselling. So her solution is for both of you to be awkward around each other until she finally ends things? Likely the end will be when the kids are all working, she will feel secure to rearrange the home life.

From your description I would not rule out an affair. New social group with a vague “I’m rethinking” announcement with a lack of clarity of what she is examining.

What you need to do is fairly obvious. You need to have a plan for what you will do if this ends (by whatever cause). You need to know what you would do to get yourself established separately, how would that work (at least the kids are grown-ish). Start reestablishing your own social group and activity, it is hard when you are older and you need to get going with it.

You don’t have to work to her timeline, what would you do if you were single? If you had free evenings with no one at home to spend time with? Go and do that. I suspect you should work on the assumption that she will end things, once the fear of taking that step subsides, and work on accepting that now.

If she suddenly deicides she wants the relationship to continue then you can have a conversation about that when she does but you probably should assume that is not on the cards.

i appreciate your thoughts so far, so thank you!

for clarity, we're man and wife.

i'm not ruling out another party influencing her decision - it's entirely possible, but the result is the same regardless.

the counselling she's mentioned is for herself.
we tried marriage counselling several years ago, but it wasn't helpful
DW/MIL were still very enmeshed, and the counsellor wanted to dig into that. DW was not ready/open to that at the time, so we stopped

i don't think it would help us at this point.
our relationship for the last 5 or 6 years has been extremely open and honest in terms of communication (for the most part), plus we've been together for 30 years nearly.

i'm comfortable that we can get to a resolution - whatever that looks like - without external help beyond what DW wants to try for herself.

we talked last week about the disparity in our social lives, and i recognise i've got some work to do there.

i do feel a little angry about this, as i had a strong friendship group prior to and early in our marriage, and i feel like i was kind of rail-roaded into "committing more time to our marriage". it wasn't a case of me constantly being out, and DW coping at home - we're talking once or twice a month. they used to invite us both to dinners, evenings out, on holidays, but DW was always uncomfortable for whatever reason, or we had plans with PILs, so eventually i stopped being included.

looking back, this was very much MIL's doing through DW.

now DW is out a couple of times a week, and i'm home. i don't begrudge her this - it's so important.

i'm approaching my 50s - it's not so easy to just jump into a new social life! but i will be addressing this soon.

i also absolutely take the point about someone moping about not being very attractive. however the thought that the person i've spent my entire adulthood with might actually never have really loved me as a person - but only that i met the checklist of what her DM expected - has been quite a blow.

i'm finding it hard to jolly myself out of this.

to add -

i don't want my world to shrink to my immediate family. that scares me to death.
that's basically my PILs.

my parents are extremely sociable, have several different circles of friends - as a couple, and individually - and i see how enriching this is for both of them.

DW wants me to do more things with friends, as she knows it makes me happy (and I'm sure it makes her feel less guilty).

but it's easy to say, and harder to do.

The advice to women in your situation is usually to ask the partner to leave. She doesn't get to keep you hanging whilst she decides whether she wants you or not.

Usually mners will say have a period of separation and get your ducks in a row. It sounds like, in your case, a separation might lead to a permanent break so you should prepare yourself for that.

@DiscontinuedModelHusband so how long is it since your last child left home? Does this coincide with your wife getting involved with her own circle of friends? It wouldn't be surprising to me that she has had an opportunity to see and compare how other people, other couples are living their lives and this could be something that causing her to reflect on her own life, marriage and future. Might she be experiencing the "empty nest" syndrome if her role at home and the routines have changed? I don't know is there is any one particular time in your life or any one event where you stop and start to reflect on how you have lived your life, the regrets, the missed opportunities, decisions, etc but I think everyone goes through this - more than once. What you need to do, imho, is keep talking and be honest with each other - I always say, if you want a future... you have to invest in one... otherwise you won't have one so if you can, get the conversation going on getting your heads together, accept the problems and work on some plans for the future. I've seen this several times before among my own friends where the husband has died and the wife has seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, to the effect that finally... they can do X,Y or Z. I think you need to work out what you can do to help her identify what it is that she's perhaps yearning for - in fact she may not quite know - and try and make a plan to help her resolve the things - vague or definite - that are troubling her. Try and bring some of your own plans and ideas to the table too. You only have one life and it's getting late - perhaps she's realised this and you haven't.

I also agree with @whippersnapper55 - you need to think about what you really want out of life - it's a more attractive thing to see someone making something of their own life - following a passion - than someone whose life is slowly coasting to an uneventful stop like the last train on a Sunday..at midnight.. in the rain ...at the end of the line.

That would be the advice, along with a very strong assumption of an affair.

eldest is back home after uni, working full time, middle is currently home (starts last year of uni soon), and youngest will likely be going to uni in next 2 years.

so no empty nest yet.

she's spent her whole life understanding that to be a parent is to be a parent 100% of the time, and that giving time to friends and personal interests is selfish.

so to now realise that not only is it not selfish, but actually it helps enrich the whole family, has been massive for her (i've been trying to persuade her of this for so long, but it was too ingrained).

so now she's (rightly) questioning everything. including us.

i'm ok with this - i want her to be happy, whatever that means. and i know i will be happy eventually, whatever the outcome.

it's just hard at the moment.

feels like consensus is to just fake indifference? interesting - not what i'd have thought people would say.

extra annoying this is that half of the stuff she does with her friends is stuff i also loved to do (nights out, gigs etc), and would happily have done with her, but i understand why she's been reluctant to make her friends our friends.

so now i've got to start again.

fuck.

i hate moaners and mopers, and have definitely been very much a " if something's bad, fix it, and if you can't, there's no point moping about it" person.

i'm too young for walking groups full of retirees, and too male for most of the interesting other groups in my area!

i love football, but don't want that to become a bigger part of my identity than it already is.

the other thing i love (passively) is something that is basically DW's whole identity (actively), so there would be so much overlap in terms of people and places - i'm not sure that would be a helpful direction.

i will keep looking.

To clarify, I didn’t intend to say you moping about was unattractive. I completely understand what a kick in the guts it’s been, given that you’ve stood by her while mil interfered, and lost your social life.

It’s more that the way things are (by her arrangement, admittedly) will make her feel guilty and trapped and so less likely to want to stay. Speaking personally, my children need me, expect me to be present and available to them. I want my husband to keep himself busy and out of my hair (he’s just retired and I’m still working!). I realise I’m totally projecting here, sorry.

She’s found her wings and wants to explore without feeling held back by your expectations. It’s totally unfair but it’s also understandable. It doesn’t mean she’s got one foot out of the door.

That tends to be more when the wife is trying to juggle children and work, and he’s not sure if he’s in or out and being unreliable as a consequence. In my memory anyway.

Find a gig and ask if she wants to go with you.

as for an affair -

it's definitely possible.
there are other "coincidences" that are hard to ignore, that make it more likely i guess.

we've both hurt each other at times with inappropriate relationships in our relationship (the last a long time ago now), and she's always yearned for external validation (while taking my validation of her for granted, as "i'm supposed to").

but whether she is or isn't, it fundamentally doesn't change the reality of the situation. if it's because she's got ideas about someone else, or she's just questioning things with no ulterior motive, either way she needs to decide what she wants.

as do i, i suppose.

Have you expressed all of this to her? To break the awkward silence you need to sit down and get it all out on the table.

we find it easier to text, given the house is full...

but yes.
she knows how i am feeling.

i find going to bed the hardest.

lying next to this person, who's back i was stroking, with who's legs mine were tangled with every morning, who's eczema cream and fake tan i was helping to apply only a few weeks ago.

so i just lie there, trying not to make any inadvertent physical contact, with a million thoughts swirling round my brain.

both of us trying to keep up appearances with a house full of sharp, intelligent, emotionally aware young adults.

it's a mess.

This sounds very similar to the situation my DP was in a few years ago with his now ex-wife - she was engrossed in a hobby with new friends, apparently very dysfunctional relationship with her mother and he was allegedly trying to be the fixer, she wanted a trial separation, everything very much on her terms. You'll note I said ex-wife - turns out there was an affair on the go. He's doing OK after a couple of years of turmoil, you will do too. And you won't really have the headache of co-parenting with the age your DC are. Good luck!

I think your wife is being extremely and inexcusably cruel. My mum once revealed that my dad had told her that he would be leaving her after DSIS and i had finished uni. I was furious at such cruelty. As it was, she eventually kicked him out. They had also got together very young and divorced after 32 years of marriage. Actually they were always better at being friends than married and settled into a very comfortable friendship after the initial turmoil of the divorce. There had also been a degree of infidelity on both sides, though more on my father’s.

Is there somewhere else one of you can sleep? Because honestly, i think your wife should have the decency to move out of the shared bedroom for now. As PPs have said, demonstrating independence from her is likely to be more productive for you and possibly peak her interest more. As you say, she takes you completely for granted. If you’re less available, she may start to realise what a life without you would actually feel like. And yes, i also suspect her head has been turned.

Yes to finding interests for yourself (even think back to childhood what appealed / and build on that?). be seen, being busy, be out and about.

Could you build in time to go for a weekly walk together - sometimes chat flows more easily walking side by side in the outdoors.

Can you plan a weekend away - the two of you, a treat to look forward to.

Yes to you finding a gig / production or similar, and asking DW if she wants to join you.

Perhaps also if you get out and get busy - let your wife see and think that actually she isn’t calling the shots, that you also have choices in the relationship as well. It might be that she needs to realise she can’t just assume that you are going to be there for her? That you both have choices and it’s not entirely one sided?

Get a lawyer consult as to what you can expect in a divorce. Get your ducks lined up, find a good therapist, and prepare to separate.

She's moving on and it sounds like that's going to leave you behind.

Find a couple activities you enjoy. Do you like to cook? Pick a cuisine, take any available classes and explore it for a season. Take a little road trip to a good restaurant. Learn knife skills.

Your wife is remaking her life and you're going to have to rebuild yours from the sounds of it.

Here's one way to dig into how you really feel about each other...imagine how you would feel if either of you had a sudden serious health challenge, perhaps life limiting. Would you want to be there for each other, come what may, or feel that you couldn't depend on the other to support and care. It's a hard thought to have, but maybe it can help you to uncover your true feelings beyond the current situation you are in. Sometimes couples drift apart and take decisions that don't really examine the depth of feelings.

I wanted to add some thoughts as I have been through something similar to your wife; having realisations about my mother and the way I was raised, and the corresponding way I made choices and lived my life. This has been in my 40’s. It has been very painful and I have a lot of anger towards my mother. It’s been extremely complicated as I equally feel horribly guilty.

anyway. Without writing an essay, I think as the wife in this position what I want more than anything is for my husband to

• engage with his own therapeutic process to understand his own life better. Get talking therapy.
• look after himself in body and mind, and develop friendships
• arrange thoughtful dates/weekend away where we get time away from the home and kids and every day stresses to keep learning about each other - where we’re at now.

Essentially, invest in yourself, love yourself, let yourself grow, as she is doing x

You deserve so much better. You need to face up to the inevitable break and hopefully in the not too distant future you will find someone to cherish you.

Screams affair or interest in another man to me. Only read OP.