My current wife is extremely unhappy with me and her life in general, says that I am unemotional. The problem is with me.
A little background... I was in a 17 year marriage which I ended because my ex wife became disinterested in our life. I wanted a more full relationship. We were both relatively young without kids, so I made the decision to walk and never regretted it.
I find a repeating pattern in my current relationship. My current wife has lost all interest in making any effort in our relationship. A little background here - We have been together for 11 years, have 3 young children ages 10, 7, and 4. She is extremely passionate and fun, the life of the party. She is outwardly sexy and she knows it. People love to be around her. She has never liked much physical touching, doesn't like her space invaded. She has slowly taken over most chores because she wants it done her way, but gets irritated that she has so much to do. She can be the absolutely most loving and caring person one hour and turn into someone whom people flee from the next. Outward perception is most important to her. She started back to work a couple of years ago part time, mostly to get her life back. She has a very hard time with the kids. She loved the infant stage but finds that it gets harder every year. I used to get calls at work from her once or twice a week with her telling or screaming to me to come home because she can’t take it anymore with the kids. I came home maybe once a month.
I am relatively quiet. I absolutely love her. I've always felt that the bad times were worth the best of times with her. I love to cuddle, I am responsible, and I am a problem solver. I am naive. I am not a social butterfly but have no problem talking at parties. I don’t need much, but love. I have always enjoyed spending most of my time with her. I take the kids out somewhere a couple of times a month for several hours. I love my children. She still says that I am the most amazing father, but a lousy husband. Her mom friends at school tell her that she is spoiled and she says that she knows it. I have relinquished many of the chores that I used to do like grocery shopping and balancing the check book and laundry because she wants it done her way. I still do the cooking 6 of 7 nights and all weekend. I have taken over most of the homework. I get the kids showered and get them into bed. We both gave up much of our lives for these kids. They challenge me too, but I don't explode like she does. I get down and spend what time I have with them. We don't have any family to watch the kids, and there isn't enough money for babysitters even once in a while so we put them to bed by 8pm. We have had some great communication after the kids are down. We play games or talk about the people in our lives. She cannot communicate while they are awake. For the past couple of years she has gotten more away from the family by getting on the computer when we are all home. Or she goes outside every 30 minutes for 10 minutes to get away from the action. She also gets on her blackberry for 20 minutes a few times a night. She stopped eating with the family most nights, says she’s not hungry until 10 pm. She started going out with her girlfriends once in awhile which I have had no problem with. Then she started to put together groups of girl who were both single and married, now she goes out with girls only to bars and dancing, and only then did I tell her to stop. Now she wants to walk away from her life but the guilt won't let her. She wants out but doesn't want to destroy the kids. She has met someone at a friends party and has been talking to him several times a week, telling me that she wants an open marriage. I said that I can’t do that!
I made a mistake a few years ago. She called me hysterically at work and said that she was going to do something that would have been terrible. After getting these kinds of calls for awhile I called my insurance before I was going home to solve the problem and asked if a therapist was covered by our plan. I naively told them what she said and they got involved and made her go down for an evaluation or the police would escort her. She has never forgiven me for that and tells me that she never will. Her sister and parents side with me most of the time and feel sorry for me.
I have usually always looked at this as her problem but I feel the need to look inside me this time. What do I do that causes these women to go looking elsewhere for satisfaction?
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