Looking for answers

Hi there, been together 30years, married for 23, two wonderful children 14 & 12, lovely house, great jobs and my wife has started divorce proceedings. . . . Still not really sure why . . but absolutely gutted, never in a million years thought I would be in this position.

She says she is not happy with where she finds herself in life, her general situation, needs her own space as she finds me too controlling (I have always taken care of the family finances by mutual agreement but everything has been freely available to check). She has lost weight, gone through periods where she tells me she bursts into tears for no apparent reason. I have tried to suggest that there are elements of depression/midlife crisis here but she insists that she is in no way ill. I tried to get her to agree to counselling together at Relate, went once then said it wasn't for her. Says she needs to do now do what will make her happy and that doesn't involve me.

A complicating factor on my part is that she has become very friendly with our local GP. She insists they are just friends and to an extent I believe her, but it gets difficult when she spends more and more time with him (a widower). I believe that she has formed an emotional relationship with him that has altered her way of thinking when she was in a vulnerable state . . . . I dont know what to do, should i write to the Practice . .

Maybe i'm just looking for answers in the wrong place, maybe i am unreasonable, uncaring, insensitive to her needs and wishes . . . she obviously thinks so . . but that is not me at all . . .

Really don't know whether i'm coming or going at the moment. . . . and she just wants everything sorted asap so she can buy a new house . . .

Anyone out there offer some help . . . please

Hi Confused

If you look through the posts on here you will find lots of men and women who have been through similar situations - I am one. With me my wife had an affair after 18 years of marriage and then claimed she had been unhappy for years.....But no one knew, not even her own mother. Whether this unhappiness with life was genuine or just an excuse I never found out, but as I said to her if she was unhappy she needed to talk about things!

My wife's affair was more emotional than physical (so she said), but one important thing is that affairs can be solely emotional. Often an affair is a side affect of a mid life crisis, and it makes the person feel the grass is greener on the other side and they focus totally on the new person and end up feeling almost hatred for their long term spouse. It is very sad.

In my case I did not manage to convince my wife to stay in the marriage and we are now almost divorced. This theme is quite common amongst people on this site. It doesn't mean that your marriage definitely needs to end in divorce but the chances are that it will.

Practical steps you can take depend on whether you are looking to save your marriage or accept it is over and move on. Only you know that and I suggest you take some time to think about it. Whatever you want to do I would suggest writing to the practice would not achieve much other than to drive her closer to him. If you are going to work at the marriage then she must be prepared to talk.....I sometimes wish my wife had read posts on here before she pushed for divorce, as divorce is not an easy option, especially when children are involved.

Another important thing is not to rush anything. She might want things sorted asap, but you both need to consider your children and the affect on them.

Remember you will get lots of support and advise here.

All the best

S

Afternoon,

I agree with itgetsbetter. My wife left me and my two boy's (13 & 15) at Xmas after 18 yrs and without any warning!

It started with an emotional affair and is now a full blown affair - my wife has moved out of the house to be with her new man and I may not as well exist in her life.

I tried everything to keep the family together but this only made my wife more determined and has left me and the boy's devestated and now trying to re-build our lives.

I petitioned for divorce and my wife was more than happy to sign off on adultery - even seemed happy to.

Whatever seems to happen, some of our loved ones just seem to lose the plot. My wife was a caring, kind, suportive and loving wife and Mum. Right now that person no longer exists in our life, it seems we have been invaded by an alien!

I have cut-off all contact and have not seen or spoken to my wife for over 10 weeks. It has helped me, but I would advise you to take care of yourself and prepare for the worst outcome. My fault was trying too hard to save the relationship which just allowed my wife more time to be cruel and hurtful to the family she used to cherisg so much.

Best wishes and be strong. After six months of "hate and hell" I am just starting to get a small bit of my life together.

Brunswick.

This thing about telling a spouse that they have been unhappy for years seems to be a bit of a recurring theme among poeple who divorce and I have a theory about it. If a wife, for instance, wants to leave a marriage it usually takes a lot of courage to make the first move because they know they are going to hurt so many people. If pressed for reasons why and their initial reasons of not being happy, needing space etc are not accepted then they have little choice but to come up with other reasons. They may not actually be able to articulate to themselves why they want to leave far less explain it properly to their husbands. Also if their reasons do not sound really convincing then the husband might say all sorts of things to make them reconsider. Most women would want to avoid that so they say they have not been happy for years so that the husband doesn't think that this is just a whim that if they change their behaviour or talk it through they will change their minds. I may be way off the mark here but certainly if one person wants to leave the marriage then there is nothing you can do stop them.

penny

I agree when you say when one person wants to leave the marriage there is nothing you can do stop them.

For me the thing about marriage is that it requires communication and comprise. My wife and I could talk about all sorts of things, her career, the children, our family, friends etc etc. We had lots of communication but for some reason she chose not to communicate anything about her supposed unhappiness. She may have been unhappy....but if she was she was a very good actress!!

Her affair came out of nowhere. I had just turned 40 and we went away for a long weekend together without the kids. We had a great time, some lovely meals and lots of talking....Then 3 months later on a family summer holiday I found out about her affair which started a month after my birthday.

Since then my wife has never given any specific reasons for her supposed unhappiness. She has made bizzare claims like I was too controlling with her money....yet she had her own bank account for years that her money got paid to and my money always went into a joint account. I only opened a bank acount in my own name after her affair.

We went to relate and had one session. I came away from it thinking it was very useful and that I had several things I needed to do to make things better in the marriage. I also found it useful as the counsellor made her talk openly and honestly about her affair, which was hard for her. But my wife didn't want to go back saying it was a waste of time and that the counsellor was too nosy!

Friends believe the real reason is that she is scared of getting old and wants to stay young. She has had a big tattoo, dyes her hair bright blonde, hangs around with younger childless people, bought a coupe (very practical for transporting teenage children!)...I could go on!

She may be happy with her new life but it is not sustainable, she will get old at some point. The fallout has been lots of emotional upset, upheaval, financial issues.

A bit of honesty and open communication from her might have avoided this. I believe that any one looking for a divorce after a long marriage should try to work at it first, attend several counselling sessions etc.

S

Hi confused

Welcome to Wiki...

My marriage broke down for different reasons, but it went all downhill very fast in a matter of a couple of months. I absolutely did not see what was coming and that my ex husband wanted to take such a different direction in his life.

I did beg him to stay and tried to find a solution but his mind was made up. Now I see that if we had stayed together probably I would still not have been happy with the sacrifices I had to make to keep him in the marriage.

Take time out for you now...you and your kids are the most important people and you need to give yourself alot of time and alot of patience.

Take care
Clay

Hi Confused

I think there are loads of us in these situations and mine mirrors many of those here.

My ex had been depressed on and off and had burnt bridges with my family but I had been holding things together to a large extent. Last summer he started getting texts from a woman he worked with who was depressed and "needing support". This went on for a while with him talking to me about it until i said he really needed to resolve things with her. This of course in the spirit of a mutually supportive marriage.

Things then went very quiet until at Xmas he announced he had "things to do that didn't involve being married to me" and off he went. Denied it was her but did say he was emotionally attached. Now he has admitted adultery and the divorce is ongoing.

As IGB has said, it is very hard to come back from these situations and remain together. I was willing to forgive up until it was clear there was an emotional attachment, as it highlighted the fact that he had become emotionally detached from me.

You need to start looking after yourself now, take care and let us know how things go