I want to win her back:theres no one else

i need any woman who has gone through any of this to advise me please:the context i very complex so please bear with me.

I am 47 and my wife of 8 yrs is 26 - i know....jackpot. she chased me without me realising and we becam such fantastic friends b4 we became lovers and when we did it was idyllic for 5yrs.

we then decided to have a baby and all was well then too.

she fell pregnant again and while heavily preg. i had an inappropriate convo online with one of her friends(it HONESTLY was not going to go anywhere - it was rude/wrong and I deeply deeply regret it. but my wife said we need to just forget it and move on (but her trust has obviously been broken and i am ashamed of myself)

however we were fine and our happy accident was born prem. but all was fine.

so now my young wife is at home with 2 babies and not doing a degree to become a teacher and by god she was brilliant and did well.

then2 yrs ago she started at my school as a trainee teacher and the stress of our school is soooo horrendous that we were working a great deal - and she especially was run ragged with 2 little uns cos they were still her main priority.

then 2yrs ago this week we moved house.

at christmas she snogged another colleauge and it took her 3 days to tell me as she was devastated at breaking our trust: BUT she then said -'I luv u but im not in luv with u...and after a stressful christmas where she tried to be a 'better' wife (and believe me guys she cudnt have been a better wife!)

however, it got to me the whole not in love thing and i began my slide into insecurity (never an issue at all previously - everyone thought we were totally suited - and we were/are)and my moods became more and more regular - but i thought i was ok and it wud be ok.

she briefly asked we got to counselling but we didnt, we both sed we needed to try harder but we didnt, and it wasnt all bad but not all gud.

THEN, in the march she discovered she was preg. and we agreed we needed to abort (sorry) and to htis day have never discussed it since.and then her belvoed nan died.

so all in allthe past 2yrs have been a s**t time - and i am highly sexed and she isnt (bloody exhausted poor thing) and so evertime i didnt get sex id mope feeling rejected and i sure as hell never let her relax.

so 3 weeks ago she sed (after i asked if we cud be close that nite)that she dreads going to bed - dont blame her - and its not rite and i need to leave. i did (after trying to talk) and i then spent a week doing it wrong and begging pleading etc...to no avail and she now has a new rented house she moves into tues. and says her feelings wont change and its over.

she says even tho i say i will change and if i did it wouldnt matter its her that has changed (yes i no - grown up etc)

I straight away went to relate - she wudnt come, i also sought DR help and am getting counseling, i also wrote loads and loads of how i can change and have started doin gso much of it, repairing myself, exercising etc...and i TOTALLY undertand she needs more, space and laughter again...I SEE all that NOW. and am proactively fixing me - for me but also cos i watnto be back to the old us - and better. with her havin gtime out with the girls and me doing stuff too.

SORRY _ LONG WINDED - but ladis please please please advice an idiot on how he can show her the old me is back and we can be better as a family and lovers etc. I am in for the long haul and dont expect any short sharp answers, it has to be gentle and gradual - but it has to be somehting i can get her to begin to realise cos she wont agree to try yet.

in the meantime i am being supportive of her move, i have agreed a lot of access with the babies and am giving her space./

i love her with all my heart and now theis has prompted me in to reality I am so sorry for how ive treated her - even if i was ill...and i know i will not slide there again.

help.advice.god please help me with how i can get my soulmate to laugh with me and to want me again

thanks
iain

Oh dear hutchyone

Sounds as though you have completely exhausted this woman out!!

She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from your demands and the children's demands. She had two babies, and then an abortion, studying, constantly being pestered for sex. Her nan dies. How did this woman COPE!!!!
To be honest, she needs a medal.

Did she receive any counselling for all of these tragedies?

At this moment in time she is probably feeling absolute relief and peace. She has built a brick wall around herself now, and it is going to take one hell of a lot of work from you to break it down.

The changes you are making for yourself, in the hope of rekindling this marriage, are just one small step. But perhaps she is frightened that you are going to slip from that step and end up back at the bottom again,displaying all that she fears. And you did say, she fears going to bed with you, when she should have been so happy for her to lay in bed and you just stroke her hair and comfort her after an arduous day with the children and studying.
I can relate to that.

It is going to take a long time for her to be able to relax in your company, being constantly pressured is terrifying for her. You will have to put the intimate side of this relationship completely on the back burner for now. It will be taboo for her.

It is a case of doing what you can to make amends and prove to her that you are trying your best to change.
Give her plenty of space, offer her help with the children, let her have time on her own. Show her that the end of the day could be just a telephone call from you, not waiting for you to lunge on her as soon as you think fit.
I think that it would be really beneficial if you could book an appointment with a counsellor as soon as possible, find a good one, might cost a bit,but it will be worth it. Try to understand what is happending to you and why you feel your wife has unrelentless energy to fulfill your needs.

This marriage could be salvaged, but the process is going to be a long one. You cannot at any stage, give in, it is something that you will have to see through until completion. I think you are aware of that.

Remorse is a good teacher.

People here at wiki will help you as much as we can, keep you going when you feel you might want to give up.

The most important aspect in all of this is, you have to be determined to see this through. Perhaps one day, you can sit down with your wife and tell her how sorry you are and really mean it, and she will believe it.

I hope that day is not too far away.

good luck
keep posting and asking for help.

zara

Hi. I wish you well in your endevours and what Zara says is right. I will mildly disagree on a point or two !! Yes she was probably worn out. But in my personal experience my STBX wore herself out. What probably happened and I think that many on here might relate to this is that she had ambitions. Yes she worked hard and achieved. In so doing her priorities changed. In the beginning her priorities were you. Then they became the children and then the job. Often ..and I saw it a lot when I was at college...people find a new direction which was previously not open to them. Now better ''educated'' in both life terms and job terms the old way of life becomes stale. My STBX used to come home saying she was exhausted. I told her to cut down on work but she didn't. Came home and fell asleep. As a result we stayed in and watched TV instead of going out. Now its been thrown back at me that she was bored. The boredom was self induced. I let her sleep believing she was tired so it was a viscious circle. I stopped planning things. Then it all went pear shaped. She left overnight and I mean overnight. Able to support herself she had built up sideline interests which excluded me. Unfortunately these included other men in my case who could supply the excitement I couldn't. So in fact again this was a viscious circle. Because I let her rest it wasn't exciting enough for her. So she made a new life using excuses. When the new life overtook our more mundane life she left and with the knowlege that she could support herself and at the same time demand assetts from me. My biggest question was where did it all go wrong. Yep I changed to and tried to win her back but she played the double headed coin. New life on one side, safe haven if it all went wrong on the other. The new life took over leaving me in a complete mess drained by trying to please her and win her back. Advice to you I cannot give as there have only been a few cases of people posting on here who I have seen get back together.
As it seems she has made her mind up . What reason would she give for coming back ? I do wish you the best of luck and maybe others will give you their experiences. Take care Polar

I have to say I rather agree with Polar. Zara is right that your wife is undoubtedly exhausted but I agree with Polar that she chose this and I'm not saying she was wrong to choose this path but WHY she chose it makes a difference to whether you have any hope of redeeming the situation. I can't tell you why she has taken this route with her life (although getting a degree while kids are small is a route I took, so I applaud her - it is very hard) only you can find that out.

Maybe she feared after your inappropriate dalliance on the net that she was in a vulnerable position and if you ever left her she'd struggle to support herself and her children. Getting better qualifications means she has dealt with this fear and now no longer needs you to support her and her/your kids.

Problem is you then need to give her more of a reason to stay... she no longer has to stay... you both loved each other and reveled in your relationship, so I wish you well in trying to rekindle this but my advice is start afresh and see what she needs now... BUT be prepared that by forcing her into 'self protection' mode you may have opened her eyes and mind to new situations and her love for you might have become diluted....

I wish you well.

thanks for that.
i totally supported her in the degree and my one convo on line was a deep deep mistake but yes she sure still is unhappy about it even now cos she threw it back in my face last week.

she has very quickly got a rented house and i DO need to start on the new mrs H and I WILL. i totally accept all my failings and will make EVERY effort to ensure she sees im for real and the old Mr H is back - not the miserable insecure on but the one she loved and liked and respected b4.

I WILL NOT give up

thanks guys
x

Hi again Hutch. I see a clue in your prblem very quickly. It was in your wording of ''she got a rented house very quickly''. You may not like what I have to say but I dont mean to give you false hopes. Mine also got a property very quickly. In other words the strm had been brewing in her mind for a long time. Much longer than I thought. In my case 7 years or more. So I changed as well. Lost weight etc. All she did was play on my kindness until I was reduced to absolute zero. Looking back I should have banged her into court and been as nasty as I could !!! Sounds nasty but she really played on my Mr.Nice guy attitude. Didn't think that I would be anything other than reasonable about it. Can you imagine crawling on your belly so much that the skin wore off. I even took her to a concert, stayed and slept in the same bed. It was my birthday. We made love and then she told me who she was screwing and who she was going to screw next. Yep that happened to me. So my 25 years didn't count for tuppence as far as she was concerned. Advice???? Well you did give a clue !!! That was get a new Mrs H !!! You have got a new you..or so you say because a leopard never really changes its spots.. and the new MRS H may be someone totally different. Oh I wish you well in getting her back. Honestly I do but if you both have changed you are both now going in different directions. Keep posting. Some of my advice may be totally way off as every situation is different. Take care Polar

Hi Hutch, you might not like what i'm going to say but in my opinion you HAVE to give her the space she seems to desperately need. You also have to keep working on changing yourself, deal with your insecurities, make yourself a better person and then hopefully rekindle it with her, but just as friends!!! It seems you have to try to win her trust back, its difficult to do that, but if you try to just be friends for a while, after giving her some weeks of space, she may just notice the 'new you' and still love you enough to want to try again.
I hope it works out for you, i really do, please keep us updated.
Cindy