What I believed to be a great marriage has quickly begun to unravel.
My wife and I have been married for 7 years, I am 28 she is 27. No kids yet unless you count our two cats :D.
For the most part in our last 6 ½ years together we have been pretty tied together. We rarely spent any time apart from each other, except for work and college. I love it. I love spending all of my time with just her. She on the other hand has gotten bored. She has now started to go out with friends on the weekends. I really don't have a problem with that, I encouraged it. She wants me to do the same but I really don't have any close friends any more. After getting married I was solely focused on her and drifted apart from all others.
Through this situation it has surfaced that I apparently no longer fulfill her emotional needs and that's why she wants to go out and chat with her girlfriends. Many times throughout our fights and discussions she has mentioned that she can not count on me in times of need, I do not support her emotionally when she is upset and that I do not understand her. Not that I no longer understand her, but that I never have and she has just ignored it until now.
There are two people in her life that she claims understand her better than me, an online friend she knew before we met and a co-worker she met when starting her new job this past June. She is always calling her co-worker, let's call him Ben, for advice on our relationship. He is divorced and has a girlfriend. She says she is not interested in him romantically and I believe her about it, that isn't the issue. My problem is that she is always calling him every time we fight or disagree. It's like she can't handle anything on her own anymore and is always running to him for comfort. It is hard for me to take.
We have been having very serious talks recently about us and if I can meet her needs or not and how I can improve communication with her. Honestly, I want to and I am trying but it is not going anywhere. Nothing is improving and it is starting to make me feel resentful that I always need to change myself to suit her while she stays the same in all of her bad habits and not trying to improve herself. I want this to feel like teamwork but it very much feels one-sided.
I don't know if this will help anyone understand our situation more but here is the most recent fight we had:
I drive my wife everywhere and anywhere she needs to go. She has her driver's license but does not like to drive. She just started her final semester at college today and I have always driven her to the bus stop so she can catch the metro bus to school. I then pick her up when she is done with class and back at the bus stop.
Because we recently moved to a new town it's a different transit system with different stops. To help her out I drove to the stop and got out and waited with her until the bus came to pick her up, no problem there. The issue came when it was time to come back home.
This new bus picks her up in a whole new area compared to previous semesters. I looked online and told her where the stops were and guided her where to wait over the phone as I was at work at the time. When she got there no one else was waiting for a bus and no signs mentioned the bus route she needs to take. She became worried and frustrated and eventually gave up and wanted to go back to her college building to wait 2 hours until a different bus route starts that picks her up at the same location as the previous semester. This whole time we are still talking on the phone.
After some debate in the end I left work to drive to her college, pick her up and drive her home. In the beginning she seemed happy that I came and got her and even had bought me a hamburger while she waited. When she got into the car I surprised her with a new Hello Kitty doll because her birthday is tomorrow. Before driving home I drove by where she should be waiting for the bus to show her exactly where it is. I apologized twice to her mentioning that I know how frustrating that experience could be. She was still not happy though, eventually we just went silent and stopped talking the whole way home.
Later that night she told me that I seemed unwilling and unhappy to come get her and I told her that she seemed ungrateful that I came. Yet another fight started ending in more silence between us and now I can somewhat hear her talking to Ben on the phone in the other room through our air ducts. Half of her conversation seems angry the other is laughing but I can't make out any actual words.
I am always just so unsure what to say or what to do to make her feel better when she is upset. I really am trying but nothing seems to penetrate deep. Has anyone else been in a situation like this, is there some advice you can share? The way things are going between us is not looking good.
Feel free to ask questions if more info is needed, this is my first post here and I am just seeking some help.
My wife and I have been married for 7 years, I am 28 she is 27. No kids yet unless you count our two cats :D.
For the most part in our last 6 ½ years together we have been pretty tied together. We rarely spent any time apart from each other, except for work and college. I love it. I love spending all of my time with just her. She on the other hand has gotten bored. She has now started to go out with friends on the weekends. I really don't have a problem with that, I encouraged it. She wants me to do the same but I really don't have any close friends any more. After getting married I was solely focused on her and drifted apart from all others.
Through this situation it has surfaced that I apparently no longer fulfill her emotional needs and that's why she wants to go out and chat with her girlfriends. Many times throughout our fights and discussions she has mentioned that she can not count on me in times of need, I do not support her emotionally when she is upset and that I do not understand her. Not that I no longer understand her, but that I never have and she has just ignored it until now.
There are two people in her life that she claims understand her better than me, an online friend she knew before we met and a co-worker she met when starting her new job this past June. She is always calling her co-worker, let's call him Ben, for advice on our relationship. He is divorced and has a girlfriend. She says she is not interested in him romantically and I believe her about it, that isn't the issue. My problem is that she is always calling him every time we fight or disagree. It's like she can't handle anything on her own anymore and is always running to him for comfort. It is hard for me to take.
We have been having very serious talks recently about us and if I can meet her needs or not and how I can improve communication with her. Honestly, I want to and I am trying but it is not going anywhere. Nothing is improving and it is starting to make me feel resentful that I always need to change myself to suit her while she stays the same in all of her bad habits and not trying to improve herself. I want this to feel like teamwork but it very much feels one-sided.
I don't know if this will help anyone understand our situation more but here is the most recent fight we had:
I drive my wife everywhere and anywhere she needs to go. She has her driver's license but does not like to drive. She just started her final semester at college today and I have always driven her to the bus stop so she can catch the metro bus to school. I then pick her up when she is done with class and back at the bus stop.
Because we recently moved to a new town it's a different transit system with different stops. To help her out I drove to the stop and got out and waited with her until the bus came to pick her up, no problem there. The issue came when it was time to come back home.
This new bus picks her up in a whole new area compared to previous semesters. I looked online and told her where the stops were and guided her where to wait over the phone as I was at work at the time. When she got there no one else was waiting for a bus and no signs mentioned the bus route she needs to take. She became worried and frustrated and eventually gave up and wanted to go back to her college building to wait 2 hours until a different bus route starts that picks her up at the same location as the previous semester. This whole time we are still talking on the phone.
After some debate in the end I left work to drive to her college, pick her up and drive her home. In the beginning she seemed happy that I came and got her and even had bought me a hamburger while she waited. When she got into the car I surprised her with a new Hello Kitty doll because her birthday is tomorrow. Before driving home I drove by where she should be waiting for the bus to show her exactly where it is. I apologized twice to her mentioning that I know how frustrating that experience could be. She was still not happy though, eventually we just went silent and stopped talking the whole way home.
Later that night she told me that I seemed unwilling and unhappy to come get her and I told her that she seemed ungrateful that I came. Yet another fight started ending in more silence between us and now I can somewhat hear her talking to Ben on the phone in the other room through our air ducts. Half of her conversation seems angry the other is laughing but I can't make out any actual words.
I am always just so unsure what to say or what to do to make her feel better when she is upset. I really am trying but nothing seems to penetrate deep. Has anyone else been in a situation like this, is there some advice you can share? The way things are going between us is not looking good.
Feel free to ask questions if more info is needed, this is my first post here and I am just seeking some help.
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