looking for advice and opinions. Not sure which way to turn. Mind has vecome numb and i have little enjoyment of most anything in life. Not even able to enjoy things i previoulsy did.
51 yo male, married college sweetheart in 1987 and been married for 28 years
I Developed a drinking problem in the 90's with a job that provided lots of free time and lots of access to booze. Drinking progressed heavyily until early 40s. Wife eventually confronted my drinking in 2001 and i admitted i was drinking much more than she aware, and i compared it to an affair. She then broke down and confessed that she had two separate 2-3 mo affairs before and shortly after we got married. I had some suspicions of the something not right before marriage but zero to the one before. I had even asked point blank questions asking her if she had ever cheated or been tempted and she answered no.
One week after learning of the affairs, life dealt me another harsh loss in that my mother passed away due to breast ca which wasnt totally unexpected, but much more quickly that anyone anticipated.
I was emotionally destroyed at this time and drank even more heavily. Alcohol was a problem before but I was a "good" drunk which i know sounds incredibly stupid, but whwt i mean is that i was not mean or violent ever with drinking and mostly alcohol just put me in a sedated and relaxed mood. And yes, i am aware that most drunks including good ones are not a lot of fun to be around ! So my wife put up my drinking and is a good person for helping me stop. I stopped drinking in 2003 and have been sober and alcohol free since then !
Not a lot of people know the entire story but every single person that does assumes that my drinking was "at fault" or a a large part of what drove my wife to have an affair. But, in fact, during the time The affaris occurred we did not drink ! It has always bothered me that noone (counselor , pastors) ever really seemed to understand or even care that her infidelities occurred during the part of our relationship that should have been very strong.
So we struggled to remain married, for her, idk ??? except that she says she loves me. After these revelations, i remained mostly because of. My boys 1 & 4 at the time. I knew that if i divorced, i would never have any custodial rights and most likely would not see them very often ( and rightly so as i was still a drunk !) and being without my boys was simpy unacceptable. I have changed a lot since that time and I really wanted to move on and continue our marriage and have grandkids etc...
But, now as i my kids approach late teens, and need us what seems to be less frequently or less intensely, i am beginning to question if my wife is really somone i want to grow old with. Weve been togerther for 30 years, two dating and 28 married.
We do both love each other but things just have seemed to grow so stale and routine and communicating with her anything beyond the basic day to day routine is so cumbersone and tedious. I have less patience in trying to listen and talk to her that frankly, i just dont seem to have the energy but mroe importantLy the desire to talk and share things.
Now this is an inportant part thqt i have left out until now. My wie has never been gifted in communication. She is simply quiet by nature and is not real "chatty" like a lot of women. We have had several talks and even in counseling, a counselor asked her if she had ever been diagnosed with aspergers syndrome as her verbal communication is characterized with short choppy sentences. Oftentimes she will simply omit key words or phrases in a sentence so that the whole point of her conversation is missed. And she is the only one thqt doesnt realize she hasnt yet made her point ! She is not un-intelligent ! She is a very smart and has a BS degree in nsg. But she just doesnt communicate as effectivley as some. She also does not use nornal voice inflection and gives and receives very little non-verbal communication ques when speaking.
Ive always appreciated her and lived her for who she is and those little flaws in communicating were simply part of her that i overlooked because i loved her. Now, these communciation issues irritate me to no end. I honestly sometimes dont think i can stand being around her even a few minutes and thought of living the rest of my life is must depressing. In fact, the reason i am posting this is because of a miscommunication we had when going for a walk. She was telling me a story about a patient she saw last week. She told me the entire story and expressed the only point she intended to make in the first sentence. I then listend for 7-8 minutes of all the details she wanted me to know. When she stopped talking i honestly was confused as to what she was even talking about and i asked , And ..... ? Well she interprted that as me being a smart ass and got angry with me. I then apolgized and asked her several questions trying to tie in the 4-5 pieces of tangential detai ls with the the first topic. It wa impossible ! The tangential details were just that - a tangent. They had absoultely nothing to do with the point or original topic at all. Truly Puzzling to me ! And of course she just became angrier at me and stated I was just trying to make her feel bad about her communication. I told her to enjoy the rest of her walk and turned around and came home.
Nothing will be said tomight about this. If i bring it up to discuss im an ******* and just being mean. She wont bring it up. And honestly, im to the point where i just dont give a f""" ! We never have disagreement unless they are this little trivial BS stuff.
The only reqlly good thing about our relationship in terms of communication has been sex . We are very sexual and very sexually compatible. But at 51, I WANT MORE !!!
Should i just near with it ??? When do you know its time to call it quits ??? Her communcaition ability is neve going to improve, and im not sure i can take it much longer !
51 yo male, married college sweetheart in 1987 and been married for 28 years
I Developed a drinking problem in the 90's with a job that provided lots of free time and lots of access to booze. Drinking progressed heavyily until early 40s. Wife eventually confronted my drinking in 2001 and i admitted i was drinking much more than she aware, and i compared it to an affair. She then broke down and confessed that she had two separate 2-3 mo affairs before and shortly after we got married. I had some suspicions of the something not right before marriage but zero to the one before. I had even asked point blank questions asking her if she had ever cheated or been tempted and she answered no.
One week after learning of the affairs, life dealt me another harsh loss in that my mother passed away due to breast ca which wasnt totally unexpected, but much more quickly that anyone anticipated.
I was emotionally destroyed at this time and drank even more heavily. Alcohol was a problem before but I was a "good" drunk which i know sounds incredibly stupid, but whwt i mean is that i was not mean or violent ever with drinking and mostly alcohol just put me in a sedated and relaxed mood. And yes, i am aware that most drunks including good ones are not a lot of fun to be around ! So my wife put up my drinking and is a good person for helping me stop. I stopped drinking in 2003 and have been sober and alcohol free since then !
Not a lot of people know the entire story but every single person that does assumes that my drinking was "at fault" or a a large part of what drove my wife to have an affair. But, in fact, during the time The affaris occurred we did not drink ! It has always bothered me that noone (counselor , pastors) ever really seemed to understand or even care that her infidelities occurred during the part of our relationship that should have been very strong.
So we struggled to remain married, for her, idk ??? except that she says she loves me. After these revelations, i remained mostly because of. My boys 1 & 4 at the time. I knew that if i divorced, i would never have any custodial rights and most likely would not see them very often ( and rightly so as i was still a drunk !) and being without my boys was simpy unacceptable. I have changed a lot since that time and I really wanted to move on and continue our marriage and have grandkids etc...
But, now as i my kids approach late teens, and need us what seems to be less frequently or less intensely, i am beginning to question if my wife is really somone i want to grow old with. Weve been togerther for 30 years, two dating and 28 married.
We do both love each other but things just have seemed to grow so stale and routine and communicating with her anything beyond the basic day to day routine is so cumbersone and tedious. I have less patience in trying to listen and talk to her that frankly, i just dont seem to have the energy but mroe importantLy the desire to talk and share things.
Now this is an inportant part thqt i have left out until now. My wie has never been gifted in communication. She is simply quiet by nature and is not real "chatty" like a lot of women. We have had several talks and even in counseling, a counselor asked her if she had ever been diagnosed with aspergers syndrome as her verbal communication is characterized with short choppy sentences. Oftentimes she will simply omit key words or phrases in a sentence so that the whole point of her conversation is missed. And she is the only one thqt doesnt realize she hasnt yet made her point ! She is not un-intelligent ! She is a very smart and has a BS degree in nsg. But she just doesnt communicate as effectivley as some. She also does not use nornal voice inflection and gives and receives very little non-verbal communication ques when speaking.
Ive always appreciated her and lived her for who she is and those little flaws in communicating were simply part of her that i overlooked because i loved her. Now, these communciation issues irritate me to no end. I honestly sometimes dont think i can stand being around her even a few minutes and thought of living the rest of my life is must depressing. In fact, the reason i am posting this is because of a miscommunication we had when going for a walk. She was telling me a story about a patient she saw last week. She told me the entire story and expressed the only point she intended to make in the first sentence. I then listend for 7-8 minutes of all the details she wanted me to know. When she stopped talking i honestly was confused as to what she was even talking about and i asked , And ..... ? Well she interprted that as me being a smart ass and got angry with me. I then apolgized and asked her several questions trying to tie in the 4-5 pieces of tangential detai ls with the the first topic. It wa impossible ! The tangential details were just that - a tangent. They had absoultely nothing to do with the point or original topic at all. Truly Puzzling to me ! And of course she just became angrier at me and stated I was just trying to make her feel bad about her communication. I told her to enjoy the rest of her walk and turned around and came home.
Nothing will be said tomight about this. If i bring it up to discuss im an ******* and just being mean. She wont bring it up. And honestly, im to the point where i just dont give a f""" ! We never have disagreement unless they are this little trivial BS stuff.
The only reqlly good thing about our relationship in terms of communication has been sex . We are very sexual and very sexually compatible. But at 51, I WANT MORE !!!
Should i just near with it ??? When do you know its time to call it quits ??? Her communcaition ability is neve going to improve, and im not sure i can take it much longer !
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