depressederado
New member
I'm a guy whose marriage is on the brink of ending. I'm feeling absolutely lost/confused to say the least and would appreciate any insights (from both guys and gals, single or married). Pardon me if I appear to be rambling or if I come across as incoherent and thanks in advance for reading this.
I have been married for 5.5yrs and have known my wife for 4yrs prior to marrying her. We have no kids. She is a strong-headed person who has firm believes and is hot tempered. However she has a heart of gold and she means well in everything she does. I also have some reasonably firm views on things and I like to think I mean well in everything that I do. I am more mild-tempered but when provoked long enough, my temper can unfortunately reach pretty nasty levels. We also don't share a great deal of common interests. We have throughout our journey as a couple, had many fights and many of them have been very serious. We were barely 2years into our marriage when she was pretty clear in expressing her lack of interest in the marriage.
I am not without fault. When we first met and even until we got married, I didn't treat her as special as she deserved (and wanted) to be treated. She is not the materialistic sort but she craves romance. Unfortunately, I don't excel in that department. My best asset is probably my sense of humour and that isn't a good substitute. I thought finances was one reason why I was not good in romance (I was a student when we first started going out) but by the grace of god I have done reasonably well in my career and can definitely afford to be romantic but I have come to realise I don't have the natural flair/ability in that department. So I continue to be unromantic. In addition, she has become a successful entrepreneur and so my financial ability to provide a good life for the two of us doesn't carry as much weight because she can do the same thing as well.
She is not without fault too. Her quick temper means that very often, I get into my nasty temper in response to her quick temper. I have always asked her to calm down and find a solution to her temper... just even for her own good health, but to no avail.
Over the years, I think the love she had for my has withered away. She claims she still loves me and I think she does, but its a fraction of what it used to be when we first met. Granted, she has grown from being a carefree student when we first met to now being a successful businesswoman so perhaps that involves a character change. In addition, I think my lack of success in really making things special for her (birthdays, valentines etc... basically being a romantic) has taken its toll. My ways of showing care and concern is very unglam. For instance, she doesn't drink much water... so whenever we are home, I will bring her a glass of water. She's also incredibly busy with her business so I have taken the responsibility to take care of all home matters i.e. I find the part-time main, I get the groceries, I settle all the administrative tasks involved in running a home.
We are in different industries. I work in finance and perhaps I've been a slave to the job, but she thinks I have lost the sociable factor in me and that I am not a very interesting person to talk to (she wants to be continuously stimulated mentally).
Our fights have only gotten from bad to worse. We have tried marriage counselling but to no avail. In a recent conversation we had right after a fight (I can't even remember what we fought about... usually very trivial things) I told her that our current state of the marriage is one in which in the event of a fight, she is first to want to break the marriage but I'm the one who basically begs her to cool down and talk things out so that we can understand what went wrong in order to save the marriage. This has been going on for some time and while I still love her, I have told her that as much as I want us to work, I would never want her to feel obliged or compelled to stay in a marriage in which she was not genuinely happy.
Our recent fight marked a new low in our frail marriage. She has now thrown the towel in and moved out. While one might argue that its not the end of the world since we don't have kids and we are both financially capable on our own, I feel very messed up. I cannot help but feel very sad and depressed that these 9.5yrs have come down to this. I feel sad that we are both successful adults but we just cant seem to make the marriage work. I feel confused that I am perhaps holding on to good memories (probably representing 50% of our history at best) while forgetting that the rest of our time together has been either neutral or poor.
Anyone out there care to offer some thoughts on my predicament? I have written this with a completely open mind so I am very open to hearing 3rd party views, be it advise, criticisms etc.
Thank you.
I have been married for 5.5yrs and have known my wife for 4yrs prior to marrying her. We have no kids. She is a strong-headed person who has firm believes and is hot tempered. However she has a heart of gold and she means well in everything she does. I also have some reasonably firm views on things and I like to think I mean well in everything that I do. I am more mild-tempered but when provoked long enough, my temper can unfortunately reach pretty nasty levels. We also don't share a great deal of common interests. We have throughout our journey as a couple, had many fights and many of them have been very serious. We were barely 2years into our marriage when she was pretty clear in expressing her lack of interest in the marriage.
I am not without fault. When we first met and even until we got married, I didn't treat her as special as she deserved (and wanted) to be treated. She is not the materialistic sort but she craves romance. Unfortunately, I don't excel in that department. My best asset is probably my sense of humour and that isn't a good substitute. I thought finances was one reason why I was not good in romance (I was a student when we first started going out) but by the grace of god I have done reasonably well in my career and can definitely afford to be romantic but I have come to realise I don't have the natural flair/ability in that department. So I continue to be unromantic. In addition, she has become a successful entrepreneur and so my financial ability to provide a good life for the two of us doesn't carry as much weight because she can do the same thing as well.
She is not without fault too. Her quick temper means that very often, I get into my nasty temper in response to her quick temper. I have always asked her to calm down and find a solution to her temper... just even for her own good health, but to no avail.
Over the years, I think the love she had for my has withered away. She claims she still loves me and I think she does, but its a fraction of what it used to be when we first met. Granted, she has grown from being a carefree student when we first met to now being a successful businesswoman so perhaps that involves a character change. In addition, I think my lack of success in really making things special for her (birthdays, valentines etc... basically being a romantic) has taken its toll. My ways of showing care and concern is very unglam. For instance, she doesn't drink much water... so whenever we are home, I will bring her a glass of water. She's also incredibly busy with her business so I have taken the responsibility to take care of all home matters i.e. I find the part-time main, I get the groceries, I settle all the administrative tasks involved in running a home.
We are in different industries. I work in finance and perhaps I've been a slave to the job, but she thinks I have lost the sociable factor in me and that I am not a very interesting person to talk to (she wants to be continuously stimulated mentally).
Our fights have only gotten from bad to worse. We have tried marriage counselling but to no avail. In a recent conversation we had right after a fight (I can't even remember what we fought about... usually very trivial things) I told her that our current state of the marriage is one in which in the event of a fight, she is first to want to break the marriage but I'm the one who basically begs her to cool down and talk things out so that we can understand what went wrong in order to save the marriage. This has been going on for some time and while I still love her, I have told her that as much as I want us to work, I would never want her to feel obliged or compelled to stay in a marriage in which she was not genuinely happy.
Our recent fight marked a new low in our frail marriage. She has now thrown the towel in and moved out. While one might argue that its not the end of the world since we don't have kids and we are both financially capable on our own, I feel very messed up. I cannot help but feel very sad and depressed that these 9.5yrs have come down to this. I feel sad that we are both successful adults but we just cant seem to make the marriage work. I feel confused that I am perhaps holding on to good memories (probably representing 50% of our history at best) while forgetting that the rest of our time together has been either neutral or poor.
Anyone out there care to offer some thoughts on my predicament? I have written this with a completely open mind so I am very open to hearing 3rd party views, be it advise, criticisms etc.
Thank you.
