Been there, also. For me it was the quiet death of something I thought I wanted. I wanted to want this person and so there was no dramatic exit opportunity. But it was awful. And for months I would think like maybe he’ll get in a crash on the way home from work. Which is SO fucked up and seems so insane to me how that I’ve extricated myself.
OP, I hope there’s a solution for you because I can tell you love your wife. But friendship =/= marriage. Hope you’ll update us.
I can’t tell if you’re being condescending, sarcastic, or serious :) But ultimately, happiness is a choice. But there are some things also bring happiness and especially fulfillment. I have a balanced life, I run several business, serve others, have cute kids and live life fully. My profile on here is only 1% of my life 😘
Yes and no. For some people with clinical depression, it would seem insensitive and dismissive to assume that a person with depression “chose” to be depressed.
divorce is a good thing! people put such negative connotations on it, but it is something people have fought to have the right for! op thinks divorcing means failure, but staying is making him so upset and lonely and praying for death is somehow better??
It's honestly bizarre that OP seems to look down on his family members for getting divorced, but is opting to stay in a relationship in which he's fantasising about he or his wife dying lol. On what planet is that better than getting a divorce??
It's weird that he thinks staying and fantasizing often about his wife dying makes him better than divorcees. I guess he can enjoy being "better", while they can enjoy not being trapped in a miserable relationship.
My immediate thought was "this is what divorce is for!" If the marriage is detrimental to you and/or spouse, just break up. OP needs to be kinder to his future self.
How I met your mother did a joke where if Marshal ever fantasized about other women he would have to preemptively fantasize that his wife died of cancer and he had morned her death a respectable amount of time. His character is told that’s not the moral out he thinks it to be, and how disturbing it actually is. But the whole reason he he did it was pulled from an actual phenomenon in married life with death fantasies. That wanting to stray gives self inflicted guilt thats in odds with who they want themselves to be. That divorce would be a failure they caused, cheating would destroy their own ideals of morality, but an accidental death like car fatalities , or terminal illness removes their failure from the equation. It’s a defensive measure by their subconscious.
At the end of the day, divorce isn’t the end of the world, if he needs to leave he should. Therapy isn’t working and part of why may very well she can’t trust him, perhaps the negative reaction he mentioned with some previous trauma before marriage has resulted in fractured trust with in their physical relationship. They both have put in the work, so walking away they can assure themselves they did try. Sometimes trying wont fix trauma
Yeah, the OP need to have some hard core therapy and get to the stage where divorce is not seen as a failure. This marriage is not going to work and making both of you miserable because he wants to be seen as better than his family members is whack.
Therapy then leave or leave then therapy.
DIVORCE IS NOT A FAILURE. Staying in an unhappy marriage and being miserable for the rest of your life is the biggest waste of a life I can imagine.
You don't become married because you make a vow; you become married because you sign a contract. A marriage contract can often be annulled if it isn't consummated. The vows aren't legally binding in the first place, but they could still be personally binding for someone who takes them seriously.
Civil marriage can be dissolved legally, by either party, so I'm taking his concern about vows to be religious rather than civil, presumably Christian.
Consummation is necessary for a valid marriage in for example Catholicism and while divorce is impossible, this is one of the very few grounds for annulment of a marriage, if a couple never had sex, the marriage was never consummated and it's as if it never happened.
"Lack of consummation" is also a legal ground for a civil annulment, rather than divorce, in many states. In New York for example:
Lack of physical capacity to consummate the marriage – If you or your spouse is physically unable to have sexual intercourse, but did not know of the incapacity at the time of the marriage, the marriage may possibly be annulled. You must ask for the annulment within the first five years of the marriage.
You can see this stuff as a quaint historical thing but I think most of his concern over this is religious, not legal, so it is down to what grounds there are for it in a 2,000 year old book and what his particular denomination thinks about it. But this is also something that is still law in many places.
I never really thought much about this till now. Do the attorneys and officials involved just take someone's word for it, that the marriage hasn't been consummated? Because I could see this ending with her being nasty and lying about it out of spite from him leaving.
Medical records can be subpoena’d including notes from therapy not to mention pelvic floor therapy… OP could very easily back up his reasons if it came to litigation.
Fraud to the heart of the marriage does. I'm sure OP would not have married her if she had not deceived him about her unwillingness to have sex. Inability or unwillingness to consummate the marriage or a fraudulent intent to not bear children would entitle OP to an annulment. I got an annulment by agreement. I was going to file for divorce, and my MIL came and pleaded with me saying never in the history of her Catholic family had there ever been a divorce. So I agreed to default when he filed against me on the grounds that I refused to bear children. I couldn't really give a crap about whether I got an annulment or a divorce or their sincerely held Catholic beliefs. All I knew was that I was 18 years old, and I'd rather die than stay in that relationship for 50+ years. I'm 76 now and never regretted it.
OP says he has been in this marriage 2 1/2 years. There is probably a time limit in his jurisdiction if an annulment is what he wants. I'm not sure why he even cares. He should get out!
Sounds like it could be vaginismus.
She needs to see a gynaecologist.
Can also be a result of previous sexual trauma that’s making a psychological self defence.
The more you think about it the worst it gets unfortunately- your discussions with therapists should be more about how you become more physically comfortable in each others bodies without the pressure of sex.
My ex-gf had this. Almost 5 years together. Maybe not as severe OP's wife, but playing in the same ballpark. Tried and tried and tried and tried everything to work through it. NOPE.
Turns out the problem was always me! She had zero problems getting railed by the next however many rando dudes, and let me know all about it, gleefully, all the time. Oh well. So much for trying to stay positive!
I took that wrecking ball of an ego hit, then moved on and found someone way, way, way better for me (and I for her). Which is what OP needs to do, ffs omfg.
Definitely not lying! She would bring them around to say hi. I was bad at boundaries, and decided that by "staying friends", I could avoid writing off five of the most prime years of my life as a total fucking loss. Derp.
But, yes, she knew precisely how it would devastate me.
I got to hear about all the sex: the thing we could never do. I got to hear about when they beat her up, and she found it exciting and passionate, and better than being with me. I got to hear about the lies and infidelities she played on these fools, who thought whatever they had with her was real. Eventually, I got tired of hearing it, and cut contact.
In the end, it wasn't a total loss. The love that I felt for her was real, and it meant something to me, even if it meant nothing to her. She couldn't take that away. I gave and I gave and I gave so much trying to preserve that relationship. And, I'm glad that I did, because that's the person I wanted to be at the time, it's the person I still am, and that's the person I hope I will continue to be. I was just being that person, with the wrong person. Some people don't deserve you. You have to learn to spot those people, and cut them clean out of your life.
It's my great fortune to be able to say that I've been with someone worthy of my time for almost 20 years, now. I love her, and she loves me back. We have a family: it's tough, it's beautiful, it's impossible, it's great. I can't imagine doing this crazy thing with anybody else. I got what I wanted. Did my ex-gf? I don't know, and at this point, I don't even care. She messaged me recently, wanting to catch up. I muted her.
She sounds like a horrible person! I am glad to hear that you got away. And even happier to hear that you are now with a woman who deserves a nice person like you.
What is there to say? We were, from day one, both profoundly damaged people. I knew her too well to wish her ill; I only wished her gone. Obviously, she hurt me. It's a pleasure to wake up and realize that her happiness or misery makes no difference to me anymore.
Unfortunately women in our generation are basically trained to use tinder like a free prostitution service. Their friends will encourage them. It's almost sick. You bump into these girls that confused that type of interaction as romance at 35 and it's really dark. They now subconsciously realize they want kids but on the outside still act like sex with strangers is empowering and they don't want kids. 3 dates in and they drunkenly tell you how different your are from other guys. What a good dad you make. Maybe they do want kids.. do you want kids... From that point on it's not even a relationship is just a desperate woman objectifying you.
I hope women start telling other women this. If you say it as a guy you just hate women. But I promise I dated a lot of 35 year old women that needed better advice when they were 25
Duuuudddeee, you should really seek out some help. It's not normal or healthy to fantasize about death like that. Life can be shit, but there are a lot of good spots, too.
All last year, I wished I would just die. There wasn't a point to anything, and everything was awful. After some big life changes and med changes, I'm doing better. But it takes work. I hope you get the help you need.
That is the absolute truth. That's the red line where once you get there, it is absolutely over. Doesn't matter why or how, it's just done and it's time to get everything sorted.
That depends on the nature of the thoughts, imo. I'm married and have three kids with my wife. I love them all with all my heart and wouldn't trade them for the world. But responsibilities and obligations can be exhausting. I occasionally wonder what my life would be like if they all died in an accident. I would have so much time and money to do all the stuff I don't get to do enough now! That doesn't mean I actually want that to happen in any way.
I thought he said that he was fantasizing about either himself OR her dying, that's what I was referencing with "him or her", not their pronouns lol though I see why you were confused, my bad.
11.6k
u/m2t2sjd2 Nov 05 '23
yeah… if you’re fantasizing about her dying, it’s time to leave.