My husband (32m) and I (32m) have been married seven years. Over the past one and half years we have put some work into areas of our marriage that my husband expressed were making him unhappy, including communication techniques and financial management. In both cases these concerns had risen to the level of divorce. I think I have an honest enough view of own shortcomings and I took these concerns to heart and made lasting changes. My husband agrees.
However, since then I have had a lot of anxiety and just bad feelings about his desire to continue the marriage. It felt to me like something was wrong. I have always struggled with anxiety so I chose to believe him when he said things were fine. I started individual therapy to work on my anxiety earlier in the Spring. My husband recently started going to therapy as well.
Earlier this week my worst fears came to a head. First, my husband shared that he no longer finds me attractive due to my weight (I probably gained around 15 pounds over the last year). I am actually already working on this and it was hard to hear but my biggest concern was that this felt like another “trickle truth”. Well- this is when he admitted that he has been struggling for a long time and wants a divorce. His reasons weren’t super concrete but included him not feeling like he is exploring life fully, feeling disconnected from his culture (I am American and we live here but he is from an Asian country).
As the conversation continued on he shared that he feels obligated to me and never really wanted to marry me. Within the first couple months of our relationship we experienced an accidental pregnancy. We decided to have an abortion. Neither of us regrets that. Around a month after we decided to elope. Honestly this was a long time ago and so different from our normal personalities that it is hard to even explain why other than that we loved each other. We had a public wedding around 2 years later and otherwise had a pretty normal relationship during those two years. What I learned last night is that he married me when we eloped out of obligation and wanted to end our relationship during those early years. I asked why he then went through with a public marriage and he said because he was still obligated to me. I never knew this or even suspected it an inkling until last night.
At the end of this conversation I told him that I not at a point where I can accept a divorce. Most of this stuff were things I was hearing for the first time with no warning. I asked him if he would try couples counseling for several months and then a trial separation. He agreed to both. He said he wants this to work but isn’t sure it will.
I have a hard time reconciling all of this with the relationship I thought I had. I love my husband and he always treated me with such kindness and love. He is a great person. We laugh together, share interests, and have a whole life together. We were supposed to be starting IVF for a genetic condition he carries (retrieval only, pregnancy not on a timeline) and were making a lot of other big and small plans for the future.
I guess I am looking for an outside, completely neutral, perspective. I want to fight for this marriage but I am having a hard time functioning and finding hope.
2 comments
Honestly, I think he needs IC. Sounds like he’s having an early mid-life crisis and is searching for reasons he’s unhappy. Unfortunately, you’re the person he spends most of his time with, so he jumping to the conclusion that it’s because of you.
I could be totally wrong here obviously. But IC (individual counseling) will help him process whatever it is he’s going through and hopefully get to the real root of the issue.
Now, I’m not saying your marriage will survive this, but what he’s saying sounds hasty in my opinion.
I feel for you. If my wife ever said the things he’s saying to you, I wouldn’t let the door hit me in the ass on the way out.
You can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do.
You can’t say that you refuse to accept a divorce, it’s not your decision. If he wants out he wants out.
And in all honesty a man says he’s not attracted to you for 15lbs? why the hell you would want to be married to him?
I don’t think you are doing any favors by trying to convince him that he needs to stay and work on things. Like you said you don’t trust him, but he’s being frank with you he wants out and you are trying to convince him otherwise. Stop trying to sway him, because you are adding confusion to it.