My (F34) relationship with my husband (M35) has deteriorated, and he wants to go to marriage therapy. We have two young girls (5 and 3), and have built a family together. Over the last few years, he has become depressed, grumpy and angry. I have fallen out of love with the person he has become, but our relationship has been mostly amicable.
I have asked him to get therapy to help himself and also with his relationship with our children. He wants to make it couples therapy to fix our marriage as well. I think I’m done though. We have no other family close, and so I just want to be the best mom to our girls. I don’t really want to be in a relationship with him anymore. I know I shouldn’t stay with someone just “for the children” but I’m also worried of what a messy divorce situation might do to the girls long term. They don’t know we are having any difficulties as we don’t discuss it in front of them at all, and are still a united front in terms of parenting.
8 comments
Couples therapy isn’t necessarily to save the relationship through it you can find out if there is anything salvageable and if not how to move forward amicably. Though like most therapy its only helpful if you really work at it.
It sounds like you desperately need couples therapy to find a way forward with this. Whether that’s together or apart. Your children will be affected by seeing you in a marriage without love and with a depressed and grumpy dad. Divorce might be a better option for them.
I think it would be worth investing in individual therapy for you and your husband as well as couples therapy before completely deciding to call it quits. I agree, you shouldn’t stay just for the kids but if you do divorce you also don’t want it to be messy because of anger. If therapy can’t help salvage the marriage, maybe at the very least it can help you both be friendly so you can share custody and co-parent in a healthy manner.
I mean…. You don’t. No. Perhaps mediation but therapy? No. In my experience by the time a woman is done, she’s properly done. She’s thought it though, she’s voiced her needs, she’s given and given and relentlessly tried.
Men often are not ready to change until they realise their wife is done. It’s too late by then. This is a big difference between the two sexes (it’s a generalisation but it’s fitting for most)
You don’t need therapy. You know the problems, you also have probably considered what you could have done better and acknowledge it but just don’t have that kind of energy anymore. I know how this goes, I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.
Mediation is extremely important though. I’ve also found the younger the kids are in divorce the better. Watching their parents split and understanding it… holding onto “the good times” (even if it’s just their perception) can be rough on kids.
It’s better to bite the bullet.
Have you asked why he’s become so depressed and angry? The man you loved is still there but has got lost.
Men often feel like they are not allowed to express their feelings, especially to their partner. The arrival of children, and the transition from his wife, to the child’s mother, can be a stressful and confusing time for men. He is no longer your priority and men can feel abandoned by their partners, especially as the one thing makes you closer, sex and intimacy, is often curtailed, if not stopped completely, by the arrival of children. I suspect that this will be the root cause of the change in him.
He’s your husband. The father of your children. Do this one thing. Go to the couples therapy. You may learn something and you may get the man you married back.
You don’t have to participate if you do not want to.
However, if you meet his request of going to couples counseling with “I’d rather just get divorced, well not really actually because of the kids” its not going to go well.
You’re only giving him two options: stay in the relationship with someone who isn’t as committed to it and doesn’t want to be involved just to save face for your kids OR to be the “bad guy and get the divorce that you actually want. You want to get out of this relationship but you want him to pull the trigger.
You’re worried about what a divorce might do to the children long term – what about what staying in a non-functioning relationship will do to them long term? They’re young right now but if you think they don’t pick up on the state of your relationship you’d be dead wrong.
Staying in a relationship you don’t want to be in that will eventually become more resentful and more outwardly negative is only going to teach your kids that it sucks to suck but you made a decision you have to stick with it. It will teach them that they should forgo their own happiness for their partner. Not to mention what the knock on effects of you being in a poor relationship (fighting, yelling, becoming distant or resentful) might have on the kids. Getting divorced on the other hand teaches them that you can make tough decisions that are ultimately right for you and your family even if they hurt someone else. It teaches them to protect themselves and prioritize their feelings over others.
You might be able to co-parent as a united front now but that is going to change if you stay in this relationship but refuse to participate in it.
Why don’t you frame it as being open to possibly going to couples therapy in the future, but not until he has addressed (insert SPECIFIC problem here).
What he needs is the help of a PSYCHOLOGIST, which is specialist medical help. What he wants is a therapist – which is any idiot who wants to give themself that title.
Don’t make any decisions. Once he has healed somewhat with the help of a psychologist, then re-visit your opinion. There’s a good chance that your feelings will change as he heals, and you don’t want to cut off your options when you don’t have to.
Depend on your commitment. Are you committed to a marriage for life and willing to weather the storms as they come? Or are you only in it until it’s not working for you?
I believe you need to understand your position and what you are willing to do before you make a decision. It’s bad now, but you have a partner that has taken initiative and is willing to work though things with you. That is not something to throw away lightly.
Whatever your decision, please make it with as much love for everyone that you can.