should I tell my wife about this?

[confusio]

I recently began to understand why I married my wife. I married her because I thought I won't find anyone else ever. I married her because I hoped that this will fix all of my problems. We dated for about 2 weeks before we moved together. This never seemed strange to me but now it does. I never had the guts to separate from her. Now we have been married for 12 years and I feel she needs to know that I was never in love with her. I don't even know whether I love her right now or for that matter whether I love anyone at (including myself)!

I started to make her responsible for all my failures in life and while I know this is not true, I see her as part of my old, screwed up personality. Now that I have decided to turn my life around I feel I have to cut my old life completely off.

Any thoughts?

[GeeCee]

Confusio

 

Well I am sorry, I do not want to speak out of turn here and I will phrase my words as carefully as I can, but I do have a lot of thoughts.

 

So, somehow or other, you have 'found' yourself and decided that you never loved your wife and you would like to turn yourself around and rid yourself of your old life. Any self-improvement that one undertakes is to be highly commended, but please let us remember that you wife is a person who has dedicated a large proportion of her adult life to you and a marriage. What can you possible gain by telling her that it was all based on nothing?

 

By all means, get on with your life, leave your marriage, do whatever you need to do, but please don't crush someone else in the process. Whether you loved your wife or not, is irrelevant now. In bettering yourself, I can see no reason for you to trample on someone elses possible dreams and desires.

 

Good luck.

 

G xx

[Mar]

I think you need to separate your wife from what you feel internally, first of all. Think about your marriage, and why you were attracted to her in the first place. She had to have something that you didn't find anywhere else; some special thing about her that made you look twice and then several times more, beyond feeling no one else was going to love you.

 

I think it's great that you want to work on yourself and "remake" yourself-I did it myself and am proud of who I am now. But I would NEVER cast aside those few people who were there for me and stood by me as I was an impossible wreck floundering my way through figuring it all out.

 

Think about what you and your wife have shared. How she's listened to you, and supported you, and loved you. Yes, after 12 years the marriage might seem slightly boring, but that's to be expected in any relationship. But she's still with you and you with her, and she's been loyal to you this whole time. If she didn't love you, she wouldn't have done so.

 

If you're confused about how you feel, how about taking her somewhere romantic, whether on a trip, cruise, to the beach, to a romantic dinner, a sunset drive, whatever, and put a wee bit of effort into bringing back that spark?

 

I can tell you right now that moving in with her after 2 weeks is NOT a bad thing, and I've got you beat. I met my guy and moved in with him a week later. And yes, we're still together 3 years later. So that has nothing to do with the marriage itself.

 

The whole idea of being "in love" with someone is actually rare, I think. And that "in love" feeling fades regardless. If you're left just LOVING someone for who they are and what they've given you emotionally, you're far better off. So don't get sucked into this whole image of being "in love" with someone, and feeling the relationship isn't what you want if you don't feel that "in love" feeling. It's about as rare as........well, something extremely rare, and there are few people who feel it.

 

If you feel that your wife is your partner, who you can share anything with, and who can contribute to who you want to become, you're ahead of the game and should NEVER throw that away, because many, many people never find that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting rid of the things you don't want in your life that you feel aren't making a positive contribution, but don't toss her away just because you think you should start COMPLETELY from scratch!

 

Mar

[Daisy20]

You said that you have never loved your wife, but love is a choice. Love is also not just an emotion. Love is the way you treat your wife, the way you listen to her, the way you look at her, the way she looks at you, and the life you have shared. Love is looking at her and knowing exactly what she is thinking and feeling. Think about what you love about her. There has to be at least a few things that you love about her and build on that. I can't believe that you could spend 12 years with someone and not love one thing about them. You may have never been "in love" with your wife, but that does not mean that you will never be "in love" with her. It also does not mean that you have never loved her or will never love her. Take some time to try loving her before you absolutely break her heart and turn her life upside down.

[Celadon]

Telling your wife you've basically used her for 12+ years would be cruel.

 

I understand you don't want to be living a lie, but I urge you to not go jumping off the deep end. Why? Because your wife is involved in your life, too, and she deserves some respect.

 

You mentioned that don't know whether you love yourself. So why not start there? Start learning to love yourself, little by little. Slow that treadmill you've been running on (figuratively speaking) and pay attention to your needs. Treat yourself to things that would be good for you (I'm not talking indulgences here, but good stuff -- like getting in shape, etc.). Figure out what you believe in.

 

If you feel you need some sort of break, take a vacation alone in order to put to rest the "old you." Forgive yourself for what you've done and how you've led your life up till now. Then start figuring out who this new self is.

 

You may need to separate from your wife for awhile, but I encourage you not to burn bridges with the person who has been loyal to you, and loved you, for so long.

[Dawn222]

I am a wife and I have recently gone through the scare of my life. My husband wasn't sure if he loved me anymore and wasn't sure what he wanted. If this is truley how you feel, and know for sure that you no longer want to be with her and are not in love with her then, As a wife, and my recent experience, I think you need to tell your wife immediately. She deserves to know. Stop wasting her time, she deserves to be happy as much as you do and all this is doing is delaying the hurt and pain that you both are going to go through eventually. More for her because you have already been dealing with these feelings and it sounds like this is going to come as a shock to her. You probably don't want to hurt her, and hate the thought of all the tension and fighting and crying that is about to come. But it has to be done. Hey, maybe you will find out that she feels the same way about you. Who knows what the outcome will be, but you have to be truthfull and honest about your feelings, not only is it not fair to her but it is definitely not healthy to be living the way you are now and dealing with these feelings. If you are not sure, then I recommend you go to a councelor and discuss how you feel. Maybe she can help you sort things out before you say something you will regret....Good luck and I will be waiting to hear how things went.

 

p.s. It isn't going to be easy, but you both need to be happy. Life is too short.

[RooRoo]

A) everything Daisy said, I agree with.

B) If you were so desperate you married someone you were not 'in love' with, what is different now? I will do you the favour of assuming you married this woman in good faith, and there is no reason to suppose she did't marry you in good faith so what is your problem? Hello? You are married. You have been married for 12 years. So you don't have a teenage crush on your wife. Heavens my heart just bleeds. Get over yourself for heaven's sake before you do more damage to yourself, let alone your wife, than you can even imagine. Stop for a second being so self indulgent and think about how you can make her happy. Don't be so pathetic.