Spiraling
Preface:
- Beware: long, scattered post incoming.
- I'm not having suicidal thoughts. No matter what happens, life is still worth living.
I'm spiraling right now. I'm so confused and lost that I need to just put this out there, somewhere, anywhere. Here goes:
I've been happily married for coming up on 8 years next week. Our relationship has always been strong, we've always considered each other best friends, and I've always felt that our love was built on a rock-solid foundation.
Lately, my wife has been acting very distant. Enough so that it started ringing some alarm bells in my head. I took a personal inventory of several of the "disconnected" events and sat down with her last week to ask if we were okay. Her response was indifference. After a bit of a pause, I asked her if she still loved me, to which she responded "I don't know." Of course a lot more was said, but the summary is that I was completely floored and she was emotionless and indifferent.
I asked one thing: that we would set up marriage counseling sessions. She agreed. Our initial individual sessions start next week.
Since then, I've spent every single moment trying to examine myself and my flaws, where I've damaged our relationship in the past, and what I can do in the future to be a better person for her.
On Monday, I actually had some massive discoveries about myself, and blindspots in my emotional maturity. I discovered one little thing, which led to two or three more. By the end of this very exciting and motivating self-reflection session, I was PUMPED UP! For once in years, I felt like I've discovered this whole new region of growth in my brain.
I also had a session with my therapist that same day, in which I shared the recent events and my bout of epiphanies. She mentioned that "sometimes it takes a major life event to get people out of a rut and start a growth journey." I left the session feeling really good, really motivated, like there is a whole new and great future ahead of me and us.
I also came to a realizations about how I've hurt her in the past. The long and the short of it is that I'm terrible about empathizing and listening to feelings, and my insecurities put me into a defensive mode rather than a supportive, listening, partner mode.
A week later, and I'm still buzzing, reflecting, discovering more emotional epiphanies, and REALLY looking forward to marriage counseling. However, I've also forced myself to keep all of this to myself and just start showing that I am growing by taking actions. It hasn't been the time to share any of this with her, especially because I've said a lot of words in the past about changing that never seemed to materialize. I knew that the right time would come.
And then, last night happened.
"I had a session with my therapist today. I've made the decision that we need to divorce."
Commence spiraling.
The first thing I said was: "Please, I'm begging you, go through the marriage counseling sessions with me."
She said "I will go to marriage counseling, but I'm only doing this for you."
I then decided to share with her all of the personal discoveries I've made and the growth journey I'm embarking on, how I've realized that I hurt her in the past when she needed me most, and how I'm committed to growing and working on myself and our relationship because I love her and I made that vow to her when we married. I told her that I realized finally what this heavy feeling in my heart is: it is the physical manifestation of love, and I know that because it hurts so much, and if it wouldn't hurt if there wasn't love.
She said she went through a similar process of pain and grieving last year (there's some really deep and heavy stuff that went down, in short, she discovered that her father was not her biological father; she started the journey of meeting her new family and my response at the time came from insecurity and jealousy). She said that she was done processing those emotions and that she has moved on and is focusing on herself and our 3 year old son.
She said that she loves me and cares about me, she even held me and hugged me. But that made it hurt even more. I feel like I am being led on.
I went for a walk to clear my head, and when I got home, she asked if I was okay, and I said "No. But I'm treating this as a challenge. Your love has always come easy and I've never had to fight for it. For the first time, I am going to actually fight to earn your love."
I didn't sleep last night. I decided to go into the office this morning to knock some stuff out early so I could take a personal day. On the way out the door, I asked her to promise something to me: I said "when we go to marriage counseling, please don't do it for me. Please do it for us. We've gone through so much together, we made vows to each other when we married that we would stick together through the good and the bad. Please, let's just give it one last ditch effort." She said "Okay."
This morning, some questions have started popping into my head, uninvited: "how will custody of our 3 year old work?" "Will I be removed from his life?" "Who's going to get the house?" -- and I'm really trying to remove those thoughts from my mind right now because I don't want to even entertain the possibility at this point. These are questions I never in a million years I thought I would be asking myself.
Now I'm at a coffee shop, typing this message. I have an emergency appointment with my therapist in a few hours, although I'm not sure what that will solve at this point.
I am questioning the very core, foundational things I thought I knew about myself. I am confused and lost and heartbroken.
I'm also not really sure why I'm sharing this message with you all. Perhaps because it is therapeutic to type all of this out, and perhaps I trust this community.
I'm not sure if you're looking for advice, but my advice to you is to not focus on "winning" or "getting her back". I know that is not easy to apply here, but hear me out.
advice
When she agreed to go to couple's counseling, "for you" not "for us", I think you should have just let it stand there and accepted this as progress towards figuring out the status of your relationship. When you asked her to do it for "us", this kind of shoots yourself in the foot a few ways. 1. You are setting yourself up to imagine that this is going to turn everything around and that she has had a shift in thought 2. She possibly has closed off more, like, "ugh, fine I guess I will concede to this" after she clearly made a decision already that she would do it for you, and not us.I don't mean this to come across as "throwing it in your face" so to speak, but from your OP it sounds like you often skip right to problem solving:
(Please don't take my usage of your words as my usage of your words against you. I encourage you to keep sharing your feelings so you can be more aware of them/experience them.)
That is all speculation on my end. But I say this to you not to bring you further down, I really think it will help you (in the universal sense) as well as your hopes of reconciliation, if you approach it knowing you might not get reconciliation. I truly believe this, even though it's a very painful thought. Approach it with no expectation to "win" or "change her mind". Just show up and do what the therapist says.
Lastly, remind yourself that you cannot change other people's feelings, thoughts, etc. That is not possible to do. All you can do is be open minded/hearted to accept her back into your life if she so chooses to do.
I wish you the best, and hope you take care of yourself.
Thank you. You’ve nailed one of my recent epiphanies — jumping straight to problem solving — and have opened my eyes yet again as to how it manifests.
In my non-professional opinion, people jump to problem solving as a natural inclination, and then depending on what society you live in, we are praised HEAVILY for it. Mostly through work, but it is present everywhere. In the USA, we have a lot of emphasis on self-realization AND self- actuation! It's not really reasonable or sustainable, for a single person to do their entire lives in every aspect of life1.
All that is to say, you're probably the way you are through a lot of conditioning, and ofc genetics.
We are never taught to respect or experience our feelings, because we are told to be "rational" at all times. Which ignores the aspect of feelings not being rational or feelings not needing to be "understood" in a way that can be explained by words or other mediums. That is why they are feelings2.
For you, it sounds like it is totally new territory to realize that not all things can be solved, and not all things make sense. (Corollary, I'd like to mention that it can be very frustrating to go through therapy and feel it is slow/not working, because once you are told various things to "fix" you're like "yeah let me just do X,Y,Z and that will fix everything let's do it!" like it's exercise for beginners, but really there is no substitute for psychotherapy so a lot of it really is just "going through the motions" and time- this cannot be skipped really.)
I respect and applaud your self-realization and gumption/grit to work hard to change. I really hope you can find and study compassion so you will be able to practice it on yourself, and life.
You may find it helpful to do structured feeling/wants/needs searches. You do not have to buy a product to do these investigations, you can google things like "Feelings and Needs cards". I personally have had a lot of success using these cards.
It's hard to turn down the gas when you have been a driven person for such a long time. It will take you time to realize being patient is important, it will help you turn down the gas, and realize you can turn it up and down when you want. As a problem solver, know that this urge comes from the desire to help, so it's not like your desires to problem solve come from a bad place, they just need to be applied appropriately.
I can provide you more books/resources on breaking free from this mindset, but don't want to overwhelm you.
I can give you advice on this aspect of healing if you're interested, but also didn't want to overwhelm you.
I'm replying to you because it seems to fit best here, but this same reply could go to most of the other commenters.
I've just had the final epiphany.
It’s controlling behavior that I’ve been doing. I have finally come to understand what my wife was saying. Anytime she approached me with something that I didn’t agree with, I felt like I was losing control, and therefore rather than trying to listen and understand her feelings, I tried to change her feelings and change her mind so I could regain control. It probably happened in every single argument we had from the very beginning. She decided enough was enough when I tried to control her relationship with her biological family. I finally understand. I will keep working on myself and maintain a sliver of hope, but I think it’s time to come to terms and respect her decision.
She has been telling me that for years and I just didn’t listen. Instead, I tried to control the situation. “I’m not trying to control you. I’m just trying to do what’s best for us, or I'm just playing devil's advocate, or I'm just trying to think about this logically.”
Instead of listening to her feelings, and trying to understand how and why she felt that way, I tried to control the outcome for my own selfish reasons, probably rooted in insecurity and fear of discomfort or change.
What’s done is done and there is no going back. Now that I know, now that I see it crystal clear, I must work on it and grow from it. I can become a better person for myself and for my son. Hopefully he will never learn this toxic behavior if I can successfully overcome it. If it is genetic, or I’ve already instilled it in him, I must teach him how to overcome it himself, lest he make the same mistakes I made. That is my primary goal in life right now. Everything else is secondary.
I believe you. And I believe in you. Everything you said is most likely true.
I'm sorry this is your current life. I have hope that you will change. You seem to learn quickly and have high insight, when prompted to look. I hope you will be patient with yourself, while working on change. Once you "know" the solution you really want to rush it, but you can't, it takes its time1. It takes its path2.
I would advise keeping trauma treatment and grief treatment on your radar, though advise you maintain your current focus. It's good to narrow our scopes sometimes, otherwise you will be overwhelmed. I would recommend you consider group therapy as well (for yourself, for future selves like if you become a "single" father/co-parent). It is nice to consider these things now while you have some resources, so that when you're in the position to need them, you'll be able to execute. I stress not seriously investing time in these while you process and navigate your acute problems.
Regarding your future. I don't know if you'll find this helpful or not, discard if it isn't. I know someone whose parents divorced, when the kid was young, it was tumultuous for a long time. However, the kid had a really good relationship with the non-physical custody parent, and the parents actually still currently co-parent and have co-parented for a long time, still maintaining a genuine friendship. So, just know that if you end up somewhere you didn't expect, other people have done it before, and you can as well. Or make your own path. You will make it work.
:) Reach out whenever you need.
Do not forget that it took you years (however many years old you are) to become the way you are. "Undoing" who you are, is not fast or easy, it will take you time to undue or re-work your natural patterns and tendencies. Do not expect yourself to undo something that is the result of decades of conditioning and environmental influences.
You may get the sensation and ideas to "over-correct" who you currently are, and go all the way the other direction. "Now I won't do ANY problem solving, to show I am just listening". Which, counterintuitively, makes you over over correct the other way, "God damn it, that didn't work, my original self of being over controlling and over problem solving was the right idea" so you do the same thing, but sometimes even more intensely. I don't have a solution for this, I just wanted to bring your attention to it so you may realize it in yourself, if it happens to you. It will reduce suffering, IMO, by knowing it's a cycle/reaction to be expected.
Thank you, once again. I am grateful for your advice to a random stranger. I will read and reread it once more after I am not so emotionally drained.
I decided to read what I wrote above to her today. She agreed with everything I said, told me that she had been allowing it and enabling it for years, and she finally made the decision to move on. We talked and cried together for a long time. We are moving forward with the divorce and will continue to be friends with the goal of giving our child the best life possible.
I am tired and heartbroken, and I am prepared to enter into a long and painful grieving process. But at the same time, I am encouraged that I have uncovered a new area for growth in my life, and I will try my best to learn about it and apply it to my parenting.
These are the kinds of things that I don't have any natural understanding or experience with. I'm still discovering so many weird (to me) ways that I make things about me instead of respecting her feelings. I'll say it again and again... it's all just so confusing.
This is really good advice and in my opinion delivered extremely well.
Do you work in counseling?
/offtopic
Thank you for the compliment! I have considered becoming a therapist/counselor before, but alas, my current understanding is just from the years of therapy I myself have been in lol
I'm am very sorry that the two of you are experiencing this change in your relationship. In particular I am sorry for your loss. Divorce is difficult no matter the context. I'm also divorced, a lot of your story resonates with my experience; we did not have children so that is a factor we did not have to address. I can only begin to understand the feelings that context brings to this life change.
In these situations it's natural to want to fix things, do something, compromise, show that you are different. A reframing I propose is a couple things:
My ex and I had a pretty long tail after we separated and the divorce was processed of contact. It's a grief process and both of us demonstrated some interest in trying a relationship again at different points. For my partner, I think the loss of the actual friendship took the longest to process despite being the initiator of the separation. We still exchange holiday wishes, but as other partners entered our lives that distance slowly grew.
We're now both engaged (she might be married now idk). I think if either of us called or sent a text we'd respond to be sure the other person was okay. That time together and what we were to each other deserves that respected. But I'd rather be with who I am now, building a life and planning a family with my fiancé now than the path my ex and I were on back then. It wasn't bad, but a shadow of what is possible.
I understand, and I don't have any intention to try to "change her mind" or "make her fall back in love with me." I'm working on myself to become a better version of me, but I'm still holding onto a sliver of hope that... well... who knows anymore. This is all very confusing and challenging.
This is one of the things I am struggling with most right now. Apparently I am completely aloof or something, because I couldn’t imagine any other scenario than being with my wife and raising our child together. I have nothing to complain about relating to her and she makes me happy. So I’m just reeling a little bit right now. Like I said, it’s all very shocking and painful.
Hey man. You're going to be okay. I know it's hard to believe or think about when you're in the middle of it all. But no matter how bad the worst case scenario is, please believe that you can make it through to the other side. And trust me when I say that there is an other side to all this.
Seriously, regardless of how this turns out, you've already grown as a person. You've learned a lot about yourself and are taking the steps to improve. And that automatically puts you ahead of so many people who let themselves become a toxic ex.
So now you have the idea of a destination, start with getting yourself situated in the now. Lots of different techniques to do that. Meditation. Mantras. Exercise. I like to take stock and just make lists of all the people and things i care about and one sentenceabout how I want to feel about them.
Ive unpacked my spiraling as my brain trying to navigate to a point in the past and shorting out because theres no time machine available. Jumping back to the good times and then thinking about loosing it and just jumping back and forth. The tough thing to come to terms with is that there is no going back. Back to last year before the trauma with her dad. To 2018 when you got married. Back to when you first started dating and the magic was at its best. And you don't want to go back because you want to be a better person. And you don't want to get stuck in the idea that the best days are behind you because it leads to some regressive behaviours.
So when you've situated yourself and are up to it, start seriously considering where you can end up. Just you. Regardless of your wife and kid because it's not right to plan for other people. But just you. Do you want to spend more time with hobbies or friends or art or anything that is purely you. Something that you can do regardless if you reconcile fully with your wife today or she is gone tomorrow.
Because the second difficult thing to come to terms with is that while you very clearly love your family, you're all seperate people. Begging your wife to stay is not much better than demanding that she does that. She clearly considered herself without you and communicated that it is an option. That means it could happen, regardless of what you want. It's not a punishment. It's not a matter of what you could have done better. It's just a possible path forward you need to be ready for.
As for actually dealing with your wife, you probably know better than me how to approach this. You guys are outright cordial compared to most seperations I've seen. You seem like a person that really wants to do right by his family and I hope you see it though. DM me if you just need someone to chat to for a little bit.
Thank you. Sincerely.
It helps to get things out. Even if to nobody. I thank you for sharing, and am sorry that you and your family are having tough times.
How does she feel about the dad vs biodad situation? I don't mean to pry, and feel free not to share, but I feel there may be important context there.
My relationship is incredibly strong after 18 years, but there were two incredibly difficult periods that could have ended in divorce easily. The first was with the birth of our first, for about 6 months, as we adjusted to perpetual sleep deprivation. Then when our second child was born, for about 2 years as many of our parenting choices diverged as our first aged and we were under additional stress adjusting to raising another and all the challenges that entails. I tell you all of this to say: Having a kid changes things. It will highlight holes in a relationship more than anything else. The first 3 years of raising a baby to a preschooler is some of the most perpetually stressful. If you are both willing to put forth the effort, the relationship holes can be patched and things will get better when the worst of perpetual stress is lifted. It might not be enough, but it'll go a long way.
Skip this if you don't want to think about divorce more
Sometimes, things come down to "too little, too late.". Sometimes, it's really not you. Sometimes....people are just burnt out. You only have so much power to change things, as does she.
Another weird detail about my relationship: We will randomly discuss our hypothetical divorce periodically, so we can plan for how we could inflict least trauma on our kids. We have an elaborate plan revolving around the parents moving in and out when custody swaps instead of the kids.
If divorce does come to pass, never badmouth her in front of your kid. It will pay dividends later.
I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
The long and the short of it was that she discovered the news via 23andMe and had a strong desire to connect with her biological father. How I responded at the time was by, as others would say, going into problem solving mode... "I think you're moving too quickly", "I think you need to consider what kind of effects this will have on your other family members", "how can you love somebody you don't even know", etc.
In hindsight, everything I said and how I responded was downright rotten. I was jealous and insecure of losing a part of my relationship with her. Turns out I ended up manifesting that result by my actions.
What I should have done was simply show her that I'm there to support her if she needs it, pick up some slack with the toddler, and just simply show her love and happiness for this new chapter of her life.
We've been through a lot of shit together... a miscarriage (which we both came out stronger on the other end), the birth of our child, she helped guide me through the death of my best friend. And when this happened, I was selfish when I should have been there for her, by her side.
In that sense, I don't blame her at all for how she feels.
Reflecting on this a day later...
These comments have been sobering.
I find myself going through a cycle of stages of grief, from regret, to anger, to feeling motivated to change, back to sorrow, etc. The hardest thing is forcing myself not to act impulsively. I've settled on my current posture, which is: I am not trying to fix things, and any attempts will only further alienate us. Instead, I'm going to leave that part to the marriage counselor. Right now, I'm focusing on being a good dad and working on personal growth.
I'm going to continue going to therapy, build a good playlist, go for some long, long runs, and continue my journey of emotional growth. All of this won't change the fact that my heart is shattered, but maybe they will be the first steps in piecing it back together.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the old viral video it's not about the nail but what you're describing is not an uncommon problem that happens between two different kinds of venting. When some people vent, they are looking for emotional support. Some are looking for solutions. These mismatches do often happen along gender lines, but being aware that certain behaviors and emotions can come from different places can really help to frame how to approach conversations, and even just starting your reply with "are you looking for support or suggestions" can head off a lot of issues that can happen from this mismatch in purpose.
At a high level, there's a lot of gender dynamics that fall into this as well. Men are trained, from a young age, to identify and offer solutions to problems. They get a lot of reinforcement for this behavior. Not only do they get reinforcement for this behavior, but they are often actively chastised for trying to do relationship management or offering emotional support that's not stoic in nature - they may be teased and called gay or not manly if they do this. For women, it's the opposite - they're taught how to manage the emotions of those around them, and offered positive reinforcement for doing so. Offering solutions or taking action often gets them labeled as bossy or bitchy and is negatively reinforced.
Because of these pressures, it's unfortunately rather common for heterosexual relationships to experience the exact problem you're describing - the woman is looking for emotional support and the man tries to offer solutions instead. This can be additionally triggering if it feels controlling or patronizing in any way. Just like telling someone who tells you they are struggling with weight to diet, many of the solutions the man has to offer are ones the woman has already attempted. After all, when there are clear and obvious solutions, hope and other emotions can prevent us from needing to vent or feeling frustrated. If someone comes to vent to you, they've likely already tried many of the solutions you can think of and are getting exhausted and in need of an emotional recharge. In many cases she may have already work-shopped this extensively (and even received extensive emotional support) from other women in her inner circle.
You're right to realize that it's not your job to fix things and it's also a difficult place to be in as a man because that's what society says you're most useful for. To be perfectly clear, you're already fixing things by doing this introspection and by giving your wife space. I'm sure it's dreadful to think of a life without her, or to even let go a little when you're certain there's things you can do to repair the relationship, but sometimes the best solution and the best fix is to stick to your principles and to respect your wife and her wishes. The more you show her that you can do so, the more the relationship will be repaired. And if it can't ever be fully repaired to how it was before, you can always be a better dad and a better person, and recognizing that is no small feat. You sound like a great person, and I really hope things work out well for you.
Yeah, this is how it's been for me too. I think it's normal to bounce back and forth through a lot of feelings in a time like this. Over time things will hopefully stabilize (they already have for me quite a bit).
It sounds like it’s tough for you, but that you are learning and keeping moving forward. I probably don’t have the best advice as I only got married two days ago, but the only thing I can really add is to take the self improvement and healing process slowly. I know that once you can see what you’ve been doing wrong, you want to change everything all at once and fix it, but changing your behavior only fixes the cause of the issue. If your wife has been hurt, changing your behavior only stops it from getting worse, but it doesn’t make the existing hurt go away.
Keep working on yourself because it will be important whether you two are together or not, but most importantly, this is about how your actions have hurt her. Don’t make it about your healing process, make it about hers.
I am so very, very sorry that you’re in this situation right now. I can’t even begin to imagine how anxious you must feel.
This year, my wife and I will celebrate eight years of marriage ourselves.
Ironically, because I have been deeply interested in the science of relationships, I’ve started reading yet another book about that topic two days ago, not because my marriage needs it, but because I just like to learn more about how to be a good partner.
The book’s title is The Man's Guide to Women by John Gottmann, PhD.
I’ve read quite a bit of it already. It’s solid. I highly recommend it. I can recommend you more books later if you’d like. I can imagine that your mind isn’t quite in that space yet, but maybe this would help you to distract yourself a bit, or maybe it’s worth looking into such reading once things have calmed down a little.
I do sincerely hope that your marriage recovers somehow.
In these last few years, both from giving dating and marriage advice online since 2016, and from reading a lot of books on these subjects, I have arrived at a conclusion about why so many long-term relationships and marriages fail.
Please don’t take this as criticism or an accusation. It’s just an observation. I also think that my conclusion somewhat aligns with what you said about how you have related to your wife in the past.
Simply put, I think that most people take too much from their partners, and give too little in return. If both parties focus on “outgiving” the other, then they will always also have their own needs met. That’s one aspect.
Another aspect, related to this one, is that, as the years roll by, couples begin to take each other for granted. They lose the habit of being sweet, and kind, and patient with each other, and of showing appreciation and saying “I love you” to one another. It becomes difficult to return to that habit once one has lost it. It requires one to set aside one’s pride at first.
Please take a deep breath.
Your marriage can be saved. I believe that. I believe that if you don’t pressure your wife, but keep showing up, and keep demonstrating to her that you’re serious about becoming a better husband, then maybe she’ll change her mind. Hopefully, she will also look inside and see where she could have maybe done better. It takes two to tango.
But if that doesn’t happen, and she moves forward with the divorce, then don’t despair. Your life will not be over. You will not lose your child. Things will get complicated, yes, but you two will find solutions and compromises, like adults. There is no need to have an ugly fight over a separation. You will also not “die” alone. Believe that you have the inner strength to remain calm and take the challenges that life throws at you, one at a time. Don’t indulge in negative thoughts. They’re often not real or exaggerated.
Also, find friends and loved ones who will stand by you and support you through this difficult time. Resist the urge to isolate yourself.
You’ll get through this. One way or another.
I wish you, your wife, and your child the very best of luck.
I downloaded the audiobook yesterday and started listening. Chapter 1 was like an exact mirror replica of how I've been (and should have been) acting in our relationship. I didn't get any further because things are very raw. However, I appreciate the suggestion. I can see value in the advice in this book regardless of my immediate outcome.
I'm definitely mining the comments here for advice that applies to my own situation. For parity, here's a link to the thread I made on my own divorce earlier this year. Unfortunately I don't really have much advice for you that others haven't already been given, but hopefully someone else there has something that applies to you even though my situation isn't the same as yours.
I have found divorce to be a good time for self-improvement, even without hope of my wife coming back, so I definitely think focusing on becoming better is good no matter how your marriage goes. I also think the practical side of divorce has been the hardest for me to cope with -- even without a house or kids, in my case, which would have definitely further complicated it. So even though you hope to save your marriage, I do recommend starting early when it comes to finding resources for that side of things, because it'll suck a lot more the less time you have to sort it out.
I have neither experience nor knowledge in this area so no advice to give. I just wanted to say my heart goes out to you and I wish you the best of luck.
This is a short response so please note that I’m a stranger on the internet who wishes you the best but I’m not an expert.
But based on your post I get a sense you have a codependent relationship. Please learn about codependency and about how can create unhappiness for both parties. Maybe realizing that will help your relationship. If not, it may help you handle the end of this one and have better future ones.
It’s good that you are working on yourself but you need to do it to make yourself healthier in general and not just to “fix” a relationship for someone else.
I wish you and your family well.