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First some background then a quick question: My wife decided she needed some space after she has been talking about breaking up. We have been together for 12 years, and married for 5, no kids. She moved out and in with a friend about 4 days ago. She stopped by 2 days ago to get some more clothes for her work week, but only took 2 small suitcases. She still texts me, and suggested we go back to therapy but in her opinion, it might be too late. Before I got to this website, I asked her if we could do date night once a week, and she said she was thinking the same thing. We have not yet gone out.
Question: Should I start the No Contact now, or wait until if/when things get worse and she actually gets an apartment and moves out completly?
@Groggster
This is NOT a no contact situation. She’s open to trying to work things out and she even suggested going back to therapy. Perhaps she said it might be too late because you didn’t show any improvements in the way you treated her. You both have needs and desires and you both have to try and meet them. Respectful interactions and compromise are necessary in a marriage or any sort of relationship. You should continue to talk with her and try not to think ahead. Take it one day at a time. She has her reasons for moving out and wanting space, but you shouldn’t ignore her .. You need to respond to her texts or calls etc.. Just don’t bombard her with too many contacts. At some point you two need to discuss the problems and talk about changes needed so as to make each other happy and avoid divorce.
Good luck:)We had talked about a date night, and going to therapy, but now she tells me over messages that she doesn’t want to go out with me and doesn’t think therapy would lead us anywhere. I feel like I got hit by a bus.
I am trying to avoid the “Deadly Mistakes”, but what should i respond to that?
@Groggster
Actually I guess a “date night” is premature and inappropriate at this time. The focus should be trying to work through all the problems together. Why does she think therapy wouldn’t lead anywhere? There must have been serious problems for her to take the drastic step of moving out. Why didn’t therapy help before? In order for therapy to be effective, you both have to have a desire to make the marriage work. You have to listen to the therapist, take the advice, and apply it. Were you making positive changes? I think your response to her message depends on the answers to these questions.So I guess some details are in order. I will include what may or may not be relevant, because at this point, I’m so confused and hurt that I can’t tell which way is up. Her main complaint about me is that I was not “weak” enough. I take that to mean that maybe I was not open enough, emotionally, for her. We have had this conversation for about a year, but things always looked okay in the end. We did go to 2 couples therapy sessions with her therapist. One session before and one session after she told me “I don’t love you anymore.” We stopped going to therapy because she had found a job and could no longer go during the day. We stayed together for another week, and things were looking up….so I thought. I was making an effort to be more emotionally open and available, and we had good moments, still had sex, laughs etc. About a week later, she had a particularly rough day at work, so I made her dinner, and we talked. She then told me that “I just can’t do this anymore. I need to leave.” She packed up and moved out the next day.
She also is depressed and cites that our relationship is the source of that depression. Her depression is noticeably worse since she has stopped her anti-depressants, and stopped therapy. I had minimal text conversations with her for about a week, and she messages me a couple days ago and asked me if she could stop by. She came to the house and told me that she is struggling, something is wrong with her and she is going to go back on anti-depressants, and go to a therapist. She also told me that she would understand if I saw someone else, but asked me to tell her if I had sex with someone else (at this she started to cry, so I assume she still cares for me). I told her that I was not planning on seeing other women. I have been messaging her positive messages yesterday and today, and that is when I decided to ask her out this weekend on a fun easy date. Her response was “I thought about it… The date, the therapy…I don’t think it is a good idea. I don’t think it would lead us anywhere”.Now, I am not 100% innocent in all of this. I could have been emotionally more available, and maybe more spontaneous and interesting. We moved here about a year ago, and I still don’t have too many friends (actually none). It is hard to make friends at 39yrs old when you work from home, but I have been trying with martial arts, and meetups. I may have also laid some guilt on her when she was leaving. I told her that she would regret her decision and I told her that her depression was within herself, not caused by our relationship, and she is getting the two confused. While I do believe that, I probably should not have said it so plainly to her.
@Groggster
If you had several conversations about not being “weak” enough, it seems you would know exactly what she meant. One thing I know about most women is they want lots of affection, as in frequent hugs, kisses, hand holding etc.. They want compliments and want to hear “I love you” often. It’s rather vague to me what you mean by not being emotionally open enough? Depression, whatever the cause can cloud feelings and affect normal thoughts and decisions. I’m glad she’s going back on the medications and going to see a therapist. Since in her mind, you are part of the cause of her depression (whether it’s true or not), you could ask her if you to accompany her on the visits to the therapist. Tell her you love her very much and will do anything to resolve your issues together. I don’t know if the 2 therapy sessions you had were “couples therapy” or what, but maybe seeing a good therapist can help with both her depression and the marital issues. I’m glad to hear you’ve been sending positive messages, but maybe don’t send too many. Give her some time to calm down and think more rationally if possible. Later on when she’s more stable, would be a good time to go on a fun date:) Glad to hear you’re trying to make more friends. Maybe get friendly with some neighbors or people at church (if you attend). Wish you the best and keep us posted, ok?Honestly, to me it also sounds like her depression is clouding her feelings about everything. Specifically, you mentioned she had a bad day at work and then ended up saying “I just can’t do this anymore”. Instead of that being related to a bad day with your relationship, her work seems to have triggered it.
She went off anti-depressants and therapy… was there a medical reason for it or did she just doesn’t want to do it anymore? Now she has changed her mind and is going back on them.
She told you she is struggling and that something is wrong with her. You said you could have been more available and interesting. It sounds like she might be looking for a way out of her depression and started thinking you were the source of it. And given what you wrote, to me it doesn’t seem like her relationship with you was any kind of cause of the depression. Although partners should keep doing things to maintain interest, it takes two people to do that. It isn’t the responsibility of just one of them.
I don’t think no contact is an answer for this. You were together for 12 years. That’s a long time. She said she is struggling.
I can’t really make a judgment on what specifically to do. I can tell you one story.
I had a friend who was very close to me commit suicide last year. He was suffering from depression, I had known him over 10 years and had no idea he suffered from depression at all. He had a family and 2 kids. It was a complete shock to many of the people who knew him but not all of them. Specifically, his immediate family knew he had been suffering from depression for some time but thought he was getting better. I’ve never really suffered from depression myself so I had no context to understand what he went through and still don’t. I just know it must have been pretty bad to make that final decision he made. His life was good, he had no issues other than his depression. It wasn’t like his life had fallen apart or something terrible had happened that triggered his issues.
Give what happened to my friend, I take hearing about depression very seriously. Your wife sounds like she is having problems, isn’t sure what to do to solve them and is trying different things to resolve her problems. I wouldn’t advise going no-contact at this time, I wouldn’t advise pushing her too much. Depression is an illness and she might be sick and need support.
My issue is: I don’t feel confident giving any advice except that I think going full on no-contact is not a good idea in this situation. Other than that, I would worry about any advice I might try to give.
I don’t understand what having depression to that degree is like and I don’t know what is best to help resolve it. I just know it can be extremely serious. I guess I could give one piece of advice and that would be to talk to her doctor or someone else who knows more about depression and what might be going on with her given your situation.
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