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Marriage separation

Mancity
Community Member

Hi all, My wife of 20 years moved out of the family home 3 months ago to go stay with one of her female friends. It was a fairly insignificant reason but it was a case of the straw that broke the camels back. I have had long term anxiety and social shyness. My wife over the years showed me lots of love and affection and totally adored me but I never really fully believed or understood it. I am was fairly paranoid throughout that deep down somewhere that she didn't really want me and wanted someone else but I do recognise that it was paranoia and that she just wanted to love me and for me to love her back. I always found my emotions difficult to deal with and could never really open up with her and probably did take her for granted over the years and wasn't particularly nice to her and did accuse her of things( infidelity) but she always stood by me. Things changed for me a couple of years ago when I was introduced to mindfulness and I had a real perception shift I allowed love into my heart and in turn was able to love it felt so amazing, but ironically at that time my wife started to withdraw her emotions from me and I couldn't understand it but in her eyes she saw it maybe she had been living with a totally different person than what she thought. But for me I found an amazing person I had been living with all this time but had not really appreciated and my love for her went to a new level. So here I'm writing this now with tears in my eyes having possibly lost one of the most amazing women in the world. She comes round to the house a couple of times a week and helps with some housework and we'll have dinner together and we did yoga together last week and we have a trip to the movies planned for next week so I'm not totally without hope but I only feel ok when I think my marriage might be rescued, I am seeing a counsellor to talk things through which is a help, I know this a ridiculously long post and thanks for reading it all but as you know how helpful it is to just get things off your chest especially by writing it down

10 Replies 10

Spikeo
Community Member

Im not sure exactly but other events i can pinpoint was 3-4 months that i was gone for. I know i told her and others that i didnt know if i was going to go back but cant recall if i said either a definite yes or no to her. I felt like i was absolutely not going back quite a few times and struggled severely mentally, simply at the fact i had to make a decision. My therapist reassured me that i didnt have to jump at a decision and had time to make the right decision.

I hope for you that shes not planning on letting you down gently. As hard as it could be, maybe you're better of knowing the truth? Prolonging the uncertainty isnt healthy for you either.

Your story is a bit different. Generally people on here want their partners to get help but they wont. You successfully got on top of your illness but then your wife struggled. (So sorry if this is rubbing salt into the wound for you)

Has she given you a reason why she wont come back? Since leaving i mean. Have you both sat down in a calm setting and had a proper conversation about it? Without arguing of course.