A Reader Writes…
I have finished reading your book, ILYBINILWY. In fact I received those very words 3 months ago to the day. I found a lot of insightful information in your book. And it’s helped me learn quite a few things about myself and relationships in general.
In particular I’ve learned that we speak different love languages, and also that we have been stuck in a loving regards relationship for a long time. After some personal counselling and lots of reading, I’ve learned that my behaviour is and probably always has been to treat my marriage this way. And I’ve learned that I have inherited this undesirable behaviour through watching my parents marriage.
My wife and I have been married for 5 years, tomorrow in fact. We have been together for 15 years. I’m 32, and she’s 31, so as you can see we were very young when we started dating. I personally haven’t had too many opportunities, to learn of, and work on correcting my relational attitudes before or relationship really developed.
I guess my question to you would be, how can I help my wife see that we can come out of this crisis together and better than when we went into it? I must admit that we have had similar problems before. Probably 3 different conversations in the past. Not the exact same conversations but looking back they probably all meant the same thing. I do blame myself for not understanding what she was trying to tell me I’m the past. But at the same time if she hadn’t phrased her feelings, thoughts the way she did this time, I probably would have made and said the same mistakes that I always have.
I guess in my mind, I’ve learned to look at this as a huge learning and personal growth experience. The big problem now is, due to my past reactions to this, I feel ad though she has all but checked out. We don’t fight, we don’t really argue. We can talk about anything, except our relationship. We have begun to become very good friends again, but I’m worried that she may become complacent with just that. I love her very deeply, and can’t imagine my life without her.
How can I help her overcome seeing past my previous mistakes, and really want to get back to loving attachment? ( I hope I got the terms right, ie, loving regards/ attachment). Thanks in advance for your time and wisdom.
Andrew Replies…
I know that it’s frustrating when you can see something clearly – ie: this crisis could be the making of us – but your partner is less convinced. You spend all your energy trying to find the magic formula, appealing to higher powers (like a book) and returning to it over and over again. So my reply might come as a shock. Don’t bother convincing her that things can get better, just get down to the everyday business of making it happen!
So how could you do this? Next time, she shrugs or says ‘it doesn’t matter’ or that you sense that something is wrong – don’t let it drop. Ask her what does that sigh mean? Stay with the problem. If she’s upset or worried about hurting you, tell her that you don’t mind. It’s better to be honest and get problems out onto the surface than burying it under politeness and niceness.
Start with little things, day-to-day household stuff, and work up from there. Learn about assertiveness (I have a chapter in ‘Resolve your differences’) and if talking about your relationship is difficult try Appreciative Inquiry (where you focus on what’s right and build from there) which I cover in ‘Help your partner say yes’.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t believe in a happy ending, she will slowly begin to see the proof – small step by small step – in your relationship today.
Good luck.
BB says
I feel in a bit of the same position as the original poster! I’m struggling to work out practically what I can do next.
My partner of 20 years broke the ILYB bombshell nearly 2 months ago. To add to my shock, almost 2 years ago to the day he told me ILYB, he’d planned a very romantic proposal and we got married 18 months ago. I feel I’ve been duped and had a sham wedding; he insists his feelings were genuine at that time. He felt ILYB for about 8 months before the confession. We are both mid 30s, “childhood sweethearts”, no children.
I read your book ILYB… and everything felt so clear. I mentally said “yep!” to nearly everything; I’m so angry at myself and filled with regret. Both passive people pleasers, don’t argue, lack of time together, lack of intimacy…all seemingly good reasons for each at the time so why argue…..I subsequently got My Husband Doesn’t Love Me… I’ve tried to keep calm, listen and not pressurise, and we have had some good conversations (also tried to keep lots of normal stuff so only a few relationship discussions). He says no one else is involved.
He sees absolutely no way of changing his lack of feeling and wants to end the relationship. He says he cannot explain it and does not want to rip the past apart, so it is better to split up, he wants me to “find someone who can love me the way I should be loved.” Whilst he conceptually gets feelings can change and there are good reasons to explain why his feelings changed, it clearly doesn’t resonate.
Any attempt by me to discuss my part in what has gone wrong and what could change, or talking about what I’m doing to look at my life differently, gets him even more upset. He says it’s his feeling, he owns it and I shouldn’t have to do anything as I don’t deserve this and I’m making him feel even worse by talking about my 50/50. I then hear about all my wonderful qualities and how special I am to him and how he will always be there for me as a friend! He says he will feel guilt for the rest of his life and shame, and that “everyone” will condemn him for splitting up. He is in terrible pain I know and he’s been very physically ill since telling me this. I feel compassion but so angry (which gets scribbled in my diary!). What hurts the most is he sees no other way forward but to leave.
He’s examining lots of other things in his life but insists he is not having a mid life crisis (I’ve been careful not to accuse him of one). He says that none of this is linked to his change of feelings in the relationship. He says he’s realised through his work as a therapist that he helps everyone else be happy but him (I know he’s always had a struggle with the happiness concept). He says he’s spent too many years telling himself to think certain ways, not attending to his needs and putting himself last and me first – to the point he didn’t even know he did want anything different than what he was doing. He says he is sick of feeling “dead” and wants to live with feelings, as he is an emotional person, without “stupid” rules, and feel alive as he won’t live forever. He has mentioned he thinks he’d like to be a father. This particularly hurts as I have always been very open that I have never yet woken up wanting children (but open to it if I did). We have discussed this in the past, he was never keen for kids and seemed happy with that. He says he’s not previously acknowledged the kids thought to himself.
He has revived business ideas – we were both brought up with family expectations that we weren’t “the 9-5 norm” and he’s always been entrepreneurial in spirit which is one of the qualities in him I found so attractive. I have supported him but I think in recent years I haven’t had the “hopes and dreams” conversations as we used to and perhaps he feels like I’ve squished his dreams and have become ground down in office work drudgery. I have said I’d like to support him, as we work well together.
When he first said ILYB and I was less (outwardly) calm and pressed for explanations, he did reluctantly mention other reasons but said they all felt pathetic and he couldn’t attribute them to such a sea change in feelings. Lack of physical intimacy (he’s since said that’s not that important to him!), little time together with me prioritising work, no spontaneity, too many rules, not buying into his dreams and no passion, differing view on money (me cautious, him ‘live for now’). Not a word said about these previously. I have reflected and fully apologised for my part in these. He said he recognised it must have taken a lot of thought for my apology but wanted to me to talk more about myself and my needs.
He’s right about these issues. I haven’t until now realised how unhappy some of this has made me feel too (it was exhausting always being placed in charge for holidays, weekends etc and I recognise I was starting to self-medicate with alcohol which I’ve stopped). We have acknowledged we are both people pleasers and never argue and I have said we need to be more assertive and stop making assumptions. There aren’t many opportunities to demonstrate this e.g. we have a cleaner and no kids so few household bits to practice arguing about! We have begun to thank each other more for some little bits around the house.
He has VERY reluctantly agreed to couples counselling but only as I said it may help me (he worries he’s stringing me along and has promised he can’t be dishonest with me any more about his feelings). He won’t seek any help himself. He says he is desperate for his own space, he’ll rent somewhere to give me time to work out what to do with the house and he wants no share of any money. In his mind he’s gone, it’s over for good and he’s run out of explanations.
I want to be generous and encourage him to have this “space.” But I’m terrified that he will feel much better as he won’t have the everyday reminder of the guilt he’s dealing himself, so will think his bad feeling was all down to the relationship and what a good thing he left it. He does say he’s happy to meet up (he seemed surprised at the idea we wouldn’t!) and he’s happy to keep talking. I worry we will just become friends.
I feel very stuck: I see so clearly now how we have got to ILYB but I also see so clearly how we could be amazing together.
But any change opportunity feels blocked. He doesn’t want to unpick the past so it feels difficult to understand how we got here (and what we could do to move forward). If I talk about what I want to change that makes him feel even more guilty. It feels like guilt is in the way of everything, and maybe he can’t be who he now needs to be if he’s in a relationship with me.
To add to the mess, I am a terrible perfectionist (one thing to address!) so I feel like if I handle ILYB “right” all will be well. Logically I know it doesn’t work that way but that is the horror of perfectionism – so if we can’t work this out I’ve done something wrong.
The only thing I feel I can do (apart from working on me, I’ve bought your Wake Up book and have started counselling) is spend quality time talking properly and being curious over our day to day lives, interests, aspirations, to try and re-establish some emotional intimacy. I have started this and realised just how much I missed these discussions. We can even have a laugh! It’s so confusing!
But I don’t know what else I can do to ‘show him’ how things can change – he insists I don’t need to change and talk of this makes him feel even worse. I can’t see how I resolve physical intimacy when he struggles with a simple hug (I feel like I am physically repulsive). And if I bring up the elephant in the room of the relationship (as he won’t bring it up and he’s not a moody or angry person where I get cues to ask what’s wrong) it triggers yet more guilt, him feeling the ‘bad guy’ and will push him even further away! I am running out of hope, ideas and how to ‘be’ with this.
Andrew G. Marshall says
I want to congratulate you on responding so positively and openly to his ILYB declaration. It must be hard to have worked so hard and got so little back. So what do I suggest, I really want to take some of the pressure of you, give yourself time to let your changes bed in (without always wondering if you’ve done them correctly) and to put the sex to one side for the time being (because that’s something for further down the line). I hope Wake Up and Change is helping you to focus on your stuff – rather than his – and to be honest I’d like you to look at It’s not a midlife crisis (for you rather than your husband) so you realise that this is more about him than you. Whenever you feel panicked, take some deep breaths and tell yourself ‘I’m doing the best than I can and that’s fine’ and ‘this will take time and I can cope today.’ Good luck