It is a bitter pill to swallow when I can finally admit to myself that despite all my best efforts to keep my marriage together, the truth is that my wife just doesn't like me very much, and probably hasn't for some time. I ask myself why, but the truth is, it doesn't really matter, it just exists as the truth.

I have told her what it is I want and need out of the marriage, but what I get are excuses, and no real effort. About six months ago, I told her it was over. She cried, and asked for another chance, and I told her I would hang in, and try. It doesn't matter. She doesn't really want to be married to me, she just doesn't particularly want a divorce.

Our "couple self" has been last in line for many years, behind our parent partnership, social partnership, business partnership. We have been to three marital counsellors. She got up and walked out of the first one. The second one told me her affair could be the best thing to ever happen to me. I was out of there quickly. The third one just didn't help. Kept bringing us back to our childhoods, as if our issues were back there, instead of dealing with one another day to day.

I have asked her a hundred different times in fifty different ways what she she needs and wants out of the marriage, and the most I can get is "you figure it out." I am not a mind reader, but the truth is I have figured it out. She wants out, she just doesn't have the courage to say it. So I will once again say it to her.

I feel exhiliarated, at times, in knowing that I now have an opportunity to search out someone to have fun with, to talk my heart to, to be myself with, and yet, I know the pain that is coming, as well. The pain this will inflict on my kids, on her family and our friends. And the darkness I have to get through, before I will feel whole again.

I have explored the possibilities before making the biggest decision of my life, but it is here, and the truth stands out.

I stood before God and family and said "till death do us part". I need to revisit that statement, another bitter pill to swallow.

Hi Jay, Sorry you having a tough time.

You mentioned that the 3rd counselor wanted to explore childhood issues and that you'd rather focus on day to day stuff. It's been a prooven fact that many people who have affairs have had traumatic childhood events that have an everlasting affect on those people's psychie. This goes on to manifest itself later in life to less than desirable behavior such as having an affair. People give themselves permission to have affairs for many different reasons (true reasons) but most often it stems back to childhood issues. It might be helpful if your wife explored her childhood more with a counselor. It just might show her how things got messed up and she might get insite on how to deal with the current day to day things with you.

Couple's thearpy should not happen until further along in my opinion. Individual counseling is needed to sort thru who should own what then you can come together to fine tune a marriage. Couples thearpy has a tendency to let the betrayer off the hook of working on themselves and at the same time making the betrayed person feel like they are being blamed for their partner's affair. Any of that sound familiar? Well any way this is what my wife (FWS) and I have dealt with along our journey of 7 years.

H2C

Unfortunately, it was my childhood she continued to want to talk about. LOL, if it didn't hurt so much.

And yes, I agree, the wife wouldn't do the individual therapy, and we got on a stationary treadmill in couples therapy. Thank you for taking the time and effort (and care) to weigh in.

Jay...

I could have written that post. Probably did, in fact, when things got surreal. It was as if I was watching my life from outside my body, watching a slow-motion train wreck. I knew what it was, I knew that the end would come. It was sickening.

A marriage is over when one partner so decides. S/he may or may not choose to let the other partner in on the secret. When s/he does not, that "train wreck" plays out.

At that point, the childhood issues...the secret wishes, wants, or fears...the "if onlys"...the counseling...it's all done. All that remains is for the partner in the dark to see a little light. And then a little more.

Jay, you can do all the right things and still not be the partner your wife wants. You are right, you don't need to be a mind-reader, even though all those years in the dark have probably made you a pretty good one. You KNOW this already: you are not the partner she wants.

It is a horrible thing to spend your time in a place you're not wanted. Been there, done that, for far too long.

Like you, I made the same promise in front of God and everyone. But when your partner doesn't intend to keep it...when s/he doesn't want to be your partner, what then?

I'm not particularly religious, and if you are I apologize in advance for my faulty expression of a religious "truth": you have a religious and moral out. You were excused from keeping your promise on the basis of her affair, and yet you tried and tried some more.

It is okay to let go. Even God said so, and he's a way bigger authority than me. I'm just a divorced guy on an internet forum.

Chris.

I am sorry you have had to go through this, as well Chris.

I have come to the conclusion that the A is a burden I decided I could carry in order to try to get my marriage back on track, and have compartmentalized it as much as possible. I do not bring it up, or speak about it to her, because I feel her guilt.

But I have come to see that what it really did was took my belief away in the marriage. Before it, I always believed that as uncomfortable, or contentious as things got, our marriage would shift, and we would walk out on the other side, a stronger couple, hand in hand.

The A made me see that this was only one possible outcome, and not the only one.

Yes, I will walk away with certain regrets, of things I might have tried, or might have said, but in the end, will be comfortable that this outcome was the one meant to be.