# Marriage partners drifting apart - any suggestions?...



## starwalker (Mar 20, 2005)

Hey all,

I'm not quite sure where to turn to for this, but I thought this might be a good venue for asking for an opinion.

Me and my wife have been married for a few months, and we have been seeing each other for well over 3 years, about half of it long-distance. She has since moved to Canada with me and we got married here.

But since a while ago (longer than we've been married), she's been feeling further apart from me. In her words, she loves me more as a brother or a father (since she got no love from those when she was a child) rather than a "lover" per se, and she has gotten smitten with two separate guys on two separate occasions, with the latest one (in her words) being more understanding of her than I ever was, and his way of thinking and his personality being closer to hers than mine ever was. She resists intimate physical contact with me and, in her own words, doesn't enjoy it much. 

I can tell, at the same time, (and she tells me that too) that she still does love me, but she has started talking about us divorcing and going our own separate ways. In her own words, again, if she truly and really loved me completely, she wouldn't get crushes on other guys - and since she does, she believes that she doesn't love me fully and she shouldn't be with me.

I should add to that that while we were seeing each other, we were basically together 100% of the time - when I was visiting her in her country we'd hang out almost 100% of the time, and when I was back in Canada, we'd talk via email once or twice a day (morning/evening) for an hour or two at a time. I suppose one could say it's overload?...

Does anyone think there's a chance at saving this, or is this a classical case of going nowhere?

Cheers,

-sW


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## Cat Dancer (Mar 21, 2005)

Would marriage counseling be a possibility? 

That sounds like a painful situation to be in.

For me, it would be hard to be with someone who said those things. It also sounds like she has some other issues she's dealing with, lack of love from her family and the intimacy issue.


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## David Baxter PhD (Mar 21, 2005)

Marriage counselling might be an option -- either to explore what isn't working in the marriage and correct it or to accept that it won't work and move on. I'm not going to try to guess the reasons for her feelings but I would agree that if she is "getting crushes" on other men and is not finding intimacy with you enjoyable or attractive, there is something seriously wrong in this relationship.


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## ThatLady (Mar 21, 2005)

You can try counselling. It couldn't hurt, I suppose, and would help you to determine if the relationship can be saved, and if you even want to save it. 

Yet, from what you're telling us, I'd say this young lady is far too immature to be married, at this point. If she had begun to feel "apart from you" even before you were married, one must wonder why she went ahead with the marriage instead of being honest with you.


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## starwalker (Mar 21, 2005)

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Indeed, I do believe she's working out issues not specifically related to me, and that is why I have stuck by her thus far; there are many things about her that I care about, and I feel like if she were able to work the problems out, this could work out. On the opposite side, I am unsure as to how long I should stick this out (if it is a trainwreck-in-making, then the parties should bail before it actually wrecks?...).


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