I wonder what causes people who once thought they’d spend their life together to not want to do that anymore.

Has your partner change? Or did they not change when you expected them to? Have you changed?

Have you not noticed each others’ flaws when love was young and the pink glasses still worked and only discovered them later?

And what can your experience teach us about our own relationships?

  • Dempf@lemmy.zip
    0·
    3 days ago

    Thank you for this. My wife left about a week ago. It blindsided me, but I’m hindsight I could have seen it. She’s been throwing herself into her work for the last 4 years. I felt the lack of love, but never had the tools to express my needs. Whenever we talked about it, we ended up fighting.

    In hindsight, if someone is not feeling love in a marriage, why would they stay?

    Like you, we also always thought we had the tools to work things out.

    I’ve learned now that in our relationship she has been anxiously attached – it makes sense now why I could never have the “rational” kind of conversation I wanted with her.

    Meanwhile I have been avoidant or possibly fearful-avoidant. What I thought of as “taking a break in an argument when things get heated” to go independently deal with my emotions must have been painful for her, and she would then chase me. End result: neither of us was able to regulate our emotions.

    I’ve was open to ENM in our relationship, but she was against it, so we never persued it. So it stings even more seeing signs that she’s been cheating on me. Though I guess, even in ENM, why would you keep seeing a partner whom you feel no love for anymore?

    In the last week I have been cramming attachment theory, Gottman, NVC, trying to have some idea of what the hell happened. Now I realize that if I don’t work on myself, I will bring all of my problems to any future relationship. I’m only at the very start of the journey, and every day is still painful – our relationship lasted 15 years, and that can’t be unwound quickly.

    • JayleneSlide@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 days ago

      Thank you for this. My wife left about a week ago. It blindsided me, but I’m hindsight I could have seen it.

      1. Happy to help
      2. JFC, I’m sorry to hear what you’re going through, and I deeply empathize. I’m just some douchebag on the internet, but if you need a trained ear, please feel free to DM me.
      3. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but a critical component is giving yourself grace and emotional space

      Now I realize that if I don’t work on myself, I will bring all of my problems to any future relationship. I’m only at the very start of the journey, and every day is still painful – our relationship lasted 15 years, and that can’t be unwound quickly.

      There is sense of closure and ability of growth in understanding the whys. Explicitly working to avoid carrying forward the injuries is a huge step. As you probably already read in Gottman: the best couple’s therapy is individual therapy. Empathy by way of anecdote: when I was reading Levine’s “Attached,” so many of the example conversations had me feeling like “Were y’all in the room when we were arguing?!”

      I’m serious about the being a sounding board/ear. I hope you find inner peace sooner rather than later.