Dragonflymagic's advice column

Life is an adventure but Life doesn't come with user manuals for everything. School subjects do little to prepare us. Its no wonder we all need helpful advice sometimes. Blessings to you!

advice

My wife and I have known each other since we were kids, but started dating 5 years ago and got married a mere 1 ½ years ago. This past month I had been noticing some changes with how she acted around her phone (becoming very secretive, texting another coworker who is roughly 16 years older). I finally confronted her about it last week, and she said that she doesn’t have feelings for him, but at the same time her feelings for me aren’t there anymore. Naturally this blew me away and devastated me. We had a surprisingly good week and weekend after that conversation (things seemed very normal), but didn’t talk about it at all. Basically at the end of our conversation, we came to the agreement that she needed to think about things and where her heart was at before we continued speaking. She also didn’t completely elude to what she was feeling, only that her emotional needs weren’t being met, but it was her and not me.

To be upfront, I don’t believe her when she says she doesn’t have feelings for this guy. We were completely fine 2 months ago and everything changed very quickly. That’s the only reason I can think of for such a rapid change of heart. Second of all, she has begun to become very disrespectful in terms of her lack of communication. She has had a few later nights at work (which are actually legit), but she’ll text me saying she’s leaving in 20 minutes, and doesn’t show up for another 2 hours. Essentially what happens is they finish up their work and all decide to go out for a drink (I also believe this, that’s their group). But she never communicates this with me, or if she has promised to be home by a certain time, she blows past this by hours. (And if anybody is wondering, 2 of the 3 instances this coworker hasn’t been involved with, he was out of town). I have also caught her in a lie where she said she was talking to a friend for an hour on the phone, but it was actually that coworker.

Despite all of this, I am actually still madly in love with her and not wanting the marriage to end at all (I was actually in a really good spot in our marriage when all this hit). But I feel stuck in terms of how I can move forward. If I confront her again about the guy, it will push her away. If I get mad at her about the hours and communication, this will also push her away. To be honest, I feel like I can still win her back and am putting in the effort to do so. I can see everybody saying “Don’t let her treat you like that!” To be honest, she has been a fantastic partner other than this month, so I feel like if we can get back to normal it’s definitely worth it. Any advice on how to approach this would be great.

One issue is that we can get all too comfortable with a partner that even though we still love them, the romance begins to fade. Sometimes couples are more romantic before getting married and once they feel they have each other 'hooked' it slowly begins to change. I can't say it happens to all people but between the two, its usually more likely the wife is the one who feels the change of or lack of romance and thats very much needed. So she looks elsewhere for that.

Another possibility though it doesnt seem to apply to you but who knows, is that every person has two basic needs they require filled in a relationship, the emotional needs--like the best friend part of their mate, and the sexual needs--from the lover part of their mate.

If two people marry, who only have one of those in common as far as one person sees it, then eventually the lack of the other can lead a person to wish for it and be tempted to stray.

I would say first is to not in your heart blame her for trying to hurt you or your marriage. It may not be her foremost thought, but something is missing for her, even though you don't feel it. She may have felt this way for longer than you think but only recently acted on trying to fill that need. I don't know how you confronted her about all of this but that saying, you attract more flies with honey works well here. She may have her reasons for not being honest and having a good sit down talk with you and baring her heart and how she is feeling.
One could be that due to how she see's you handle other problems, she see's a pattern and a harshly reactive nature that scares her so she doesnt dare bring it up. Or after all these years together, she still hasn't built a solid trust in you which she can't have if something about you doesn't instill it. Not trying to make you sound like the problem Sir, it's just that when there's two involved, both are contributing to an issue, whether by their actions or by not taking proper action. I want you to think this over carefully, whether there may be any reason for her to be afraid to approach you with the truth. She may be afraid of hurting your feelings and that compells her to try to handle this on her own and hopefully work through her needs until she no longer feels she needs to go looking elsewhere. Or this may be one of the areas in her where she still needs to mature some as an adult to be willing to discuss this.

I think marriage counseling would be great but if she's not willing to discuss with you right now whats really going on, you have very little chance of convincing her to go to counseling with you. A person has to be willing to admit there is a problem before they are ready for help in counseling. SHe's still not willing to commit. I understand that this is not the stage at which to give up and through in the towel as the relationship is confirmed hopeless.
Sooo...the only path you can take is to attempt to gain her confidence. It takes being able to hear the hurtful things she may share without getting angry or mad. You can keep a poker face but she will pick up on the energies flowing from you and just know. You need to be able to keep in a calm voice, tell her you're not even thinking of your needs right now, that its occurred to you theres an unmet need in her and as her best friend,(I know your'e married but mates should be best friends as well as lovers) you are concerned for her and that her needs get met. When she gets to the place where she truly believes you, as you are treating her the same in others areas, hopefully she'll talk. However you may have to make some suggestions if she hasn't stopped to actually figure out that she has a need and what it is, she may not know or be aware of it, just her subconscious mind causing her to act upon it.
Until there is good honest trustful talk, there will be no answers. You have to be willing to hear the worst in case she absolutely has no desire what so ever for you any longer. Sometimes the reason is she isn't getting what she needs to maintain the romance as what you need is quite different from what she needs and she never did ask you or bring it up, and it didn't occur to you to ask her all along if there was anything she needed or wanted or dreamed of that you were not doing. I'm sure you'd do it in a heart beat if you knew, just lack of communication now had lead to a bigger problem. Then again, another issue is possible, the pheremone connection...which results in the strength of attraction and passion or lack of. If you've always felt 100% attraction on your part, it doesnt mean she did. Maybe there was 75%, enough she felt to make the marriage work. Or at least it was enough for friendship only. If your phermones are not a perfect match, thats something you're born with and can't change and so the attraction and passion and romance won't be as strong. I will end this with an important quote. 'Happily ever after doesn't happen just because you wish it so. It only happens when both parties put in maximum effort to make it so."