It  very well may be that, Anita. I have begun really deep diving into those words she said:

“I love you, but I’m not IN love with you”

The odd thing is, from what I am reading, that is NORMAL. Sadly, human beings these days are just so damned primed for instant gratification that when things start to get difficult, they would rather scrap it and start over than put work in. Of the 9 or 10 psychiatrists and marriage counselors whose opinions I have read on the matter, all this signifies is that we have entered the “rewarding love” portion of our marriage, and out of the “crazy love” part. I spoke with one of the authors, and he said that either we had the best marriage for 14 years, or rather we had just sort of lied to ourselves, and we actually hit this portion of our marriage several years ago. Because to stay in the “crazy love” phase of marriage for that long is borderline mental illness. Apparently, at that point, three things happen in the relationship that are negative if you don’t know what you are doing:

• You scrap the marriage and start finding someone new to give you the “crazy love” feeling again, which will likely lead you to a long string of failed relationships
• You have an affair
• or, you bully your partner into being who they were when you first met in a desperate attempt to recapture the “crazy love” feeling

My wife tried the first one for awhile. It’s how we went to the first. So now that I see this, it makes a whole lot more sense. My wife has never been a petty or cruel woman, and she is one of the strongest women I have ever met. If she TRULY was not in love with me anymore, as in has no feelings for me whatsoever, she would have just outright asked for a divorce, not kept me close to terrorize me. I had always sort of suspected that, but I was afraid to just put that out there with her. I don’t want to discount her feelings, so the last thing I wanted to do was go “Nah, you still love me! You just don’t get it like I do!”. Not only does that dismiss how I really think she feels, but it just sounds SOOOO pedantic and shallow.

There is one thing that worries me, however. The author/psychiatrist that I corresponded with (good man, helped out of the kindness of his heart for free, likely with something he charges several hundred dollars and hour normally for) also listed what in their business is called the “4 Horsemen of Divorce”. My wife is currently displaying 2. He says all is not lost if she is still working on us, however. Those “4HM” would be far more dire and pronounced if she really intended to bail.

We have a date for just us set up on Monday. I made and ass of myself last night because I gave her a card and flowers for our 15 year anniversary with a nice, heartfelt note inside, and she didn’t say a word about it. So I pouted and gave her the silent treatment all day over it. Sometimes I wonder if I am 40 or 14. Anyway, I hope to sort of breech this subject on our date. Maybe just ask her if what this man said is a possibility. Because 9 of 10 of those I have read/spoken to seem to think this is the most normal transition of a marriage our age. But we both have to realize that in the “reward love” phase, we must give each other reason to feel like it is a reward for us to be together. And not act like petulant teenagers when we hurt one another and just talk outright. I hope it goes better, but I am still very tentatively making plans to better myself and move on if it should crumble.

Thank you all again for your input. It has really helped to at the very least have someone to vent to, and at best here, some helpful words of encouragement and help deciphering all of this.

First of all, the kid thing. My fuse is SO short. I keep being told by several people that it is the result of me burying some abuse I endured as a child, and it is starting to seep out. I endeavor to control it as much as possible, but my daughters seem to have this game they play called “keep doing what dad asked us not to until he finally freaks out on us and then try not to laugh”. I mean, at least they find it funny and not frightening. But leaving is not going to fix that. That is something I am dealing with regardless of what is happening in my life right now.

As for the “changes”. She has claimed I don’t pay enough attention to her. That I spend too much time playing games with my son (he is REALLY into it, so instead of moaning at him to get off the games all the time, I chose to participate with him to bond). That I don’t “make her feel pretty”. I tell her I love her several times a day, tell her how gorgeous she is. When I do that, she does the “Stop, I do not” nonsense and it DRIVES ME CRAZY. Why do you want me to tell you something that you then act like I am the jackass for saying? All throughout our marriage, I was the one who was expected to bend and reshape to her will. I never once have asked her to lose weight, treat me differently, etc.. So it’s stuff like that. I am expected to be EXACTLY who she married 15 years ago or she is unhappy. And that isn’t fair to me. She changed over 15 years, so did I. Maybe we got married too young and life has just changed us into different people. The difference between us is, I would still marry her today. I’m not sure she would say the same.

As to why she was out of my league, she is smart. Gorgeous. Funny. I don’t normally get ALL of that in one woman. I usually either get a really funny and hot, but completely vapid simpleton, or I get a really good looking and smart woman who has no sense of humor whatsoever. Or I can find a really plain looking woman who is smart and funny. All of them are sexy to me because all three of those things are attractive to me. But she had all three, and I had attempted to get with women before who were all three and just got shot down. Early on in my life, while I thought I was God’s gift to women, I was still WOEFULLY shy with them. I came out of high school having had like 2 girlfriends and a single sexual partner. Come to find out, all the girls were sweating me and I was just too shy to have any clue. One of the girls (saw her at a reunion) told me that was part of the charm. Someone unobtainable, but not because he thought he was too good for all of them, but rather that he thought none of them wanted anything to do with him. I thought that was an odd thing to be attracted to, but it was high school so who knows. My thing back then was knee socks and plaid, pleated skirts so I can’t really complain. So when I took the chance with her, and it worked out, I thought “I can’t ever let this woman go”. And I have endeavored not to since.

But the truly painful part that I am starting to realize is that she clearly doesn’t feel the same about me. Three times now she has told me, in one way or another, “You aren’t good enough”. It might just be me getting lost in my own hurt feelings, but that just seems like incompatibility on a wedded level. Hell, I thought it was HER who had bought into the Disney Princess, fairy tale ending, but I am starting to think it was ME who has romanticized our relationship outside the scope of reality.

I appreciate all of the support here. I really do. So a bit of an update.

I have gotten an appointment to see a therapist. I need to get something for this depression and anxiety. It makes me fuse so short. I don’t want my kids to go through life knowing dad as the person who screams at them daily. So this is happening regardless.

My wife and I sat down and started to talk a bit about it. I just bluntly asked her “Is this over? Do I need to start mourning my marriage and moving on”, and while the answer wasn’t what I wanted it to be, it was encouraging and defeating at the same time (Odd, I know). She said that a week or two ago she would have said that yes, it was definitely over. But now she sees in me something she didn’t before. She sees that I am attempting to deal with things. So she says she is not sure, however oddly enough, she said she would like to continue to have sex regardless of how this all went. I guess I am okay with that for the time being, but if it ever goes to divorce, I think I will end that. No use making it more confusing for either of us.

Anyway, in my dealing with some of these things, talking to all of you, talking to my friends, I finally realized that somewhere along the line, my depression and other things just sort of murdered my self esteem and most of my ego. When I finally realized that, it came back. Nowhere near its former glory of “my dookie don’t stink and I am god’s gift to women” like I thought I was in my early 20s, but enough to start thinking more about all of this in a different light. This will have been the 3rd time my wife has threatened divorce. She does it about every 5 years, once even going so far as to have an emotional affair with my best friend that shattered my trust in other men. As we sat there talking, it felt as though a whole new person came alive inside me, and suddenly I said “It seems like every couple of years, you decide that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and the way to get to the other side is to burn your own side to the ground. If we make it through this time, great. But if you ever pull this again, I will leave you and never come back”. I was sort of mortified at first, my emotional mind was screaming “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?!?! Now she’s gonna leave”…..to which my new found self esteem was heard uttering “….good”.

See, I finally figured this all out. There has never once been a time where I have ever sat down and thought “Do I want to be with this woman? Do I love her? Am I IN love with her?”. Sure, I might have waxed and waned over the years, but I have never openly daydreamed about dropping her and finding some hot 20 something to replace her with. But she has. Three times now. It suddenly became clear that our relationship seems very…..one sided. I am expected to change, and I will FOR ME, but never once have I told her to change. So suddenly, I was keenly aware that the love and affection I have felt for her for almost more time than I have been without her, seemed conditional from her. And it was so painful to realize. I had given her my love without condition, and in return, I had been told three times that I wasn’t good enough.

So I am still working on me. And I am still tentatively working towards saving my marriage. But I am done playing the sad sack scrambling to appease his wife. I told her she had to start working on it with me or it was over. She agreed. And I told her I would only give her “space” for so long. I wouldn’t wait forever. And then I told her she needed to get counseling herself, because it’s clear something is there that is making it so she “feels nothing”. She even says she feels nothing for her own mother. She said the kids are fine…..I would hope so. But she says she just shut it off. I am wondering if that is just a coping mechanism because she thought the marriage was done for, and then suddenly, I actually started to do the changes she wants so she had to about face, but she TOO is tentatively observing if the changes are lasting and real.

Anyway, the awesome part here is, it feel like regardless of the outcome, I will be okay.

Oh, I hit her with the “Walkaway Wife Syndrome” thing that I read about, which she is clearly in the midst of, and told her how the story ends for those couples (the wife part is a misnomer but since most marriages are ended by the wife, I think is why it is deemed that). One person will be the nurturer. They will get the other to try to change, tell them they are unhappy. That person takes it as an attack or is too deep in their own stuff to notice, so after awhile the “wife” starts to plan her getaway. Here is the kicker that I saw in her eyes hurt her deeply when I mentioned it. Either the husband doesn’t change, gets angry and leaves, or he does change and life gets better, the marriage stronger. She was pretty happy to hear that it looked like. And then I told her how it ends for about a third of the couples according to the psychiatrist who coined the phrase:

“The husband will change, but it is too little, too late for his wife. If I could untangle any of these knots, it would be this one. Because sadly, the husbands do change and are better men for it. But it is their second wives who reap the benefit from that, and the first wife who gets to watch him be the man he should have been for her, with another”. I could see the pain in her eyes when she started to sort of realize that might happen. So I think she is sticking around now to see how this goes. Tell me what you think. Should I just abandon ship here? Part of me thinks I should because of this whole “feels one sided” thing, but I do love her very much. I just don’t want to end up the doormat who in 5 years is dealing with this nonsense all over again.

Thanks guys.