Dear John:

“I love you, but I’m not IN love with you anymore” is a very common breakup line. I think that in the first few years of your marriage she has already been not in love with you many times, and so have you. The two of you were at times bored with each other, at times felt nothing toward each other, were distracted.. that happens in every relationship. It can’t be otherwise. And so, this line means nothing to me other than she is considering ending the marriage.

What is her reason then, I ask myself, looking at the limited information I have. Clearly she is angry with you, that is her reason: “this coldness, this distance… she is afraid that if she stays, she will grow to resent me”. I think she already resents you.

Here are other indications of her anger: “She barely speaks to me anymore. She won’t be physically intimate with me… She barely even says I love you. She only does so when the kids are around”

You blamed yourself for the failed pregnancy while it was not your fault at all. But she said: “It’s not ALL your fault, I could have…” If she knows the truth, that it is indeed not your fault at all that the pregnancy failed, then she thinks some things are your fault. She “tried to get (you) to change” those things.

She feels “’emotionally numb’… She says she needs time… She says she ‘just isn’t feeling it’ right now”.

Back to your aim, to win her heart, what not to do: to continue to place yourself as the Guilty One or the bad one, to continue to take 100% responsibility for her dissatisfaction and anger, to try to show you that you are … good now, that you changed from bad to good, beg her.

Can you think for a while about what you mean by winning her heart: do you mean to cause her to feel excitement about you, that in love feelings or do you want her to value you as a man and a husband that will benefit her in the context of a marriage?

anita