Hi PJ,

I do know what you mean, you wanted to understand and you couldn’t because she wouldn’t open up, but we can’t force or expect people to open up when they either don’t want to or aren’t ready to, so in that case, it’s okay that you didn’t understand what she was going through, because you really couldn’t. SHE might not even be able to put into words what she’s going through. A lot of people can’t when they go through traumatic things, and that’s why they can’t or don’t want to talk about it. In those cases, it’s best to just let them heal however they need to while trying not to place expectations.

With that said, I definitely don’t think you’re wrong to want what you want and you seem like you definitely need more support when dealing with this type of grief. There’s nothing wrong with that either and it’s unfortunate that your wife is grieving in a different way (which is also not wrong). I did see you went to counseling but it didn’t help much?

I do think trying couples counseling as Anita suggested is a great idea, whether you stay together or not. Co-parenting when you are not married is very difficult, especially when step-parents come into the picture (which your wife will likely have issue with if you start dating right away), and working some of your issues out in couples counseling beforehand while trying to find the best way to separate would make for a much smoother process, I’d think. If you do decide to separate, I’d also think about getting your kids into counseling to help them with the adjustment. I know that would’ve helped me when my parents divorced as I ended up internalizing a lot of it, which ended up backfiring on me during my adult years.

Dear PJ:

Before I let go of the affair part, I have one comment about what you wrote in your most recent post a day ago, regarding your former lover: “I respect the person I had the affair with greatly and would most likely date a person such as herself if I were single”-

– but if you were single you  wouldn’t date a married woman with two children, would you? I mean, during the six months affair she was married to another man, parenting two children in a home with another man.

You wouldn’t greatly respect a.. woman betraying her husband and endangering the well being of her children?

I am now letting go of the affair part and my concern regarding your values.

“The connection with my wife had been virtually non-existent for years”- this is your current problem- a non-existing connection with your wife prior recent tragedy. The recent tragedy brought that lack of connection to the forefront of your awareness, made you acutely aware of it.

If you expressed this to your wife very clearly, told her how lonely you feel, how desperately lonely and she made no effort to listen to you attentively, to repeat to you what you said to her, so to show you that she heard you. If she made no suggestions to spend more alone-time with you, just you and her (not sexually, if she feels uncomfortable about the sex part)-

– then she is quite cold hearted, isn’t she. And you have nothing in your marriage but an arrangement, a financial, practical setting. In which case you either endure it, or look for relief in affairs, or remain married and agree to live like roommates, staying in different bedrooms, and free to date (an open marriage, I suppose), or you separate and live in different homes and/ or legally divorce.

You have all those options. Which will you choose.

anita