Married But;

I don’t care about it.

Everything is wrong now.

We have nothing in common.

She has become my Mom now.

Restrictions!?

I never signed up for this.

HELP ME!

What do you want the solution to be?

Do you want to work at this? Does your wife?

Does she know how you feel?

Honestly, if all you need is a place to vent, that is cool too. We all need that from time to time.

If you need more, I can only tell you what I know, and what I know might not apply.

But I will say, with Covid-19, things can get more stressful and upsetting. One thing I would do, is find something you wife did today that made your life easier, and thank her for it. See if that makes you feel a bit better.

C’mon, you can’t rhyme “now” with “now”.

It is difficult now with this pandemic.

But she has become my mother;

I have to hide things from her (and I feel bad about it)

Hiding stuff probably isn’t cool.

But you might want to let her now that you are her partner, not her child.

She might not realize that she is treating you as a child.

Hide things like cookies in the bedroom or hide things like the collection of bodies you have in the freezer?

I’m not sure whether this thread is supposed to reference a meme or is in earnest.

But I’ll say this, if in earnest and you just want to vent, by all means do so. If you want help, there is likely only one thing: couple therapy.

You might feel you have nothing in common, but talking about it in a neutral environment to rediscover what the issues are and how you can work together to move past them would be my recommendation.

It’s really, really helpful, even if painful also.

My wife and I don’t share many hobbies, but there are things we enjoy doing together.

Simple things, like cooking and walking.

Also, she gets my humor.

There’s more I haven’t said. A lot actually.

Funny thing, I don’t want to talk with my wife after working. I just want to do my thing. (this is a huge can of worms)

It is a silly thing.

You’ll want to communicate these feelings to her, ideally NOT in the heat of anger.

Peaks and valleys are to be expected… you have to work together to climb gradually out of the valleys step by step, day by day.

I think it’s also important to recognize and be grateful when your relationship is at a peak (which might simply mean the absence of conflict for a nice, long period of time) and appreciate when things are working to get you through the times when they aren’t.

I never read that whole love languages book but I know enough about it to know that my love language is Acts of Service (which is why I can get so pissed off when she gets herself something from the kitchen without offering me whatever it is she’s getting) while my wife’s is Quality Time. Sounds like your wife might be the same?

You don’t want to let your resentment curdle into avoidance… gotta put in exactly half the effort to meet her where she is. And she needs to do the same.

We all need to decompress on our own.

With my wife and I, we usually spend at most 2 or 3 hours together in any day, even though I work from home. We all have things that need to get done. We reconnect on the weekends though.

My buddy who got divorced a few years back said the following words which sent a chill down my spine… “It’s turned into a bad roommate situation.”

Took me back to college, sharing a room with my best friend who I was starting to hate. That’s a path you both need to turn back from before it’s too late. Fucking YIKES.

I know it is mostly my fault.
At these the communication between use confirms this.

I need to get better. Sorry for the vague shit.

It’s never just one person’s fault. But 1 person has to take that first step.

That’s not helpful. It’s not one person’s fault. You are both drifting apart. That’s why I said couple therapy would help you both and be a good option. It took my wife and I nearly a year of couple therapy. But it was a huge help. We wouldn’t be together today if we hadn’t gone through it. And now we are happy together and mindful of what caused the rift.

Does she know how you feel? Have you talked about it? Do you know how she feels?

Do you want to fix this? Do you want to run away?

If the latter, what exactly are you trying to run away from, and why?

Talk to her. Either by yourself, or with the help of a couple therapist. Get to know where you both are, who you both are, and what you both want, and then you might consider where you’re going to.

If you want us to help, you’ll have to be more specific than that. If you just want to vent, than you don’t need to do so.

I still recommend you look for a therapist, either for you as a person, or you as a couple. A good therapist will always help.

Yeah, no relationship gets repaired overnight. But the first step (as in so many things) is to decide what you want.

A few tips, from experience:

  1. Decide what your goal is and try to stick with that for a real period of time (6 months) before reassessing a change in course. During these periods of malaise it’s easy to flip flop back and forth in exactly what you want, which is a form of torture for everyone involved.
  2. Based on what you choose in 1, do everything you can consistent with that. E.g. for repair, hold yourself to a higher standard in how you deal with the relationship, and communicate that to her. Let her know you expect similar from her.
  3. Do not air dirty laundry with people you know. Doubly so for family. Usually this is done to vent, which is fine occasionally for the small things where it’s clearly just venting, but if you are having true doubts about the relationship but are interested in reconciliation, venting (especially with family) can poison the well in an irreversible way that totally changes your relationship dynamic.
  4. Therapy is good. Journaling is good. Write down what you’re getting out of it, what you want to get out of it, and review occasionally to keep yourself honest about progress or setbacks
  5. Realize you may need to compromise first in order to overcome a deadlock. If that’s the case, keep in mind what a reasonable next compromise from her is - it shouldn’t be one sided. In cases where both sides are very stubborn it can be obvious for everyone else what little compromises would fix things, but both sides feel their dignity is wrapped up in not conceding first. Try to be aware of that situation and be better than it.

Ok, this may be way off base, and if it is please ignore. You married her for a reason. Try to remember what those reasons were. And then really look at what’s changed. Was it you, was it her, was it simply changes based on circumstances or something else. Real soul searching can guide you, and, you may come to the realization that you simply do not want to be with this person. But, if that’s not the case then tell her you are unhappy and ask her to agree to couples therapy.

I read something once (I can’t remember where) by a therapist who said that he could tell if a couple would stay together based on how respectful they were of each other. So maybe you could ask yourself if there is any respect left between you. You say you have nothing in common, but do you like her? I don’t think there is any going back if you truly do not like her. And when you say nothing in common, what do you mean? My husband and I share very few common interests, but we laugh at the same things and share the same values, so it works for us. It comes back to how much you actually like her as a person I think.

I’m going to stop because I think I’m getting rambley, but feel free to message if you want to talk or vent. Talking to a stranger may help and I’m a good listener.