My wife and I have joined this forum, we are looking for help here. I am initiating the first post and we are looking for help, this is my idea. She will be reading this and hopefully responding.

So basically I got sick and laid in bed all day for a couple days, didn't miss work cause it was over the weekend. I went back to work and noticed my wife wouldn't kiss me good bye or hello anymore and stopped saying she loved me when she hung up the phone. I asked her the next weekend after work was over, what was going on? She said she is going to leave me and isn't in love with me anymore... but she said she still loves me. Confused and stunned, I realized this was serious. We talked calmly about it for a good couple hours. I had no idea why she still wanted to... considering 3 weeks earlier she wrote me a letter how we should have another child and what the benefits were. For the past couple months we were having great sex, it wasn't stale at all as it has been at times in our 8 year marriage. We have a daughter who is 6.

Prior to Christmas, we got in an argument in which she physically attacked me, as I tried to leave. I defended myself and punched her in the stomach back, not hard, but just to back her off. She still came at me. The argument was over a picture of a model from a movie that I saw and was looking up on the internet 6 months previously. She never let me live it down. I looked at about 3-4 pictures of her, with her modeling bikinis and wearing regular clothes. I looked at all the actors and actresses of that movie, but that one stood out for her. I was just curious as to who they were.. never meaning to drool over anybody or anyone in the pictures. I never thought about it again until she saw my history and brought it up to me. She argued with me about it to the point of yelling at each other. I promised I wouldn't look at any photos like that again and haven't. She brought it up again and was relentless about it, prior to Christmas, and hit me twice, hard, before I struck back. I left immediately as I was trying to leave previously but she got in my way and physically pushed me. After I hit her back, I left and came back at midnight, after 5 jack n cokes. We basically got it back together for Christmas and our daughter... things seemed normal and were going good, then my mom passed. We were still being loving to each other and she wrote how we should have another child. We play wrestled together... everything seemed good, even though I was going through tough times with my Mom passing. We carried on having great sex and times out, dinner, movies, etc. A month after my mom passes, she lays this on me.

She left for her mom's, mutually, after talking about it for a weekend. She couldn't stay there, she said she won't let our daughter live there. She came back, we end up having sex and I am trying to work it out sincerely and openly. I am not ignoring her but she is more less ignoring me regardless, except for sex at night and being rather pleasant but nothing too loving during any other times. Often she brings up how she is leaving. I once thought she was doing it because she loved the make up sex so much, but I don't think that at all anymore. She is serious. But she's confused in my eyes. I don't know much else to do about what I can do for her. She has been very strict on my marriage and I did change alot for her. I let her watch whatever she wants on tv, I let her go where she wants , which she doesn't go much, but when its mutual if she wants to do something I have no problem with it. I am very easy going and also capable of planning my own fun times, so there's a good mix. I am loving and often play with her... Currently she is having a good relationship with me at home except for this looming over head, which she throws at me every once in awhile. She has yet to give me kisses good bye or hello, but is nice and pleasant regardless when coming home. We still do things as a family. But this doesn't seem enough for her, and really I don't know what is anymore. I am confused that she would still say she is going to leave, but she can't, financially at least. I don't know why she would intend to do it, we can have a good life together and we can constantly try to repair the marriage, but she doesn't seem like she wants to try. Even though things aren't bad, she refrains from making them great... What is going on here??? Please help. She's 29 I'm 33. She has a tendency to escalate arguments to physical fights, but they haven't been regular, maybe 4-5 times in our marriage. I'm not sure. She holds grudges on them and won't let them go. I don't initiate the fights but defend myself. She says I anger her more than anybody else could.

Dr Harley would most probably recommend that you do separate, but do it sooner due to the physical violence in your marriage. You both need anger management classes before you are safe for each other. This kind of behavior only gets WORSE, not better, if not treated.

How long did you live together before you got married? Are you really married?

And the police should be called the next time she hits you. A night in jail might help her find more appropriate ways to manage her anger issues.

I think this is one way how to treat. I don't think she can separate. Her user name is Megan83, she has another post here. I don't want to separate but work on it. I don't think enough effort was made to fix this because things had a tendency to get good, at least in my mind. I think she lashes out violently because she is wrong and has self image issues and insecurity. We have begun talking which is my proposal to work this out and never fight again or raise our voices again. I don't know if she is willing to do this and work it out instead of separating but I do, this is the most critical point in our marriage at this time in my eyes and I believe we can fix it without separating and that is what I want. She may not be able to separate financially and likely will be with me for some time. We have great casual sex and can get along amicably and still have fun.. except for this, it just needs to get resolved and looking for an answer other than separation. We have a 6 year old daughter that this would deeply affect and what to avoid at all costs. We have been married 8 years, we never lived together before marriage.

I am forgiving of this that I figure would destroy us. I think it can be overcome. I know I let her slide on alot of her wrongs against me, but I have wrongs against her too. The difference is she doesn't let them slide for me and holds grudges. She believes I wronged her also without me actually doing so. Just recently during this whole separation problem, she was absolutely furious at me for not calling her while she was sick at her Moms' after brain tumor surgery, experiencing complications. I did call her but she assumed I didn't, she was always resting and needed no outside simulation. But she assumed I didn't and argued with me terribly about it, and I yelled back. I feel hopeless about a lot of things because I don't know if I can help her. I believe my compliments to her get ignored, and only the bad stands out in her mind.

What Dr Harley would recommend is that you separate and get into anger management classes. That is not going to resolve itself on its own.

And calling the police when she assaults you would be therapeutic for your marriage, because she would be forced to stop it. You harm your marriage by not calling the police.

How? By fairy magic? What is your plan to overcome this? Your violent fights will destroy you. Calling the police on her won't destroy your marriage, the violence WILL.

You can't fix this marriage until and unless your wife's anger problems are arrested. That has to be resolved FIRST. And hope is not a plan.

Are you REALLY married? Or are you just considering yourself married?

Ok she is reading this and calling this place marriage destroyer. Lets work on something positive right now, can someone offer positive advice? I understand about calling the police if she hits me. What about where do we go from here without separation? Separation is not going to happen any time soon and as I said already I would like to solve this first without separating. Just looking for advice on that, not what to do if she hits me. Please.

We are really married.

Welcome to marriage builders. Sorry for the reasons that brought you here. I just wanted to point this one tid bit out to you. This is a HUGE red flag. More often than not what your wife said (i love you but not in love with you) means she has someone she is comparing you too. Now .. its not always the case .. but I would be keeping an eye out.

Have either one of you had any kind of affairs? Emotional or physical? For her it can be as simple as chit chat with a co-worker about your marital issues. Its called the "contrast effect".

I wont go into much more than that and leave it to the pros on how to deal with this.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8121_snoop.html - read this one ...

and this one ... http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8119_friends.html

MNG

Yes, my positive advice is that your wife is right. You do need to separate and get into anger management classes before you kill each other. A good program that is recommended by Dr Harley is Anger Busters.

But I would focus on that until she gets herself under control. And certainly call the police if this happens again.

Once you get her anger problem under control, you can start working on the marriage. But since she is so volatile, anything we tell you to do in regards to fixing the marriage would be of no avail. Do you understand?

Because the first time she had a violent explosion all of the work you did would be negated. And when you are making changes in marriage, it sometimes becomes uncomfortable learning new habits so it might trigger her anger.

It is very rare to see someone who has never lived together who is so violent. That almost exclusively occurs in relationships where they have [are] lived together.

Yes ... Anger management is a good thing. I myself am going through it also after a violet confrontation with my wife recently. it helps alot ... There is a great thread with links to a radio segment on anger management. Its really helpful.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2603602

Here is the link to the anger management thread. It really opened my eyes. maybe start there with your wife and listen to it together.

Chris, I thought she was going to leave? Since she is going to leave, why would it be a problem to separate? Can she move in with some family?

Can I ask what prompted her to say this? All we are doing is agreeing with her plan to separate. What would have caused her to say this?

I was convinced she has cheated on me, although she denies it. I believe her, but I think her separation is to try to find someone else and experiment possibly. She denies that and its hard for me to know exactly what is going on, as this is all very confusing to me.

The physical fights are not common, lets work on other things, we have been together 8 years and have been happy as I thought, maybe she sees it differently. We have had a few trials of course, as in any marriage, and did what I could to work it out. The fighting needs to be resolved but that is not the root cause, its what causes those arguments and I'm not sure what it is.

She considers my chit chat with a coworker to be an emotional fair I assume. She read our IM's and was very upset with them. To me they were just typical coworker talk but she was furious about that as well, but I took steps to stop that as she needed and that is no longer an issue now.

I feel she is very strict with me and tries to control those aspects of marriage as she has trust issues. But then in turn she says I'm controlling. I'm not sure how. I want her to respond in this thread, hopefully she does. We all need her input to reconcile this.

However she just called me and is completely furious that everyone is now on my side because of my post. I guess this is a failed attempt. Plus melody's calls to have me send her to jail seems ridiculous on both of our viewpoints. I am not innocent here but she thinks this is useless now so I guess it is.

Well, what you don�t understand is that it isn�t a good idea for us to try to assist you when there are certain elements present in the marriage.

1). Physical Abuse (separation is recommended until this is no longer a concern)
2). Addictions (the policies won�t work with someone who�s #1 priority isn�t the marriage)

We could cut to the quick if you and Megan would agree to the fact that you need to (and will) tend to the abuse, first and foremost, then we could move forward assuming it will be resolved.

The principles introduced here are very serious and need to be adhered to if they�re to work. One of the first things you�ll learn to do is negotiate with each other but in the face of anger management issues I doubt you two will ever be able to implement that principle successfully. So you�re doomed to fail from the start.

So ...

I'm not on either one of your sides as you both have a lot to learn if you're to have a happy, healthy M. She wouldn't be this upset if you were a good marriage partner for her.