Hi All,

My husband started grad school, and now that he has this wonderful thing he wants to end the marriage.

I don't know what is relevant here: We are both guilty of a lot of love busters, including disrespectful judgements, and angry outbursts. He used to, and I think has started again, lying to me and gets mad at me when I don't want him to do independent behavior.

For most of our three year marriage I supported him, including paying for classes for him since he did too poorly as an undergraduate to get into grad school until now. I am 45 and he is 27. I have lots of advanced degrees and make an excellent living when I work (I am an independent contractor but can work as employee if I need to). I also paid off his student loans.

Anyhow, I got him to try to work on the marriage, and we are doing our fifteen hours a week, but things seem to have really taken a turn for the worse the last two weeks. The lovemaking stopped completely last weekend and he is just being cold to me. I asked him to move to California today and he told me "I know one person in California and it is not worth it". That one person is me.

He applied to 11 schools and got into one with a good support offer. I got into a different one. The plan was to go together but when the different offers came in, we thought we'd try to make it work by me traveling back and forth. I am only gone two nights a week this quarter. This might be a huge mistake.

Anyhow, he is so mean, and so cold, I am starting to just want to give up. He started having an emotional affair with a woman at school. I asked him to stop, and he refused, so I wrote to her directly. That worked for a few weeks but he ended up telling me the two of them talked and decided they had done nothing wrong. Now I ask who he is spending time with and he always tells me "no one" , or lists off a bunch of guys and it just makes me think he is lying.

His lying, by the way, is a huge source of our problems. He will do things to make me happy, that make him very unhappy. Now he is intensely angry at me for all of this after doing it for years.

Also, I paid for a huge 50K+ wedding that he wanted and I didn't (so I guess I do it too) to make him happy, and sold my house so he could have this grad school experience. I am spending my non-retirement savings to make this work and he takes it, and then is rude to me. I told him to get a loan today since working on the marriage or no, I am not paying for his new computer or needed dental work.

I am so ready to throw in the towel. I am really starting to hate him, but part of me does not want to give up on this thing. He left his previous girlfriend the same way - by being as mean as possible to drive her away, after he had bent over backwards to make her happy in every way. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground with him. Trying to get him to negotiate with a neutral tone is often impossible. He either talks to me with incredible contempt in his voice or does what ever I want and is nice.

I don't know what to do.

Due to the facts that you dont have children, your nearly 20 year age difference, the short length of marriage and his refusal to show care for you I encourage you to divorce him.

A good book that Dr. Harley authored is "Buyers Renters and Freeloaders".

I feel that you would benefit immensely by reading that book

What does children and twenty year age difference have to do with it? Seriously...

That felt like a dig, and frankly, a disrespectful judgement. Our marriage is not worth less because of our age difference, or the fact we don't have children.

It might not be worth as much if one spouse won't care for the other. Please don't post on my thread again Jedi_Knight.

The reason JediKnight posted in this way to you was not disrespectful at all. The fact that you have no children together means you have less reason to make it work. Having children makes working on a very difficult marriage more logical, that's all.

The age difference is something Dr. Harley has mentioned in his radio show. When a women is many years older than her H, it often causes a lot of stress on her. The opposite situation does not have the same problems. It's something that Dr. Harley has seen over and over again in his years of counseling couples.

If you want your marriage to work, you'd have to first live together. You and your H would need to agree to the POJA for the rest of your lives. Marriages without the POJA are usually unhappy.

Easy now, Trying....

Your marriage is not "worth less" because you don't have children. However, the presence of children often gives a straying spouse another reason to consider reconciliation, or to work harder on the marriage. It isn't just about the two of you any more.

As far as age difference, you are right, there may not be a difference, in your case. But consider that it is one more area for potential incompatibility. And whether or not this is true in your case, it may give your husband one more reason to reject the marriage.

I am sorry you are going through this

You need to expose your husband's affair (and it was more than likely a physical affair), and quickly go to Plan B for your own protection.

Have you read through the Basic Concepts of Marriage Builders? Here is the link to the Summary of Basic Concepts

I have read through the books - his needs/her needs, love busters, the new negotiating book he sent us.

Can someone post a link to the articles about stress on the older wife? I have seen nothing on that in going through the books, he did not mention it on the radio show and I have not seen it here from my browsings.

Telling me something is not a disrespectful judgement actually is as well. My understanding is the person on the receiving end decides that. We just went through that lesson.

Welcome to MB.

Just a few more questions.

Is this your first marriage? Is this his?

Have you exposed his affair yet?

Ok, trying, you are trying to apply principles for marriage to the posters here and that won't work. They are trying to help you, not to fill your lovebank.

Even so, the things they are telling you are the exact same things that Dr Harley has told women in your particular situation. I hope you listen.

Have you read about exposure and Plan B?

Here are some radio clips on age differences.

Radio Clip on Age Differences
Radio Clip

Also, please read this.
Surviving an Affair-Start Here First

I have a few thoughts here.

You will need to bust up this affair, that's a no-brainer.

He is living a completely different lifestyle - a young guy off to grad school, around people his age, parties, girls his age and younger. Independent lifestyles and marriages don't work.

I can't help but wonder if he was using you. 27 now, married 3 years, I assume you dated at least 1 year before. When a young man (23? younger?) hooks up with a woman nearly twice his age with financial support and a solid career, that is a massive red flag. I understand you have probably been lectured in your life already about this age difference but it seems to be a long-term disaster for a man to be 'kept' in that sense by an older woman. I know Dr. Harley has talked about this age difference and breadwinner problems in the past, trying to find the info now.

We have actually done a good job on the policy of joint agreement for smaller things. It is the larger ones we are having trouble with. I was trying to change careers when I met him, and put that on the back-burner to support us when he could not get a job. He tried, but gave up after a while. Really bad time to graduate college with a less than stellar record.

So the larger one is the two school issue. After three years of not doing what I want, I can not just sacrifice more for him. He feels the same about grad school (it two years for him to get accepted.)

I have to figure the affair out, but don't know how. I don't have the password to his computer.

Radio clips with the older woman would be more helpful. He is hugely dis-repectful to me, the older one, so it doesn't match the posted clips that much. It was/is about physical attraction for me, so I guess I am like *that* stereotypical guy.

It has occurred to me that he is using me. He wanted a big wedding for his huge family to come to, so I don't know. If you are planning on using someone short term, why go through that? Marriages in his family general last. Not a lot of divorces at all, considering how many of them there are!

Part of MB is that you shouldn't POJA things that will inevitably bring great harm to your marriage (living separately for school - swinging, or whatever, to show another example). Living apart has created one of the conditions that helped the affair(s?) to grow. You don't know if it's just her, since he's a liar anyways and he's at college somewhere else.

Here's one of the fundamental problems: let's say the affair disappears tomorrow (it won't, but let's pretend it will). Now what? Still putting grad school/education above your marriage - both of you.

What is more important? Is grad school more important than marriage for both of you? Right now, that is a yes. Unless steps are taken to reverse this fundamental problem, there will just be another college hussy. Not only that, but you will be vulnerable as well.

I get that graduate school is essential in some fields but there is a reason so many people don't bother dating or getting married until they are done. Because they put education first. That makes the marriage a loser.

What do you need to figure out?

Here is another radio clip on the age difference with the woman being older. Please listen to this clip with health concerns for the woman.

Radio Clip on Age Difference With the Woman Being Older

Dr. Harley stresses a woman in her 40s(you) and he in his 20s(him) is not a good idea. Please listen.