I am new here. I feel lost and need suggestions to save my marriage. I have read Dr. Harley's book YOUR LOVE AND MARRIAGE. I am also reading LOVE BUSTERS and HIS NEEDS, HER NEEDS. My wife and I have been married almost 20 years. We have one adult daughter that is out of the house. Our marriage has been a struggle most of the time we have been together. I have caused my wife a lot of pain over the years by my actions and lack of making her feel that she is the most important person in my life. Things have gotten much worse over the last couple of years. She is now at a point of telling me that she wants a divorce. After a more recent argument I attempted to tell her that I wanted to change and was changing for the better. She gave me a deadline to make " an earthshattering permanent change with no mistakes or else you promise to move out with no discussion or another word. No asking to come back, no begging or pleading, no trying. Do it or don't there is no try." This had happened after she read all three of the books I am currently reading or have read. She is the one that told me I need to read the books. We went thru the worksheets and attempted to follow Dr. Harley's instructions on love busters and agreements. At one point she said I stopped or didn't follow thru, so back to the old ways. She tells me in every argument that I am a little boy and she has to be my mother. She calls me son. She has told me that I am a horrible husband. A horrible father, a horrible human. She recounts every bad thing I have ever done in every argument we have. She says that every word out of my mouth is a lie. I don't act like a husband or a man. I cannot provide financially for her. I am not allowed to tell her I love her. I understand and take responsibility for my past bad actions. There have been many over the years. I do love her very much and want this to work out. I do work about 50 hours a week, and drive an hour to work an an hour home. I feel very bad that I cannot provide for her like I would want to. I do things for her where and when she let's me. I have told her I am sorry. I have been by her side during several long term medical problems. She is disabled and unable to work. She says it is more important for me to move out than get a divorce right away, but it is expected that I still pay the bills and she have full control over the finances. If I move out she believes that I could live with my sister for awhile. I am tired of the abuse and anger. I do very much love her and want to work this out. How can I fix this if she is so unwilling too? I have just given the basics about our problems. I am willing to go into as much detail as I need to get some solutions.

Hi Russ, welcome to Marriage Builders. Why does she want to split up? What are you doing that upsets her so much?

MelodyLane, thank you for responding. Over our years of marriage I have made many mistakes. I did not finish college, I have been fired from two retail jobs and demoted once at my current job of 14 years, also in retail. I had to file for bankruptcy nearly in our relationship. I have never made enough money. I have lied to her. Intimacy has been a problem. She says sex is not good. My family has caused us problems. I was reluctant to move out of state after we were married because I felt I needed to be close to my mother who was divorced and alone living on a fixed income. My wife says she has never felt #1. I was smoking when we dated and promised to quit but still smoked after we were married in secret until I was caught and then after much arguing finally was able to quit. I had lied to our insurance agent and a smoking test caught me. I have not been able to manage our finances like she would like. She owned the home we live in before we were together. I have never bought us our own house. This is just a part of the problems we have been thru over the last 23 years. She is now disabled and cannot work. She has not bee able to work for more than 10 years now. So I am the only income besides her disability check. I can go on more about this later.

Do you think she is having mental issues? It makes no sense that a disabled woman, who has no money, would want to kick out and divorce her main source of support. If you divorced her, she would get less money.