I am new to the MB site and new to the idea of facing a divorce. I have read much of this site as well as the book, "His Needs, Her Needs" and I am confused as how to approach my situation.

After almost nineteen years of marriage, my husband says he is no longer in love with me and that we have nothing in common. I now realize that neither one of us has been fulfilling each others needs. We both were trying to put our own needs ahead of our spouses.

Now my hsuband feels it is too late to save our relationship and we should go our separate ways. He says he has tried to mend our marriage but things would only change temporarily. I thought these few attempts were a way of opening communication between us. The fact that we have misinterpreted each others attempts just justifies our incompatibility according to my husband. He is not willing to seek counseling.

I am at a loss as what to do? Much of our problem is the fact that my husband is gone travelling during the week and living in hotels while I am home maintaining the house and family. We had been seeing each other briefly over the weekends only. How can I implement the MB concepts when my spouse doesn't want to try and we see so little of each other? I am devastated!

The travel does make things MUCH harder. Are you sure that he is not having an affair? It is somewhat unusual for a man to request a divorce without a replacement lined up, and his language is classic for a wayward spouse, as is the resistance to counseling.

My husband traveled a great deal of time with his job also. He had a series of one night stands during this time. He still travels, but I'm able to travel with him now.

Try to explain to your husband that people and relationships aren't disposable. If he finds another spouse at some time he'll just be trading one set of good and bad traits for another set. There are no perfect spouses out there. There isn't one perfect woman who is going to be able to meet all of his needs...she simply doesn't exist.

I wonder if he is having affairs during his travels and now wants out of the marriage to save face. If he has he feels terrible about himself and knows that you'll divorce him anyway, so why not save you both the pain of you knowing?? This is assuming A LOT...forgive me, but if you come from where I've been it feels like anything is possible.

As long as there is not complete openness and honesty between you, he will subconciously try to sabbatoge any efforts you make to reconcile with him, including the misinterpretation of each others attempts.

When my H hadn't revealed his truth about his past affairs, I had reached a point where I was excited at where we were in our marriage. The kids were all but out of the house meant more time for each other was just around the corner. He complained that I wasn't making him happy whenever he felt a mood come on. I was excited about an idea I had...why not use his skills as a facilitator to improve our marriage? Now, you'd think that he would have jumped at the opportunity and hope of getting his needs met, but instead he got defensive in order to preserve his secrecy.

I hope things get better for you. Keep us posted. You've got to find a way to get him to open up. Maybe a simple...you've taken 19 years of my life to come to this decision...I deserve better than that! Let's try and make this work!

Stillwed

<small>[ May 04, 2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: stillwed ]</small>

Thanks Johnh39 and Stillwed for your replys. I have asked my husband if he is having an affair and he neither admits or denies it. I too am at a place in our marriage where I thought we would have more time to devote to each other. We have two children, my oldest goes to college this fall and the other has two more years of high school. Although I am not free to travel with my spouse because of my youngest, I thought at least we would have more time to work on getting to know each other again.

I must admit that I have devoted more of the past 18 years to my children and less to the marriage. I don't know if my husband is physically having an affair but I am sure emotionally he is. He says he can talk to friends and people he meets better than he can talk to me. No wonder when he's only home two days a week that we have trouble talking. I feel that he is partly to blame for my lack of attention to him since he doesn't show much affection to me.

But after 19 years together I am not willing to let go of this marriage so quickly. I feel we both need to try to resolve our differences and work at meeting each others needs. He says he has tried twice to get us to enjoy being with one another; but how can someone try to resolve a conflict when the other person isn't aware of this intent?

So my question is, do I demand to know if he is having an affair or do I let him know that I realize that I haven't been meeting his most important needs, nor he mine?

There is a book called Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix. It might be a place to start. It deals with the marriage and not affairs. It will help you to be more open about your needs, help heal your childhood wounds and explain to you why you chose each other in the first place.

One word of caution however: If he has had an affair or affairs and isn't being honest then there is a wall between you that even that book can't tear down. Let him read this if you can. The wall MUST come down. If not, he is living in so much shame that he can't feel your attempts at meeting his needs. His attempts to meet yours will be shadowed by how badly he is feeling about himself. Honesty is really the best policy. He might be feeling like, why tell her now, the damage is done and she'll divorce me anyway. Why not just go directly to the divorce and save face? Do you think you could go on with him if he is having an affair. If yes, tell him so. If you could handle 50 affairs....tell him so. That doesn't mean he can go and have one! It just means that there is nothing in the past that he can tell you that you can't forgive him for. It means that you love him unconditionally. That's a lot for you to take on, but I'd have done anything to get my husband to come clean before having his "exit" affair. That last one hurt me the worst!!

I would let him know that you'd like to try the Harley's plan for meeting emotional needs if he is willing. It's a place to start! The information is excellent and my H and I both credit it with the immediate start to our recovery after D-day.

Another thing that has helped us tremendously and has been extremely interesting is finding out our Enneagram personality types. Here's a link for the test:

http://www.9energies.info/test/

It has helped us to understand each other better and to grow closer. It told us where our high points and low points were so we didn't have to hear about the bad ones from each other. It's much easier to read about yourself than it is to have someone tell you about yourself.

Please do try it. If you like it, there is a ton of info on the web. Just do a search on Enneagram. There are books available too.

Take care!

Stillwed

<small>[ May 05, 2003, 04:12 PM: Message edited by: stillwed ]</small>

To find out if he is having an affair, hire a PI, but if he doesn't even deny it, is there really a question?

Yes, he is partly at fault for you not meeting his needs. I could defend him somewhat, but what is the point? What he is doing by looking elsewhere to get his needs filled is unhealthy and unethical. The hard part is to get him to the point where he WANTS to save your marriage. (OK the actual saving is no peice of cake, either. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> )

Click on the link in my signature line and start digging in to learn what you will need to learn to restore your marriage.