I need help. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

My wife and I met in college. She was a single mom with a one year old daughter. We were married at the age of 21 a week after I graduated from college. When we married, we immediately decided to have children. We had our first son a year after we were married and then we had our second four years later.

We have now been married for eight years and our kids are now 10, 6, and 20 months. My wife has been a stay at home mom for entire marriage until this year, when she decided to start teaching school.

I have a great, high-paying job that pays very well, where I go in at 8:30 and leave before 6 p.m. I do not work weekends or nights and I only travel 3-4 nights each month. Sometimes, I can go over a month with no travel.

When I am at home, I am very helpful. I get the kids ready for school every morning, do the laundry, take out the trash, clean the kitchen, make the bed, take kids to practice and games, play with the kids, put the kids to bed, fix meals, and spend time with the family. I rarely go out with my friends or do much for myself. We also have a full-time nanny and house cleaners that come twice a month.

Here is my issue; my wife has never been affectionate to me. She sees me as a friend and tells me that she married me because I was safe, secure, and would make a good father and loyal husband. As the years have passed, we have had many problems. Most of them stem from my work. She cannot stand to be alone and hates when I travel. This really began to be an issue when I had a startup during the dot-com days that had me traveling about two days a week.

In my current job, I travel very light and I have passed over jobs that would pay almost double, but would require travel of over 50%. Still, my wife gets angry with me every time I must travel and tells me that she did not sign u to be a single parent. She has threatened me since early on that she will leave me.

Lately, things have been very bad; we have not kissed more than once in over four months, she never hugs me, tells me she loves me, says nice things to me, does caring acts, lets me cuddle with her at night, plays games with me, or spends any time with me. Basically, she bosses me around, nags me, pokes fun at me, and complains when she does not get what she wants.

Last week, I talked her into going on a date. In the car on the way to the restaurant, the topic of travel came up and I mentioned that I had to travel for our annual sales conference and would be gone for 5 nights. This would be my first travel since November. She immediately asked to go home and told me that she did not sign-up to be a single parent and that our relationship was not working.

We have not spoken much since then. I cannot be made to feel guilty for having to work and provide for our family. There are no jobs that pay what I make that would let me have so much time to spend with my family.

I do not know what to do. We have been to counseling. We went through 14 weeks of Imago therapy, but my wife does not like to dialogue and she cannot restrain when I am communicating my feelings. She will also not go back to counseling.

I love my kids and my wife. She has told me that she does not feel that same love for me that I feel for her. She sees me as a friend and companion, but has no feelings of passion or intimacy with me. When we argue, or discuss what is going on, she always pushes the separation or Divorce talk.

I am tired, lonely, and sad. I want to be happy and I want my family to be happy. Where do I go from here? Do I just continue and get by? Do I separate? Please help.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Regards,

Mike

Hi Mike,
You have found a fantastic place to help hold your marriage together and build back the love. Unfortunately, this forum does not get much traffic at all. I think you could benefit from two forums (both get LOTS of traffic and you will get far more responses).

The first is the Emotional Needs forum. First, read all about emotional needs on this web site and consider buying the recommended books on emotional needs (His Needs Her Needs) and lovebusters.

The other forum is in the Infidelity Section...General Questions II. Let me explain.
Your wife has let you know that her needs are not being met. That may be a clearcut need for quality time with you or it may be a less tangible need for security or something else that is lacking while you are gone.

Whatever it is, you both need to figure out how YOU can fulfill that need. Because if YOU do not find a way to understand and fulfill that need, someone else will. Based on the lack of intimacy that has grown in your relationship, I fear that she IS having that need met by someone else even if it is still only at the emotional level. Meaning, she very well may be having an emotional affair. The reason I think this is not only because of the lack of intimacy but because she keeps telling you that she didn't sign up to be a single parent and that she wants to separate. Those two don't go together. There is a good chance she has someone else in her life already that wouldn't need to travel...someone that if she left you, she could immediately default to.
Of course I could be way off base, but enough signs are pointing to an emotional if not physical and emotional affair that you should seek advice from the members in the infidelity forums.

I know you don't see yourself as traveling TOO much, but obviously your wife does. Some wives go nuts when their husband leaves once a year! Some couples haven't spent a night apart in years. Everytime you leave, it sounds like she will harbor more resentment toward you and your career. Everytime you leave or even talk about leaving, you are withdrawing units from her love bank. You have to reverse that or you will lose her and likely your children, as well.
I realize I'm using a lot of new terminology to you, but I think that the MB principles apply to your situation amazingly so please read everything here that you can. This sounds like a classic case of one person's most important emotional needs not being met within the marriage. If you do not discover what those needs are and start meeting them, things will only get worse.

Best wishes to you. I'm really sorry that you have to go through this.
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