From the U.S.: My wife and I have been married for 4 years now. We started to have issues about 2 years ago. I feel like since we have been officially and legally married that she doesn’t care about me.
First thing is, I tried to speak to her many, many times about this, but she has become a horrible communicator. When I try to take time to sit down and talk, she either refuses, ignores, or just pretends to listen and says “ok”.
This past year was by far the worst in our relationship. I had a huge amount of stress from work. I worked about 300-400 hours per month. When I was resting after work, often times she’d come and scream at me and incite such drama that it was difficult to relax. Most of the time, I went back to work to be in a calmer environment.
My wife no longer takes care of herself. I have told her that she should make time for herself. Granted, we have 2 young children. However, I continuously make efforts to spend time with both of them, or to try to be active with them, play, read, teach, etc. most of the time she is interrupting this. I feel that if she took more time to care about herself, then eventually she’d care about me too.
Finally, she doesn’t show any love or interest in me as a person. The only time she asks about something about me, is out of jealousy. I have crohn’s disease, and I am doing pretty well with it, but still when I had serious issues, she never made an effort to care or help me. She does not take any active involvement in trying to figure out who I am, what kind of person I am, or anything about me at all. Even worse, I talk to her about this and again, she refuses to communicate.
Several times she has mentioned getting a divorce, but won’t specifically state why. She says that “it’s not working”, but I believe that this is because of the failure in communication. I see divorce as a last resort, when all other options have been exhausted.
Summary
1. Wife refuses to communicate
2. Refuses to set aside time for herself and let me be a father
3. Does not show love, care, interest or affection.Can you offer any advice?
It’s long past time to make an appointment with a couple counselor if you want to save your marriage. Your wife is communicating fine. She is letting you know verbally and non-verbally that she is pulling away from you. If you could have fixed this on your own, you wouldn’t be writing to me. For the sake of yourself, your wife and your children, please make that appointment and go — even if your wife won’t at first.
I wish you well.
Dr. Marie
