When you have a baby, the romance usually dies for a while anyway, but you stay because you’re supposed to be a team. Telling your wife you’ve fallen out of love while she’s deep in the trenches of new motherhood is a cowardly way of saying you’re too weak to handle the responsibility.
If you realized your partner was mourning their former life in secret while effectively checking out of your marriage, how would you address it?
This 32-year-old woman has spent the last decade with her 33-year-old husband, and they never had a single problem or disagreement before they welcomed their baby into the world.
20 months ago, she had to undergo an emergency C-section, and their bundle of joy hasn’t exactly been joyous. Their baby whines, fusses, and screams nonstop.
She had 13 months of maternity leave and couldn’t catch a break; that’s how difficult their child has been. Right after their baby came into the picture, she and her husband started fighting for the first time.
“All coming from me about him not doing enough or doing things wrong, I was at my wits’ end and in a really bad place. He told me when [the] baby was 11 months that he was doing [badly] mentally because of our arguments and that they needed to stop,” she explained.
She quit the quarreling and said she had to lower her standards regarding what she expected from her husband. But that didn’t help, and the distance between them grew instead of shrinking.
She attempted to speak to her husband about what was going on, and he hinted to her that his feelings had transformed. Her husband acknowledged that if she left him alone, he thought he would get over whatever he was encountering.
She did that. She gave him space, but her husband has pulled back from her even more. She’s tried to talk about future plans, like moving out of their one-bedroom apartment since they have outgrown it, but he always shuts her down.
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“Before Easter, he told me he loved me but wasn’t in love with me and that he was really unhappy in our relationship, so much so that he was crying in his car [on the way] to work, etc.,” she added.
“He says the arguments we had a year ago put a barrier up in our relationship that he can’t seem to shake. [We’ve been] in therapy since Easter, but he can’t really point out anything that’s wrong in our current situation, and with me right now, he just says he isn’t feeling it anymore and wants to do a trial separation.”
“What can I do? I take on all of the mental load around [the] baby and try to make his life as easy as possible, but that didn’t seem to work. I feel like the trial separation is the beginning of the end, and I’m scared to death. All of my life, I’ve wanted a nuclear family, and I know we’re a good match and have a great thing, so I really want it to work.”
She’s also afraid of not being able to give her son siblings. Additionally, it weighs on her that if her husband files for divorce, she will have custody of her son 50% of the time, leaving her largely alone.
She’s currently living her worst nightmare while wondering how she can win her husband back.
She’s in a rough position regardless of what her husband is going through with his emotions, but it does seem to me like he doesn’t want to be a dad and is trying to check out of the responsibilities.
I think she’s just trying to convince herself that they have a wonderful marriage when clearly they don’t, because she said it herself: she doesn’t want to be alone, and she does want to have more kids.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing she can do to persuade her husband to stay with her; that’s a journey he has to go on on his own. She’s already been accommodating, she’s already chased after him, she’s already done everything in her power to make this work, and the rest is out of her control.
She should give her husband the trial separation he wants, while making it clear he has to split equal custody with their baby during their time apart.
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
