Marriage crumbling, looking for advice

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Depends on if you want this to work.

Well, even if she won’t go to counseling, YOU go. Learn about her culture, too.

In some cultures, they are VERY polite. I had an American friend of mine worked teaching English in a bunch of countries and referred to, say, the Japanese as being “overly polite”.

Sounds like you might have a temper. Well, a lot of people with tempers like to cuss. You said she felt “ignored”. Why would she feel that way? Is there something you are doing, or not doing, that could help her feel like you care? What? You could even ask her for a hint.

Now, some guys think paying attention to a woman is giving her sex. Do non-sexual things with her. Don’t have your goal as sex. Use like reverse psychology. Court her! Do NOT have sex right now. Do everything but sex.

There’s a therapy for women who have difficulty responding, sexually. Think it’s called “sensate therapy”.

Now, I don’t think she’s crazy. She said she felt she could respond, physically, to others, which makes me think it’s not really a physical issue, possibly, but emotional. So, it needs to be treated on an emotional level.

She needs to be woed…courted…not ignored.
 
I know she’s wrong to look outside the relationship for her needs. However, she seems to feel they are not being met within the relationship, her emotional needs, that is.
 
I get so tired of watching everybody divorce. Wouldn’t it be nice, just once, to see it work out?

A man in courting mode is sort of like …irresistable…to women. There’s nothing like it in the world.
 
I think she had wanted MORE time with you, feeling she wanted to see MORE of you, not less. She wanted more of your attention and time.

There’s a book on the 4 love languages. It says we each seem to have one language which tells us we’re loved. Well, it probably isn’t so cut-and-dried, but one love language would be words of encouragement, another gifts, another sex, quality time.

For example, what tells me I’m loved is probably quality time. I have people give me gifts, but without quality time, I feel like telling them it’d be best for anyone to just save his money.

I have a relative who spent a lot of money to give me a gift. You know what I would have preferred? I would have preferred if she would have just e-mailed me or Skyped more often.
Really!

Sounds like your “love language” is sex. Hers is probably quality time and words of encouragement. When you spend time with her, give her compliments, words of encouragement, it makes her feel loved. She’d be then in a better position to reciprocate.

It’s sort of like the story of the wind and the sun. They challenge eachother to see who can make a man take off his coat. The wind blows and blows. Man wraps it tighter around himself. Sun comes out, and the man takes off his coat.

I think you’d find your case like that. You’ve been trying to win her over using a “wind” strategy. Use a “sun” strategy. I think she would respond if you gave her the attention she’s been begging for.
 
Groo said:
Thank God you haven’t consummated the marriage. You need to get an annulment because your “wife” has never loved you the way a wife loves a husband. Take comfort that there is nothing you could have done to make this work.

No amount of therapy or sensitivity training or marriage counseling is going to fix this. Your chance of making this marriage work is 0%. And you should thank God for that, because this woman is bat**** crazy.
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AGREE! This is not normal. Sometimes one must accept the things they cannot change and have the wisdom to know the difference. This, IMO, is one of them. Go file for that annulment. Your wife, if I read this correctly, has already started another relationship on line but has no intention of working on her marriage. Thank God and run for the door.
 
Others have suggested you speak to a priest about this. You can and should go by yourself regardless of what she chooses to do. You are in need of pastoral guidance, so make an appointment as soon as reasonably possible. Please be sure you tell the priest all of you said in this thread. As others have noted, this is not a valid marriage if it hasn’t been consummated.

There are many issues on both sides here. I think you realize that you have been rather insensitive to her, but it seems to me that your wife has mental health issues that need to be addressed. I am sorry you are going through this. If you wife isn’t willing to work with you, then you need to get the help you need on your own. I will pray for both of you. God bless you.
 
blew up in the car this morning. Unforgivable things were said. Relationship is over. Time to move on.
 
  1. It sounds to me that she might have some sort of sexual abuse in her past. I’m tempted to buy into the “it’s cultural” argument, but I also don’t think it explains everything.
I’m assuming the marriage wasn’t arranged by their parents. I’m assuming there was some mutual attraction between the two when they decided to get married.

Usually virgins can’t wait to have sex with their new spouses and spend a lot of time doing it.
  1. I really don’t see why she got married if she doesn’t want kids because part of the Catholic marriage is being open to life and procreating.
Unless there’s some reason why she’s worth waiting for and is “worth it”, I’d just let her get the divorce and move on. It doesn’t sound like she shares any of your goals and unless she wants help for her issues, then staying will just make you miserable. It’s obvious you love her and want to help, but it takes two people to make a relationship/marriage. She has to want to change for there to be change in her life and in your marriage.

It sounds like she’s decided not to work on her issues, but runaway from them. Sorry. That’s totally not what you wanted to hear (read), I’m guessing.
 
jcthrowaway said:
blew up in the car this morning. Unforgivable things were said. Relationship is over. Time to move on.
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I’m sorry for you and that this happened on Christmas Eve. But there never is a good time for this sort of thing. Difficult to find someone to talk to because of the holiday. Ask to talk to a priest now. They are use to trauma in people’s lives especially on Christmas which is stressful for many.

My prayers are with you. If you feel like you’d like to write privately, be happy to listen.

God bless.
 
jcthrowaway said:
blew up in the car this morning. Unforgivable things were said. Relationship is over. Time to move on.
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In that case, I would see the priest about possible grounds for nullity, but more likely there will be also grounds for dissolving a marriage due to lack of consumation (consumation is what makes a marriage indissoluble after vows are exchanged). The trouble with that, of course, is such dissolution is reserved to the Pope, and might be a bit hard to prove.
 
She has lost all attraction for the OP and no longer respects him enough to work on the marriage. St Paul commands wives to respect their husbands, but in real life that is pretty hard to do if the husband does not act in ways that command her respect. Despite his disclaimer on the first page, I rather suspect the husband in this case is non-beta only with other men, yet behaves in beta ways around his wife. At this point, he can’t change how he acted in the past, he can’t change her, he can only work on himself.

The inability to consummate the marriage was a giant red flag from the beginning, yet the OP let it slide for at least 2 more years before it finally blew up just now. Months of separate bedrooms, far much time between attempts, etc. That is not the mark of a leader. A leader would have said during the first month that the inability to consummate is not normal, it is in fact a huge problem, that he would pray for her, he would work with her, do his best to help her with whatever course of action she took to address this issue. Ob/gyn exams, hormone checkups, depression, counseling, Retrouville (sp?), whatever it took. But be firm with her that doing nothing was not an option. The marriage might still have failed, but it wouldn’t have continued sliding downhill as long as it has.

The Asian culture is a lot about face … hence she wants the pretense of being a couple while going through the divorce. That’s another path that’s definitely not going to get her respect back, to allow this is to continue supplicating to her, hence he is under no obligation to go along with that. At this point, he can only work on himself.

Stepping back and speaking about marriage in general, this is the sort of situation that might have been avoided with better vetting the spouse and with pre-marriage counseling as these are the kinds of issues that need to see the light of day before couples enter Holy Matrimony.
 
Well then, you have a valid case for annulment, it would seem.

Sorry it didn’t work out. 😦
 
The wife is a virgin. Was the OP patient with her?..I have a friend who told me that it took 3 months for them to consummate. She was crying the first time but the husband was very patient. He told her he ddn’t mind going slow and being patient because he loves her and doesn’t want her to get hurt…
 
jcthrowaway said:

“She wants to live in our home together, not tell anyone until the annulment is confirmed (potentially 2 years +), but sleep in separate rooms and essentially be roommates at home but a couple in public.”

I don’t think that would even be allowed, as a matter of fact.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
She has lost all attraction for the OP and no longer respects him enough to work on the marriage. St Paul commands wives to respect their husbands, but in real life that is pretty hard to do if the husband does not act in ways that command her respect. Despite his disclaimer on the first page, I rather suspect the husband in this case is non-beta only with other men, yet behaves in beta ways around his wife. At this point, he can’t change how he acted in the past, he can’t change her, he can only work on himself.

The inability to consummate the marriage was a giant red flag from the beginning, yet the OP let it slide for at least 2 more years before it finally blew up just now. Months of separate bedrooms, far much time between attempts, etc. That is not the mark of a leader. A leader would have said during the first month that the inability to consummate is not normal, it is in fact a huge problem, that he would pray for her, he would work with her, do his best to help her with whatever course of action she took to address this issue. Ob/gyn exams, hormone checkups, depression, counseling, Retrouville (sp?), whatever it took. But be firm with her that doing nothing was not an option. The marriage might still have failed, but it wouldn’t have continued sliding downhill as long as it has.

The Asian culture is a lot about face … hence she wants the pretense of being a couple while going through the divorce. That’s another path that’s definitely not going to get her respect back, to allow this is to continue supplicating to her, hence he is under no obligation to go along with that. At this point, he can only work on himself.

Stepping back and speaking about marriage in general, this is the sort of situation that might have been avoided with better vetting the spouse and with pre-marriage counseling as these are the kinds of issues that need to see the light of day before couples enter Holy Matrimony.
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I doubt she was ever really attracted to him in the first place. Who knows why she decided to marry him. Maybe she was in a bad home environment and thought this was her chance to get out. Impossible to say.

I think vetting of spouses is great in theory, but almost impossible in practice. The guy is young with hormones raging; he hasn’t a clue about marriage or women in general. And then there’s a young woman with issues of her own, trying to sort out her feelings. Whether one ends up in a good marriage or a bad one is mostly a crpshoot.
 
I have a friend of mine who was married to a lady from Vietnam. She was a virgin when she got married, also had a lot of difficulty with sexuality. Seemed he felt her virginity, and lack of experience, worked against her/them, in the marriage, and they ended up getting divorced due to that and other reasons.
 
To be clear we haven’t been in separate bedrooms. Even last night we shared or bed. We still had sexual contact, just not full penetrative sex.

I can accept that I’m a lot more alpha around pretty much everyone but my wife. I should definitely have acted sooner. I went on autopilot.

I’m meeting my priest on Saturday morning.
 
jcthrowaway said:
To be clear we haven’t been in separate bedrooms. Even last night we shared or bed. We still had sexual contact, just not full penetrative sex.

I can accept that I’m a lot more alpha around pretty much everyone but my wife. I should definitely have acted sooner. I went on autopilot.

I’m meeting my priest on Saturday morning.
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Good idea. Again, I’m sorry that it hasn’t been working out. Divorce is not much fun, either. It’s very expensive, hard. I try, as much as I can, to encourage people to at least try to go for counseling, stay together, if possible. If there’s, say, abuse, then no.

Still, your case was different. Anyway, counseling is still a good option, whether she goes with you or not. Whether you stay in the relationship, or not, because if you go through a divorce, you will probably want emotional support. Counselors are good at that. They can help us be more objective. They have experience with this.
 
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