Marriage crumbling, looking for advice

[jcthrowaway]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I actually told her I’d posted online anonymously to seek opinions and she was surprisingly okay with it. We went through some of the replies and she acknowledged some things, as did I (note: she did not acknowledge anything regarding depression or needing to seek help from a third party… Immaturity is in a lot of replies and that upset her - she’s faced this description before and it hurts her).

This morning we had a pretty big argument in the car as we drove to work. Both of us said things we shouldn’t have. I spoke with a colleague who knows us both for a couple of hours. She herself went through a brutal divorce (with IMO worse circumstances than we are facing), and she urged us to try to stay together.

When we got home we decided to exchange xmas gifts before going to mass. I actually bought her a diamond necklace in the infinity symbol a few weeks ago… My intention had been to reprofess my love for her and tell her I was there “forever” for her. I wrote a pretty long note on some fancy paper expressing my feelings. Her response was a “why didn’t you say this sooner?”. She then nitpicked some of my points and told me that she’s heard these words or similar from me before but doesn’t believe in me anymore. Argument followed and we ended the night with her sitting there writing down how she wants to split our belongings (rofl).

I decided I’d help her go through the list and we also started looking at “what next” (ie. when to tell parents, roommate [temporary - colleague from work who is staying in our house for a month, she has been out whenever we’ve argued], when to file, etc). At current we’re going to try a trial separation for 2 weeks. At that point we’ll express if we need longer to assess our feelings, if we want to try meeting up, if we want to call it quits. If we call it quits we’ll tell her parents, list the house/car, and deal with it day by day. Thus far all belonging splits have been rational. We both keep anything we came into the marriage with; I’ve “gained” an office set, our 3D tv, all our outdoor belongings, our bed set (relatively expensive). She “gained” our formal dining set and our bed + sleep number mattress. We only have one car, which is in good shape and KBB’s for $24k which we will split 50/50 and use towards new car down payments individually. We have 3 dogs so that will be tricky, but we agree that the eldest dog prefers her and the newest ones prefer me, so that shouldn’t be too hard to resolve.

I have not given up on it working, but I lost a lot of hope today. I am scheduled to meet with the priest that baptized me this Saturday. She is still refusing any outside help. Made for a pretty horrible Christmas Eve.

 

[jcthrowaway]

I know you were angry, using the F-word, which you bleeped out on the screen. Do you regularly use strong language like this with her? I don’t think a woman, Asian woman especially, would probably be able to respond well to someone who used a lot of bad language.

I have never once cursed at her. She curses during regular speech, as do I. She is Viet by heritage but grew up in California.

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.

Thanks for the reply

First of all stop focusing on sex. Marriage is much much more than that. If you want this to work, then love her. Treat her as if she were the most important person in your life and do all the things that you can to demonstrate this to her. Spend all your time with her. Talk to her. Compliment her. Do things for her. Get to counselling. Suggest she discuss her inability to consummate with her doctor.
Don’t give up. Don’t keep pushing for sex, but hug her. Kiss her. Hold her. And keep finding ways to demonstrate your love for her every day in all that you do. I’ll pray for you both.

I actually have not consciously considered sex an issue. I’d much rather work on the other issues and have that resolve naturally. I need to work on expressing my affection for her - I used to be like that, but stopped soon after we married when things began to struggle. I am seeking help, but she will not. I have never pushed for sex, and frequently do hold her and kiss her. She reciprocates but rarely initiates (this is not new, it’s always been like that, when we were first dating she felt nervous about things like this in case it led to something further and jeopardized her chastity vows).

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.

We read a similar book. My love language is gifts/material. Hers is a mix of encouragement and quality time. We have never pressured each other for sex. When we were dating we were desperate to do things together. When we married there was a noticeable change in this after the honeymoon and the failure to consummate. We’d frequently touch via massage, hand holdings, hugs, cuddling on the couch, etc, but the amount of times it progressed further deteriorated. I like your Sun/Wind example.

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.

I am meeting the priest that baptized me with weekend. I emailed him this thread.

 

[jcthrowaway]

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. 2) 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.

I always considered the potential of abuse; we even discussed it once. She mentioned they think an uncle once abused her older sister. I am not aware of any abuse to her personally. The marriage was not arranged; there was a mutual attraction. We used to get along very well. Everything changed the night after we exchanged our vows. We couldn’t wait, except when it went wrong, we both recoiled. She does want children. Agree with the last paragraph entirely.

 

[WaitingForJesus]

Have not been on CAF for a few days. I am so sorry to hear of the blowup and subsequent events on Christmas Eve. I will continue to pray for you and your wife, and that the priest you see tomorrow will be able to help you discern the way forward.

May our Lord bless you and give you peace.