K
kittery
Guest
We registered for a Retrouvaille weekend back in October that is now this weekend. I dragged my feet on laying the registration fee until today because I’ve been so conflicted on how effective I think it could be for us. Now that we have paid and we are committed to this weekend, I’m having major anxiety. I have an anxiety disorder to begin with, so this isn’t like a huge swerve out of normal bounds for me but all day today I have felt anxious and tonight I can’t sleep. I feel like I’m running straight toward a fire that I should be avoiding.
I’m afraid that our connection with each other is so far gone that we will discover that we are truly hurting each other more than helping each other and I don’t want to divorce. But I do feel like if we stay on this path, once we are done raising our kids, we will be left with a totally hollow marriage after the kids leave home. Right now, I can’t envision myself being able to attend the weekend without multiple major panic attacks which are so miserable.
I talked to my husband a little bit about it and told him I’m afraid this weekend might make us or break us. He doesn’t like to communicate and I think that this might be too much for him and he will write short, barely legible thoughts down which will only serve to further my belief that I’m “not worth it” to him. He says he loves me, but when I say that I know he loves me like family but not like a wife- he never contests that. So I know he basically loves me as the mother of his children but not as a wife. I’ve put on a lot of weight since we got married (over 100 lbs), and I believe that he just can’t see a person he loves anymore because I don’t love myself this way. I’ve been stuck in a vicious cycle for a long time because as the weight increased, his affection decreased and he has spent a lot of time on porn throughout our marriage. My self-esteem is at an all-time low and gathering the energy to fix my weight problem has eluded me. So then I ask myself if I should be doing a marriage retreat or getting weight loss surgery in order to fix this. If it’s even fixable. It’s hard being married to someone I feel so rejected by.
Does Retrouvaille work if someone is not in love with you anymore? Or does it cause the marriage to end sooner rather than later?
I’m afraid that our connection with each other is so far gone that we will discover that we are truly hurting each other more than helping each other and I don’t want to divorce. But I do feel like if we stay on this path, once we are done raising our kids, we will be left with a totally hollow marriage after the kids leave home. Right now, I can’t envision myself being able to attend the weekend without multiple major panic attacks which are so miserable.
I talked to my husband a little bit about it and told him I’m afraid this weekend might make us or break us. He doesn’t like to communicate and I think that this might be too much for him and he will write short, barely legible thoughts down which will only serve to further my belief that I’m “not worth it” to him. He says he loves me, but when I say that I know he loves me like family but not like a wife- he never contests that. So I know he basically loves me as the mother of his children but not as a wife. I’ve put on a lot of weight since we got married (over 100 lbs), and I believe that he just can’t see a person he loves anymore because I don’t love myself this way. I’ve been stuck in a vicious cycle for a long time because as the weight increased, his affection decreased and he has spent a lot of time on porn throughout our marriage. My self-esteem is at an all-time low and gathering the energy to fix my weight problem has eluded me. So then I ask myself if I should be doing a marriage retreat or getting weight loss surgery in order to fix this. If it’s even fixable. It’s hard being married to someone I feel so rejected by.
Does Retrouvaille work if someone is not in love with you anymore? Or does it cause the marriage to end sooner rather than later?