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Old 23rd January 2014, 09:58 PM   #316
chosen
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Quote:
Originally Posted by magneto View Post
I'm not going by what some say, I'm just using this as another example of how the beliefs in christianity are not cut and dry, and followed the same by all who do believe. We have been seperated for 5 months and counting. I'm not sure I would ever remarry, but if I found someone I wouldn't not get married because of the biblical aspect.
As Raymond says some things are really pretty easy to understand. One is that divorce is very very serious and never to be undertaken except in the most serious of circumstances.
I studied divorce and remarriage a lot, and listened to countless teachings on it before coming to my own conclusions about what I feel God says. I think that nearly all believers would agree that ending a marriage just because you don't think you love that person enough isn't right.

I guess a legal separation would be acceptable if you both agree to it. I think its very sad that you cant just be the husband that you promised to be, and love her in whatever way you can, as a close friend, as a good companion as the mother of your child. No one ever said that we must love our spouse in certain ways only. Something most have attracted you to her initially for you to go out with her, to carry on going out with her, and to think of marriage.
Most of marriage is close friendship and companionship anyway.
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Old 24th January 2014, 09:43 AM   #317
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

When it says husbands love your wives the word used is Agape in the greek which is God's love as opposed to Philio sexual or romantic love. Of course there should be plenty of Philio in a marriage but the basis is God's love for the other. We don't have to look at our navels wondering if we love the other we just do it and the feelings follow.

With regard to different point of view in christianity that is human but it doesn't undermine God's truth and what He is really meaning by His word. I suppose all one can do is live up to the light or faith which they have. No one can do more than that.
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Old 24th January 2014, 05:29 PM   #318
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

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As Raymond says some things are really pretty easy to understand. One is that divorce is very very serious and never to be undertaken except in the most serious of circumstances.
I studied divorce and remarriage a lot, and listened to countless teachings on it before coming to my own conclusions about what I feel God says. I think that nearly all believers would agree that ending a marriage just because you don't think you love that person enough isn't right.

I guess a legal separation would be acceptable if you both agree to it. I think its very sad that you cant just be the husband that you promised to be, and love her in whatever way you can, as a close friend, as a good companion as the mother of your child. No one ever said that we must love our spouse in certain ways only. Something most have attracted you to her initially for you to go out with her, to carry on going out with her, and to think of marriage.
Most of marriage is close friendship and companionship anyway.
We originally both did agree. I think it's sad as well. I think it's sad that I have tried to do all that for years and only now after I have become empty in my feelings that she wants to work on things. After her rejecting me, disrespecting me, and giving me her ass to kiss. Nothing says you should love in a certain way, but your heart knows when you do,and when you don't. i've been married over 20 years, so the things that made me date and marry her are far different for if I did the same thing today. It's called growth, development, interest. Thinking back 20 years ago won't help with today's issues. I've tried. That was the first advice I received. It was bad advice.
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Old 25th January 2014, 11:14 AM   #319
Raymond
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

I think I agree. You have analised the past over and over. You are where you are now and need to look forward.

Whatever she has done wrong in the past in your eyes she now wants to work on the marriage. Surely that is a good and commendable thing and would leave room for forgiveness? People do grow. I sense you are still bitter against her which will certainly invalidate any working on the marriage until it is dealt with.
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Old 25th January 2014, 07:52 PM   #320
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

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I think I agree. You have analised the past over and over. You are where you are now and need to look forward.

Whatever she has done wrong in the past in your eyes she now wants to work on the marriage. Surely that is a good and commendable thing and would leave room for forgiveness? People do grow. I sense you are still bitter against her which will certainly invalidate any working on the marriage until it is dealt with.
i wouldn't necessarily say i'm bitter, but my perspective of her has changed. trust is gone, i haven't felt loved in a long time. there is no connection, no similar interest, nothing to bring us together. I do forgive her, but not able to move past things to just start over.

Last edited by magneto; 25th January 2014 at 07:59 PM.
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Old 26th January 2014, 11:15 AM   #321
Raymond
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Not having the strength to start over and deciding not to start over are two different things. With a decisision will come God's strength if you want it and those who want love must show themselves loving.
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Old 26th January 2014, 11:41 AM   #322
chosen
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

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Not having the strength to start over and deciding not to start over are two different things. With a decisision will come God's strength if you want it and those who want love must show themselves loving.
You are so right Raymond about God giving us the strength to do things that on our own we would probably be unable to do. I look back on my life and often wonder how I got though some of the terrible things I faced. OK they did take their toll physically and emotionally, but I survived, my children survived(and they are lovely young people), and we are here to tell the tale and God will always restore what we have lost in the end.
God also loves it when we endure hard things but don't give up, or turn our backs on Him and go the wrong way.
My older daughter said about 5 years ago, that the main reason she came back to God, was because I never gave up on Him through the terrible years we had. I had no idea she was observing me like that, but of course children take everything in, and what we do and how we live is far more telling to them than what we say in the end. Words are easy, putting faith into practice is very very hard at times, but SO worth it.
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Old 26th January 2014, 10:53 PM   #323
Raymond
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Yes it is always worth it Chosen. You went through a very hard time but didn't lose faith and even your daughter noticed it. I've been on a bed of Roses compared to you but the first part of my life without God was extremely traumatic in lots of ways. It didn't have to be but problems can get passed on from generation to generation.
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Old 6th November 2016, 07:53 PM   #324
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Hope everyone is ok, I be just found my old posts and want to reiterate what I said last time. If I hadn't made the decision I did back in 2005 I would not have had the most amazing last ten and a half years with my lovely partner. Now I know what true love is.
Best wishes to you all, especially Squeeky.
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Old 7th November 2016, 10:30 PM   #325
Raymond
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Glad it has worked out for you Robin though probably not for your ex husband.

It reminds me of my situation. When I was looking for a wife I fell in love with a girl instantly when I saw her. When she passed close to me in church I felt my heart beating whilst going weak at the knees. She was the second girl I felt like this about in my life. Eventually I had to ring her up and I said I think God has given me a love for you. Her reply was that I was the third person that week who echoed those sentiments. I felt like crawling into a hole.

Some years later my pastor told me that there was a girl in our church who was in love with me for the past two years and she was having difficulty in eating because of it so I decided to date her. I eventually proposed to her although my feelings were nothing like what I had for the other girl, although I did have a chemical attraction which you can get with certain people. I now doubt whether my previous crushes on the two girls were a sign of destiny as my marriage has turned out fine for many years. They say that the honeymoon period doesn't last anyway but a commitment can.

I can say, in a mature way, that I love her more than I did at the beginning as it is something I learned to do. She is a wonderful person. I think the bottom line is a chemical attraction (sexual) as opposed to a platonic relationship which I did have with one girl and knew I didn't love her, although I got on with her great in other ways. I was wise enough to back off as marriage had been mentioned. She was quite hurt but it is better than making a mistake as has been described on here. She got over the hurt which would have been far worse if I married her and felt like those on here. She eventually married and is very happy. One can also make big mistakes if one is too desperate to get married.
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Old 14th December 2016, 02:35 PM   #326
chosen
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Good news robin, I am glad you found true love.

raymond, I think you wife was very patient, I would have made it very clear to you way before the 2 years was up if I was interested. More like 2 weeks!

MY husband has a similar thing when he was doing his degree in Oz. He had a lady he knew who he was sort of dating but didn't think it was serious. She apparently wanted to marry him but wasn't prepared to wait another 5 years(he wanted to do a PHD) so she finished it. He never knew this, she never told him how she felt but told other people. Many years later after he had married his first wife she wrote and apparently her life hadnt gone well. She had had a relationship with a non Christian guy and got pregnant and was a single mum. I sometimes think she must have regretted not waiting for a man she clearly loved.
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Old 15th December 2016, 07:31 PM   #327
Raymond
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

As you say Chosen she should have told him and it might have changed things. Then again you would not have married him.

My wife was passionately in love with me to the point of not eating properly. I saw her every week at church meeting but didn't realise. I had asked her out years before but was turned down. She was periodically discussing it with the pastor's wife who said she should let me know but she kept saying no no no. I wasn't going to ask her out because I had been turned down already. I suppose it was quite humbling for her to admit that and possibly face rejection. In the end, after two years, it was decided that the pastor should tell me.

Moral of the story is that if you really love someone let them know as soon as you are sure about it. You might risk rejection but it is better in the long run.
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Old 17th December 2016, 10:44 PM   #328
chosen
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

Yes I am very grateful that he married an English lady which led to him moving over here.
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Old 2nd January 2017, 01:30 PM   #329
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

We can't change past decisions, but we can change the future. My advice is that you should be upright to your wife about it. You don't need to tell her that you never loved her, but that you don't love her anymore. Anything else is to lie to her and to yourself. It will lead to misery for both of you and will eventually affect your children as well. Children are very good at realizing that something is going on. Try to talk about it with her as rational and un-emotional as possible. If you are ready to stay in a relationship, for the sake of your children, tell her. Try to work out something that both of you can accept. Good luck my friend.
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Old 19th March 2019, 06:58 PM   #330
Shaken
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Re: I don't love my wife and never have...

I can't believe I am on a forum writing this after only five months of marriage, but here I am.

I met my wife three years ago this April. We became friends after a few conversations, and she developed a huge crush on me (I could tell, and she verified it later). Due to what I assumed to be external pressures (An older couple who were like family to me tried to set me up with her), I actively avoided developing feelings for her. I could tell she was smart, but back then I had this savior complex thing, and thought she was too good/clean/pure/inexperienced for me.

I went on a trip for a few weeks with a religious group, and came back in a relationship with somebody else. I knew that I had actively chosen this other woman (because she set my mind on fire. I find intellectual conversations extremely important and stimulating). My then friend, who would later become my wife, was hurt by this, and stilled her affections.

She left for a year abroad right after I broke up with the other woman (she was extremely abusive, and my wife was the very opposite of abusive). From a distance, my fantasies worked their magic. I saw only her positive qualities. She is an excellent writer, and a very imaginative person (as am I). At a distance, all these great qualities of hers shone through. She wrote regular updates while away on a blog, and I read each one with increasing interest.

I had realized that I may have let someone special get away, and I was determined to make good on a second chance when she returned a year later. I had written many songs the previous few years, and even one about longing for her return from abroad.

Once she returned, I asked her out. And from the outside, it seems as though we never looked back.

What really happened was this: From the moment she returned, the signs that this would be a very unfulfilling relationship were there. On our first date, we talked for hours. I bared my soul to her, and we talked of meaningful things. I asked her many questions (as I am wont to do), and could find nothing wrong with the answers, but I did notice that all this verbal processing was wearing on her (she is very introverted when it comes to her thoughts, and answers questions precisely and accurately. Great at analysis, but poor at back and forth interactions).

This would be, and continues to be, my main source of dissatisfaction in our relationship. Chemistry comes from dynamic and deep conversation. And although she has the ability to process things deeply, she cannot articulate in speech the way I can what she thinks about things.

Anyways, according to this personality test called "Myers Briggs", we were the near perfect match for one another. I an ENFP, she an INFJ. Not to burden any potential hearers with the details, but the point is that what I loved, when I said I loved her, was the ideological picture I had constructed in my mind, rather than the date-to-date reality of our stop-and-go interactions with one another.

The cracks showed almost immediately, and only were carefully papered over by such Idealization. After our first kiss goodnight, I found myself audibly saying, as if it were a Freudian slip, "This isn't going to last" (after she had closed the door). But then I put it out of my mind, returning to the strength of my momentum from a year of waiting in anticipation for the ideal woman to return (completely free of both the negative and the positive qualities of the woman who had crushed me the summer we met) and the strength of my unreal Ideal picture of who she was. Even when she clearly didn't feel like enough for me, unable to keep up with me, I would explain this away with my faith in God. I would say to myself, "No one human being can be all and everything to another human being without it emotionally and spiritually crushing both. God can be the inexhaustible source of our longing for love precisely because he is infinite".

When we made things official, that same night I read to her a passage from a book that ostensibly said the same thing- that she could not be my everything.

But it seemed like at every turn, I was having to buttress my dissatisfaction with her with prayer. I had pre-committed to seeing this relationship through because of my year of longing for her return, but at many milestone moments, I felt nothing but apathy. When I spent Halloween with her and a group of mutual friends, I was not attracted to her at all, and resisted holding her hand. The mutual friend noticed this, and commented indirectly on it by stating how he knew when he met his wife that she was "the one", when he couldn't imagine a future without her, and the thought of her would be in his mind even when she wasn't around.

I blamed my lack of feeling that day on a splitting headache (which I indeed did have), but I knew the real reason laying insidiously beneath. I knew I didn't feel this way about her. The thought of her never- never- made my heart sing. However, I am a very affectionate person, and showed her affection, even in moments of less-attraction.

I told her I was in love with her after just three months. She was shocked (she thinks about the future, I only think about the present and the past. I said it when I was feeling particularly good about her, and was consumed by my overvaluation of her many positive traits. But this feeling of attraction to her was brief and inconsistent. A month later, after my own feelings had gone up and down a hundred times, when I felt little for her, she then told me that she was in love with me.

I told her then that now that she had opened up her heart to me, I had a responsibility to care for that love.

To not break her heart.

By five months, we were talking marriage. We visited her parents, and they approved of the match. We visited her Grandmother, who also approved. There were elements of attraction.

However, while on the way back from visiting her grandmother, she broke down crying in the middle of a conversation between us. It was a very deep, very hard, very complicated conversation, and she was feeling inadequate. She said that she wasn't enough for me.

I responded by reassuring her that she was enough (I am good at lying, even to myself). There was an element of sincerity in the response that followed. I asked her to point me in the direction of someone I could find that was more intelligent than her (She was valedictorian of her university, and applying to med school). Where could I go to find someone that might be more capable of keeping up with me? Where?

But that was not the problem. She could keep up with me, but she couldn't keep the conversation going. Conversation would always grind to a halt because she would not have anything to add after a while, because she does not process verbally what is on her mind.

But all of these decisions I was making about continuing to date her were completely at odds with my intuition. I knew she wasn't right for me, and my body was already responding to the stress of maintaining the divide between thought and intuition.

On the drive home, the song lyrics "I don't love you, but I always will" played over the radio, and I wept inside. When she dropped me off, I went into my room and wept. The next day was Sunday, and I didn't have work until Monday. I wept through one day to the next, completely missing church.

I had conversations with friends to help me process, but I always found it impossible to fully express the doubt and dissatisfaction I was feeling. Two friends told me of their experiences breaking up with a woman who loved them more than they loved the women in return, and they told me I should be careful. One of my friends, I did reveal more of the truth to, but also I accented with him all the more sharply her good qualities, and the good conversations we had shared.

He told me to go for it.

So I did.

I asked her to marry me.

A month later, her mother nearly died of a rare condition. Any doubts that I was feeling about my decision vanished as I went into heroic help and comfort mode. I helped her process her fears and her emotions (something I am good at), and helped her get through some of the most difficult months of her life.

We kept planning the wedding as her mother recovered, but were running into road block after road block. Because my emotions toward her were so up and down, any criticism was very hard to take. She said some things that summer that completely deflated me, and I projected into the future what has come to pass- a one sided and loveless marriage leading to stagnation in me, and worried preoccupation in her, and a gulf of unknowing between us.

As the date approached, I became more and more emotionally distraught, even as I became more externally resigned to the task ahead. Nearly everything was planned, her mother had recovered, and I had moved to the apartment that would be our first home. We had a good time with both our families, and our families mutually liked our choice of life-mate.

But With one month to go, I had the worst breakdown of my life. I have never committed acts of self-harm before in my life, but that weekend, I did. First, She could tell that something was wrong. And so, I told her, in a veiled way. I began to cry, and asked her to write something for me. Please, write something (I wanted her to remind me of the image of her that had been shattered by tragedy and stress). I told her that I know that times had been stressful, but that I had been busy absorbing all her stress, and helping her deal with what was going on with her mother and family, but that I was feeling completely and utterly empty.

This confirmed her worst fears, and she began to cry. We did not speak for the entirety of that week, per her request. And she told me I should do something for myself. I had made the error of making her needs my whole world, and had in turn become a reflex of her emotions. I had stopped doing all the things I loved doing. All my mental energy was going toward maintaining my commitment to the relationship. I stopped playing the guitar, stopped writing, Stopped having conversations with friends, because I feared that doing any of these things would unlock the crushing weight of unprocessed emotions that were pressing down on me.

I had turned my intuition into a problem to be solved through enough tinkering, rather than following it. But this seemed to be as far as it would take me. "No More", my body seemed to be saying. "No More".

That night, I beat myself blue. I bruised my left arm, and my right side. I slapped myself repeatedly in the face and screamed into the pillow.

I then called a friend of mine who was to be in my wedding and who had recently been married. He had expressed similar doubts, in less dramatic fashion, to me in the months preceding his marriage.

I asked him if anything changed or if his fears had been confirmed. He said the were confirmed. His wife was not enough. But He said that his community provided for him a fullness of life that his wife never could. And so, even though she was not "enough", he still cared for her, as far as it went.

His testimony was enough to hold me to my promise. Maybe on the other side of the knot, things would be easier! I could get from my community what I needed more broadly. God, not she, could be the source of inspirations for new music!

I resigned myself to marriage, lowered my expectations, and steeled myself for the big day.

And you know what? Everything went well! I cried on our wedding day, surrounded by friends and family on every side. Our honeymoon was short, but good. And we attempted to build for ourselves a routine of prayer and work and exercise and education that would give us the best chance of maintaining our affection.

Then, after a month of marriage, I was returning from a meeting with a mentor of mine at my church, and I found myself in a conversation with the most amazing woman I had ever met. And she was single! And I was not. She kept up, and advanced a conversation for a full thirty minutes. I felt emotions unlooked for in that conversation that I had never- never- felt for my wife. Not even when I was longing for her to return from abroad.

When I realized what this meant - that I had met someone who I effortlessly loved ONE MONTH after marrying someone else - Wretched man that I am, I have no desire to be unfaithful, but I cannot get this other woman out of my head. We have only ever had chance conversations, usually at church functions. And I find myself rehearsing in my head could-have-beens. If only I had listened to my body, and bore the weight of unfulfilled expectations by canceling the wedding.

It would not have been as bad, I think, if I had met this woman even a YEAR after the wedding. But less than one month? So close to such a final decision, with no way to go back. No way for what has been done to be undone? No way to go back to singleness? No way to turn back time and wait for her? I know I can never be with that other woman. If I were to divorce my wife, I would have to leave behind the friends I have known here, including this new one, who is a friend of us both.

To divorce her would entail a complete shift in life perspective, and with my temperament, would likely lead nowhere good.

But once again, I have started hurting myself physically. I have bruised my ribs, and whenever the stress becomes too great, I press on the spot, invisible to the eye, but a source of enough pain to shock my mind away from the emotional pain of my decision.

My wife notices too, although she may be unable to put it into words. She has had dreams of watching me marry someone else while she watches from the crowd. She knows she can't be my everything, and so she encourages me to do other things. But I cannot shake the feeling that the root cause of my lack of motivation is my near constant feeling of regret.

But I have done all I can to continue to show her love and affection. Continue to kiss her. Engage with her in conversation. Sleep with her. Hold her close. But I do such things mechanically. With an empty heart. It's just that fully 80 percent of my mind is preoccupied with thoughts of regret, to the point that thinking about things as I used to feels like moving through mud in a dense fog in the forest.

All after merely five months. Five months.

Advice?

Last edited by Shaken; 19th March 2019 at 07:16 PM. Reason: Read through it, and found errors and ambiguities that needed specification.
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