Question
My wife and I are the perfect couple. We've been married for 21 years and have two teenage daughters. We've never had financial problems and our sex life has always been good.
My wife recently went back to college and is planning a career beyond home-making. She recently shared with me that she is feeling 'off-kilter' because she wants to be independent - even if that means breaking ties with family and friends. She feels as though she has lived for others' expectations and is tired of it. She wants to live her own life. This appears to be without me.
There is no other man, although I suspect that she is enjoying the attention she's getting from colleagues at college and people she has met at the various activities she now has time for. She talks of wanting to change her whole persona. Should I be supportive, even if I suspect that I'll lose her eventually? Or do I fight to make her honour her commitment to me, even if she's unhappy? Or has she already mentally 'checked out' of the marriage?
Answer
I do have to stop you right there, don't I? You and your wife are not the perfect couple. No, I'm not nit-picking and I'm not being nasty. And yes, I do understand that there's no such thing as a perfect couple anyway. It still has to be said: You and your wife are a long way off from being perfect together. On the contrary, you're in trouble.
I know you were just trying to tell me about the good things. My concern is that you're stuck. Emotionally, anyway, you're in denial. Or else you're being unrealistically stoical. Or perhaps you believe that calmness is the only course. The point is, your quiet cool creates a totally false note. Unless, of course, you don't care. But then why would you write to me?
Your wife is painting a future without you. Maybe she's just day-dreaming. Or maybe she genuinely doesn't want you anymore. Maybe her feelings are short-term, born of the burst of exciting freedom she feels in her new life. Or perhaps she's signalling that she found you so far from the ideal couple, that she'll leave without a backward glance. Who on earth knows? I'm not sure even your wife does.
That's all decidedly beside the point anyway. The real issue is how you feel. At the moment you're entirely caught up with trying to work out some diplomatic response to your wife. In the process, you're denying that you're any kind of player in this game. And that, in turn, creates a false reality. Don't you get it? You're not only entitled to your feelings, you have a responsibility to be open about them. How can your wife know what she really wants, if she has no idea who she's dealing with, or what she might lose?
Look, right now your wife is acting as though you were some friend she's 'sharing' her thought with. She's behaving as though her decision will have no impact on you. She's denying the reality of your very existence. And it's you who is allowing that to happen. You listen like a sympathetic father confessor, rather than the man who is about to lose his life partner. You're actively encouraging your wife to ignore you.
By being so low-key, you're allowing your wife to believe that she's losing nothing. You are colluding in her assessment of her life so far - namely that it wasn't really her, it wasn't really real, it was something best forgotten, a nothingness. Well, maybe that's her assessment, but it is certainly not yours. From your perspective you were the perfect couple. You don't want to lose her. It will cause great pain and grief. Isn't that true? Then show her. Be passionate. Be grief-stricken. Be angry at her for acting as though you didn't exist. Be real.
Let me say all this another way. Your wife will make a choice. You cannot control that. But by being real about your feelings, you will show her what she's leaving behind. That's the only way you can fight for your marriage. Being tactical at a moment like this doesn't work. It only reinforces your wife's impression that her life was colourless until now. Go paint a different picture of your togetherness. It may not be enough, but it will be real.
