Parted, Not Partners

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 17, 2010

If your love is blind, then you shouldn’t be surprised when it drops you into a deep, dark pit. Everyone else, the not-blind, saw it coming, but you’re the one in a pit looking for a rope. Instead of falling in love/on your ass, skip your next plunge and learn how to manage your blindness with a few common sense techniques that can keep you out of trouble, on your feet, and on the path to finding someone who won’t let you down.
–Dr. Lastname

I don’t know what I did to drive my husband away. I guess I’m a pushy type of person—I’ve got an executive job—and he’s an easygoing carpenter who spends every spare moment rehabbing old houses, and he gradually got sick of my nagging him to spend more time with me on the weekends, until one day he just moved out. Now, when I reach him on his phone, he tells me he loves me, and agrees to meet with me to talk things over and work things out, but then he doesn’t show up. I wish I hadn’t given him such a hard time, but now I want to know how to get him to come to couples therapy and put our marriage back together.

Some girls prefer being married to someone who’s never around but pays the bills. Those girls and your husband have something in common, whether you like it or not.

Before figuring out how to save your marriage, ask yourself what you want your marriage for (and don’t say love—you should know better).

You’re an executive, so be as specific about the amount of availability you would write into the partnership as you would for a job description: hours per week, time of day, degree of alertness, freedom from inebriation, etc.

Keep sitting on that save-your-marriage urge long enough to ask yourself, regardless of how much you nagged him and/or how much he loves you, what the likelihood is of his doing the amount of necessary face time with a non-shack-rehabbing marital partner.

The way you describe him, not fuckin’ likely; he’s not into hanging out with a girl who’s not into holding a hammer (unless maybe she’s handing over a credit card).

If that’s true, you’re in luck and out-of-luck. Out of luck because there was never much chance he’d meet your marital requirements, and the chances aren’t going to improve, no matter how sweetly you try to entice him into marital therapy and how persuasive the therapist is.

You’re in luck, however, because your nagging isn’t at fault, and you have nothing to blame yourself for, so we’re not going to talk about how your nagging drove him away or how a therapist can glue him back on.

Now that we’ve killed off false hope, think about ways to make the best of things. Ask yourself how to avoid making the same mistake twice, given the fact that you probably knew his habits from the beginning and then talked yourself into believing he’d change.

If you still think guys change, slap yourself. People don’t change, but that doesn’t mean you change your approach towards relationships. Be an executive at work and in your personal life, and be glad your husband quit.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to point you forward. “I hate losing this marriage, but my goal is to find a good partner, not create one from someone who doesn’t have the right material. Partners aren’t made, they’re found. My job is to use my experience with this marriage to choose better next time.”

When we were in training, I used to depend on my wife completely—she was a year ahead, and I couldn’t stand it when she was on call and would leave me alone overnight. I wasn’t jealous, I just needed her. But then we got married, and I graduated and started my own specialty training, and suddenly—it was like a switch clicked—I stopped needing her and didn’t really want to be around her. Now it’s 4 years later and we’ve got a couple kids and the trapped feelings just keeps getting stronger. It’s tough, because she’s a very nice person, she doesn’t do anything wrong, and she wants to make our marriage work, and I feel totally guilty, because I just don’t want to be with her. How can I get our old chemistry back?

Some people believe the measure of a good partnership is an equally balanced feeling of need for one another—wanting her as much as she wants you—and you’re the living, breathing example of why that’s not so.

You didn’t want your neediness to blind you into thinking your then-girlfriend had strong feelings about you, if she didn’t. Congratulations, she did and does really love you. Unfortunately, what you were blind to was the depth of your own feelings.

The trouble is, needy feelings come and go depending on your confidence, mood, loneliness, horniness, whatever. Neediness makes you blind, which is why satisfying your needy feelings shouldn’t be in the partnership job description.

Instead, consider your actual needs as you would if you were looking for a partner in your practice. You need someone you like to spend time with and can rely on, whether you’re needy or not.

So here’s the standard procedure: the more you’re crazy about someone, the more you should take it slow. Clean out a basement together, travel long distances and sleep in crummy motels together, foster a diabetic cat together, whatever, just put your relationship to the test to see if it’s a shared partnership or a personal fix.

Meanwhile, the old chemistry can’t be retrieved and wasn’t the real thing, in any case, so give up that goal and stop wallowing in guilt. You might not need her anymore, but your kids do, so you’ve got to figure out how to make the best of it.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to address her and your own conscience. “I would do anything to make this partnership work but I made a mistake in thinking my need for you was the same as good, solid attraction and acceptance. Now that I’m feeling less needy, I can’t find the necessary chemistry and I can’t help not loving you. You haven’t changed. It’s no one’s fault. Meanwhile, we have a good family, and I need to keep it strong while managing the bad chemistry that makes it impossible for me to give you what you deserve.”