Making your way through this cruel, confounding, ever-changing world is difficult. Something make you anxious this week, or any week? Lay it on me at askdaveholmes@gmail.com. I'm here to help you minimize the damage you will necessarily inflict on the world just by being alive.
So, what's your problem?
Dave,
I've been married for about 13 years, I live in a conservative area of the country, and I feel completely trapped. My relationship with my wife was good when we were dating, but once we got married, almost immediately my wife had no sexual desire or need for me in her life. Our sex life died quickly, and she started to come up with excuses to get out of gatherings with my friends, and situations where we would be alone together. We had sex maybe three times and had our first child, then literally twice more and had our second. In the decade since, we have had sex maybe seven or eight times, literally.
To be fair, I put some undue pressure and responsibility on her when we first became parents. I've acknowledged and apologized for it, and more importantly, I've changed. But it has become obvious it isn't something she can get past. Due to her upbringing and personality, she doesn't like to talk about personal things, or thoughts, or feelings, and she has enormous insecurities she won't admit, so my attempts to discuss our problems haven't gone anywhere. We just disengaged from each other. We became roommates.
We have been chugging along that way because of the stigma of divorce in our small community, our judgmental families/friends, and what it would do to the kids. Last year, she called me into the room and said she wanted to try counseling. But she also said some things she can't take back, like "I've been starting to think about what life would be like without you" and "No matter what happens, I will always love you as a person." To me, that seemed like it was already over in her eyes. We tried counseling but it became quickly obvious in our first few sessions that she is not the kind of person that deals well with someone asking her personal questions about her upbringing or offering recommendations. She stuck to her side of the story and I stuck to mine. We went three times, then tried going to separate therapists, but even that stopped after a few sessions.
I know she talks with a few of her friends about us and I have no idea what they tell her, but I'm sure it's along the lines of "You can do better." I don't talk to my friends about personal stuff. She and I continue to be friends, but I feel like she is finished with the relationship. We are two different people, she is A type and I am laid back. At first that seemed to work, but now I'm not so sure.
Any idea what I should do?
-Anonymous
There was a pool in the backyard of the house I grew up in, and sometimes on a muggy summer Saturday, my mother would join us back there. She'd hesitate and fret at the edge for a good 30 minutes—"Is the water warm? Is it okay in there?"—before finally working up the nerve to dip a toe. From there, it would be a harrowing ordeal: Millimeter by millimeter, she would lower herself into the pool, grimacing as the water made contact with each new skin cell. "Knives," she would wail. "The water feels like knives!" The process would literally take the entire afternoon, and by the time she was finally neck-deep, the rest of us were dried off and gathered around the grill.
I tried to impress upon her how much she was missing, how much she was torturing herself, and that the water would be the same temperature whether she stretched the pain out for hours or jumped in all at once. She'd pretend to listen, and then the next Saturday: "Knives. Kniiiiiiives!"
I bring this up because this is exactly what you're doing. There is an obvious, cold truth right here: This thing is broken, you both know it, and you're allowed to walk away from it. It is best for you to be apart, but both of you are stretching this revelation out and maximizing its potential for pain. Neither of you wants to be the villain, so you are each silently, passively trying to make it the other person's job.
Enough.
Make no mistake: You can carry on like this for the rest of your life if you want to; you've already shown an impressive level of commitment to the arrangement. But why be so cruel to another person? Why be so cruel to yourself? It is seductive—particularly in conservative, religious communities—to think that there is something noble about suffering. There isn't; not when it's avoidable. There's certainly no value in dragging other people into it.
You are correct when you say that divorce can be hard on kids. But do you know what else can really mess kids up? A front-row seat as their two favorite people hiss with resentment toward each other for decades. Do you think they don't sense what's going on? Did you or your wife witness the same kind of behavior with your own parents? That cycle repeats itself. Do you want to send two terrified, emotionally-repressed people out into the world? Or do you all want to evolve together?
I also hear your argument that your conservative families and communities make divorce difficult, and as a Catholic man who came out to his conservative family and community long ago, I am unmoved. Know this: Families and communities are conservative until they aren't. Everyone is resistant to change right up to the moment when change happens. You may get the side-eye from a relative or a friend, but you are just as likely to be treated with respect and compassion. You are not the first person on Earth to find himself in this position. You are allowed to say, "We tried our best, but it didn't work out."
But here is my one catch: You have to actually try your best. For your sake and your kids', you both have to put some real effort into this. Let us declare Operation Hope It All Somehow Magically Improves a failure and move forward to a new strategy. I suggest you give this relationship everything you have for one more year. And in that year, you both have to work hard, and overcome your bad habits, and get your hands dirty. Here are just a few thoughts, based on the information you've given me:
- Not talking to your friends about what's going on in your life? That's not trying your best. Be honest for five minutes and allow your friends to be your friends. Lean on them. I suspect that what keeps you so tight-lipped around your friends is what keeps her quiet around you. I don't care what it is. Push past it. Everybody's scared to be vulnerable. We don't reach out because it's easy, we do it because it helps. Want her to get better at it? Lead by example.
- Ditching couples therapy after three sessions? That's not trying your best. And I know you can find a couples' therapist who will do more than simply letting you each tell your side of the story. The whole point of couples' counseling is to find the truth that exists in between. If you weren't getting there with your first therapist, keep looking.
- Hanging onto hurtful things your partner said or did ages ago? That's not trying your best. By the way, the things she said—"I've been starting to think about what life would be like without you," and "No matter what happens, I will always love you as a person"—are those not also true for you? Are they not just honest emotional statements? If they wounded you so deeply that you're still holding onto them a year later, then you waive the right to complain about her holding onto your behavior from early parenthood.
- Fewer sexual encounters than there have been X-Men films? That's…well, that's a hunger strike.
You also need to raise the stakes. Circle a date on the calendar; let's make it one year from today. Resolve that on that day, if you cannot both say there has been a significant improvement, then you will go your separate ways. Right now, you are showing each other that you are too passive to actually leave the relationship, so where's the incentive to change?
Approach this next year like one brutal Hail Mary pass. It's going to be painful. You're going to hear some things you don't like. You're going to say some things you don't like. But it's going to help.
Or, once you both do a cannonball into this ice-cold pool of truth, you may find that your bodies acclimate to it better and more quickly than you'd feared. You might say the unsayable—that your marriage is over—and it might not feel so bad. You might shake hands and get on with it.
The pool in our backyard, by the way, was heated. I still don't know what the hell my mom was going on about.
Don't waste another beautiful summer day. Jump right in.
Send any and all questions (besides math questions) to askdaveholmes@gmail.com.
