a beautiful post.

Thanks, Pete!

Thank you so much for these thoughts. I needed it right now. Just found your blog today.
I love the idea that "An expectation is a premeditated resentment"; it has me thinking. On one hand I think it is a great idea, but on the other hand I feel that if we should "Never settle for being a doormat" then we have to have expectations and make them known. Maybe it's a fine line.
Thanks again for the post.

Never, ever be a doormat, Sarah. The difference between a doormat and a woman with an unmet expectation is a big one. This was a distinction I could not see in my first marriage, and it made me awfully unhappy. I am going to write a blog post right now for you and everyone else who fears it's a fine line, because I want you to enjoy being married.

Thanks for a great article and website.
I realize that a part of our problems in our marriage is because of my expectations of how a loving marriage should be. We have been to marriage conferences/retreats and what I have gotten is a dream about something better in our marriage than just being parents. Initially I put my expectations high about finding a way back to a romantic marriage, I called my parents and arranged with them to take care of our children over the weekend and book a hotel with a nice spa (that I know that my wife likes) anniversary. What surprised me was the reaction of my wife, she got furious about me planing something like this without asking her first and simply said that she was sick. As I had promised the children to go to their grandparents I still went there with them leaving my wife at home. After returning I discovered that she had been shopping the entire weekend and not rely been sick.
Her expectations on me feels huge, she expects me to do a lot more than I possibly can handle and her standards for how it should be done are so high tat I rarely manage to do things good enough.
As to not make things worse I decided not to mention my dream/expectation for our marriage and in one way it has lessened the friction but it also means that we get nowhere in our relation. We keep together for the children but are only parents and not lovers.
I have tried to get her to read the book "Five love languages" together with me and it has helped me to understand her better but she has only read the first part and does not prioritize to read the second. She has clearly made a point of that her love language is "Acts of Service" and I have tried to do all I can to give her that but without seeing any result.
The big question in my mind is how I could try to get her to change her expectations and try to see the things I try to do as a sign of love.
She also puts really high expectations on her self and gets very frustrated when she cant fulfill them her self.

JS, I am going to offer some suggestions for your situation in a new blog post. (Anyone reading this later, look for the June 7, 2011 post.)

My parents stayed married for their kids and it was awful. I saw my mom be a doormat and my dad be continually contemptous and denigrating to her. He was emotionally abusive to us kids too (I'm guessing this is a not uncommon pattern). I grew up an insecure, fearful child. Now, as an adult, I've really had to work at not repeating either of my parent's examples. The simple witnessing of an abusive relationship is damaging to a child. When my parents did get divorced, when I was in my 20's, I said, "Thank God! Why didn't you do it sooner?"

Thanks, EM, for adding to this important topic. I am so sorry for the pain you endured.

I am at a crossroad, at this very moment. Part of me feels shame, and being selfish. The other, wishes for freedom.

I knew the very day I got married, that this wasn't what I wanted. I had wanted to break things off, but the day I had planned to, I found my then girlfriend with child. Needless to say, my fear of becoming my sperm doner, got the best of me. My father wasn't around, and I was not going to do the same.

Fastfoward, we have been married 8 years now, and I have been trying to get out every since. We have done the counseling 3X, didn't work. I have tried to leave sevetal times, twice she tried to kill herself. She's never happy, a Debbie downer, about everything and has 0 patiece. Hence why I wanted to end it in the first place. And, you think I should stay?

I love the kid, but not the mother. Our family backgrounds are night and day. Hers, filled with uneducated, beer drinking, sloppy drunks, mine some of yje best schools in the country, on to awseome carrers.

Sometimes its good to split.

John, sometimes it IS good to split. I can not blame anyone for giving up on such a painful situation when they have been unsuccessful in changing it for so many years. You have endured a lot for your child.

And yet, there is that shame, that sense of selfishness, and your love for this child who will no longer have any at-home supporter when the depression, the impatience, and the sloppy drunks are too much.

So I offer you a small assignment, one I wish someone had given me when I reached that point of wanting out, despite the consequences. What will you do differently when you are free of your current circumstances? Write down everything you can think of. Take a few days to think of everything.

Then, for this exercise, cross off the list any item that requires finding another partner. You should be left with a bunch of things like spending more time with your friends, getting in better shape, doing more things alone with your kid, going to more laugh-out-loud movies, taking up fly fishing, learning to dance, or visiting Romania.

Now, take each item and figure out some way to do it (or start doing it) BEFORE you leave. This will work better if you do them without making it obvious you intend to leave, so don't bother responding angrily to any objections you get from your wife. Give yourself three months of living your new life while still married.

It just might change your life. At the very least, it will give your kid three months of a happy father before the divorce begins. It will help you sort out how much of your unhappiness comes from your dashed expectations of what your wife will add to it and how much from the limitations you have placed on it to avoid her negativity. It will give you a clearer picture of how easy or difficult the changes you look forward to will really be. And it will probably keep you from entering a rebound relationship or doing things you are not proud of to women who are nothing like your wife and not responsible for her actions.

If it changes your view of your wife and makes you wonder if perhaps you two still have a future, despite her family background, please do contact me. I have lots of tools you can use to rebuild. But no, I am not telling you to stay, only offering help doing so if and when it seems like the right thing for you.

he is sneacky and dont tell the truth might be having some kind of reletionship with a family member . i feel sick to to my stomach

I feel for you, Liza. Here is a link to a list of reputable programs for dealing with infidelity.

My husband of almost 18 years has been having am" emotional" affair with my sisternlaw. I just sprang it on me this week. He feels guilty and says he's been unhappy for years. This has really come out of left field he says it's not sexual I don't really think believe him. But the distrust I have for him is killing me. we gave three great kids and I thought we had a good life together. I'm lost... :(

You do have a good life together. And three great kids. Don't lose sight of this as you deal with the shock, Mel. If he gets past his guilt and unhappiness, and you get past your distrust, you will still have these things.

Your distrust is normal and natural. It's there to protect you. It can fool you, though. Don't tell yourself that just because you distrust him, he did more than he's telling you. Take your time to find out where things stand.

Telling you means he's ready for a change. People who are unhappy in their marriages do really stupid stuff. Some leave. Some throw themselves into work or a hobby that keeps them away from home a lot. Some find another person to tell them they are valuable and lovable.

It sounds like you are married to the third type and in some danger of becoming the first. Don't choose while you are still in shock. In that third group are some trying to secure the benefits of both relationships, which is what you fear. But lots of others in that group are hopeful that things will get better with time, if they can just get enough affirmation (or sex) outside the marriage to wait for a change in circumstances that will let them throw themselves back into the relationship. They want a good relationship with their spouse but lack the skills, so they try something stupid like this. And then, after they see it gets them nowhere good, they are ready to change.

You are owed an apology and the truth, as well as plenty of time to rebuild your trust. Whether you stay or go, your husband will always be part of your life. You have children together. You have been together long enough that your life story will always include him. Your finances will likely involve him for the rest of your life.

Eventually, you will have to choose to forgive him and get on with life, together or apart, or make him the central figure in your life as you refuse to forgive someone who will remain a key part of your life. As you picture your future, picture him forgiven in your mind, even though this is unlikely to happen right away.

If you want a chance at a great life together, consider addressing the sources of his ongoing unhappiness. I am not suggesting you make the changes he imagines would make him happy. His expectations are probably as unreasonable as mine were 25 years ago.

But hear them out. Treat them as a difference of opinion, one in which you two have been stuck for years thinking there are only two options. Go read the instructions from October 1 through 4 for finding Third Alternatives. I expect that addressing his list will address a lot of your list, too.

And get help, people who can feel your pain without putting down the man with whom you have had 3 great kids and 18 good years. Check out the Beyond Affairs Network and the book After the Affair.

I wish I could just give you a huge hug, Mel. This is a lot you are dealing with. I hope he intends to stay and has the character to regain your trust and your love.

i have been married 11 years-my husband is unhappy and wants out. he has wanted to leave me several times and i always cry and beg him to stay. The last time he moved out of our room and said he was going to tell our son-i have an illness and had a flare up at that time so he said he would wait for me to recover before leaving. i feel pathetic that my husband doesnt want me but i hate the thought of divorce. he flat out refuses any type of counseling or help for us.

I am so very sorry for your pain, Denise. Crying and begging might delay a divorce, but what might you do to enjoy what you have while you still have it? One of the fastest and most reliable routes to happiness turns out to be building your gratitude muscle. At the same time it improves your happiness, it also makes you a whole lot easier to fall back in love with.

Try writing a letter to him (which you are free to share with him or not) in which you thank him for a few of the things your marriage to him has brought into your life and divorce will not take away. In my marriage, such a letter would thank my husband for teaching me to take another look at comedy and bring more laughter into my life when I am stressed. Because of him, when I start feeling critical of others, I will always remember his frequent reminders that there is a seat for every [butt] and that a world that would be perfect for me is not the same thing as a perfect world.

If we had any kids together, I would certainly put them on my list, as well as everything they learned from him and all the time I got to spend with them because of his income. I will instead be grateful for the long-term influence of his love for my grandchildren from my first marriage on their development into great human beings. I will always know my mother's life was extended and her self-esteem restored because of him.

I would write the letter to remind myself that while there is a lot to lose if we divorce, there is a lot I will keep no matter what. I would write it to get better at feeling and expressing gratitude, even when there is lots to feel cheated by, too. And I would write it to give myself the gift of greater happiness and satisfaction with my life.

And if the opportunity came to sit quietly with him, I might read it to him. I would surely weep as I read, but the tears would be tears of gratitude rather than tears of fear and rejection. And if my words or my tears somehow pierced the covering he has wrapped around his heart, I would hug him like there's no tomorrow. And take the next week to write another letter just like this one.

Sigh... I'll try keeping it brief. With no real friends to talk to I find myself landing on your blog as expected from your first sentence. Google, is it really my only friend?

We are not married, but we have been together for almost 6 years. We wear wedding rings (real ones) and proclaim we are married but are saving the date for a better financial situation, or is that my excuse because I know it may not last forever?

I saved my wife from a horrible abusive marriage which she birthed 2 children. The other guy is out of the picture as I helped her get rid of him and now for 90% of the kids lives I have been their dad. They are 7 and 8 now and I do love them but is it worth killing myself over?

I have broken up with my wife many times but she is overly obsessive and a little crazy and would stalk me until I would finally cave in. Granted part of my weakness was due to her promises of the good life when we do get married and she gives her all to me.

Skip past all the crazy history and lets move to the beginning of my full commitment. 2 years ago I decided to fully commit and had her move in with me and asked the kids to start calling me daddy. I have given my all and then some to be the best I can let myself be. We have had our bumps but I can honestly say there was a point in time where I was really happy.

Fast forward to today.. We had her parents move in with us as they became homeless. This forced me to buy a house that was barely in my range so I can fit all 6 of us with out killing each other. She was at one point in school which gave me hope for a better financial future.

Due to her parents ways she has now flunked out and basically spun our lives upside down. They have sense then moved out but left a trail of destruction in their path.

I now find myself financially strapped and being the only one employed there is not much wiggle room. Then my sewer line broke and put me beyond my budget. I have expressed this to my wife multiple times but she continues to spend my money with out my permission and has put me a good grand in debt and unable to take care of finances and I am afraid of losing all that I have worked so hard to achieve. I explained about breaking my trust but that did not stop her and then I found out she also had begun stealing from stores to get her "shopping fix".

I now find myself very unhappy in most areas of my life. I no longer want the responsibility of taking care of someone else's kids not my own. I want to get "fixed" as soon as possible so I never have to worry about having kids in my life. I am unhappy with my wife as I feel she has failed us by doing bad in school and ruining our financial future. She stays home all day but yet the house is always dirty, granted it is 2,500sqrft so its is work but she has all day to do it.. I don't even want it spotless...

She also has an issue with me, I cannot say they are bs reasons but with my lack of desire to have a relationship or kids I am sure it shows in my daily life now as I don't help with the kids at all and I am pretty cold.

I tried breaking it off with her and she has begun throwing the kids in my face and how i'm going to crush them. How now both their dads left and she will have to deal with them alone while they are having issue. Forgot to mention both of them have extreme ADHD issues and then some. So she throws in my face how I am going to ruin their life and so on.

I am truly unhappy and just want to be left alone now. I don't want a wife, I don't want kids, I don't want anyone else's responsibilities.

I am so lost and confused and I feel the only way to save myself is to release myself from this life so I don't have to deal with it anymore.

I don't want to be stalked anymore or obsessed over.

I want freedom to work on my career and myself and get back to what I was originally striving for.

If I meet a beautiful women along the way who is without kids and working in a successful career I wouldn't mind exploring another relationship but I feel all that I expected and hoped for in staying in this drawn out relationship has been lost and I now feel hopeless.

This is affecting me at work and I can't think the way I need to in order to perform my job which could then again mess my career up.

...sigh. Will advise help? Probably not but maybe getting this off my chest will at least give me a few more weeks of peace in my mind.. Though at this moment I feel no sense of relief.

Thank you for reading my rant I will check back to see what you have to say.

..sigh.

I am so sorry for your pain, Tony. Financial issues can make it so hard to even think straight about a relationship. They hurt, and it is so hard to feel loved when our partner seems to do nothing to fix the situation. We are often willing to abandon someone we love in hope of stopping the pain, but it only stops the pain of not being rescued. The financial issues remain. In fact, they often become greater for both of you.

(1) Unless you live in Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Iowa, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, or the District of Columbia, I expect you are legally free to walk out on the woman and the children you rescued from abuse. However, it sounds like you would love her again if you had no financial problems. The financial problems don't go away if you stop loving her. When problems get big and we get too little support with them, it can feel like getting rid of our partner will stop the pain. It won't. All it gets rid of is the love.

(2) Her parents are gone. Whatever damage they did is in the past. Neither of you is stuck where you ended up while dealing with them.

(3) You own a house you can barely afford when there are no emergencies like broken pipes, and emergencies always come with owning a house. This problem no longer has anything to do with your relationship with her, because you will still own it if you split up, but it gets in the way of enjoying her role in your life. You can sell it, rent it out and live somewhere less expensive, take in a boarder to help pay the bills, or take a second job to pay for it, whether she stays in your life or not. Taking care of it will free you up to enjoy her love for you.

(4) You are in bad financial straits. If she were gone, you would still be in them. Don't argue over housekeeping; it has no financial value to you. Do whatever you would do about it if she were gone, whether that is to do it yourself or to ignore the mess. If you were likely to pay for housekeeping without a wife, it would have real value to you. For now, it is a straw man dragged into your fights over whether she will help you out of your financial pain. It just gets in the way of enjoying the woman you love.

(5) She does not work and has not continued the education she screwed up. As a single mom, she is in worse financial straits than you are and at grave risk. It sounds like she knows it, because she compulsively spends more of your money than the two of you can afford and resorts to shoplifting when she feels broke. Stop making the money available to her. You don't need to break up to do this. You can protect her from abuse again, this time her self-abuse and the danger to her children if she gets sent to jail. Support her efforts to get an education or a job and perhaps counseling. Keep control over the money, not out of meanness, but out of love.

I hope things get better for the two of you, and that you are able to honor your commitment with love, instead of all the current resentment. Please let us know how it turns out. I hope others will post more suggestions for rediscovering your love.

I think it's good that you're keeping it together. I know what it's like to have your parents divorce. My dad wasn't Mr. Wonderful, but I needed him in the same house. He had things to offer that I needed and each parent has things to offer that the other doesn't. Besides that, the father usually ends up crowded out of the picture in some way or other whether or not this was intended. Also, if you're divorced don't remarry if you have kids.
I'm married with a few kids myself and dealing with a difficult marriage myself. I've had time to reflect on the things I just told you. The whole thing isn't about happiness the way modern society understands happiness, but there's a satisfaction in doing what's best for your kids.

Thank you for your feedback it is much appreciated. Here is an update.

The morning after I sent the post in my wife "beat the crap out of me" (attacked me in the shower, slamming my glass shower door and punching it, opening it up and punching me) over me asking when the kids Holiday Lunch was going to be. We missed their Thanksgiving Lunch and I wanted to be there for them this time. She took it as I was trying to screw her over and play mind games with her since she just got into a verbal confrontation with their teacher.

From that point I told her she needs to move out I am not going to be anyone's punching bag. This is the 2nd time she has put her hands on me and I nearly killed her for doing it. Though being a man taught to never hit a lady all I could do was holder back and push her away the best I could. It took A LOT of self discipline not to defend myself. This scares me because I never want to hit her but for a moment I thought to myself life would be easier if I just knocked her out so she would leave me.

A bunch more drama has gone on including her mom, aunt and cousin coming up and her mom being disrespectful to us. Which put her in a bad mood right before I had my company holiday party. Needless to say she ruined that for me, we stayed there for 30 minutes and had to leave because of the drama. It's like I keep giving her "chances" and she keeps digging herself further down. That night was the last straw for me, I went out to the club just to get away from her. I was trying my best to find a friends house to crash at but unfortunately.... people seem to never be there when you need them.

Since the weekend I had cut her off in a cold way. No more "I love you" or affection or touching at all. Then I made the mistake that I have so many times in the past and gave into my man urges.

Since then we have had several conversations and it seems like things may be getting better but really.. it's only be a few days. I made it very clear I can deal with a lot of things but screwing with my money is not one of them. I agree I shouldn't let her have my card but unfortunately I work a lot and she always has the car so she has to get gas, buy food, and run other errands which makes it nearly impossible for me to cut the card off. Though I will admit she hasn't been spending.

We are basically on the edge and it can really fall either way at this moment. Because I love her I am giving it yet another chance but I also let her know we as a family need to start going to therapy. We are starting to get into really nasty fights and we never used too. The kids are being affected and I hate for them to see what's going on with us and the oldest is starting to act out now.

I pray this can work out in a peaceful way.

Thank you for the feed back it helped, also thanks for giving me a place to talk as I lack that.

Again thank you.

Tony, I hope you two can come back from the edge. Physical violence is never acceptable in any relationship, and I highly recommend Steven Stosny's book Love Without Hurt (the paperback title) / You Don't Have to Take It Anymore (the hardcover title) to anyone dealing with it in their marriage.

When you feel yourself getting angry at her at other times, try to remember that you cannot save a marriage or your self-esteem by fighting with your spouse. Go for a walk or get some exercise until you are calm, because you CAN save a marriage by being calm and strong and willing to look for Third Alternatives to your disagreements.

Hey! I am really struggling and could use some advice. My husband and I have been married 7 years, and we have four small children. (yes, we've been busy.)

I love my husband, he works hard for our family and he doesn't deserve this, but I'm having a huge, very intrusive "crush" on another man. (I don't talk to this guy outside group settings at all, so not an emotional affair, tho I can see how quickly it could slide downhill given half a chance.)

This is causing me to resent everything about my husband, who is hardworking and faithful and who deserves better than this. He's in therapy right now for depression, so maybe that is a part of it. He has been "down" for years now. I know I'm comparing the fantasy version of Crush-Boy to the warts'n'all version of my husband, but that does not make the crush go away.

I guess I just miss feeling excited about life. Maybe that's what this other guy represents to me.

Anyway, help? We've been making an effort to get out alone a little more often, tho' the sheer cost of babysitting four kids 6 and under is pretty prohibitive.

His parents are still married, though they don't seem like good marriage role models to me. His mom walks all over his mild-mannered dad in ways that seem really disrespectful to me, and they seem more like housemates bound by obligation and tradition than by love. So yeah, they are married but it's hardly an inspiring example.

My parents, OTOH, divorced when I was in my early 20s. My dad is apparantly happily remarried and my mom seems surprisingly content as a single woman. (they still hate each other tho, and I do *not* like my stepmother. The divorce was uuuugly. Right now the prospect of dealing with "blended family" drama is one of the main things keeping me out of trouble. lol)

But... surely neither of those are good paths!

Your budding relationship with Crush-Boy rests entirely on your mental invention of who he is. You are pretty much guaranteed that hooking up with him will be a huge disappointment to both of you.

It is also based on a mental invention of who you are. And it is a very, very familiar one to me, because my first husband was depressed for the last two years of our marriage. Instead of working on feeling excited about your life, you hand off this responsibility to him, knowing he cannot possibly handle it for you while depressed. Now you are free to invent a version of you that would be excited if only he were not bringing you down.

I got to find out what happens next when my first husband died, and I share it with you. No one else, not Crush-Boy, not Super-New-Husband, not Exciting Single Friends, can restore your excitement with life. In fact, life as a single mom (and I had only one child, already 9 years old, to raise, a lot easier than what you are looking at) offers lots more challenges to restoring excitement.

With every one of my needs that I dealt with after Husband #1 died, I had one of those "I could have had a V-8" moments. What if I had done this while there was still a good, hardworking, faithful man to love me? What if I had adjusted my schedule and budget to get out more often or to do less housework in my non-work hours? What if we could have gotten away for lunch together if I had just changed jobs or moved the office then as I had to when he was gone? What if I had taken up country dancing then and gotten all those endorphins from the exercise, made all those new friends who were so different from my work friends, even if he did not join me in learning to dance?

Crush-Boy has no idea how to make your life more exciting in any permanent way, and he does not want your babysitting problems. Your husband will rejoice in your more exciting life and your ability to see his best qualities instead of reflecting your lacks onto him. He will be delighted to see your kids grown into great adults and will join you in dropping everything to help when one of them hits an obstacle on their way there.

The best way to rid yourself of Crush-Boy ruining your good thing is to get to work today on a more exciting life for yourself. May I recommend http://authentichappiness.org and http://geniuspress.com as two great places to begin?

I think you are right, that I am using him to build up an image of myself that's not BORING. And I am boring, so boring I am boring myself just thinking about it.

I know the Crush-Boy is not love, not least because imagining him as a stepfather to my kids makes me shudder. lol

So yeah, I need to get a life. But how? You talk about taking 90 days and making radical changes to lifestyle, fulfilling dreams more-or-less as if you were already out the door, and I can appreciate that idea.

but if not really single, don't you have to explain yourself a little? Say I want 50 dollars a month to spend on, say, joining a club, or say I want an hour a week to spend at the gym, don't I have to run that by my husband first? (I have no personal income. I'm an unemployed housewife.)

If you were single, would you have someone to watch the kids for an hour? Would you have $50 to give the gym? There is nothing magic about divorce. You have to make all the money both of you have stretch to cover everything it does now plus another home and extras of all the kids' stuff. There will be nothing left over for gyms or school or new clothes or even dating.

So get creative. Make up exercise routines that use the cans in your cupboards or the gear at your local playground. Do an exercise video while the kids color or nap. Invite friends to come over with their kids and learn line dancing with you.

Take turns with your neighbors making dinner for three families instead of one. Use the time saved to make something you can sell if you need some more pocket cash.

Do a progressive dinner for the kids, so all of them spend an hour at each house and the other two sets of parents can have a candlelight dinner alone.

Ask your husband to go to the movies with you or take a walk with you. If he says no, ask if he would mind if you do it solo and leave the kids with him for a couple hours. You really might be surprised by the answer. Come home smiling and happy to see him, and you might be even more surprised when he invites you to take some time for yourself and offers you cash to do it.

Like to paint? Try finger painting with the kids or make room in a top cabinet to keep your paints ready to use after they go to bed. Have a book you want to write? Dictate it into a recorder while you dust or do the dishes. Sorry you did not get to be a journalist? Get your kids to help you start interviewing people all over your town and post it on the internet for your neighbors.

Ask your mother or your mother-in-law if she would visit for a week and give you three hours a day to get out and do your thing and make new friends, so that you can keep on doing your thing in your free moments after she leaves.

If you run out of ways to be yourself without your husband's permission, try the #IdeaParty run by @BarbaraSher on Twitter. Those folks absolutely love to help find a way around any obstacle to any dream. Just please don't get stuck on the $50 or the babysitting or your husband's lack of enthusiasm.

Hi Patty,

I appreciate your blog. I am finding myself in a difficult situation.

I am a young father, age 22. I met my wife as a freshman in college age 18. We were together for 6 months, and she was on birth control the entire time. One month she stopped taking birth control without telling me (I believe she actually did this on purpose) and voila she was pregnant. I forgave her for this, and took everything like a champ. I consider myself an extremely driven person and father, and do everything I can for my wife and child.

Well...since she was pregnant, she pressured me to get married ASAP as her family is very baptist. So, I did what I felt was the right thing and we got married.

I had doubts on my wedding day. You may ask, "there has got to be some reason you married her right, or why you two were together".

Sure...I guess, she was a girlfriend I had in college and I married her because she got pregnant. I did not love her when we married...I still dont know if I love her now.

I have resentment everyday about being married, and feel incomplete with my wife. We are very different people.

I am social, she wants to stay home. She doesn't like my friends, and actually would prefer If I had none...She has no friends herself, I am her entire emotional supporting framework.

OK, so I am unhappy, 22 (shes 27) and I dont know what to do. I start medical school in August which will basically consume my entire life, and any free time I have I will want to spend with my daughter. I dont want to leave the relationship in pursuit of another woman - this would only make things more complicated.

I have talked about this with my wife, she had a nervous breakdown...

Im lost. I have been trying to love my wife for 4 years now...ITS NOT POSSIBLE. The only reason Im staying in the relationship is for my daughter, whom I love dearly. Since my wife has a job (60K) a year, and Im still in school she has threatened to take 100% custody if I left her...she would probably win because I live in Florida.

Help.

Oh, Ben, what a tough situation! If only we could get you in front of college freshman to explain why we ought to get to know each other better before we start a sexual relationship.

You haven't said what you might have done to try to love your wife, but you will barely have time for a personal life while in medical school, and you will need all the cooperation and domestic tranquility you can possibly muster. Sounds to me like your very best option is to fall in love with your daughter's mother.

Let's imagine this is an arranged marriage. You've been paired up with someone who holds some appeal (after all, you chose her as your girlfriend), earns a decent income, and holds a most important position, mother to your daughter.

To grow up feeling the world's a safe place, your daughter will want to know you understand and share her faith in and love for this woman. No matter how careful your wife might be in dating or mating (and we've seen she wasn't all that careful at 23, just lucky), any other men who enter your daughter's life increase her risk of sexual and physical abuse.

So, arranged marriage. Millions of men manage to fall in love with the women their family chose for them. If you're religious, you pray for it. But it also helps a lot to learn more about love. If you're headed to medical school, I gather you're pretty good at learning. It will take time to apply what you learn, but I promise you that your daughter will gain even more from every hour you spend loving her mother than from the hours you spend with her, especially before about her sixth birthday.

Can't give you much of a reading list in a comment, so I will promise to post one on Monday or Tuesday as my blog post of the day on AssumeLove.com. I have been to the point of thinking I am not in love. It's an awful place. But much of it is in your head and therefore under your control. It really is possible. It took losing my first husband (I became a widow at 34) to grasp this. I promise to point you to a bunch of resources on this blog and in the writings of those who study love and marriage. Give it one more try. There truly is nothing more important you could ever give your daughter.

Ben,
Patty said most bluntly to me recently, “What kids care about is that you share in THEIR connection to the adults that matter so fiercely to them. They can't stand for one parent to dislike the other. It's freakishly important to them that the adults they love see what they see in the other adults they love.” I didn’t see that clearly until this past weekend.

I saw HOW MUCH it really affects a child when the adults in their life come together with open hearts. I had dinner with my husband, his ex, the boy they raised for his first 5 years together, her two children from her current marriage and the kids grandparents.

I would not have gone but the boy asked me to come. And Patty is right, he could give a rat's ass about the relationships. He wanted to show off his mom to me, he wanted me to meet his siblings.

How hard would it be to just experiment with the steps it would take to love this woman? You’re finding lots of reasons and using a lot of energy to hate her. And you know hating her is crushing your kid.

It sounds like there are behaviors of hers that you don’t like. That’s not her, that’s her behaviors and if you apply some of the things in this Blog, like Assume Love…You just might find some. How crummy would that be to fall in love with the mother of your child?

Rachel, I love that you are so brave and willing to try new approaches to old problems. What a gift you gave this child in seeing the woman he wanted you to spend time with as his mother rather than your husband's ex. I expect it also made her feel a lot more secure about the time he spends with you and your husband.

And please excuse my delay in posting this. I was unable to use my regular computer and could not find any written copy of the password for my blog!

Hi I just came across this blog from searching in google..haha
Well I am currently at a cross roads of trying to figure out whether to divorce or continue to stay in a marriage where we live like roomates. We have been married for 8 years now, and when we were dating i wanted to break up with him because i felt he was not my type, i wasn't attracted to him physically, and i found him boring. Then my sister and best friend said i was being selfish and that he cared about me and looks weren't everything and that i should give it some time. Well after 4 months of dating he gave his ring to me and said you are marrying me and i want you to meet my parents. At that point i felt obligated to tell my parents about him, and before i knew it we were setting a wedding date, and getting married. In the 1st year of marriage i thretened to leave a few times, and he would say, you made a commitment and now you have to stick to you. so i decided i should. I complained to him that our marriage was stale like his parents marriage. He would work late and long hours (they have a family business) and i would be busy studying and we barely spent time with each other, or had sex. he is also a home body, if ever we were invited to go anywhere, he would continuously ask if we had to go, and eventually i became like him, and stopped going placed, and became a home body like him. Then 4 years or so into our marriage (after graduating from school i worked with them in their business) i decided the next step was to have kids so we did, we now have an almost 3 year old and a 1 year old. When we planned to have kids i had to convince myself to have sex with him in order to have them. When we have sex i have to imagine other things, and fantisize etc. I have been home since we had our 1st child. And now we are at the point where i told him i was making a change, i began dressing up, trying to go out, at which point he began questioning me, and every time i want to go out for me he always gives me a guilt trip, but now i decided i would no longer live like room mates and that i want more. 8 years later we are now speaking of divorcing and going our own ways. He is willing to make it work and try to do what it takes, but i'm not sure if there is anything left in me to try. I keep trying to tell myself that it's best for the kids, but then i ask myself what are we going to do later when the kids are gone? stay in a stale marriage. Its not only sex, but an attraction, excitement, fun of being with each other the love that is lacking. and i'm trying to figure out if it was never there, can it some how develop now?? I don't know what to do. PLEASE help.

It's a question many are asking themselves. I believe the answer is yes, you can fall in love with your husband. Here are two recent posts on how:

I Love You But I Can't Stand This

How to Fall in Love with Your Wife (many of the steps apply to both sexes)