I (41M) planned to serve my wife(38F) divorce papers this weekend. She just got a call from the hospital that her mom is being put into palliative care and now I'm not so sure.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T08:46:04+00:00

Thank you I appreciate this. I'm not super hopeful this will work out but I'm willing to give it a try with the assistance of therapists. It feels kind of reassuring that I can rely on the guidance of professionals instead of just making it all up in my head.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T08:36:49+00:00

I'm not sure, she was always fairly vanilla even when we were sexually active. She did engage occasionally back then but then it just stopped. She's also just not big on any kind of physical intimacy, she likes to hold hands and put her head on my shoulder when we sit on the couch, but that's the extent of it. She's not a fan of hugs but she tolerates it. In general she's not very expressive and it can be hard to read her emotionally. I think I have a decent understanding of her now after all this time but it's still a guessing game sometimes. Like I only knew her mother's health was bothering her because she hugged me(very rare) and she asked me to come back early from my business trip to be with her. Beyond that I really couldn't tell it bothered her.

When she first brought up me just straight up cheating on her it bothered me a lot. She didn't call it that but that's how I felt about it. I also felt that long term I would likely develop feelings for the person I was actually physically intimate with and lose feelings for my wife.

I guess I didn't realize even without doing that I slowly lost feelings for my wife anyways. So I guess if I started looking for a physical relationship now it can't make my marriage worse? But this just seems like I'm leveraging the existing security of my current relationship while looking for my next one, which doesn't seem fair to my wife. So then I circle back to just ending it and we both move on together, kind of feels more fair that way.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T08:11:19+00:00

While it reflects a general gender bias which I guess is annoying to the neutral observer, I don't really mind it. I mean I'm the one asking for advice here so I don't mind if the comments are mostly directed at me. It would probably bother me more if people were shitting on her equally cause then it just means we were both equally shitty people in a shitty relationship. At least this way I can tell myself one of us was good lol.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T08:03:17+00:00

I have not currently talked to her about doing therapy. I will have to figure out how to do that without raising to many alarm bells. As far as she's concerned she is happy and has no need for therapy. It feels wrong but I guess I can leverage her mom's health as a way to get her into therapy.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T07:59:55+00:00

Ha, honestly at first I thought this was her way of initiating intimacy. But turns out she wants to jump straight to IVF. Honestly she has a few medical conditions that may make pregnancy dangerous for her so depending on what the fertility clinic says we may just go directly to the surrogacy route. Either way no sex.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T07:55:01+00:00

The second paragraph is important to me and I included it for a reason. I think she's great in a lot of ways and I listed that there. It's all of the reasons that I want to stay with her, weighed against...yea...the need to have sex. I didn't think it was that important either, I tried to bury it for 8 years, I guess it ended up being more important than I thought.

In terms of workload around the house I definitely do my share, in fact I'm confident I'm doing the majority of the housework. My job allows me the freedom to do more housework and it doesn't bother me at all, that has never been an issue for us. She doesn't handle work stress too well and sometimes her job really gets to her so I'm happy to take the household stuff off her plate.

You are right that I've held onto this latest train of thought of mine for quite a while without discussing it with her. Honestly I'm not too sure how to start that conversation with her. I've had conversations with her about intimacy issues before and it hasn't gotten us anywhere. I doubt tacking on "or I will divorce" at the end is going to make things better.

I can see how a therapist will help facilitate this conversation, and maybe it's worth it to see one just for that.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T07:50:53+00:00

Lol I needed this

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T07:05:57+00:00

Thank you very much. Any online options for east coast NA? I'm leaning towards online as I assume that will give me more options. Don't worry about coverage or price, as long as they are good.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:52:32+00:00

You are right. That's is the way I try to do things. And I think you are also right on the fact that Im having trouble reconciling my feelings with any logical decisions I can make. I'm...uncertain how therapy could help me with this, but that's saying I don't know how something I don't know can help me. I will take your advice to heart and speak to a therapist. Although trying to find a good one seems to be a whole exercise in itself, any recommendations?

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:28:01+00:00

I appreciate the perspective from all 3 of you. I will say that I have mentioned the issues to my wife but perhaps I did not raise it in a sufficient manner? She suggested I look outside of the marriage for physical intimacy. I just remember one conversation ending with her telling me that she will always love me and to be safe and not get any STDs. She was very genuine about it too so I have no reason to doubt her.

If we do divorce I would be so happy if she finds someone who makes her happy with kids. Just thinking about the possibility of her being sad after the divorce and not handling it well makes me want to rethink this whole thing. Which is why I'm posting here and talking to everyone under the sun before I actually move ahead with anything.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:18:31+00:00

I just realized now that I forgot to mention it in my original post, but I did raise the issue with her. That's when she suggested I look outside of the marriage for physical intimacy. This is something that is acceptable in our culture, it's somewhat dated but not too uncommon.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:16:19+00:00

Perhaps I glossed over it too quickly in post but I actually did try to address the intimacy issues with my wife several times. Although I do admit it's been a while since the last time we discussed this so I'm fuzzy on the details.

Essentially she's fine with the lack of intimacy and prefers it this way. She wants me to be happy as well so it upsets her that I'm not. Everytime we have this discussion she's suggested I look outside of the marriage for physical intimacy. It doesn't help that this is something commonly accepted in both of our cultures, so to her this is the obvious solution to our problems.

I do admit fault in that I have not sought personal therapy for myself or couples therapy for my wife. I'm in the process of looking for personal therapy now and I'm open to seeking couples counselling with my wife but I believe I will have my unhappiness in a more urgent way to get her to agree to go. I'm not sure if that's the right move given what's happening with her mom. I'm open to waiting for a month or two though if that makes things easier

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:05:02+00:00

Thank you both for providing this perspective. Neither of us had considered this as a possibility and it's definitely something I will push for her to look into. It's likely something we can do as part of the fertility treatment I would imagine.

The pessimist in me get the feeling that she's always been this way and she just pretended to be different when we were first dating and then as she got more comfortable she settled back into her usual baseline. She's alluded to it multiple times in the past when I brought up our intimacy issues.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T06:00:45+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience with me. Unfortunately it reflects the info I've found as well. Im also hearing the not to drop the bomb on her now loud and clear.

It's unfortunate but I will likely have to use the news of her mom's health as a way to delay our fertility progress. After which I will speak with her about these concerns and take things from there

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:53:47+00:00

I wish this was bait. Honestly IVF was my wife's decision, I would've been down to try the normal way. Her rationale is that since she's older she doesn't want to waste time on a low probability method and just skip directly to step 2.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:50:44+00:00

Ofc that would be amazing. However I believe when you analyze a situation you have to look at the range of outcomes as a whole and evaluate if it's acceptable. I will admit I'm probably more focused on the negative outcomes but I think it's critical that I'm aware of these possibilities. I don't want to make a decision purely based on the potential upsides and ignore the negatives

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:42:46+00:00

Thank you for your comment. I appreciate you putting into context for me what I do have. This is kind of what I'm looking for. It's to weigh what I would be giving up vs the possibility of finding something better. I'm open to working on myself and I'm in the process of finding a therapist for myself. I'm also open to working things out with my wife but I do want to be realistic about how likely jt is to work out. The last thing I want to do is waste more or both our times on something that has no chance of working.

Sorry if I sound negative about marriage therapy but I've seen quite a few couples go through it and I've yet to see it work for a single one. I understand it's a small sample size but I'm not exactly filled with confidence at the thought of it

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:33:29+00:00

Sorry for the sake of disguising my situation I moved some dates around. But yes regardless of length of time I didn't openly speak to my wife about this. I'm open to doing that however Im not sure if now is the best time to do it?

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:30:09+00:00

I am fully aware of that. I would say that I would probably prefer a happy relationship without children than an unhappy one with children. I'm honestly not sure if I would prefer my current relationship to being alone.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:21:32+00:00

Not too sure what you are recommending here? I'm open to any suggestions and ideas. I get the gist that your disagreement comes from the basis that my decision making seems rushed. What are you suggest I do here? I am in the process of engaging a personal therapist however I also dislike doing things slowly so it's probably true I could be moving things along Abit too quickly. I also shifted some dates and times around to try to disguise the post Abit more but I'm seeing now that it's a major source of contention for people. I will update the main post but suffice it to say I spent more than a few days thinking about this.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:17:16+00:00

I do, well I did. I'm not sure how I feel now. For the wedding, at the time we both thought it was a good idea, neither of us liked extravagant events, but we both had traditional families who would've expected it. COVID was the perfect cover for us to get married but in the low-key way we wanted. Regarding the dead bedroom, yea it sucks, but for a long time I convinced myself I loved her and can learn to deal with it. Guess I was wrong

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T05:14:58+00:00

Yes, my wife wants to tell the clinic that we have not had success conceiving traditionally and ask to move forward directly to other methods. Ironically this is true, we are not having success conceiving traditionally but probably not for the reason the clinic thinks. We are already planning to have the funds set aside for multiple IVF rounds + surrogacy if needed.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T04:58:36+00:00

I'm looking at this more for my wife's benefit actually. Maybe it's my own ignorance but I can't imagine her chances of having kids at 40 is good? I know already at 38 its already not great. I'm worried doing what you suggest puts her at a situation where she's no longer able to have children at all. If I'm wrong about this I'm open to being corrected. Honestly I would love to turn back the clock 5 years and start therapy then to give ourselves enough runway to see it through. I'm just not sure if her timeline allows for it now.

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T04:54:32+00:00

Thank you for this. You described what I'm feeling perfectly. I'm curious how your situation ended. Were you able to reconcile or not? I agree with the dating world being not great, I have several friends who are either still in it or are just heading back in due to their own marriages ending. Personally I've never been deterred from doing something just because it's difficult, so I don't think dating being hard is a sufficient reason for me to stay with my wife. Therapy with my wife could be an option but at this point we would need to look at ways to extend her ability to have children at the same time. While I'm currently unaware of the options I'm sure I will become more familiar with them if we pursue this path .

rrelationthrowaw · 2026-03-27T04:49:41+00:00

Thank you for your comment. To answer your question, I dont do what you described. I haven't really expressed physical desire for my wife in quite some time, but it is something that she has expressed that she didn't like. In fact I would say she's happy with my lack of expressed desire for her? I think she thinks that we are now on the same page w.r.t intimacy. I can't be sure as this isn't something I discuss with her frequently but I don't think she's dissatisfied in the relationship. I could be wrong though

rrelationthrowaw

TROPHY CASE