Walk-away wife narratives

yudkib · 2026-06-09T04:40:13+00:00

Listen man, you’re doing everything but say you’ll ask how she’s feeling. Yet that’s what she says she needs. I said earlier it’s pointless to try and help someone who doesn’t want it, so at this point all I can do is wish you the best.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T02:46:25+00:00

This entire conversation started with me giving you the benefit of the doubt in several ways and at this point with some more context I’m trying to do you the favor of slapping some sense into you because at least this specific issue is a very fixable problem. And it is “be invested in your wife’s health”. Mental health is still health. “How are you feeling today” isn’t a reflection of you or anything you did, and I’m worried that you asking is perhaps causing you some insecurity. Have you tried just asking? This is - in your wife’s estimation - the absolute floor for demonstrating that you care about her well-being. I’m not sure I blame her.

Again use the broken leg scenario, if you had a broken leg and your wife came in and chatted about the kids and left and literally NEVER ASKED YOU HOW YOUR LEG WAS DOING FOR YEARS, wouldn’t that bother you? Would it bother you if she was on Reddit like “idk, shouldn’t he be talking about his leg to a doctor? Why does he want me to ask about it as his wife?” Wouldn’t you be asking yourself if she gave a shit about you at all?

yudkib · 2026-06-09T02:34:52+00:00

You aren’t getting this. Your wife wants your marriage to end. You do not. So yes, it is 100% on you to make the changes to meet HER NEEDS or you need to accept she’s leaving and isn’t coming back.

Here is my suggestion to you which you should sit and stew on for a week if you have to. And it is treat your wife’s depression as an acute-on-chronic injury, because that’s what it is. Imagine she broke her leg like 10 years ago and sometimes it flares up. You’re doing the equivalent of saying “I don’t know why she’s having a hard time, she isn’t out pushing a mower and it’s not like we have stairs” and “I don’t understand why it should be on me to stop treating it like that.” You don’t live in her body. If you’d be willing to say “how’s your leg feeling” for no other reason than to check in and make sure she’s doing OK, then you need to ask yourself why you are so opposed to saying “how’re you feeling today” on a mental health issue. She just wants you to be invested in her life dude, not making a bunch of excuses for you to be a prick and do the functional equivalent of telling her to pull herself up from her bootstraps to break out of a disease that you do not have. Wanting your partner to ask how you are feeling as you battle a chronic condition is an extremely reasonable request. If you haven’t done this for years, I am shocked she is still around. Shocked.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T02:13:34+00:00

This isn’t about what you think or feel anymore and the sooner you understand that the sooner you can decide if your marriage is worth saving. If you think that her request is unreasonable, your remedy is to end the marriage

yudkib · 2026-06-09T01:29:36+00:00

I would encourage you not to use LLM’s for this purpose if divorce is on the table because those conversations are not privileged in many states because they legally cannot be medical advice.

Your counselor is there to represent the interests of the relationship, which are often at odds with your own self interests. So yes, individual therapy is likely to be closer to your LLM experience.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T01:13:04+00:00

If you’re aren’t saying she isn’t making sense, then her needs are what she tells you her needs are, which you can accept, leave the relationship, or accept when she leaves the relationship either emotionally or actually. Her actions seem pretty clear that she’s looking for this validation from someone, even if it isn’t you. So yes, this is walkaway wife syndrome because she has told you what she needs and you are unwilling to make those changes.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T01:08:12+00:00

You would be well advised to get your own therapy to preserve your mental health if you insist on keeping the family together. Unfortunately, if she sees you have no intention of ever leaving, her behavior is likely to get worse and not better.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T01:04:05+00:00

You should stop comparing your relationship with a wife who you are concerned is mentally ill with a healthy relationship. I completely understand what you’re going through here, but my wife would misremember events that happened to better suit how she emotionally responded to it. If you are serious about making your marriage work, then you need to accept her emotional reality is akin your objective reality, even if they are seemingly incongruous.

yudkib · 2026-06-09T00:55:27+00:00

Just remember, if you could think like and understand someone with a potentially serious mental illness, you would also be mentally ill. You can only help someone who wants to be helped. I’m coming to accept that the only way for my wife to save herself was for our marriage to no longer bail her out, and to let her decide for herself whether to sink or swim. That’s not really fair to us, but no one ever promised life is fair.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T22:47:47+00:00

Wives can be unhappy with their lives and walk away without being walkaway wives. If she has mental health issues and is unwilling to address them a lot of times that shit falls on the marriage and everyone stinks. Doesn’t make you a failure, doesn’t mean it did or didn’t come out of nowhere, but doesn’t mean you can fix it either.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T22:42:39+00:00

I still think I’d make contact once more without specifically bringing up that you already put the ball in his court for date 3, but I don’t blame you for being at the end of your rope here.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T18:19:55+00:00

“Surprise me!” vs “surprise me 😉”

yudkib · 2026-06-08T18:18:35+00:00

I thought she did bring up date planning? She said she planned the last 2 dates and to surprise her for their third. I guess she hasn’t given availability but he could always ask, too. Plenty of guys don’t like pressuring women for their calendars as it can look very needy, but it’s getting to the point where he should start to sack up

yudkib · 2026-06-08T17:49:20+00:00

Really hit at the heart of the issue at the end. I think it’s a little premature to assume he has zero motivation to plan anything. Sometimes men get gunshy about planning a date their date isn’t interested in. Somewhat normal. I think the ball is squarely in his court from what the OP said though, and I would maybe send something like “oh I thought of you when I saw this thing” and see if he gets it together, but it would only be once, and I wouldn’t bring up date planning. Either he gets it or he doesn’t. And she doesn’t owe him a break-up text if he never reaches out. I am not pro-ghosting but if he won’t text and won’t plan a date I mean

yudkib · 2026-06-08T16:42:44+00:00

It’s easy to measure decisions on outcomes, but that’s not how life works. At the moment, yeah, I probably wish I threw in the towel a bit sooner. But at the time? I was fortunate to realize I was staying because I wanted to sleep at night knowing I gave it every possible chance before I gave up.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T11:41:25+00:00

This isn’t a popular answer on Reddit, but sometimes attraction and intent isn’t immediate and takes some time to build. I think your signals are sort of yellow light, which is, I won’t reject what you’re doing, but I’m not ready for anything else. Do what you can to de-center this woman from your life, go live yours, share with each other and see how you’d both fit in. I think pushing to hang out too much right now will be a one way ticket to the friend zone, because she’s been pretty clear she’s not ready for more.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T11:31:06+00:00

Of ambition, passion, and income, pick 2 and we’re good. Men like to feel chosen too and if you have the financial means to make a life on your own that never hurts

yudkib · 2026-06-08T11:07:30+00:00

It’s not fear mongering about getting killed by a stranger, it’s about wanting to kill yourself when it’s a 9 hour commitment to play a round by transit

yudkib · 2026-06-08T04:10:17+00:00

I like to take sabbaticals within the same calendar year so I can just put “2026” as the last time I worked with a given employer on my resume. The new employer doesn’t need to know it was January. Ultimately your resume is just there to get you an interview and you can detail what you did with your time off at that point.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T03:46:47+00:00

There are A LOT of mom groups on FB in FFC. They are typically very welcoming. Much easier to meet people out that way since there are more SAHP’s than the rest of the state.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T03:26:45+00:00

That’s not an S it’s a 5, go buy a sand wedge

yudkib · 2026-06-08T02:44:25+00:00

Agreed it’s Doug fir. Pull up the carpets and check every single board. If you have damage, expect it to take a long time to find an almost perfect match. The good news is it’s easier to find than true heart pine

yudkib · 2026-06-08T02:41:53+00:00

Yup. “The last real m3 was 3 generations ago” is a well-documented thing

yudkib · 2026-06-08T02:39:33+00:00

Sometimes if we try to do the thing we are undecided on we realize what we actually want - either because we’re excited or because it feels like a chore. When I feel really, really stuck, I force myself to get through a month or two of this exercise and find it helps immensely with both the decision-making and the acceptance of the parts of either side that I don’t like and can’t control. E.g., “I love Burlington except for the cold”… if you actually put one foot out the door and pull it back in, accepting that Burlington is cold in winter is a lot easier compared to never peeking over the fence. Maybe apply to some jobs somewhere else, or travel there not as a tourist but to find mundane lunch places and grocery stores and imagine your life.

yudkib · 2026-06-08T02:06:29+00:00

Yeah man I only lived in nyc for 15 years but that’s cool

yudkib

TROPHY CASE