Tell Me About It: Marriage lacks emotional satisfaction
Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: My wife of 20-plus years says that she isn't getting emotional satisfaction from our relationship any longer and that I have to do something about this. This has come as a great surprise to me, but I'm willing to admit that, although I love her deeply, our routine may be just that, routine.
Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Question: My wife of 20-plus years says that she isn't getting emotional satisfaction from our relationship any longer and that I have to do something about this. This has come as a great surprise to me, but I'm willing to admit that, although I love her deeply, our routine may be just that, routine.
But will just changing our routine get her to emotional satisfaction? Without a clearer understanding of it, I'm not sure what I am supposed to do. And I'll do anything.
Answer: Well, she has to do something about this, too, because it's a marriage, and nothing will work unless it's mutual.
The obvious recommendation is counseling because "emotional satisfaction" is about intimacy, and being handed an edict to "do better" is not exactly a path that will take you there.
Intimacy is about knowing yourselves and each other on a level not available to people outside the relationship, and that comes from many kinds of sharing - sharing the workload of your daily lives, sharing yourselves physically, sharing memories, sharing what's on your mind even when it's not your proudest moment, sharing your fears, sharing your vision of the future, sharing the sides of you that you know the other appreciates most, sharing freely, period.
It's about feeling safe to share this way because you have each other's backs.
If you two have gotten out of the habit of turning to each other in the course of your daily lives, then reminding yourself of how you used to share, and making a conscious effort to make those same choices again, can bring you closer without outside help.
If you never really were in that habit, though, but instead built a relationship on the motions of and/or appearance of couplehood, you really might benefit from the guidance of a skilled therapist - or from a reputable seminar/retreat to nudge you onto that more intimate path.
Question: I have been dating a wonderful man for two years. For the first year and a half, he was separated but still married. I had nothing to do with their marriage not working out; they had been separated two years before we even met, living a state apart.
After a long and messy divorce, we can finally move on with our lives and recently got engaged. My family has known him from the beginning, and they all adore him. I am very close with my family, and I didn't like lying (by omission) - they all just assumed he was divorced.
Do I need to tell them the details before we get married? Or is this none of their business and I can just let them keep assuming?
Answer: I can't see why it's any of their business. If it comes up in a way that would force you to deepen the lie - say, one of them refers scornfully to another couple's dating while separated and commends you two for not doing that - then integrity demands that you correct their mistaken impression: "Actually, he finalized his divorce after we had started dating." Otherwise, let this sleeping dog lie on the bridge with water under it.
Chat with Carolyn Hax
online at noon Fridays at www.washingtonpost.com.