I want to save my marriage - ideas?

As hard as it may be, you should not want to be with a man who does not want to be there. I made my husband promise me to never stay around if he does not want to. Yes i do believe you should do everything in your power to keep your marriage going but you can only do so much.. good luck ( you may end happier than ever!)

If I could answer that I'd still be with my first husband instead of where I'm at now. We started having problems right after our son was born. He got stressed about the whole "family responsibility" thing, the more he pulled away, the more I pulled him back in (which was really just making him pull away further). It was a vicious cycle that went on for months. After that little episode we settled in for a couple months but then we moved. That's when the "you need to change" stuff started (mind you this was around our 1st anniversary). I worked on things and tried to make him happy...it worked. Then I got a job to take some financial stress off him. It seemed like the right thing to do...until his insecurities started. In the next 6 months I had a total of 3 jobs none lasting more than one month. The first and second jobs he restricted the hours I could work by not being available to watch the kids even though he'd agreed to when I got hired. The third job I was forced to leave because I was making enough money to leave him and he felt threatened. Things settle down again for a short time and I got pregnant again. Most of the pregnancy things were good. We even started looking for a nicer home to put on our land. But once the baby was born everything immediately fell apart again...the day after we came home from the hospital he went to the bar "for an hour or two" to celebrate his birthday, he came home at 7am. That next night he went out with my current s/o (lol yes I did the "husband's best friend thing" after the divorce!) and didn't come home until 8 am. Basically I was on my own with 3 small children because he either worked, slept, or went out. I was still doing everything I could to keep him happy but it wasn't working (I was being "too clingy" when I made him dinner ever night and expected him to come home but I was a bad wife when I quit bothering because he rarely came home at dinner time anyway) Anyway when our daughter was just 6 months old I'd had enough of the no win situation. I gave up. I left him a few months later. And ultimately he realized how badly he'd behaved and wanted me back. I didn't go through with it because I didn't believe him...now we're several years later. We both see our mistakes but don't know what to do about them since we're both in relationship we can't really leave.

I know I've rambled and none of my issues may have anything to do with yours. I think it's great that you want to save your marriage but your zealousness might be freaking your husband out. He's definitely got issues he needs to work out. You are a wonderful person for trying to make him happy and make lots of changes but when will it end? Are you willing to lose yourself, the woman he married in the first place in an attempt to please the man he is now? Maybe it will work but more than likely you will wind up resentful and he'll claim that you aren't the woman you used to be (men are just as fickle as women).

If I could do things over again I would sit my hubby down and tell him to listen to me and don't say a word. I would then tell him that I knew we were both unhappy, that we both had things to work on, and that our marriage wasn't working out. I'd then tell him that we had 6 months (or 3 months) to figure out what we should do. In that time we would see a counselor and spend a lot of time on making plans. The emphasis would not be on saving the marriage but on a workable future as a family, together or not, since their were children involved. I think if we had given ourselves time to face and deal with the realities of divorce without the pressure of saving the marriage, we could have solved things.

Whatever be the decision that you would like to decide would;d definitively do have some feedbacks in and out of your life.Hence your life is totally depends on how we are doing and running.There is a proverb in our city that if anything seen through yellow and the would be seen everything as yellow.So it all depends how we are seeing and how we are determining and all above we have to decide what we have at stake in our life.Our life is totally binded together and correlated life is totally
depends on how e adopt ourselves and how we adept the things

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First, for a marriage to work out it has to be a two-way traffic. Now same is true, if you want to save the marriage both of the parties must be willing and cooperative. But it seems to me that you are the only one who wants to save it. With the words "I don't know" coming from you husband... it is a very clear indication that he is not at all interested in working out for the salvation. I believe (but I hope I am wrong) there is a third party involve in his part that is why he seems to be disinterested.

I understand your feelings. Five years is a long time already and seeing those years just wasted really hurts. But you see if he is not at all interested then why save the marriage. What for? For the children? Do you think the children will be happy seeing their parents together but not doing fine. If I were in your shoes, I will ask him just one simple question..."Do you still love me". If the answer is yes, then go save your marriage. But if his reply is "I don't know". Then quit! Your husband has found another woman and so let go of him to avoid getting hurt over and over again.

Dear Benevolent Ebsharer,

Both of you should discuss what's the problem why he asking divorced decision for that ... Talk gently, heart to heart, with patient, throw away the anger emotion, face it with cool head, clear mind, and telling the truth, maybe your husband in depression right know, so it makes him confused, can't thik clearly, one thing you should remember ...
Ohh before that, i want to ask you, do you have child?
If Yes, then this is one thing you should consider ... when you do divorced, both of you, it really can hurts everyone, you ... your husband, kids, and .. God
It is normal when a family ark is barged into storm, both of you should talk heart to heart to solve this, divorce is not an answer, it is running from the problem that you will facing again later ...
People grow when he/she succeed to solve problems, A diamond looks nice on the ring after it forged with smashing
Hope you 2 will be allright .... GBU

i think your hubby is very confused. is he fickle minded? actually what set the misunderstanding. we all have problems. what you did was right to try it out. but he seems not giving it a try. try to find out what can be root cause for his behaviour?

I am so sorry that you are going through this it is hard in a married relationship to have the other come to you and say they want a divorce...The key to any relationship is communication..I went through a divorce I was married 30 years,but my x was physically abusive,mentally abusive and just didn't care. Keep going to the marriage counselor yes right now you are confused but the counselor is only getting to the surface of the problem once everything is laid out on the table he/she will go from there...Ask your husband what has made him fel unhappy..but don't you file for the divorce if nothing seems to work out,if he wants the divorce he should file...after all your not the one that wants the divorce.I pray to god everything works out for you.

I would first ask if he has had a good physical. It sounds as if he might be depressed. I had a first hubby like that. He would become depressed, then say he wanted a divorce. Ran in a cycle every year. He suffered from depression and was on medication during a lot of our marriage. He became ill and died a few years back, and I have often wondered if the source of the depression was this underlying illness. He was diagnosed a year before he died. I felt like for him it was that he wanted me to tell him I would be okay, even if he left. That is my personal experience. We would have these discussions, then I would set a goal, "I will get this project done, then we will call a lawyer" and when that was done, he usually was fine again. We went to a counselor, but his objections were: "I am depressed about money, so here I am spending a lot of money for this talk time", and " They are telling me that I hate my mother, and that is why I want to divorce you." In otherwords, he had very little confidence in the counseling process, because it was unrealistic to him. He did much better once he realized it was actually depression.

Hi,
i would also say that he has someone else, but if you are sure not, i belive you, i would say why you don't try to be more "hard", I explain you what i mean, until now it look likes that you are the only one that will save you marriage, right? ok, try the opposite, be you the one that will divorce, let him find a new house, let a judge manage the meeting with the tochter..let ihm feel alone, and may be this shock wake ihm up....is only a try, while a thing that you try almost everything..

Nun

ps(and go out, meet new people and let ihm know about that..)