I posted the link below on the general discussion board yesterday. After being redirected to this board, I see that what I'm feeling is quite normal and that does help. However, without getting to specific, I think life has brought me to the provider I'm seeing for a reason. There are just too many coincidences and overlaps in our separate lives.
This is my query for you: How do you know when it's time to leave your marriage?
A little background: I've been married for almost 5 years and with my wife for almost 9. I'm 31 years old and she's a few years younger. We don't have any kids yet, but that is the main topic of conversation. It scares me to death, not because I don't want kids eventually, but more because I'm not sure she is the one that I want to have them with. Lately all of our differences have become magnified for me, not to mention her sexual hang-ups that she refuses to work through (she can only come in dreams...seriously...she can't even masturbate successfully). Beyond that she has professed her atheism where I'm more of a spiritual person. I've suffered through a lot of deaths in my life, and she hasn't which makes me think that we're on two different planes of consciousness. Yet, she is my best friend, but that doesn't change the fact that I have almost zero attraction to her anymore.
This post is rambling now, but I just feel like my thoughts, nerves and feelings are frazzled and somehow I'm stuck...and there is the fact that I feel like I'm falling for this provider that is amazing, yet very, very fractured.
Can you help me sort this out?
Thanks.
Dear LovesTooMuch,
Your question - "how do you know when it's time to leave your marriage" - is a good one, in view of your situation. Maybe for you, it's when you have to ask the question?
You wanted my opinion - well here it is, in plain view: I believe your marriage is one of mismatched individuals. Now does this mean that this mismatch cannot be worked through? Not necessarily. The question is, are you willing to do it? You say she is your best friend. Are you willing to stay married to your best friend? Some people do very well in marrying such a person; for others, it's best to keep their best friendships on a platonic level.
I believe that your marriage was entered when you both were VERY young and still searching for your identities as people. Now, they are beginning to jel, and they are taking distinctly different shapes. It is normal and to be expected that you should evolve into very different human beings. And now, those two beings are trying to make their differences work. And that TAKES a lot of work. Are you willing to go through years of accommodation, compromise, adjustment, disappointment, reconciliation, adaptation and negotiation in every arena of your relationship, including sexual counseling, particularly for your wife? Because that's what it will take for your marriage to continue. You have to believe me on that one.
Most people at your age and situation would not. In today's day and age, they would split up and move on, in the interest of self-development and growing up.
As for the provider, you astutely state: "I know rationally that there there will probably be nothing more than a professional relationship." Good. My belief is that you know precisely why you got attracted to this provider. Had you been sexually crazy for your wife, you probably wouldn't have gone to see the 'fractured'provider in the first place. Seeing the provider is not the cause, it's part of the symptoms you're having over your dysfunctional marriage.
There, I said the d-word. I think I'll leave it at that, and let you make the final decision. And stay sane about the provider, please. You KNOW that it's not going to be a viable solution.
Just do it,
the Love Goddess