Why fight? I will never say that I didn’t contribute to the downfall of our marriage, but I want to provide my perspective and ask ‘why fight?’ Over a 25+ year marriage, I can not provide every detail or examine everything I have concerns about with the divorce (money, infidelity, honor, kids, fairness).

So in our early relationship, in our 20s, while dating, little fights gave us that angsty make ups. We married, graduated college, had kids, and I joined the military (not necessarily in that exact order). The little fights continued, the making up continued. After a while I stated noticing the fights getting more frequent and intense. I also noticed that after the fights, it was me initiating the makeup and doing the apologizing.

We once we went exercising, I ran while she biked on a trail through nature. She ran into me from behind. On her bike. Knocked me off my feet. I might have been a little upset and said a few things for which I later apologized. We never went exercising together again. Another time, she washed my military uniforms with pens still in them. It ruined approximately $500 worth of uniforms, I might have been a little upset and again said a few things for which I later apologized.

Once I had been saying that I wanted to go to a brewery on the coast several times. One day when I was home and without obligations. She decides to go to that brewery with two friends (three people in a four seat car) and she informed me as she was walking out the door. I called her cellphone and informed her that it was very insulting and hurtful that she would go to the one resteraaunt without me on a day i was available to go. She told me some stuff about going another time and she put the phone down believing she had hung up. Listening in on the conversation she had with her friends, she said several things that were rude and should have inspired an apology if she didn’t intend to be mean. There were other times that she went out without me to places that I expressly wanted to go.

There are instances of grave concern for me, like when an “old friend” from high school came to town for a business meeting. He was a “close friend” (not a boyfriend she says) of hers for several years and they wanted to get together that Friday after work for a drink. I agreed that she could go meet with him with a couple of rules; not at his hotel, he doesn’t come by our house (I wasn’t in town), she leaves by midnight, and she gets an Uber from the bar to the rapid transit or home. She met him at his hotel bar with 5-9 of his male collegues, stayed until just before 2a, he walked her to the rapid transit through a park which is known for people turning up dead after being raped, and the next day he came by our house to take her out for brunch.

I would provide her back rubs and she would not reciprocate. Her hands and feet often were super cold (raynauds phenomena) and she would place her cold hands and feet against me, but I cold never warm myself with her.

She stopped making vacation plans because she believed that all we did was complain on vacation. The reality was that she would make plans, something would go awry like the weather, and she would not be able to adjust and would take our suggestions for adjustment as complaints. If I tried to plan a vacation, it was never appropriate or adequate. I had planned for a vacation for my birthday weekend to go camping on the coast, she decided to not go with me because our 19yo daughter couldn’tt be alone for a few days. I went with the dog for 3 nights.

She stopped having me pick her up from the local rapid transit train to bring her home. She said I complained about my complaining about the silliness I observed in traffic. She had a pattern of when something goes a way she doesn’t like, she stops doing that thing. Not cuts back, or discusses it with anyone, she just refuses to do it.

She began yelling at me to “step up and take care of our daughter” who was 19 at the time, in college but having some adjustment issues. I would ask “what specifically do you mean with stepping up” and “What actions do you want me to take”. She never provided an answer on what she wanted me to do. She kept saying that I didn’t pay the bill at the hospital when I picked up our daughter and wouldn’t listen that there isn’t a bill at the time of service at the hospital (I’m a medical professsional).
At a point, she said “I don’t say anything that I would need to apologize for..”. I noticed that she never initiated any intimacy. She said to me “I don’t love you anymore” weeks after our 25th anniversary. She stopped with any intimacy (with me) after that.

I decided to see if she noticed anything. My work allowed me to be home 2-3 weekdays per week. On those days, I would cook a complete dinner and I would clean up after. I called that 100% effort, and after cleaning up I would get talked to about how i didnt do something correctly. The next day, i’d do 110%, same result often including yelling, then I did 120% making certain to include the deficiencies from the previous days. Same result. Then 130%, for the same, then 150%, same result. Eventually, after about 3 months of trying harder, I started doing less and obtained the same results. I eventually stopped caring about what I made for dinner and I stopped helping clean up after, I’d throw the ball for the dog with a beer in th back yard.

So my question, still remains. Why fight? I stopped fighting back, I stopped fighting to keep us together. Eventually, she said “We cant keep doing this, we’re done.. we need a divorce.” I said maybe we need marriage counseling. In the only couple appointment, she focused on little recent things like a yard project that didn’t go exactly the way we had discussed (and she subsequently stopped participating in the project). I focused on long term issues like potential infedelity and abuse. The therapist chose to focus on little issues providing her with validation and refused to discuss the larger issues I raised. I decided, Why fight, she hasn’t fought for us in years, if ever.

Are you fighting with your wife or for your wife? What makes you fight? Why fight?