I (46m) have been married to my wife (48F) for 18 years and together for 20. We have three kids (15, 12, and 10). I’m having a little bit of a midlife crises and would appreciate outside perspectives on my marriage.

I’ve been doing a lot of growth for the past couple of years. It all started when I went on TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) because I was my life was in a fog. TRT was the best thing I could have done. Changed me through and through. I became motivated to improve myself by losing weight and getting back into the gym.

I recently started working on my mental growth. I started therapy and analyzing every aspect of my psychological well being, including my marriage.

Relationship wise, my wife and I were very inexperienced when we met. Neither of us had ever had a serious relationship. We both had extenuating factors in our youth that led us to be shy and unconfident.

We met at a time where our friends were all in relationships and were getting married. We also both had a strong desire to start a family. Our relationship got serious fast and we were married 2 years later.

I’m taking a serious look at our relationship and realized we are incompatible on almost every level. We have different communication, attachment, attraction, romantic, financial, intellectual, and conflict resolution styles. Outside our desire for a strong family, we have really have no common interests.

My big revelation during my therapy sessions is that I realized that I suppress my emotions and locked them away to make our marriage work. The second revelation is that I crave an emotional connection and I question if I can ever achieve the connection with my wife given our differences.

So I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do. I take my marriage vows very serious and pride myself on supporting and being the rock for my family. But a huge piece of me is completely empty right now. I don’t have the emotional, physical, and spiritual connection with my wife. We are roommates who are co-parenting.

I had my first serious conversation with my wife about this last weekend. I told her I was unhappy, revealed I was in therapy, and told her several areas where I was unhappy. It was a step but I fear that the distance between us is too great to overcome.

There are a lot of details that I left out but I tried to focus on the most relevant details.

Thanks for your reading my rant.