Therapy

ImportantArm9722 · 2024-12-15T16:47:50+00:00

To be honest my experience was the complete opposite. She decided she was done and refused therapy.. or even attempting to communicate about the relationship.. and I have a feeling most guys here would have done everything possible to keep their families together. If not ... We probably wouldn't have a reddit about how divorce is tough for guys.

My divorce pushed me to go into therapy for myself. I would be willing to bet she would never be self reflective enough to consider it.

dfb54749014 · 2024-12-15T06:45:34+00:00

Sorry OP my Ex suggested couples therapy at one point and I refused.

Long story short, she is the one with codependency issues and emotional immaturity.

I'm fine.

She was the liar, manipulator and cheater.

Expert-Raccoon6097 · 2024-12-14T23:39:25+00:00

He is checked out of the romantic relationship that is why he won't go. Has nothing to do with being a guy. He wants you to leave but is too much of a pussy to end things himself.

Miserable_Ad_1172 · 2024-12-14T18:17:15+00:00

I’m really sorry this happened OP. I have to take full accountability so hears a little about me. My wife left me when our second child was 8 weeks old. She returned the next day so they both could spend time with me. We are now divorced and it’s been 2.5 years since the day she left the family home. She has a new boyfriend and appears moved on.

Here’s where I have to be open I have been in counselling/therapy for over 2 years now probably around 20 sessions. It has helped me massively. Where this relates to your post is..my wife asked me to go a few times before she finally gave up. It broke my heart to realise that I could have maybe made all these great changes in the past and we may still be together as a little family of four. I can’t change the past but I can be a good role model and father to my two children. I miss her often but also feel hurt that for her it was too late.

There was no affairs and no abuse. Our greatest failure was our poor communication and I take my ownership of that.

I hope you are doing ok and maybe that sometimes people just won’t do something because of the mindset they are in. It’s not personal to you or who you are as a person.

I felt I was ok and didn’t need to talk to anyone. I was wrong but this is a lesson we must learn on our own sadly. I wish you peace for the future.

fives_gw · 2024-12-14T17:42:14+00:00

The "checking out" / being over it / not being willing to invest any real effort into changing themselves likely has very little to do with gender and everything to do with who decides to leave. Based on my own experience (and hearing many others' stories here, and just based on logic), I think the leaver is virtually always going to be the one showing cold-seeming (to the other party) lack of investment, unwillingness to work on themselves or the relationship, and the dumpee is likely to try whatever they can to save things (including, often, putting tons of real work into improving the things that are "their issues" or even shared ones).

My own situation (and statistically 7 to 9 out of 10 divorces), the shoe was on the other foot with my ex wife ending the marriage against my preference. I can tell you I had many of the same feelings you posted about, and it hurt like hell. And I also did absolutely everything I possibly could to show real change in myself. Almost 2 years of couples therapy, started my own individual therapy, made massive changes and investment in absolutely everything I could try to fix about myself, and the results, objectively, spoke for themselves. I was hugely improved and getting better all the time, and genuinely invested with all of my being into doing nothing but continuing to improve.

You know what? It didn't make jack shit of a difference. Her mind was already made up, and there was nothing I could do at that point (honestly, or maybe ever, because I tried as hard as I could throughout our marriage...) to convince her out of divorcing and blowing up our family. If you read this forum, I think you'll see that it's actually the overwhelming experience of men on the other side that women just "flip a switch", and once they're out, you're absolutely dead in the water no matter what you do. Maybe men are similar, I don't know, but it's certainly not unique to men, and is probably actually more common for women, from what I've seen in divorce forums generally (again, 70-90% are women initiating).

Even at the time, it honestly felt really demeaning for me to invest my whole self into making changes to try to save the marriage when I could clearly see she was investing basically nothing on her side. And sure enough, that effort on my part did nothing to change the outcome (which is what very, very many men posting here will say: don't waste your time, because once "she's done," there's no saving it through your own effort alone). I knew that was likely true in my case too, but I was willing to try anything (and even swallow my pride and demean myself with one-sided efforts) because I wanted to be able to tell myself and my kids that I didn't leave any possible chance, no matter how remote, for saving their family on the table. That alone made it worth trying for me (despite the considerable cost to me personally, mostly in terms of the sheer indignity of simping that hard), but I certainly see how other (prouder? more stubborn?) men might see it differently. You, OP, should understand, though, that there are very good, experience-based reasons why many men who have been through it would tell other men not to waste their time and effort with (one-sided) therapy / changes etc to try to save a marriage. Because there's a lot of evidence it just doesn't work with the women (and maybe also men, to some extent?) who are already pre-resolved to leave. And there's a real dignity cost in doing the sort of fucking pathetic-feeling simping that I did that has almost nothing to do with some philosophical opposition to therapy or something. Like I said, I did it for my kids, mostly, and because I took my sworn commitment to the marriage seriously as a matter of pure personal, moral principles.

Again, OP's case is a bit different than the average, because they're the (statistically much rarer) woman who's trying to put in (and ask for) the therapy etc work vs just calling it off (or just using therapy to save face, with no real investment on her side, but the ability to tell herself and anyone who will listen "I tried everything!" -- that's just the leaver saving face or trying to relieve their guilt for their own benefit). Just know that many men have been in your position, with a stbx wife putting in zero genuine effort to save the marriage after she decides she's "so over" her partner and their marriage. And that more than anything, is why many experienced men tell other less experienced men not to bother. For the prospective-dumpee, it rarely pays dividends to their efforts.

Longjumping-Boot2330 · 2024-12-14T15:59:42+00:00

I’m sorry for your loss truly. Your last sentence thought speaks volumes to me. It might not have seemed drastic to you, but to him maybe it was. People change that is 100% true but you cannot force someone to change. That is extremely unhealthy in a relationship and leads to resentment. I can say from personal experience how it made me feel worthless and terrible about myself, that I as I am cannot be accepted or that I’m not enough faults and all.

Again I’m am really sorry for your loss.

AstroHustler22 · 2024-12-14T15:35:37+00:00

I don’t know what your actions were that you take responsibility for but part of taking responsibility is accepting the consequences of said actions.

Nothing is my life has hurt worse than having my wife refuse to even try to work on our 21 year marriage with 5 kids, on top of that, but I missed the mark in a lot of ways over those years. So did she. While I wish that she would have the willingness to work on our problems, she is not mine to control just as your husband is not yours to control.

You’re in for a long, painful ride but the best thing that you, or I, can do is grieve losing the person that we loved because the truth is, that person that loved each of us just doesn’t exist anymore.

I’m deeply sorry for your loss. 😞

Title	Therapy
Author	Mountain_Vast_4314
Upvotes	1
Comments	11
Date	December 14, 2024 3:27 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1he5823/therapy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/therapy.1538474 https://theredarchive.com/post/1538474

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