divorce ??????? Wait???? wtf???? Girls opinion please!

So it has been awhile since I posted and now I need to turn towrds a 3rd party and see what you have to say. The wife and I have been going through rough time for the past year and It keeps getting worse.

we have just lost that goo goo feeling after about 8 years and I do not know what to do. We have been going to counseling for the last 6 months and it seams to help her with all the previous abuse, drugs, and etc. in her family but made her more distante to me. she is currently in school and graduating this december, i know that that has a lot of stress on things as well but. about two weeks ago we were laying in bed and I had my arm around her for awhile when suddenly I relaized that she was pulling away from me! I then asked wtf was going on and were her head was at and she said ("I do not know weather I am still here or I want to be apart") WTF we have a two year old son.... so as the agument goes on and we talk thourgh everything. the last two weeks have been ok. but a couple of nights ago I was feeling as though she was ignoring our son and I so I asked where are your priorties were family, school, freinds, what???? and she looked at me and my son and said school!!!!!!

What am I suppose to feel??

sorry for the long post and the misspells but I am drinking tonight!! cheers!!!

Bad times.
Sorry to hear you're having it tough.

Can't advise really but I think I'd give her total space. Do my own thing but be receptive.

I ain't no agony aunt. It's a personal thing.

I can tell you there is truly a thing called the "7 year itch" that is the point where most marrages fail. Just give your wife LOADS of space and understand where she is at in her life. If you can work through it (Like my wife and I did) you will be a much better team later on in your marrage. My wife and I are going on 12 years now and brother "IT AINT NO PICKNIC" it never will be!!! womnn and men are just created different we think and act different. Gods joke on us all! Pick up a Cosmo its like having the playbook for the other team.
Good luck
Cheers
JJ

sorry I just saw you wanted a girls view... On that note... I cant help you.
JJ

I don't know if personal space totally is the best thing. I would say throwing her responsibilities in her face will get you absolutely nowhere. She will immediately get defensive and that never works out in your favor...or your childs. That's the most important issue. I am going through something similar. You reserve the guilt tripping for when divorce is inevitable and you are trying to lessen the damage the situation to your child.

Just my thoughts on it. Obviously, I don't have all the answers otherwise I wouldn't be in a similar situation.

I know it can be tough when the spouse is in school. My wife was in school three nights a week getting her Masters. Plus the week at Foxfire in BFE. I work from 5-1, picked up our daughter at 2 and had dinner on the table at 5:30. Those three nights without my wife sucked, but I managed. I have had the same conversations as anyone in your position. School is important if you want a decent upbringing. I quit in 9th grade so my wife had to take up the slack.
7 yr. itch? Yeah it happens and unfortunately it almost cost me my everything.
That's all I have to say on that matter.
Do your best to stay together. If it is impossible then oh well, just don't let your child see you two go at it. It's all about the kids if you have them.

disclaimer: I'm a man

I feel for what you and your wife are going through, If you are committed and it sounds like you are, you will make it through this. Yes the 7 year itch is real but more like the 5-9 year itch. My wife and I have been together 17 years and married for the past 9. Last year we went through a really rough patch. I all stemmed from both of realizing what we had given up of the the last 8 years. Yes you only see the negative in the bad times.

With your wife being in school I'd guess a lot of the people are single and she sees the freedom that they have. It's not that she wants to get rid of you and your son. Lets face it who doesn't think back on the good old days when you could whatever you want whenever you wanted to and wish we could do it again.

She is probably every emotionally overwhelmed with her finishing school in a few months, her life is once again going to change dramatically. My advice is to try and tough it out, Hopefully things will improve when she settles into her new life. It's a miracle that any marriage survives children. If its possible try and get grandma to take your son for a few days. Don't go anywhere stay at home and spend some time together without having to chase a kid around perhaps you will both remember the reasons you got married in the first place.

Good luck

Oh, this is hard! It's really tough to try to do so much, because we're emotionally invested in everything we do. We've been raised to "have it all" now, so different when women were just expected to stay home. That's a great thing for us, don't get me wrong, but it's incredibly difficult.

She probably said "school" for her priority because that's the focus right now, not the most important thing. The other thing is that at school, she's not "mom, wife", etc, she gets to be herself, whoever that is. She's talking with people about intelligent things and being exposed to all kinds of people. Instead of being a safety net at home, maybe she's feeling shackled by the responsiblities. Growth is very hard, even if you're growing towards a goal.

My advice would be to give some space- not too much, though, or you'll be even more distant. She's probably thinking, "Well, now what?" School has been the focus for so long, even as tough as it is, so that when it's over sometimes instead of being relieved, we think, "Is this all that I worked for? I thought my life would automatically change when I finished!" A little space, but with you actually saying something like you don't actually WANT the space, but you're willing to do it until she feels less stress. You need to tell you that your wife and son are the most important things in your life, and you'll do what it takes to work it out. The words of security might really help her right now.

If we're talking graduate school, it can be pretty stressful. My experience is with science, I don't know how well it applies to other fields. It can also be difficult for others to understand as it is hard to compare it to anything else. Even though you may not be in the lab working, your research pretty much occupies your mind 24/7. Often there is pressure for results and more often than not, this is of course the time when things aren't working. The closer one gets to the end, the more stressful it gets. My wife and I both defended within a month of one another and then packed up all of all of our belongings in a large truck and moved from MI to CA, not yet having lined up a place to live in CA. We figured that was about the biggest test we could go through.

Perhaps her head was elsewhere when you asked her what her priorities were. She is graduating in a few short months and finishing school is probably all she can get her brain around right now. If it were me I would need support (quiet time to study, etc.) and lots of words of encouragement (you're really working hard and doing a great job, i'm proud of you, etc.) just to make it through day to day activities. Maybe she is looking at the short term goal of finishing school and has lost sight of the long term goal of bettering the family.
Let her pull away but stand firm when you tell her that you support her and will be right there when she needs you.
Best wishes that you make it through the dark times and into the light on the other side.

I'm saying this for you as well as myself. I can relate somewhat to your situation. My wife is currently getting her Masters and is in her last semester.

Right now your wife's focus is getting done and all she can see is the work that still needs to be finished.

It's not that she does not care about you or your child. She just does not have as much time.

I think what you need to do is keep her spirits up and go out of the way a little.

It's tough. I had a talk with my wife yesterday where we each talked about our frustrations. I feel a bit ignored, overworked, and unappreciated. It turns out that my wife felt the same way.

My wife's view is that she is going to school for the good of the family. I think I sometimes forget about that.

It's interesting, because I'm feeling the way my wife did when I was in graduate school. I could be a bit short back then and now she's been that way to me. I suppose it shows that the tables turn around every once in awhile.

I wish you luck.

My wife is in her last year of graduate school as well. I think that it must be hard for someone to work with people day in and day out that are still doing the "college thing" are single and can pretty much do whatever they want outside of school. My wife and I had trouble with that last year as it seemed to me like I was doing a lot more than she was. We talked a lot about it and came to the conclusion that we both needed to give and take a little knowing that when she graduated things would free up a bit.

farmbrewernw said:

My wife is in her last year of graduate school as well. I think that it must be hard for someone to work with people day in and day out that are still doing the "college thing" are single and can pretty much do whatever they want outside of school. My wife and I had trouble with that last year as it seemed to me like I was doing a lot more than she was. We talked a lot about it and came to the conclusion that we both needed to give and take a little knowing that when she graduated things would free up a bit.

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I'm lucky that my wife hangs out with the other married women in the program.

It did really tick me off when she told me yesterday that I did a crappy job grouting the bathroom tiles. First off it was not that bad and second off I was not done cleaning them off yet.

I suppose that's the stress talking and she just is offloading it on me. Still does not feel that great when you are doing the work to make the house pretty for her.

My wife is wrapping up her graduate thesis right now and I can relate to many of the accounts I've read here.

To the OP: Just make sure she knows how you feel. Never leave that to question. Never leave to question your love and dedication to her and to your family.

Melana said:

If it were me I would need support (quiet time to study, etc.) and lots of words of encouragement (you're really working hard and doing a great job, i'm proud of you, etc.) just to make it through day to day activities. Maybe she is looking at the short term goal of finishing school and has lost sight of the long term goal of bettering the family.

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Melana speaks a lot of truth. Maybe what you need to do is forget about how crappy you feel and try to help her accomplish her goals and encourage her.

Crap. I need to do that myself.

gwood said:

My wife is wrapping up her graduate thesis right now and I can relate to many of the accounts I've read here.

To the OP: Just make sure she knows how you feel. Never leave that to question. Never leave to question your love and dedication to her and to your family.

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Do we need a support group? LOL.

Support is key, what I always tell myself when things are getting rough is "I'm doing it to get her through school, that is my role at this point in her career."

In my experience in college and grad school.... nothing breaks up a relationship like school. I have to disagree on all the 'support' advice. I don't want to scare you but every time that happened in grad school, it made things worse. A lot worse.
People get it into their heads that its important, when all it really is is a bunch of windbags spewing out BS. There's a lot of pseudo intellectualism garbage that makes people think that there's only a handful of people that can understand their intelligence and the 'importance' of what they are doing. Catering to those needs only inflates the ego and belief that its some insurmountable task, thus it makes people even more self-centered and self-serving. Tell her you'll carry her load for a while, but she better straighten her head out and come back to planet earth. Remind her that you love her and want to encourage her but that D is for diploma and all it is is a certificate.
It sounds tough and insensitive, but Ive seen a lot of relationships crumble due to school. It usually involved the supportive spouse working and taking care of all the chores and errands giving the supported spouse the opportunity to run wild.
Again, you do have to shoe her some support, but she can't be too far seperated from real-world responsibility before she loses grip.

hoss75 said:

In my experience in college and grad school.... nothing breaks up a relationship like school. I have to disagree on all the 'support' advice. I don't want to scare you but every time that happened in grad school, it made things worse. A lot worse.
People get it into their heads that its important, when all it really is is a bunch of windbags spewing out BS. There's a lot of pseudo intellectualism garbage that makes people think that there's only a handful of people that can understand their intelligence and the 'importance' of what they are doing. Catering to those needs only inflates the ego and belief that its some insurmountable task, thus it makes people even more self-centered and self-serving. Tell her you'll carry her load for a while, but she better straighten her head out and come back to planet earth. Remind her that you love her and want to encourage her but that D is for diploma and all it is is a certificate.
It sounds tough and insensitive, but Ive seen a lot of relationships crumble due to school. It usually involved the supportive spouse working and taking care of all the chores and errands giving the supported spouse the opportunity to run wild.
Again, you do have to shoe her some support, but she can't be too far seperated from real-world responsibility before she loses grip.

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I don't think any of us that said that you should support your spouse meant that you should bend over backwards and do anything and everything but there is a certain amount of extra work that will inherently come from having a spouse that is in school. I know first hand the challenges that come with having a wife that is in grad school, it's not easy all of the time but what I'm saying is that if your not willing to communicate with your spouse for one, and are not willing to realize that you will have to do a little extra work until they get through school it will never work.

To the OP: I was rereading your post and it seems like there may be a lot more going on than just school stress, I'm with some of the others, you should get a baby sitter and take a weekend for yourselves and see if you guys can talk/work some of this stuff out and just enjoy each other's company again. December isn't all that long away maybe you can plan a small vacation for the two of you when she graduates. If all else fails you could always make more beer

farmbrewernw said:

I don't think any of us that said that you should support your spouse meant that you should bend over backwards and do anything and everything but there is a certain amount of extra work that will inherently come from having a spouse that is in school. I know first hand the challenges that come with having a wife that is in grad school, it's not easy all of the time but what I'm saying is that if your not willing to communicate with your spouse for one, and are not willing to realize that you will have to do a little extra work until they get through school it will never work.

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Very wise. I agree 100% and did state that some extra weight has to be pulled. THe thing is, though, a lot of people do bend over backwards for their spouse and give him or her a free pass. A person can't do that. The person in school does have to realize that family and home come first and school comes 7th or eighth, even if he/she has to be reminded.
If I had 5 bucks for everytime I stayed up late to lend support to a person whose significant other wrecked their relationship chosing school over REAL priorities, I'd be sitting on the patio of my brewery in the South of France.

hoss75 said:

Very wise. I agree 100% and did state that some extra weight has to be pulled. THe thing is, though, a lot of people do bend over backwards for their spouse and give him or her a free pass. A person can't do that. The person in school does have to realize that family and home come first and school comes 7th or eighth, even if he/she has to be reminded.
If I had 5 bucks for everytime I stayed up late to lend support to a person whose significant other wrecked their relationship chosing school over REAL priorities, I'd be sitting on the patio of my brewery in the South of France.

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True, I made that mistake for a while, I used to think I'd do everything because she was tired and stressed because of school but in the end it just made me upset. I would make sure that she is clear that while school is important it isn't the number 1 priority, you and your son take front seat.

hoss75 said:

Very wise. I agree 100% and did state that some extra weight has to be pulled. THe thing is, though, a lot of people do bend over backwards for their spouse and give him or her a free pass. A person can't do that. The person in school does have to realize that family and home come first and school comes 7th or eighth, even if he/she has to be reminded.

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I think that the support needed is emotional support with encouragement. I also agree that the family should be the first priority. You're absolutely right by saying a lot of people do give their spouses free passes... In my mind if you give your spouse a long term free pass then you are equally to blame for the fall out.
Stress and female hormones is a horrible thing... too much of both can be deadly to a relationship.

Melana said:

I think that the support needed is emotional support with encouragement. I also agree that the family should be the first priority. You're absolutely right by saying a lot of people do give their spouses free passes... In my mind if you give your spouse a long term free pass then you are equally to blame for the fall out.
Stress and female hormones is a horrible thing... too much of both can be deadly to a relationship.

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I agree. You always need to stand up for yourself. Respect is a two way street. You need to respect yourself in order to earn respect.

You can take up the slack some of the time, but it should not be the norm.

School is stressful and for some reason it can really screw up your priorities. I think the "You have to choose between us and school" approach can be a bit suicidal.

When you are working hard towards something, you tend to put your all in it and it consumes you especially pursuing a degree. It becomes you. Wrap in the personal insecurities and the constant battle to be at the top of the pack grade wise, and the pursuit of a degree becomes a summation of who you are as a person. Are you strong enough and smart enough to achieve this goal?

Asking your spouse to make a choice is akin to saying, "You are not cut out for this. You can't do it all. Give up."

In my humble opinion, a better approach is to setup dates and times to do things. It should be reasonable to her schedule. She should be able to find a good 2-3 hour block on the weekend and a couple hours during the week to spend with you.

Like I said, I've been on both sides of the fences. It's is not fun.

When I turned 50 my wife mentioned that men are supposed to go through a midlife crisis about that time and usually end up with a girlfriend or a (red) sports car. She asked when were we going to the (car) dealership.

I told her I didn't need to go...she asked if I had a girlfriend...I said "yes"...YOU!!!

Just try to be helpful and supportive to her...

For the record...I'm not a girl, but I played one on TV and I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night...