My wife (30F) and I (35M) are considering a trial separation - any useful advice?

Hi everyone. Long term reader, first time poster. I'm not sure what I'm really looking for, but I hope someone out there has some useful advice, or at the very least it'll be helpful to get this off my chest and parse some of my feelings.

I'll start with the basics: 35M, 30F, we've been married a touch over two years and together for about six. We're both very accomplished professionals and live on the East Coast. No obvious red flags: no infidelity, no abuse, no hidden families or anything crazy like that. To put it in her words, we're simply growing apart.

We're different people in a lot of ways (different hobbies, different sets of friends, and things like that) but I've always found that to be secondary to the important aspects of compatibility that we're aligned on: finances, what we want out of life, children, politics, religion, that sort of thing. It hasn't been easy, but I don't doubt for a second that she loves me (and the reverse is definitely true) and I don't think for a second this decision is easy for her.

We do have our fair share of issues, and for those we've been going to consistent couples counseling as well as personal counseling. Both of us came from very difficult families and we're carrying different scars: she struggles with anxiety and emotional availability; I (adopted, and son of an alcoholic) struggle with co-depedency and self-image issues. Neither one of us had anything even remotely close to a good model relationship in the form of our parents; both of our sets divorced and hate each other, rarely had sex, fought all of the time, etc.

We definitely do not communicate as well as we could (me with nice guy syndrome, for one) and sadly our sex life has waned down to basically nothing. It's felt like we've been on a downward spiral where we've both been cognizant of something wrong but being unable to simply stop the cycle. In my opinion, we spent too much time trying to assign blame and being defensive as opposed to aligning and uniting as a team against the problems we were facing.

With that said, I will accept that this didn't just happen: I neglected to understand the emotional labor she was putting into organizing our life and our home, and I feel like I let myself become too secure, taking our relationship and her for granted. Over the past year, we've definitely been spending less time together; she become very involved with a local political/grass-roots group, and I've been very preoccupied with my work. I think we both let our sex life get a little boring and routine. We've tried hard in couples counseling but I don't know how good it has done us; we're both confused and hurting and I guess she's just closer to the end of her rope than I am.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure what I'm really expecting out of this. I have a decent group of friends but no one I really have a close enough relationship to be as open with as I'm being here. My wife has a deep bench of friends in comparison and I'm sure she's able to talk things through in a more productive way than I am.

I'm actually sitting in an airport terminal (I have an overseas business trip that has been scheduled for a few weeks, and my wife wanted to have the talk before I left) writing this, close to tears and trying not to make a spectacle of myself. The hardest part of me is just reconciling the fact that we've been married only two years - how can two people who could stand in front of the most important people in their lives and swear love to each other forever get to this place so quickly? What will our friends think if we can't make it work? Why do I feel like such a failure?

I've been reading a lot about trial separations and while I generally think that it'll be hard for us to work on communication issues spending less time together and under a different roof, at this point I'm willing to try anything. Maybe some time apart will let us breathe and relieve some of the pressure of the elephant in the room, and allow us to miss each other. The general consensus from what I've read is that it requires some ground rules about communication, a fixed length, agreement on finances, agreement on dating/sex, and a sincere interest in actually working on things as opposed to simply delaying divorce. I'd love any advice or success stories.

Thanks.

Submitted May 20, 2019 at 10:59PM

Hi everyone. Long term reader, first time poster. I'm not sure what I'm really looking for, but I hope someone out there has some useful advice, or at the very least it'll be helpful to get this off my chest and parse some of my feelings.I'll start with the basics: 35M, 30F, we've been married a touch over two years and together for about six. We're both very accomplished professionals and live on the East Coast. No obvious red flags: no infidelity, no abuse, no hidden families or anything crazy like that. To put it in her words, we're simply growing apart.We're different people in a lot of ways (different hobbies, different sets of friends, and things like that) but I've always found that to be secondary to the important aspects of compatibility that we're aligned on: finances, what we want out of life, children, politics, religion, that sort of thing. It hasn't been easy, but I don't doubt for a second that she loves me (and the reverse is definitely true) and I don't think for a second this decision is easy for her.We do have our fair share of issues, and for those we've been going to consistent couples counseling as well as personal counseling. Both of us came from very difficult families and we're carrying different scars: she struggles with anxiety and emotional availability; I (adopted, and son of an alcoholic) struggle with co-depedency and self-image issues. Neither one of us had anything even remotely close to a good model relationship in the form of our parents; both of our sets divorced and hate each other, rarely had sex, fought all of the time, etc.We definitely do not communicate as well as we could (me with nice guy syndrome, for one) and sadly our sex life has waned down to basically nothing. It's felt like we've been on a downward spiral where we've both been cognizant of something wrong but being unable to simply stop the cycle. In my opinion, we spent too much time trying to assign blame and being defensive as opposed to aligning and uniting as a team against the problems we were facing.With that said, I will accept that this didn't just happen: I neglected to understand the emotional labor she was putting into organizing our life and our home, and I feel like I let myself become too secure, taking our relationship and her for granted. Over the past year, we've definitely been spending less time together; she become very involved with a local political/grass-roots group, and I've been very preoccupied with my work. I think we both let our sex life get a little boring and routine. We've tried hard in couples counseling but I don't know how good it has done us; we're both confused and hurting and I guess she's just closer to the end of her rope than I am.Anyway, like I said, I'm not sure what I'm really expecting out of this. I have a decent group of friends but no one I really have a close enough relationship to be as open with as I'm being here. My wife has a deep bench of friends in comparison and I'm sure she's able to talk things through in a more productive way than I am.I'm actually sitting in an airport terminal (I have an overseas business trip that has been scheduled for a few weeks, and my wife wanted to have the talk before I left) writing this, close to tears and trying not to make a spectacle of myself. The hardest part of me is just reconciling the fact that we've been married only two years - how can two people who could stand in front of the most important people in their lives and swear love to each other forever get to this place so quickly? What will our friends think if we can't make it work? Why do I feel like such a failure?I've been reading a lot about trial separations and while I generally think that it'll be hard for us to work on communication issues spending less time together and under a different roof, at this point I'm willing to try anything. Maybe some time apart will let us breathe and relieve some of the pressure of the elephant in the room, and allow us to miss each other. The general consensus from what I've read is that it requires some ground rules about communication, a fixed length, agreement on finances, agreement on dating/sex, and a sincere interest in actually working on things as opposed to simply delaying divorce. I'd love any advice or success stories.Thanks.