But this is really the only place I have to turn to in life concerning my problems.

My dad is a narc, my mom has just been angry my whole life, and I have worked so much that I have no real friends anymore.
I've tried to talk to my wife about so many things over the years, and she just doesn't listen or can't communicate with me about anything of importance.

When I've been tired she criticizes me. When I want affection, she gets mad. It just causes general isolation. Plus, my parents deliberately isolated me from people while I was growing up.

It's been a long lonely life.
This is the one place that I can come and people understand what I am going through.
I really appreciate it!

Thanks guys. I just feel like the life force has gone out of me.

I worked so hard and for so long to just be a good dad, a good husband, and so forth.

I accepted it when my wife quit having regular sexual relations with me. I tried to be thankful for what I did have. I didn't like the fact that she wouldn't let me touch her. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't get her to go out to dinner with me any longer. I didn't like it that she said money was more important that our relationship. I always tried to be the bigger man and build character and do the right things. Part of right things for me was gratitude.

But, when I found out that she was out offering to give other guys bj's (just a joke according to her) it just humiliated me. I was already lonely and depressed. I just masked my depression with work, optimism, and the occasional beer.

I still try to make things work, but I hear little things now and then that makes me think that she is having relations with other guys. I don't know if I'm paranoid or what.

I just want the wife I married back.

She was so great to me. I was so happy. For the first time in my life I was happy. I just don't understand how things changed so quickly. I know about devaluing, but when it happened to me I was devastated. How could someone go from loving you and devoting herself to you to just taking it all away overnight?

I don't know if I will ever get over it. I know it sounds weak. But, I took her for her word. Maybe I was just foolish and naïve? Regardless, I just have to get all of this heartbreak out of my system.

What you have to ask yourself is are you in love with someone that receives your love, and loves you back (healthy relationship), or in love with a memory of how things were a few periods over the years and an ideal of how it could maybe be if you do certain things right? (Which I finally figured out would never be good enough no matter what).

I had to do the deep work after 32 years of marriage too, when she abruptly left, and wonder about those same questions. When a person is still under the same roof and in the same relationship, it's like the fog of war to a degree.

Sometimes only change will be change. Either she will initiate it or you will at some point. Sometimes change is painful, but sometimes the inability to change is even more so. You have to kind of decide where you are, and what the reality is.

It comes down to just how much are you willing to take. It really undermines your soul. It never comes back to the way it was...

Wow, she' being really nice to me tonight...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REvmhBO99I4

I've always tried to be the better man, do the right thing, take the higher ground too. And like you, "I just masked my depression with work, optimism, and the occasional beer." I knew what I was feeling wasn't right. Well, I'm going through it right now, too. I left last night. Today was day 1. I've almost made it... Hang in there. This site has really helped me. I didn't have anyone to talk to that understood, either.

I'm still with ya beaten I suffer a lot less but keeping up with ya! Hang in it is a process you will be ready before you know it.