u/broski5566

I am a 25(m) and my wife is a 24(f). We’ve been together for about 4.5 years. We’ve only been married for a couple months but have not even really got to enjoy it because we’ve been dealing with a lot of issues and repetitive patterns in our relationship. We’ve been trying to work on them but little progress has been made and things in our relationship just don’t quite seem the same anymore. I feel as though the first year of our relationship was so amazing and everything from that point has just taken a downward spiral. I think we got here because we do love each other but we were trying so hard to make something work that shouldn’t have been this hard. My main issue is that I do believe she has a lot of unresolved trauma that has been pouring out on me over the years. I always thought I could help her through it and save her. But I soon realized the more I tried the more it left me drained. When ever and issue happens she naturally pushes you away. This looks like stonewalling (specifically silent treatment, ignoring, not wanting to talk about what happened, acting cold, and pulling away, physically leaving, and not accepting any help or reconciliation).I believe this was due to a very traumatic upbringing but I learned that you can’t save someone from the things they’ve been through you can only support them through it and that’s if there aware and want to change. I honestly feel like I mentally checked out when we had this huge fight on our honeymoon and haven’t been the same since. It feels like my body is here and present but my heart and mind are gone. I still try in our relationship doing everything I’m supposed to do but after that day something in me just broke. I think it was the realization that my person wouldn’t ever change as I hoped one day they would. I love her a lot but I just don’t think it’s going to work anymore. I’ve been so tired, drained and I just feel I’ve lost myself trying to help and be everything for her. I often fantasize now about just being alone and having my own place to myself living a quiet life. I’m not sure at this point if I’d ever remarry in the future after this relationship. What I’ve learned and been through has honestly just scared me in more ways than one. The way I’m looking at this now is I’m still relatively young, and we have no kids or assets. I think if we just did it now I’d give us both time to restart and have a second chance in life.

Just needed somewhere to vent and clear my head, what do you all think? For those who have divorced how has your life been afterward? Did any of you remarry?

I know this is still a long post, but I’ve got a lot on my mind and genuinely want outside perspectives. (Made a post before but it was to long, just wanted to summarize this one a bit more)

My wife and I have been together for 4 years and married for 5 months. Unfortunately, we haven’t really been able to enjoy our marriage. Since getting married, it feels like we’ve spent more time arguing, being hurt, disappointed, or emotionally disconnected than actually enjoying being husband and wife.
For context, I’m naturally a very easygoing person but I’m a people pleaser. I tend to put other people before myself, struggle with boundaries, and I really don’t enjoy conflict. My wife had a difficult upbringing and became very independent at a young age. I do believe she has a lot of childhood traumas that has affected how she handles conflict, her emotions, communication, and relationships.

The biggest issue throughout our relationship has been communication.
When something upsets her, she often shuts down and stops communicating with me. Sometimes she’ll say she’s fine when she clearly isn’t, and I’ll repeatedly ask what’s wrong because I genuinely want to understand and fix things but even than she won’t say. Than when it finally gets to a certain point she’ll blame me and say I didn’t care enough to find out what was hurting her or that I should have just known. Eventually I started feeling like I was expected to figure out what was wrong without being told, like expected to read her mind to a certain degree.

This pattern along with other stuff has happened for years. We’ve broken up and gotten back together multiple times because of it. Eventually I got to the point where I would apologize for things I didn’t even know I had done just to restore peace. Over time, I stopped doing that because she realized I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for.

Another pattern is that when she becomes upset bc of a disagreement I tend to cave and prioritize her emotions over my own meaning I’ll give in to what she wants even when I don’t agree with it. I’ve realized that I’ve done this for years because id rather save the peace than have her stonewall me or shutdown. Sometimes these shutdowns would last days. It felt like I was talking to myself for days and at a certain point I thought she was punishing me for her being upset. When she did this it just came off really cold, I felt like I could get seriously hurt and she just wouldn’t care bc she was mad. I think doing this tho has caused me to slowly lose myself in many ways tho.

Despite all of this, I loved her deeply and always tried to show it. I drove hours just to see her, bought her food, filled her gas tank, wrote songs for her, planned special birthdays, took her on trips, consistently told her I loved her, and tried to be there for her emotionally.
But she continued to feel like I wasn’t giving her enough.

Eventually I became completely burned out. I felt like no matter how much I poured into her, it was never enough, and I started questioning whether I even recognized myself anymore.
Before getting married, I actually told her that I wanted us to focus on fixing our relationship before getting married. I knew we had serious problems and was worried that marriage wouldn’t magically fix them.

She wanted to move forward with marriage, and we can fix things along the way which made me hesistant but eventually I agreed. Looking back, I wish I had trusted my hesitation more bc we spent so much time planning we didn’t even have the chance to work on things.
Our wedding itself was complicated. I was genuinely happy and enjoyed the celebration, but my wife was extremely upset throughout the day and barely seemed to enjoy it. There were a lot of issues surrounding the planning, and I felt like many of them came down to poor communication and expectations. She was more so unhappy with the wedding planner but allowed that to ruin the whole day for her.

Then came our honeymoon, which is where something changed in me.
We went to Jamaica and had a major argument. She was upset, withdrawn, and didn’t want me helping her. At one point she told me:
“I’m grown and you’re grown. I can take care of myself. I’m gonna do what I wanna do and you can do what you wanna do.”
Later, she explained that when she’s upset, she doesn’t expect anyone to show up for her or care for her, and she tends to push people away.

That really hurt me because I had spent years trying to show her that I would be there for her.
After that, something in me changed. I started emotionally withdrawing and feeling like I needed to protect myself instead of constantly trying to prove that I loved her.

There have also been other things said during arguments that have really hurt me. She has told me she regrets the time we’ve spent together and, before our wedding, even said she would marry me for convenience rather than disappoint everyone. I know people say hurtful things when they’re angry, and I’ve tried to forgive those moments, but eventually some of those words started to stick with me.
Now we’re 5 months into marriage and things feel worse.

Some nights we’re okay. We eat together, watch something, laugh, and I remember why I love her. Other nights we’re barely talking. Sometimes she’s crying in the bathroom and I’m trying to figure out how to help. She doesn’t wear her wedding ring anymore.
I know I have my own issues. I need to work on boundaries, communication, conflict avoidance, and probably a lot of other things. I’m not trying to paint myself as perfect.
But I also feel like I’m expected to work on my issues while simply learning how to navigate hers.

I’m exhausted.
I love my wife deeply, but I feel like I’ve spent years trying to love her in the way she needs while slowly losing myself in the process.
Lately I’ve been thinking about divorce more and more. Part of me wants to leave and live a quiet life alone. But another part of me feels like leaving would mean abandoning someone I love, especially knowing that she has her own wounds.

I’m honestly just hurt and confused.
So I’m asking people who have been married, divorced, gone through similar relationship dynamics, or even just have an outside perspective:

Am I looking at this situation clearly? Is this something that can realistically be repaired with both people willing to do the work, or does it sound like we’ve reached a point where staying together may be doing more harm than good?

I’m not looking for people to blindly tell me to leave or stay. I genuinely want honest perspectives, especially from people who have experienced something similar.

Me and my wife have been married for a month now and it hasn’t been pleasant and frankly I regret it. During the course of our relationship we’ve definitely had our issues primarily with conflict resolution and unmet expectations. It feels like these things have gotten 20x worse since we got married.

For a little background history, we’ve been together a bit over 4 years and pretty much since we met we’ve had some issues but primarily the same 2 problems of conflict resolution and unmet expectations

For conflict resolution there’s just this consistent pattern that happens. She gets mad about something shuts down and stone walls me ( refuses to talk and communicate, ignores my calls texts, she’s recently started leaving the house not telling me where she’s going, stuff like that). Sometimes this last for days, even when I’m making every effort to talk to her. Sometimes it’s hard bc through the course of our relationship we were long distance about 2 hours away. Sometimes when I’m trying to rectify things and she won’t pick up her phone or answer it get frustrating and after some time goes by like sometimes days I stop trying. Than she will say things like “you didn’t even try to find out what was wrong or you don’t even care that I’m upset” even tho I’ve asked her multiple times what’s bothering her or if I’m not there I’ve reached out multiple times. I’ve noticed she does this a lot which I’ve brought up to her, something will happen she will block me out and put up walls that I can’t get through than when I get frustrated and exhausted from trying she throws it back in my face that I don’t care enough. This is a regular thing in our relationship that I really did think we could work through and would get better but it hasn’t.

Next with unmet expectations. She wants me to be basically the ultimate leader of our home and traditional man. I do want this as well but I’m still in the place where I’m learning a lot in life and about myself and how to get there. She has had more of a rather harder upbringing where she’s learned to do a lot by herself at such an early age. She’s become very hyper independent. Which is not a bad thing but bc of this her expectations are set very high and again I’m not there yet. I understand it can be frustrating at times but I’ve been delt a different set of cards. I’m most definitely making the effort to reach those standards and I believe I’ve grown a lot especially in the last year but I’m still not where she wants me to be. The issue in my opinion comes here, she wants me to do certain things but is not willing to give up control. For example she wants me to lead more but with every decision I make even if it’s a genuine good decision there’s always so much push back and resistance and that goes with everything. She’ll say she wants me to take initiative and when I try to she shuts me down and says things like I don’t trust you. She wants me to help her find solutions to problems but when they occur she has a habit of doing this thing where every time I’m about to give my input she’ll interrupt me or ignore me and “say one second one second I’m trying to think” which basically translates to be quiet so I can figure this out. We’ve had talks where I’ve told her about this dynamic but she doesn’t agree with it. She says I have to earn it and I have to show her she can trust me before she’ll allow me to lead but HOW ON EARTH CAN I EVEN DO THAT IF I CANT EVEN GET THE CHANCE!! And again it’s always just my fault for not doing enough.

We have other issues to but these are the main ones. One other problem I’ve expressed to her that honestly gets very tiresome after a couple of years is she’s always upset with something. It could be me if it’s not me it’s her parents, if not her parents it’s her coworkers, if not her coworkers it’s the person on the road that was driving to slow for her. Like I just don’t understand how there’s always something wrong. I’ve gotten to a point with all of this where to keep my sanity I feel like I’ve with drawn. Specifically bc when she’s upset with me she wont tell me the issue and expects the problem to be solved. I remember multiple times where I was up all night trying to figure out what I did and what to apologize for. Sometimes in all honestly it’s bc of certain things I find ridiculous like for example I was eating to loud. I’ve just started to in all honesty not care as much which sounds bad but I quite literally cannot keep doing this, she’s always upset and always needs me to help regulate her emotions and bring her down be there for her which is very important but it’s gotten to a point where my emotions and feelings have been very much so neglected. I’ve told her about how I feel and she just says well your the man your supposed to help me calm down and lead our arguments and be there when I’m down which I do agree but it’s just at a point where I feel like my feelings are not something of value and I honestly in general just feel like an employee or an accessory to her life.

We got married a month ago now and the entire time she’s either been upset or we’ve been arguing/fighting. For reference she was upset/mad our proposal day, she was upset the wedding day, she was upset on our honeymoon and many other important events as well and I just can’t take it anymore. I’ve spoken to her about this and we both do agree that for some reason it feel like we can’t just share a good moment together. Our relationship has been shaky and I’m at a point finally where I don’t think this is normal, im really thinking about finally calling it quits. I’ve reached a point where I think I just want to be by myself again.. I’ll be a bit lonely yes but at least I’ll have my peace and mental sanity.

What do you guys think i should do? I was thinking about marriage counseling but I don’t think it’ll even help tbh but I’d be willing to go I guess.

So I am a 'M/25' who is with a 'F/23' turning 24 this year and the length of our relationship has been about 4.5 years. We recently got married and are almost a month in and this month hasn’t been the best so far. Over the course of these weeks we’ve been in an okay standing. We’ve had some good moments but have also had a lot of arguments and fights.

So for a bit of background history over our relationship. Me and my partner are very different, we are the complete opposite type of people, like when they say opposites attract you’ll probably see us right next to the definition. Although we are different tho we love each other a lot which has allowed us to keep this relationship going. Our 2 main problems since the beginning of our relationship pretty much is how we handle conflict and dealing with unmet expectations.

As per conflict issue, I’ve noticed she seems to be upset about something or complains about things frequently. She’ll be upset something about me or when it’s not me it’s a co-worker, when it’s not a co-worker it’s some random driver on the road, there’s just always something negative. I get being upset but it’s to the point where I find it excessive and I just don’t know how someone can be upset or mad so often, she was even upset the entire day of our wedding. Yes things didn’t go perfectly as expected but I still can say I had a blast and it was beautiful but according to her it wasnt good. When she is upset at me I’ve noticed she has a couple of habits that I don’t believe help our relationship at all. When she’s mad she shuts down. She starts to stonewall me meaning she doesn’t wish to communicate or talk, sometimes will leave the house and not tell me where she’s going, she’ll ignore my calls and messages, be passive aggressive. I keep telling her in those moments that I want to know what’s wrong and I genuinely care. I understand that something I did bothered her and I want to have the opportunity to apologize and make it right as well as validate her feelings. But it’s like she’s just not willing to talk to me. I’ll be trying to get her to open up for hours sometimes days about what’s bothering her and she says nothing or that she’s already over it (when clearly she’s not). Then on my part I end up getting frustrated and stop asking or trying to figure it out which she hates but it’s so mentally and emotionally draining when she does all this stuff so often and over the course of years it’s become a lot on my mental. She tells me in those moments that sometimes it’s not easy to talk which I understand and tells me there’s certain things I can do to help her calm down. She’ll tell me don’t leave her alone but she’ll leave and not tell me where she’s going or not pick up my calls or texts so how can I do that, she’ll say she wants to be comforted kissed or hugged but when I do that she pulls and pushes away, she says she wants me to go after the problem and not beat around the bush but when I ask her what’s wrong and that I notice she’s a bit off and if she wants to talk she refuses or says she’s fine and tries to deflect. I’m trying my best to help her but I don’t know why she wants to make it so difficult for me. When I’m upset with her and she asks to talk I don’t hold it against her I communicate and tell her how I feel. I’m not saying I’m perfect I understand somethings are hard to say but I try to always have a conversation when she asks and the issue gets resolved rather quick or if she doesnt agree with what I’m saying well sometimes she gets upset and catches an attitude..

Next is the unmet expectations, she does have Good expectations for me but I’m not there yet. She wants me to be a great leader, the ultimate man of the house, the person in control and in his masculine which will allow her to be more in her feminine which I frankly want to. But again there’s just some major contradictions in her behaviour, she wants me to lead but gives me so much reissstance or shuts me down when I’m trying to make a decision, in regards to taking initiative, I try to do certain things but to her everything is wrong, not enough or again she shuts me down before I can go do it, when a problem occurs and I want to offer my advice or solution that may potentially work she has a habit of saying one second, one second!!! ( which basically translates to be quite so I can think) basically ignoring everything I hv to say. Than when we get in an argument she tells me all this stuff about I can’t lead, and she can’t trust me to make a decision and I never step up and she feels like the man in the relationship which pisses me off. I’m 25 I’m still learning a lot on how to lead and be the man of his home but it feels like she wants someone more complete. I’m really trying to do these things but I feel like I can’t grow into that person if she’s always giving me so much push back, and being so combative and critical with everything I do and with every decision I want to make. I feel like she just wants me to do what she would do. She’s told me many times in those moments to make the decision she would make and I don’t know how I feel about that saying tbh. Bc what if the decision that is not what she wants is better for us overall which has happened many times before.

I do believe she acts this way due to past trauma. Her father wasn’t in her life and i believe it really hurt her and has caused her to put up her guard and be very protective of herself. Especially when it comes to people she has any form of relationship with (partner, friends, family). I understand where’s she’s coming from as well but even that mentality is hurting our relationship. In arguments she has this attitude where she has to protect herself at all costs, on our honeymoon we had a bad argument and she did just that. In a short summary we were in Jamacia and she was upset one day. We were taking a cab and for those who don’t know people in Jamacia actually drive kinda like there auditioning for the next fast and furious movie. I asked her to put on her seatbelt which she didn’t want to do so I put my arm around her, so while the guy was driving she wouldn’t fall off the seat and bump her head as I could see she was falling asleep but bc she refused bc she was mad. We had a talk when we got back to the hotel and I explained my thought process, I was just trying to tell her even tho we may be upset with each other that doesn’t mean we don’t look out for each other and she says to me HEY WERE BOTH GROWN IM GONNA TAKE CARE OF MYSELF AND YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, IM GONNA DO WHAT I WANT TO DO AND YOU CAN GO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO!!! Which genuinely hurt me so deeply bc just the other day when we were getting married she says to me well we’re married now so we gotta really look out for each other in such a loving way… that is not the first time she’s said something like that, I’ve realized she says things out of anger at times but still. All our really bad arguments lead to her proposing we break up, the thing that changes is now she proposed for the first time divorce. And this type of stuff has been going on for years, lots of red flags but just the fact that I do love her and she loves me has kept us from completely walking away for good.

All of this has pushed me to a point where it feels crippling to me. My mental sanity feels like it’s dwindling and my patience is running very thin. I usually bounce back but this time feels different. Instead of thinking what more I can do and how I’m gonna approach this again, I just can’t stop thinking if marrying her was the right idea. She’s definitely has some good qualities to her. Like I can def say she’s pushed me to be a better man, want more in life, and push at my goals. But just the lack of accountability and her making it seem that all our problems is just my fault weighs so heavy. It sucks that I realized and am feeling everything this deeply now but idk… there’s a lot more things but I don’t want to make this to much longer.

What do you guys think I should do? With your experiences do people change or is it all just a waste of time? Is leaving the right thing to do?