[dumbfounded]

My wife of 10 years told me last night that she doesn’t have feelings for me anymore and that she wants a separation(not divorce). We have two kids in elementary school, we both work full time, me M-F 8-5 and her on a never set 12hr work schedule. There is the background, here’s the issue.

Over the past year we have been drifting further and further apart growing more bitter and angry towards each other. We are not communicating at all. Anything we have done together is usually involved inviting her friends. She has taken multiple out of town with friends, in the last few months her going out has become unbearable. We spent the holidays together and I felt like they went pretty well. I have gone out a few times too just to get away from the house an went hunting one weekend with my father.

Our situation is not improving and now she wants the separation. We did do 3 sessions of counseling before Christmas, but they seemed to have no effect on our relationship. I do not want to loose her!! She is the love of my life. I also don’t want my kids to get hurt either, I can not imagine being without them. I also know the statistic of us staying together once I move out is very low. I just really don’t know how to get our relationship back. I miss my best-friend and wife!

[AskApril Masini]

Clearly something has to change, and at this point, it has to be a big change. My advice is to make some grand gestures followed up by some real changes in your behavior so that your lifestyle changes. Here are some ideas for grand gestures that you can riff off of: A beautiful piece of jewelry, a vacation for just the two of you, arrange for your kids to be at their grandparents’ house for the weekend, a date that includes either the first place the two of you met, dated or your wedding venue. You have to make her understand how much you’re willing to do on your end to make things different. Then, when you have her attention, you have to come up with some ideas that you’re willing to work on to make things different. Your lifestyle has driven the two of you apart and so that’s where you have to figure out how to do things in a new way. You can make date nights; you can agree to have the kids spend every weekend with their grandparents (I know it’s extreme, but if you want to get your wife back, at this point, you have to go extreme), you have to be willing to change careers, etc.

I don’t know if she feels the same way that you do — that your marriage drifted away — or if she thinks there’s a different problem going on, but all you can do is try.

Let me know if that helps, and how things go.

And please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]

[Lune David]

This one really hits the heart. Losing your best friend while they’re still right there is a special kind of pain. You can feel how much you love her and how scared you are of breaking the family apart.

Thank you, AskApril, for not sugarcoating this but still giving real hope. The part about big changes, not small talk is so true. When distance builds for years, words alone don’t fix it — action does. Grand gestures aren’t about gifts, they’re about saying, “I see you, and I’m willing to fight for us.”

In my point of view: if she’s already asking for space, this is the moment where effort has to get loud and consistent. Not panic, not promises — real change she can feel.

Wishing this family strength, and thank you April for always pushing people to step up instead of giving up.

[Member]

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