Bombshell announcement needs to be confronted

Q

: Six months ago, my wife shocked me with the sudden statements that she didn’t love me, and had never loved me.

She didn’t say she wanted to leave me. She just dropped the bomb and walked away. We have two sons.

We spent the next months in a surreal situation, with me waiting for the final words to come.

She carried on as if nothing had happened. We continued to live together, travel as a family, shared going to the boys’ sports activities.

We continued to see our friends as a couple, and attended parents’ extended family events together.

No one we knew ever asked what’s going on, because they detected nothing.

But I’m still shaken by it. I feel the bubble could burst at any time.

Sometimes I think it was just an outburst on her part, something she’s regretted or re-thought. But she never says a word about it, as if it never happened.

My problem is, it did. How do I deal with this?

— Still On Eggshells

A: Here’s the hard choice: Confront or carry on.

If you can’t stand the tension, or greatly resent being put in this insecure position, you need to ask the question, What was that all about?

And if she tosses it off, she needs to be told how unfair it still is that she tossed off an emotional shocker with no regard for how it’d affect you.

However, before you choose this route, think through what you’re prepared to hear.

You need your own responses ready. I’d suggest you insist on marital counselling because you’ll not just accept another set of threatening jabs from her.

Meanwhile, you’ve said nothing here about your intimacy together, since that incident. Is it happening? Is it as it was prior to her outburst?

Or, if it’s changed negatively since then, are you going to carry on like that?

Q

: My boyfriend of ten months and I have recently split up.

It came with no hints at all. He says he’s fallen out of love with me, that the spark we had in the early phases of our relationship is no longer there.

Initially, I had no intentions of falling in love. But he made me put down my walls and feel as if everything was just right.

He now says he sees a future with me but the timing’s just off.

This is my first break-up in three years. Within those years I found myself and laid it all out for him. Just to be shot down.

He says he cares about my well being and that he doesn’t want to lose me forever. But I’m confused as to what I should do. — Dumbfounded

A: The couple’s situation above is instructive. Once there’s a marriage and children, a partner’s explosive statement of having lost love is more than painful. It involves re-thinking how you re-arrange your entire life.

In your case, there’s still deep hurt and confusion. But you’re more easily in charge of what happens next.

He wants a break, and you should agree to it. Whatever is “off” about timing for him, let him know that you’re not clingy or dependent on his mood.

You’ve learned a lot about yourself during this relationship, and can now pull on your own strengths to be confident, independent - and think about what suits your timing.

You can also date during a break - not to upset him, but for a chance to think over what you really want from a relationship no matter with whom.

FEEDBACK Regarding an uncle’s desire to will his farmland to his children, not to his siblings who worked it (Nov. 21):

Reader #1: “The nephew needs legal advice. The uncle’s siblings may have a reasonable claim to part of the land.”

Reader #2: “Any individual may, in their will, direct the division of their assets any way they wish.

“We don’t know the story behind the perceived unfairness by the writer, about why the eldest son, his uncle, was left the land. It may’ve been a family cultural matter.

“He can approach his uncle about obtaining some of the land, if the uncle’s considering selling some of it.

“But it’s unreasonable to expect - and unseemly for him to suggest - that he should simply give it to the writer’s father, or sell it far below market value, in the interest of what the writer considers to be “fair.”

TIP OF THE DAY: When someone drops the “no-love” bomb, weigh confronting, accepting, or moving on.