How to deal with the ‘no-love’ bomb

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

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?

TIP OF THE DAY

When someone drops the “no-love” bomb, weigh confronting, accepting, or moving on.