My wife’s new work friends make me feel invisible
QIs my second marriage doomed to failure? My first wife left me five years ago. Although my marriage with my current wife started off really happily, everything changed a few months ago when my she got a new job which takes up a lot of her time. She has made new friends and is spending most of her spare time with them. She has asked me to come along but I know that she will spend all evening talking to them and I will sit invisibly by her side, so I prefer to stay at home. I have tried talking to her about it, but it always ends up in a big row, so I’ve given up. I don’t want to force her to spend time with me if she doesn’t want to. Isn’t the point of being married to enjoy spending time together? Should I resign myself to another lonely relationship or perhaps I should call it quits before it turns even uglier?
AIt is very common for a new couple to want to spend lots of time together. At the beginning of a relationship, couples need to establish their bond and build the foundation of their trust in each other. The novelty of their attraction is still fresh, and most couples enjoy getting to know each other deeply and fusing their identity.
The next stage of the couple’s development tends to be when each spouse pursues their individual needs, often beyond the home, but returns to find nurture and loving connection with their partner. Every person naturally needs a different balance of activities and fulfilment, both within and outside their intimate relationship. It sounds like your wife needs a lot of interaction from her work and social life at the moment. Perhaps she feels that she has established her trust in you and she has the confidence to build her individual identity knowing that you will remain loyal.
Partners often have different needs, and conflict naturally arises when their needs clash. This is completely normal. The important part is learning to negotiate these differences with each other.
You are going to have to learn to notice, own and verbalise your needs while staying calm enough to make space for a respectful discussion about how you are both going to accommodate each other. This may take some time and effort especially if you naturally withdraw from disagreements or conflict.
It sounds like you have had a difficult journey with relationships before you have arrived here. Although we might not want to be, we are all deeply affected by our previous intimate relationships and carry these wounds and learned protective responses with us into future ones. I can imagine that your difficult first marriage has made you sensitive to when your wife leaves you, if only on a subconscious level.
Perhaps this makes it scarier and more hurtful, feeling like she is rejecting you, when she might only be wanting a girls’ night out. This is understandable on your part, but will fester if left uncommunicated. Being able to tell your wife how you feel might make her appreciate your reaction more and think about how she can adapt her need to socialise, so that it accommodates your vulnerabilities.
I would encourage you to see conflicting needs between yourself and your wife as an opportunity to grow, both as a person and as a husband. It is not the different needs that destroy relationships. Rather, it is not being able to communicate those differences to each other and being able to negotiate a way forward together.
It may feel risky and vulnerable to disclose your feelings of rejection and loneliness when your wife spends her time away from you, but verbalising difficult feelings will strengthen the emotional muscle in your character and make you more robust.
So, I would recommend expressing your needs to your wife, focusing on your own feelings without criticism or blame. Writing a letter to clarify your feelings might be easier. Think about possible practical solutions that you might request, such as committing to a weekly date night, to make you feel more secure in your relationship.
Think also about how you might listen to and support your wife’s needs in this area, what practical changes might you make to ensure that she feels happy.
It takes lots of practice and emotional resilience to express your feelings in an intimate relationship and to calmly negotiate how to accommodate each other’s needs and support each other. Wishing you both lots of luck in your journey developing a more emotionally mature relationship both with yourselves and with each other.
Verbalising difficult feelings will strengthen the emotional muscle in your character