When we are adults and meet the person we are sure we are going to marry, many of us set a goal at that point. We want to control the circumstances so that eventually he wants to marry us. This can be true even if you show some resistance. Many of us believe that if we can get him to change his mind, he’ll see how wonderful marriage can be, and once we get past that hurdle, we’ll have a long and happy marriage.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work this way. Even when you think your marriage is good, the man who didn’t want to get married in the first place may turn out to be the husband who isn’t sure he wants to stay married later. This can be painful, but it can also be very confusing, especially when you have built a life together or there are children involved.
A wife might explain the dilemma like this: “My mom says that if I had listened to my husband when we were dating, I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now. I dated my husband for almost five years before I could convince him to marry me.” And even then, he was very open about the fact that he didn’t really believe in marriage and didn’t want to do it. I chalked it up to the fact that his parents had a very unpleasant relationship and that he has no idea how a healthy marriage works. I thought that I could teach him this because my parents have a wonderful marriage. I honestly think our marriage is pretty solid. It’s not perfect, but no marriage is. Little kid now. We should be counting our blessings. But my husband isn’t. Still he only tolerates marriage. He has started suggesting we split up and take some time apart and when I get upset about this he says ‘you knew I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t lie to you about this. I left him very and of course. But you. you insisted and now here we are and I still don’t want to get married even though I love you and our son. Marriage just doesn’t work for me. Because of our son, it’s not as simple as going our separate ways. I love him and I don’t want our son to grow up with only one parent. Is there a way to make someone who doesn’t accept marriage happy?”
Well, I don’t know your husband or the situation, but I probably would have tried what you did: I would have hoped that having a satisfying marriage would overcome your objections. That’s a reasonable thing to expect. And we’ve all known couples who had a reluctant party and finally changed their minds when the marriage was satisfied. I don’t think you had an unrealistic goal. And the fact that her husband was willing to ignore her reservations and try the marriage probably says a lot about his feelings for you. He probably wouldn’t have been willing to do this if he didn’t love you and didn’t want it to work.
That being said, there is obviously some reservation still up for grabs. I agree with you that I would not want to give up before trying everything possible to get the marriage back on track, especially since there is a child. I admit that I am very old fashioned with marriage, but I think that if you are in a situation where both people love each other and treat each other with respect, then it makes sense to try different things to change this before walking away. .
In this case, I think seeking advice would be a good place to start. You may encounter some resistance from him and if so, you may have to go solo at first and then ask him to come with you later as he sees how much you are helping him. Many people ask their spouses for support as a first step toward joint counseling. They kind of make it easy on your spouse and there is nothing wrong with that.
I suggest counseling because I believe a professional would have the best chance of finding out what issues in the past are causing your husband’s reluctance now. He himself may not know what contributes most to her unhappiness. A therapist could not only help you identify what is really wrong, but also help you both deal with it and then build the marriage that will work for both of you.
I know not everyone likes the idea of counseling, but some problems just lend themselves to outside help. Childhood problems and problems that you have tried to solve on your own but can’t are good examples of this.
