Trouble Relating to my wife. Help?

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My wife and I have been married for 20 years. For our first 10 years, I felt very close to her. During that time, I was very obsessed about our common belief system (Fundamentalist Christianity). However, since then, I have lost my faith, and I no longer consider myself a Christian.
Here's more background information that might be helpful.
1.) I am quite introverted. I only have two friends, and we talk mostly over IM, and mostly about a two things: Programming and an MMORPG (World of Warcraft).
2.) My wife is very extroverted, and she has a lot of friends, and she's very active at church.
3.) We have three children now. There ages are 4, 6, and 8.
4.) My wife is interested in many things, but she spends very little time doing any of them.
5.) My wife's favorite activity is socializing.
6.) For years, I have tried to find another common interest with my wife, but nothing has stuck.
7.) I only have emotions/feelings for my wife and children. I feel a little bit for my mother, father, and sister, but not much.
8.) Any time in the past when I have had emotions or feelings for anyone else, their words or actions have upset me to the point of having a shutdowns or meltdowns. So, I always manage to distance myself to the point that their words and actions don't effect me that much.
9.) Currently, my wife and children are the only one's who say and do things that bother me enough to cause shutdowns or meltdowns. This rarely happens due to anything my children say or do. However, it happens all the time due to the things my wife says and does, almost everyday.
10.) The shutdowns and meltdowns that occur due to my relationship with my wife are effecting our children, my job, and my quality of life and health quite a bit.

I'm strongly tempted to distance myself from my wife. If I did, I'm quite sure I'd have less shutdowns and meltdowns. I'm not sure it's the right thing to do. However, I'm not sure what else I can do. She doesn't seem overly concerned with finding a common interest with me, which I think would help. Also, she tries to alter her behavior to reduce stress in my life, but it never seems to be enough. For example, she loves to topic hop when she talks, and she likes to talk for long periods of time. I can be full of energy and feel great when we start a conversation. However, I'm almost always exhausted or angry when we finish. We're talking less and less these days. If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to deal with this or improve this, I would greatly appreciate it.

You need to tell her exactly what you've said here. If you have a hard time verbalizing, write it out. Let her know that you do have emotions/feelings for her, but you two need to compromise where she talks less (sticking to one subject, no chitchat) and you try hard to not judge what she's saying to harshly (leading to a meltdown) and that you two need to find common interests. This is very key to why my husband (who is also a somewhat social NT) and I work. Also, he takes his socializing elsewhere for the most part. She needs to find outside friends or groups where she can chitchat because this is a need she has. It's not wrong, it just is. It isn't helping her when you can't respond to it anyway, it just makes her feel worse when she tries. If she finds a group or friend(s) where she can indulge this, she will get the satisfaction she needs and you can remain calm and a better husband as a result. (My NT husband doesn't do chitchat thank goodness.)

Keep making lists of interests until you find one in common and spend alone time doing it. Sharing interests will bond you. Explain that your brain is like this big sex organ and when you indulge your interests you get good feelings. So when she shares the interest, she is associated with the good feelings it brings. That's pretty easy for an NT to understand. You associating her with good feelings is a good thing.

Hope that helps. Remember, don't be critical but tell her this. She is the way she is and it's no crime or a fault. She does however need to find friends who can share that with her to feel satisfaction and stop tiring you out. It will help you both in the end.

Good luck.

The sad thing that I see here is that you seem to be the one who has changed, but your wife hasn't. when my husband and I first married he wanted to me change some stuff about me, and I then asked..."Do you love me?" His response..."Yes" my response.."You knew I was like this before we married, now you want me to change?" "How? How do I change who I am?" Here's my thought, my husband and I have learned to compromise in order to be happy together. For example, he's never ever wanted to have pets. He knows that I have and always will have one. Solution....I am soley responsible for them....period. Now that dosn't mean if I am very ill he won't help with them. But overall, I feed them,clean up after them, take them to the vet, ect. Some of our issues are like yours, in that I act female, he acts male, and man does that ever clash. We've had to learn to really understand the male and female make up. There are two books I recommend for you, one is "Women are from Venus Men are from Mars". Then another book called "If Only He Knew" that book is by Gary Smalley, every husband should read that book it's a guide to understanding your wife, and every wife should read "For Better or Best" and thats a book to help the wife understand her husband. Understand this though, YOU CHANGED, according to what you wrote you did. Ok I get that we all go through changes, I get it I get it. But what you two use to have in common, you changed that. Ok fine, but try not to be to hard on her, she still accepts and loves you, appreciate that in her. She like you can't help who she is, and maybe thats why you fell in love with her in the first place? So I think with the help of a counselor you two can make some compromises that you both can cope with, without upsetting the other one. But don't distance yourself from her, that...she would take personally, take it from a wife who's husband did just that, had I had known of some inner turmoil he was going through, I would have understood and helped him. Once he opened up, things got a whole lot better between the two of us.

I see your point about good part of our issues being related to the differences between male and female. Years ago, I read "Men are from Mars and Women or from Venus", and I agree that it is a great book for our situation. I applied many of his concepts for a while, and they seemed to be working, and then I just stopped trying them. I'm not sure why I did this. Obviously, I didn't turn his good suggestions into habits or I'd still be using them today. I'll definitely review that book. I think he has video that's based on that book too, not sure though. I'll do a little research, and see if I can find it. I'll also check out "If Only He Knew". This sounds like good advice, and I'll definitely try it.


My belief system changed, but my personality did not. Losing my faith in Christianity wasn't a choice that I made because I wanted a change or wanted to change. It's not like I ran across a world view that sounded better and more enjoyable than my current one, so I made a change. While trying to live a good Christian life, I unintentionally ran across information that disproved and invalidated my reasons for Faith in Christian. Being a Christian means being a monotheist. When you lose your faith in that God, you're an agnostic and/or an atheist. When I realized that I lost my faith, I remember pondering "gee. what am I now. I'm not a Christian. hmmmmm. I guess I'm an agnostic". Again, I didn't choose to leave Christianity and go to a belief in materialism and non-theism. It just happened that way.

Since you brought this up, I should probably add a little more information that may help. When my wife met me, she was the initiator. I thought she was beautiful and very enjoyable to be around. At the time, I was a Mormon. Because our beliefs were different, I was hesitant to ask her out for a date. She appeared to have no qualms with our differences, and she kept flirting with me, so I asked her out. After our first date, she asked me if I was "open to the Truth". I told her that I was. I have always been "open to the Truth". The next day, she scheduled a Bible study with me. Part of the Bible study pointed out many of the fallacies in the Book of Mormon. After studying her material with her for several weeks, I decided that Mormonism wasn't True, and mainline Protestant Christianity was True. My point is that she knew I was open to changing my world view if new evidence was presented to me.

That has not changed. If a Theist claims to have good evidence for their beliefs, I'll gladly look it. In fact, I'm reading through a whole thick packet of articles that my father-in-law gave me. They are articles that he finds very convincing. I have a lot of respect for him, so I'm reading through the material, and trying to have an open mind. I also went to an Apologetics seminar - at my wife's request - that came to town a couple of weeks ago. It was hosted by "Reasons to Believe", which was founded by Dr. Hugh Ross, who is a very popular Christian apologists and Astronomer. His academic credentials are very impressive. I spent almost $200 of my own money on "Reasons to Believe" books, cd, and videos. One by one, I'm going through all of them. However, I'm also reading the other side. One of those books is titled "God: the failed hypothesis". It is written by an Astronomer with very good credentials who is an atheist. Keep in mind, while I'm reading all this material from both sides in my effort to be honest and fair, neither my wife and my father-in-law are willing to look at the other side. They are so set on not changing that I think their statement about being "open to the truth" is disingenuous. They're nice, and they're kind, but they're not "open to the Truth", which is what they both preached to me when I was 16. They are always willing to convert other people of other religions, yet they refuse to read or think about any information that my disprove their own beliefs. In my opinion, this is very, very hypocritical.

If you are a evangelical Christian with similar dispositions that I just listed that my wife and father-in-law have, then my conclusion is that your fear of "change" - with regard to your or your spouses world view - is very, very hypocritical. Honestly, I don't know how most evangelical Christians can go around trying to convert others - who are "open to the Truth" - when they are not "open to the Truth". Some of the nicest, kindest, and smartest people I know are Christians, and I like most of them. However, they are wrong in this area. If they had been born in the Middle East, they would be just as close minded and fervent about Islam. In my book, this is very wrong. The world will never improve if everyone adopts this close minded approach to life.

I apologize for digressing. I'll get back to my point now. I haven't changed who I am. I just changed my belief system, which my wife knew I was willing to do when she married me because she knew I was "open to the Truth". Also, I'm not asking her to change her world view. I'm just asking her to find some common interest that we both can share. I'm not talking about a different world view. I don't think you can chose those, and I have no desire to convert her. When I say common interest, I have in mind novels, movies, games, pets and other interests that have very little to do with people's world views. My two best friends are Christians, yet we hardly ever discuss religion or theology. We stick to programming and an online game that we like to play.



I'll keep this in mind.

Although I don't agree with your "YOu CHANGED" point, I appreciate the rest of your advice. Thanks!

Good luck. Theres a good chance you'll work things out. At least you have a wife.

Just a warning, I'm an IDIOT when it comes to social stuff. I've never been married, and I'm really rooting for you and your wife to figure this out, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, but I'm just sort of "thinking out loud".

I feel like I can relate to what you're saying here. When I was a teenager, I sort of chanced-in to a relationship with a girl who's a hard core Catholic, and very conservative. I've always been pretty liberal, for moral reasons. There were a lot of things I loved about the Catholic church, though I think part of it that got mixed in for me was just that I was being accepted by her family, I felt like I fit in.
I sometimes think it's probably for the best that things didn't work out with her because of our differences (we were engaged, but didn't marry-long story). Like you describe about many religious people, she's COMPLETELY unwilling to question her beliefs. I know she means well with them, but she can't really see that about people who have different beliefs.

Over the years I've come to have a lot of problems with the Catholic church (although many things are still appealing about it to me), and while I really identify myself as a kind of "middle of the road protestant", over the years there are many times were I've I guess basically been an agnostic.

Right now I'm not even sure what I am, religious-wise. There are times when I'm pretty much agnostic. Others when I feel a connection to God for whatever reason, and even rare occasions when I feel a pull to the Catholic church. (And if nothing else, at worst I do think the stuff Jesus *actually* said is brilliant, regardless of whether you think he's just some guy, or God.)

One of many things that's had me doubt religion is what you mentioned-that many of these devout Christians are only devout Christians because they were born into it...and they don't get that. I'm thinking, how can my faith be real, when I'd be a Muslim if I were born somewhere else?

But anyway, the thing is, if my ex and I had married, and I had still had these thoughts, I'm not sure what would have happened. I'm not sure she'd accept me, or if it could be a total disaster. I don't know how things could work if I had to fake who I was.

When reading about your situation, I'm guessing that your wife won't change in regards to her faith. That's been my experience at least. All the logic in the world won't matter. What I'm really hoping is that if you end up as an agnostic she'll still be okay with you, and you can just accept each other as is.

Anyway, the other poster's advice sounds wonderful to me. My instinct too is to just talk to her, share what you shared in the first post (maybe not so much about the religious stuff though, depending on how she's take that). Let her know you love her, and why you'd like to find things to do to spend time together, and...well, what Paula said!

Boy, I sound like a total jerk/idiot replying to this, when I've never even gotten married! But I really do wish you guys the best of luck!