A (long) bit of background:

My wife and I knew each other for a few years and only started seriously dating a few months before I left for pilot training for the military. She had dated both men and women in the years leading up to this, but both of us had been out of any sort of relationship for a year or two by the time we started dating. Not long after I started training, we got married, because we both had not known how deep love could be up until this point.

She’s struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life, but most of that seemed to go away after we had gotten married, even through the stress of the beginning of my career. She was still prescribed medication to address the most severe symptoms, but the frequency of those seemed to decrease as our relationship continued. She was strong when she had to be, and I was 100% there for her when she felt she couldn’t be strong.

A few months after getting married, we found out that she was pregnant. It was both a scary and exciting time in our lives. I was with her at every single neonatal appointment that I could be at, and we both were extremely excited about having a child.

Fast forward 9 months, our son is born, and she’s hit with a myriad of health issues brought on by postpartum depression. She developed a few autoimmune disorders, and her normal depression and anxiety came back with a vengeance. We did our best with where we were at to address these and try to get support. It seemed to help somewhat in the interim, but it was definitely a prevalent thing in our lives while we were at that base.

Fast forward about 2 years, we’re at a new location, bought a house, much better infrastructure, much better support, medically. Things seemed to be going smoother at this point. She had her ups and downs as they kept switching medications for her, because it seemed that her depression was somewhat medication resistant. This, coupled with the medications she was taking for her autoimmune disorders. Then the big event happened: deployment.

In both of our minds, if we could get through a 6 month deployment, we were set. Nothing could be worse than this. We prepared by starting to see a therapist beforehand who specialized in military families and what to expect for deployment. For the most part, it also went decently smoothly. She was definitely more stressed due to basically being a single mother to a now 4 year old for several months, but she was holding strong. I could FaceTime them every night, and everything seemed to be alright. I came home, and everything was honestly almost perfect. Great family time, great sex, absolutely enjoying each other’s company from being separated so long.

This lasted about 6 months, then we got into what I call the “doldrums of normal life.” I was typically working 8-4 most days, my son was in school, so my wife had a lot of free time on her hands to do what she wanted. She tried to pick up gig jobs to make money on the side and get some sense of freedom back. She couldn’t really work full time because of the time commitments to pick up/drop off our son at school. The problem was that her depression and anxiety came back even worse than after pregnancy. She would regularly sleep in until 1-2pm, forcing me to have to come home from work early to pick up our son, because I wasn’t sure if she’d be up in time to get him. She started spending money pretty recklessly, I was quickly becoming the primary caretaker of our son on top of working a full time job, and she started spiraling.

She was still in therapy, and her ups and downs were becoming less severe, but we’re still prevalent. I also started therapy, because of the stress I was dealing with feeling basically like a single dad at that point. There were several periods of major ups and major downs throughout the next couple of years. Sex dropped through the basement, and the most intimacy we had, besides the odd hug or kiss, was when we’d lie beside each other in bed at night.

Now comes what I’m here for:

About 2 months ago, she said she felt like she was just hiding behind my career and life, and living vicariously rather than actually being a person with an identity. She wanted to get some physical separation so she could start being more independent and doing things for herself rather than relying on me. I was all for this, because I know that a lot of our life had revolved around my career and hadn’t really afforded her own time and independence to do things for herself.

She moved into the our guest room, started hanging out with friends more, and she generally seemed more relaxed. The intimacy never really returned, but seeing her happier made me feel better, and I felt like we were on the right trajectory and that intimacy may end up just solving itself as her mood improved.

2 weeks ago, she blindsided me and said that she thinks the root of all of these issues is that she’s gay. She said she had been feeling this way for the past year or so, but was too afraid to admit it until she had talked to her therapist about it over several dozen sessions. Absolutely gut wrenching. We had been married for 8 years, at least 6 of those being what we’d both consider happily married, and the other 2 were full of support for each other in hard times… It had crossed my mind as a possibility, but I didn’t think it would be a reality until reality gave me an extremely hard slap in the face.

I’m back in therapy mainly just to vent my confusion and frustration, and she’s continuing therapy as well to see what all of this is actually stemming from. We have a joint session scheduled for next week, and I’d love for us to work this out and figure out that that’s NOT what it is, but I’m not holding my breath on this. I fully expect to leave that joint session knowing that our marriage is truly over.

She said that she doesn’t want to be this way, and that she should be perfectly content with our house, our family, our marriage… but she’s just not happy, and that this is the only explanation that she can come up with as to why. She said she still absolutely loves me and wishes she could change this about herself, but doesn’t even know if she could if she tried.

Right now, we’re still living in the same house, both so that we can continue supporting and focusing on our son, but also because it’s somewhat financially impossible to leave due to paying off her earlier depression spending.
It absolutely breaks my heart that every time I see her, I get the urge to hold her hand, hug her, kiss her, etc.. but I also know that those feelings are probably not reciprocated, and that trying to engage in that would only make things harder/more confusing for both of us.

I don’t exactly know what I’m trying to get out of this other than to vent and find an outlet to yell into the void, because it’s hard to process all of these emotions, and lack thereof, from what seems like a breakdown of what was once a perfectly fulfilling marriage. Apologies for the novel.

Edit: changed a few words for clarification

Last edited by JerryS30 (May 29, 2025 1:35 am)