'I kept a diary to track my wife's affection towards me, and it's as bad as I've been saying' UPDATED 4X

"I kept a diary to track my wife's affection towards me, and it's as bad as I've been saying."

I (34M) and my wife (43F) have been together for 16 years and married for 7. We have a 4-year-old daughter.

After the first few years where my wife was very kind, present, loving, and affectionate, things have changed a lot: I rarely receive kisses from her, let alone hugs or kind words. She doesn’t ask how I am in the morning, let alone say good morning or good night. I am tired of this.

I have told her in every possible way that, as a man, I need these expressions of love to feel loved. Her excuse is that she is too stressed because of the child (but these things were happening even before our daughter was born) or that everything depends on my behavior towards her; every time, it always depends only on me.

When we argue about this, she says I’m exaggerating. Tired of arguing about this for a year, I have recorded in a diary all her expressions of love over the past month. I know it may seem exaggerated, but believe me, I am exhausted and don’t know how else to show her the lack of love I feel from her.

What I don’t understand is that, s$%u^%$ly, things are fine and we have s&^ 2-3 times a week, sometimes initiated by her. I am fed up; I don’t feel loved as I would like, and I have lived like this for many years and now I can’t take it anymore. Please don’t get mad at me, everyone needs their own time to understand certain things, and I realized this over the past year.

I am a romantic, passionate, and attentive man. Normally, I can give 5-6 hugs a day, kisses, compliments, surprises, and I can talk about anything and discuss things in different ways. However, being treated like this makes me shut down and withdraw because of the lack of reciprocity.

I am seriously thinking of divorcing because I don’t feel heard or understood. I don’t see a person who understands and takes action to change the situation.

I'm doing 50/50, working, watching the kid, trash, laundry, blah blah blah. The fact is that even before the kid she behaved like that. I don't want my wife to be my mommy and I'm fully capable to live alone and do everything (because I already had)

Basically we're running in this circle until some months ago: I don't receive what I ask (affection) and I'm treated poorly so after a long time of patiently waiting for change I stonewall / get offended. We have a fight because of this.

She says she has enough of the stone walling and me being offended because it hurts her. We end the fight with me being the one that "swallows it" and try to let it go, I try to tell her what is causing this and to take action.

Time passes and we're again from the start. Some months ago I read about stonewalling and how bad it is so I ended it but still, it's really hard for me to get through this lack of affection. The problem is that I've been also treated very bad during this fights: yelled at, called names, divorce threatening by her side. I'm hurt on so many levels.

The diary is about facts not my emotions, if I receive no hugs for 5 days in a row it's no hugs for 5 days in a row. I tell her I love her, I tell her how beautiful she is, I joke with her, I buy her preferred premium soda when I do groceries, I ask her how she feels when she's ill and I take care of her. But do I feel reciprocated? Nah

Even if we have a difficult 4 yo child I mean, we have a lot of relaxed moments where I do kiss her, hug her for some seconds, tell her something nice. It is impossible that she's so stressed that she can't even hold my hand for some seconds. I think that the issue with her is that she comes from a family where the father was really a%$#$%e (calling names, etc) and in constant fight with the mother (cheating).

I think that she received love from her mother but she didn't from his father and that's the result. But from the other side I don't understand how she could give me what I needed the first 1/2 years of the relationship... just because it was new?

I also asked how her 2 previous relationships were with the partners, if they complained about these things, but she says they didn't and that she was giving them hugs etc (but in this case they were 3/4 years older than her)

Update 1:

These days, after publishing the post, I've spent a lot of time reading online, watching reels, watching YouTube videos to better understand my situation, and thanks to one of these, I discovered the issue of Avoidant Attachment Style.

I was stunned by how closely my wife fit the description, and I set out to thoroughly study the case.

I also identified other things I should do in my relationship: set clear boundaries, demand that my requests are understood, respected, and fulfilled, stand firm in my position, and if necessary, make it clear that I am willing to leave. I showed the Excel sheet to my wife the next day.

Her first response was, "But yesterday we cuddled." I told her, "Look at the facts over the past month, there are things you never do and the few things you do are a result of my complaints or arguments. They’re not debatable, I’m sorry."

Then I told her what I discovered and how she fits into the case, I read her the main characteristics of these people and the types of traumas they have gone through in their lives.

I explained to her (knowing her personal family story) that this was mainly thanks to the abuse she received when she was a kid from her parents. My wife was stunned and listened, then asked me, "So what should I do to solve this?"

My answer was "I don't know" because I really don't know. The thing I do know, and what I told her, is that these problems were generated in her childhood and need to be addressed now.

I'm now informing myself about the options available to solve or at least alleviate these issues. Sadly we have difficult schedules so a therapist is now off the table.

During the day I cried a lot because finally, after 16 years, I understood why we had these problems. A strong sadness came over me because I recalled all the situations where I was treated badly, with indifference, and did not receive the affection I wanted. I also remembered all the lies and manipulations used over time to cover up her shortcomings.

I think the first step is to focus on myself and solve my own problems since I developed an Anxious Attachment Style. I'll probably use an online course and books to do this since I have very little time between my daughter and work.

If it works, I will propose it to my wife, who says, "I understand, don’t worry, now I know what I need to give you without courses or anything," but I have serious doubts about this statement and will continue to track what happens in my diary to have objective data.

I’ve already told her that if, unfortunately, this situation doesn’t resolve, I will proceed with divorce, and when I do, if forced, I won’t go back. That will be the end.

I will let you know what happens. Personally, I want to see how things go next week. I am sure (unless I am mistaken) that my wife will only last three days. In any case, I will continue on my path to heal and be ready for a new relationship when the time comes. Stay tuned.

If anyone has experience with a spouse healing from an Avoidant Attachment Style please let me know!

Update 2:

So, as expected my wife lasted less than 3 days, actually just 1 (in terms of giving kisses, hugs, cuddling). But it doesn't matter, I found all the things I need to fix in me so I'm starting the journey alone in order to grow and be able, without hesitation, to proceed with a divorce and don't go back to her.

I'm also seeing a lawyer to have everything checked before I proceed in the future. The interesting thing is that I listed all my insecurities and issues related to the trauma I experienced in my childhood and I see a lot of thing that I need to work about and to fix in me

I asked out of curiosity to my wife what are the top 3 things she things should be fixed (expecting them to be at least 10 items) but she just told me that defensiveness and stonewalling are the only two things and that, without them, I would be a perfect husband.

I was stunned and confused the whole day. I also asked her if removing these 2 things would result in her loving me more, but she told me no because she already loves me the way I am and this is just my cross...

So it seems she's happy with the marriage while I'm not. I want more from a relationship, at least the basic caring of a wife I don't think I'll give you any other update because I'll be focused improving things in myself, but once the times come for me to proceed with the divorce, I'll let you know what happens

Update 3:

Thanks for sharing your story. While I'm trying to start my healing process I'm literally crying every day preparing myself for divorce. The probability of her change is less than 1% and the issues we have are deep rooted in the past. I tried everything to get her attention, I gave her all the love I could possibly give, I tried so many times to accommodate to her way of being but I have enough. I'm heart broken.

My dear wife, my dear lovely wife, my first woman in my life. I did everything I could to love her with all my heart and be recognised for this, loved for this. Every small bid for attention is lost in the dark. I'm really heart broken, I'm just preparing myself for the divorce, trying to cry out all the tears before I finally tell her I'm leaving.

It's one of the most difficult things to do in my life, and believe me, I did crazy and difficult things in the past. This one is probably going to kill me but I need to proceed. I can't live like that any longer and I don't want my child to see and become like this because the chances for her to find a good partner will lower considerably...

Yes I tried to be affectionate for a couple of years, but man, it was hell. Me just working, playing video games till 1/2 in the morning, sometimes watch a movie with her where she always fell asleep... no real connection.

Just me doing something and she on her phone... I remember one time one friend of ours saying that he was about to disconnect from the game because he was "requested" by his girlfriend that wanted to stay with him and watch something together... I tried this but it feels to me like I'm always missing something, I don't have that deep connection, I'm alone, and feel alone.

Then, when we have arguments, I have no love bank filled to be able to face that (you know sort of: ok you're mean to me but 3 hours ago you were kissing me telling me I love you), I have only negative feelings. Also this way of being it's not me. I want to feel wanted. I want to be cuddled.

I need love. If I'm feeling bad I want someone being able to hug me and tell me "sweetheart don't worry, everything is going to be all right". She never does this, instead says things like "level up" "life is hard blah blah blah".

I know that it's her traumas and I don't have any resentment towards her. I just can't keep up with this. Also I love to give love, stopping from doing this is devastating. I also have other issues like she almost never initiate any discussion, doesn't allocate time for me, it's always me chasing her and I have enough of it.

S#% can't be our only way of connection. She's always with me but her mind is somewhere else. I tried to enter in her mind, but no luck in 16 years.

Update 4:

It's been a full year that I'm talking about this issue with my wife. And she frequently denied it by saying things like "it's not true" "tomorrow I'll show you" "this very morning I gave you a kiss, I'm affectionate", "see other couples they don't engage any more after all these years", blah blah blah.

How would you feel after 1 full year of sweet attempts to talk about an issue? And frequently she would say that her lack of affection is due to me doing x y z. I'd to create the spreadsheet to have EVIDENCE of an issue.

And the evidence shows that the affection I receive it's only when I have a fight with her or I complain the day before. 1 day of change followed by weeks of nothing. It bothered her and she was angry, sure, I get the frustration of seeing something like that, but does she get my 1 year frustration?

And I'm not threatening divorce over a spreadsheet, I'm threatening over 1 year of trying to talk and solve the issue. I could've said just "I'm done, bye bye" 1 year ago, I rather fought with everything that came to my mind

Yeah, so I created a spreadsheet after months, months, of no affection. So you could create a spreadsheet with 0 in every cell for 90 days. You don't know what you're talking about and surely you don't know what it feels like to receive no affection in a marriage for so long.

Do I have personal issues and traumas? Yes Sir, and I'm going to address them. Does my wife have issues and traumas? Yes Sir, but is she going to do something about it? Nope (at least this will be the most probable scenario). So hence the divorce so she can provide her careless to whoever she wants to