Hello James, I am a wife and have been married for over 20 years. This is going to be a very unromantic, blunt reply and set aside the fact that you have children. Firstly, I believe that your wife does love you deep down for your history and for the man that she married and the father of her girls, but passionate love has waned with time, life, kids, stress, demands and new desires. Possibly you are a person who does not share the deep down soul values and goals in life that she has too. Maybe freedom, adventure and new experiences matter more to her than love and security. She may now need something different in her life. When we say ‘I do’ for as long as we both shall live, is it realistic to make that commitment, really, at age 25, for the rest of our lives? The fairy story is just that, a fairy story.

I found that being in a long term relationship felt like it ended my ability to experience life, particularly other people. I am viewed as a couple. Over time, it’s a huge loss of freedom and a constant compromise, even though I love my husband. The person you want to become is straight jacketed, you lose the ability to know what you really want individually. I would really recommend life coaching, particularly for your wife, so that she can figure out what she really really wants whilst you to some extend, support and love her. What is not right for her within a relationship and life, is ultimately not right for you. You need someone that gives you spontaneously, what you need. What she wants is not within your control and you should not try and mould yourself to be that want, you cannot be it at this time. Sad as it may be for you and your family, you can only support and love her for whatever it is that she wants, even if it is separation. Your understandable anxieties and fear of loss are not going to prevent it, perhaps only exacerbate it and cause resentment. If you love her, you do want her to be happy and fulfilled, even to some extent, at your expense.

Hello, you answered your MIL question indirectly because you tried to protect her feelings. The good approach would have been ‘sorry, yes, because I feel….. or no because I feel….). It would have been the perfect to use it as an opportunity to grow the relationship. Having had an incredibly difficult MIL for 26 years, I found that it was best to stay out of the relationship that my husband had with his mother, and develop my relationshp with her separately.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 12 months ago by Mandy.