When I finally told my fiancée how unhappy I’d been, she said she was inadequate and I was perfect. I don’t think either of those things is true. I’d spent years saying very little about what wasn’t working, and now that I was trying to explain it, we seemed to be having a different conversation.
I’m 38, she’s 35, and we’ve been together for more than seven years. We live together. Our wedding was supposed to happen this year, but after a loss in her family, we moved it to next summer. There’s still a wedding ahead of us. I’m increasingly unsure there should be.
For a long time, I treated adapting as proof that I was doing my part. If something bothered me, I told myself that relationships involve compromise. I gave up hobbies I enjoyed because she didn’t enjoy them. She doesn’t like spending time with other people, either, and over the years most of my social life slipped away. I kept adjusting without admitting how much I missed.
That might have felt different if we’d been building a life we both enjoyed. But we rarely do things together, there’s almost no intimacy, and I don’t feel much interest from her in what’s going on with me. When I tried to involve her in planning the wedding, she seemed uninterested and said she needed to focus on work. I wanted some sign that she was excited about our future together.
I proposed four years ago partly because I hoped getting engaged would change things. It didn’t. That’s uncomfortable to admit now: I was moving us toward marriage while privately hoping the next step would fix what I hadn’t explained about the life we already had.
I’ve always been someone who handles things alone. In this relationship, that meant trying harder in silence instead of telling her what I needed. She couldn’t respond to a conversation I wasn’t having. I know that matters, especially now that I’m wondering whether to leave.
When I did open up, she also said I was fixating on an idea, as I sometimes do, and being childish. She said we should try harder. From my side, she seemed more worried about what friends and family would think than about what I was telling her. I can only describe how that response landed with me; I can’t say it tells me everything she feels.
What unsettles me most is the relief I feel when I imagine us separating. I picture being able to enjoy my interests and have a social life again, without quietly setting those things aside. I haven’t ended the relationship. But the possibility feels like room to be myself, and I hadn’t expected that feeling to be so strong.
I feel guilty that she’s only recently heard what I’ve been carrying for years. I’m leaning toward ending things before the wedding, but I’m afraid I’ll be talked into staying. I still don’t know what to do with the difference between how long I’ve felt this way and how little time she’s had to know it.
