When Love May Not Be Enough

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am breaking the rules here. I have been posting here for several months under another username. I value the input of fellow posters, and need some advice of a very personal nature. I have been debating this for a while, and am just too nervous to post this under my usual username. I uterly and truly swear to the board administration that this is the ONE and ONLY time I will post using this name. Please deactivate this name when you see this, but please leave the thread active so I can get much needed advice.
My husband and I have been together for about nine years. We have no children, and find ourselves in a strange situation. We love each other. Neither one of us has any doubts about that. The problem is how much do we like each other. The last nine years have had their shares of ups and downs. We met at Cornell when we were sophmores. We dated through three years of college and two more years afterwards before we married. We have been married four years. The problem that we have is that we have nine years of ingrained patterns of reaction to each other. Too many times we fall into a pattern of sniping and fighting with each other, just because one or both of us are tired of stressed. We have been going to a marriage counselor for a while, and when we are with him, it is clear to both of us what we are doing wrong. Normally, after a session, we are careful for a day or so, but shortly we fall into the old pattern of act/react, push each others buttons. We also seem to have fewer and fewer shared interests these days. I like to watch TV or go to pubs, he always wants to go to the movies or go for a bike ride through Central Park.

We are also dealing with nine years of fallout. When we were in college, we both liked to party on weekends. Now, he seems to view that as something no longer apropriate. True, I don’t want to do like I did in school, but once in a while, I would love to go out, have some wine, and sing bad Karioke. Hell, once in a great while, it might be fun to just get plastered! He dosen’t agree at all. When we do go out, he acts so nevous about what I’ll do that it ruins a good time. I can’t have one or two drinks without him worring that I’ll flash the bar and get arrested. ( Which happened once. Six years ago. I was a kid.)

Money is also a problem. A few years ago, as we started our careers, money was tight. Real tight. He has always been much more concerned with not spending it than I. Back then it was a blessing. Now, we’re doing just fine financialy. We are about a month ahead on ALL our bills, each month we send $7-900 towards our debt, and still have money in the bank and retirement funds, yet the other day when I bought a new book, he questioned why I was “wasting” money. This just drives me nuts! Why else do we work so hard if not to get things we like?

I could go on, but you get the idea. I am by no means innocent here. I am sure he could post a laundry list of things I do that make him nuts. When we try to deal with them, we both seem to get our backs up about “control” rather than accepting the other for who he is. In this, I am much worse about being controled and much more accepting of him, and vice-versa. The problem, I am wrestling with is this: We love each other. About that there is NO question. My delema is: How good a marriage are we going to be able to make? I DON’T want to be one of those couples who stays together for years and years in a marriage that isn’t fun, but merely tolerable. I suggested two days ago that maybe we should take a slight break from each other.( this has nothing to do with sex) I suggested sub-letting a place on a month to month basis, while continuing to talk and work in counseling. I said this in the belief that one of two things would happen. The time apart would cause us to realize how important we are to each other, and give us both a new perspective on each other,without the day to day pressures we deal with now, or we would realize that we’re better off apart. (God, I hope it’s the former.) What followed was two not very plesant days. Tears(on both sides), Anger, hurt, promises to change, pleas to work on things, fights, etc… Tonight he aparently decided that the problems are all his fault(wish I was cold-hearted enough to take advantage of THAT one!;)), and has been very loving and atentative to me. He just dosen’t understand that it’s not about that at all! He wants to know why I’m so quiet. Well, I’m still thinking, damnit! I just don’t know what to do. I Love this man. I want kids, a long life and a twin burial plot together, but I don’t want to be miserable, and I don’t want to settle for a tolerable situation. I’m no Polyanna, expecting a marriage to be happy and fun 100% of the time, but 75%'s not too much to expect, is it? When there are no problems, and we’re meshing, I walk around on clouds. Unfortunately, that’s happening less than half the time. Does anyone have any advice?
Again, I apologise to the administrators for breaking the rules. It will not happen again.

2

lifecrisis, are you sure you aren’t me? What you describe is what my marriage was for many years and still sometimes is. I don’t have any easy answers. I don’t have any answers at all. I do know that if you keep at it you can make it work somewhat better than “tolerably.”

Like you, I still had a wildish hair up my butt while my wife had gotten it all out of her system by the time we married. It took a long time, and three kids, for me to finally work the hair out. I’m not saying that I live a fairy tale existence now, but I’m happy much more often than I’m sad.

You say you still love each other, so keep working at it. Keep up the counseling, even if only one of you goes. Don’t try the trial separation; things might seem better during the trial, then you divorce and you find that it was a bad idea. But you might want to try pursuing different interests. Talk to us when you feel down; email me if you want. But keep communicating with your husband.

{{{{{lifecrisis}}}}}

3

There’s not much I can contribute as I lack a bit of life experience in this area, though there’s one thing I can think of that might help. Is there any place you two used to go together when you just needed to enjoy some peace and quiet and just get away from it all? Someplace like a secluded stretch of beach, or a mountain lookout spot or something? Ideally there’s somewhere where both of you will be calm - the idea is to be calmed by nostalgia, if nothing else - and where the two of you can talk uninterrupted, with clear heads and, ideally, the ghosts of the two swept-away-by-love youths watching over you. Hopefully a good, long, quiet talk will help you sort things out. It worked for my SO a while ago when she was feeling a bit overwhelmed, hopefully it’ll work for you too.

I wish you the best of luck because, darn it, love is enough.

4

I can understand why your hub would react strongly against the “trial separation” idea - from my limited experience (friends, etc. - not personally), trial separation is just one step short of a divorce, and usually leads to it. He may be thinking that you’re really saying you want a divorce. I’d suggest staying together as long as you think there’s any chance of it working out, and keep on with the counselling, and the talking to each other about it - as long as you’re really talking, there’s still hope. It’s when you don’t want to talk to each other about your marriage that you’re in real trouble. I’d look on the tears as a sign that you both still care about your marriage.

Some different interests are inevitable - don’t blow them up into too much by worrying. Can you accomodate your different interests by agreeing that sometimes you’ll do different things, and then plan on doing something together the next time? (Except going out partying alone - you may have to accept that you and the hub have moved on, past the partying phase - but like the “trial” separation, I’ve noticed that if one of the spouses is out having a “good time” without the other, the break-up may be hovering in the wings.)

Love’s the most important thing in this life - don’t cast it away lightly.

Good luck - I’ll be praying for you.

5

I don’t have a lot of experience in this area, but I watched the results of divorce work on my mother growing up, and I wouldn’t wish that on any person. Someone really smart (okay, it was me:)) once said that marriage is work. I think a careful reading of dropzone’s post is indicative. Notice that he is still married. Why? because he and his wife loved each other too much to give up, is what I’m guessing. From your post it sounds like both you and your husband love each other a lot. But your sig line is right-sometimes love just isn’t enough. Sometimes there has to be sacrifice and hard work put in from both of the people involved. I’d be willing to bet money that if you sat down with your husband and talked out with him all the things in your post (probably more than once) you could work through it okay. I don’t mean just “talk,” but LISTEN too! Tell him in a non-accusatory manner how all the things you said in your post bother you, how it makes you feel, etc. Then LISTEN to what he says in turn, as well as his own complaints. And not just talking and listening are required. You will both have to try very hard to meet the other halfway. For example, would he be willing to go out and party a little bit if you both set certain ground rules? What would they be? “Communication” is the word here. I think it’s a GREAT sign that you are both willingly seeing a therapist. It means that at least you’re both trying. If you keep smacking at that mountain, it will eventually come down.

Those are just some suggestions. But your marriage sounds very salvagable to me. Please don’t give up. There are already too many broken hearts in the world already. Don’t make two more.

6

I’m far from any kind of marital expert.

But maybe you both need to ask yourself what you think is out there that’s a better situation than what you’ve got?

7

You are so right Milo.

A marriage is like a career, you have to continually work on it day after day. It’s never a rose garden, it takes a lot of time and patience. I would give it all I got, Life, and then some more. Love is not enough, it takes respect, understanding and a whole lot of other things. But you know the good part of all this? You and your SO want this to work and it sounds like you are really working at it which means you don’t want to just walk away, as is the case for a lot of people. Hang in there. I believe in you.

8

Boy, I gotta participate in this thread. I’ve definitely been there and done that. Unfortunately, I’m going to be out all day so I don’t have the time to type something up right now. Look for a long post from me either late tonight or tomorrow midday.

If you’ve seen some of my posts in other threads, then you will know that my ex and I took the divorce route. I won’t be advising you on whether or not you and your husband should do the same. Instead, I think (I hope) I can give you a fairly clear and frank description of what happened to me and my ex, and what specific things we took into consideration when we made our choice to divorce. And where I went from there. Then maybe you can compare my story to your own relationship and get some new perspectives or ideas on how you might want to handle your own situation.

In other words, it may or may not be helpful for you. But I’ll throw the information out there for you on the off chance that it is. Other posters can, of course, comment on the values and choices that show up in it, and that might also be of some help for you.

Anyway, I have a lot of sympathy for your plight and I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be posting something on the subject later.

9

money and past history are two things that can rip apart any marriage. it sounds like these two things are at the heart of your arguments.

i would suggest a long weekend away at a place that you won’t be interupted, a cabin some where, or unplug everything but the lights and kitchen and hole up in your home for three days at least. both of you write down what you think is the thing (s) that is impeding your marriage. exchange the notes and discuss them during the weekend. here is the tough part, any dicussions must be done at least with hands held during ALL parts of the discussion. if y’all are comfortable with it i would suggest the discussions be in the nude. it is very hard to get into heated arguments when your nude or in close physical contact. this will force you to stick to the subject at hand and not bring in tangents. spill your guts.

i’m suggesting the hurricane method of marriage discussion. everything must be tossed in and thrown about. it will be very intense and both of you will be looking for escape routes, don’t give into it. don’t let go of each others hands, don’t pull on a bathrobe. keep going. hope fully after the intense weekend you’ll come out of the shelter you’ve created, seeing a scrubbed and clean and sparkly marriage.

keep going to a counselor it takes a while to stop a habit and start a new one. you both sound like you want to keep the marriage, and are willing to fight for it. a marriage isn’t a success because it was smooth sailing, a marriage is successful when the storms are weathered together.

10

Keep up the counseling, and keep talking to each other.

You mentioned that while you’re in a session, you realize what each of you is doing wrong. This is good. Just remember it every day. And don’t be afraid to accept responsibility for what you’ve done wrong, and be sure your partner does, too. Accepting all the blame, or placing all the blame on someone else, isn’t always right.

My husband and I are in counseling now too. It’s helping. We’re also both seeing psyciatrists, and are taking medication for depression. I cannot tell you how much the meds have helped me. In my case, they have helped nearly as much as the talking therapy. They’ve cleared my head enough to make me be able to cope with the marital problems we’ve had. My husband just started his a week ago, so it just hasn’t been enough time to see if his are going to work yet, but I’ll say this–we both need them. Meds are certainly not always the answer for everyone, but sometimes, they really can be a help.

11

Lifecrisis… I was married to a wonderful man for 22 years. Your letter brought back each one of those. Being married to a military man all of that time, he was in and out year after year. Through the years I felt this hurt, this pain. It seem as if something was wrong. I loved this man. I respected him and for 22 years, I was the best wife that I knew how to be. Last year, I could not take the pain any longer. I needed more and I felt like he was thinking the same. We sat down to talk, and we talked, and when we had finished a week had gone by. He told me the words I had been looking for, for so many years. Our marriage was suffocating our friendship. This last year has been so wonderful between the two of us. We laughed, we cried and once again we could hug and say I love you my friend. I trusted this man with my life and I know he felt the trust in me. One of the sweetest things he ever said to me was that he could count on one hand the fights that we have had, through the years. I sit here with tears running down. So many people out there are feeling this same hurt. There is a difference between loving someone, and being in love with someone. Someday I pray to find the other. On July 9th, this wonderful man in my life passed away. He was on leave and away from home. A heart attack took his life. Before I said my last goodbye to him, at the funeral, I leaned over, kissed him and said, I hope that I never hurt you. Goodbye my my friend. I will always love you…

12

Lifecrisis, I’m not, nor have I ever been, married. But, most of my friends are and I’ve seen them go through these things. Here’s what I’ve learned. Counseling is good if you have the right counseler. Am I even speeling counseler right? Anyway, if you’re not comfortable with one, find another. There’s plenty out there and you WILL find one you like if you look. If you like the one you have now, you’re one step closer already.

Also, a friend of mine in the same position, after months of counseling, decided to start over. He bought 2 tickets for Italy, where they spent their honeymoon, and off they went. They had a great time, and when they came back they were like two different people.

As for wanting to different things, as you’ve said you and your husband do: my parents are the same way. Ever watch ‘Home Improvement’? That is my parents almost exactly. My Mom wants to go to museums, plays, nice restaurants. My Dad wants to go to boat shows, car auctions, Steak & Ale. But, they’ve been happily married for almost 24 years. 24 years tomorrow, in fact. They simply compromise, and always have. It was different when my sister and I were living at home, but now that we’re out, they can do whatever they want. During the week, they’ll watch movies, or whatever. He never used to watch TV without football on it. On one saturday, they’ll do what she wants to do, and on the next saturday they do what he wants to do. They usually take long drives every sunday, to look around different neighborhoods, or drive out in the country, or whatever. They’ll usually stop somewhere along the way and eat out. Whatever.

This may not be any help, since it’s really just the observations of a single 21 year old, but it seems to work. And maybe it’ll give you a few ideas. Good luck, and I hope it works out.

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<Part 1 of 4>

Lifecrisis: Here’s my post, as I promised yesterday.

It’s hard to know just how bad or good your marriage is right now. Looking at it one way, it doesn’t sound that bad. That is, you don’t sound like you’re desperate, confused, and going down for the third time. You speak of a “marriage that isn’t fun but merely tolerable,” where you’re still walking on clouds but it’s “less than 50% of the time.” You don’t talk about marital crises like cheating spouses or abuse or sturm und drang. Instead you mention arguments over whether to watch TV or go out to a pub. And there’s apparently a lot of arguing about spending money versus saving money (which I rate as kind of insignificant because a loving couple could potentially work those out with the aid of an investment counselor and a spending budget.)

Looking at it another way, on the other hand, it sounds like you two could possibly be in the middle or even late stages of some kind of a long-term downward spiral toward a break-up. You talk about issues connected with “control.” In my relationship, control issues were particularly pernicious and poisonous. Any little issue could turn into an endless tug-of-war because we were never really arguing about the issue at hand (money, where to go on a Friday night, etc.) We were really arguing about whether one of us had the right to control the relationship.

Also, you also have done some marriage counseling and found it that it didn’t improve your marriage. That’s also a danger sign, if only because there’s nowhere else to go for solutions. Counseling works wonders for some couples, but it provides little more than a band-aid–a temporary quick fix–for other couples. And once the latter give up on marriage counseling, they’re on their own.

Also, you seem pretty much aware of you would lose if you were to split up (“I love this man. I want kids, a long life and a twin burial plot together.”) Despite that awareness, you’re at the point of risking it all by asking for a trial separation of sorts.

So, putting it all together, it’s tough to tell whether you’re considering bailing out of this relationship relatively early in the game or not. But it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not for me to judge you or advise you based on your one post on this message board. Instead, let me just describe for you how I weighed the issues in my own marriage in order to come up with the decision to separate.

My ex and I married when I was 32 and she was 27, and we stayed married for 10 years. I would characterize the first 6 of those years as great-to-good, the next 2 as so-so, and the last 2 as pretty bad. We were both college grads with some post-grad studies, we both had our separate careers, and we didn’t have any children and didn’t want any.

Toward the end, the tone of our marriage was similar to what you described. We still loved each other, and we were still working together toward a number of long-term goals: retirement, savings goals, career goals, etc. Even as we separated, we still looked out for each other. For example, it only took us a couple minutes to work out the financial side of the break-up, with both of us almost in a contest to see who could be more generous toward the other.

But during those last 2 years of marriage, we weren’t very happy with each other on the day-to-day level. Lots of sniping at each other, arguments, and stress. We tended to keep things at a simmer, with very few real explosions or raw outbursts. There were times when we were happy together and the relationship seemed to be turning around and healing itself a bit. And when one of us needed real help on a career problem or something of that nature, the other provided help and support. And there wasn’t any hint of cheating or disloyalty of that sort. But overall I remember those last two years of marriage as poisoned by a long-running tug-of-war over issues of control. Anything at all could become the subject of an argument if one of us was in the mood for that sort of thing, and we were both carrying an ever-increasing burden of resentment for the little injustices done to each other over time. There were times when I could honestly say that I loved her and cared for her on the long-term level and simultaneously hated her on the short-term, immediate level. I loved her because I knew that the marriage could be good and had been good and might someday be good again, but at the same time I also hated her for her willingness to put our relationship at the mercy of her endless mood changes and for the manipulative, petty tricks she sometimes pulled in the heat of our bickering.

14

<Part 2 of 4>

We did some marriage counseling, but it was relatively ineffective. Neither of us was real happy with the process or the results. It bought us some time and extended our marriage for the period of the counseling plus a few months. But we didn’t see prospects for any real turn-around from the counseling over the short- or medium-term, and we quit the counseling process after a time. Friends told us to keep up the counseling process long-term and go to multiple counselors in case one might work better than others. But neither of us could stomach the prospect of us becoming one of those couples in permanent analysis.

I’m the one who decided that we should split up. She was high-maintenance and actually kind of energized in a way by all the maneuvering and the bickering, and she could have kept it up forever. I was increasingly stressed out, worn down, and embittered by the endless tug-of-war, and it was up to me to decide when I simply couldn’t take any more. In other words, it wasn’t something we discussed and agreed on together. It was largely a question of me weighing the pros and cons and deciding when it was time to start looking out for myself instead of putting all my energy into keeping the marriage afloat.

I had to weigh a number of considerations. The first question was: How easy would it be for us to split up? For any couple, the presence of children in a marriage obviously makes it harder to split; the same with financial entanglements like a business together or large purchases together (a house or illiquid investments). And would the spouses be able to support themselves after the break-up? All these things might make it considerably more difficult for any couple to break up, looking at them in terms of the time, energy and love invested together, and in terms of how entangled the spouses might have to remain even after the break-up.

In my case, this was almost a non-issue. There were no kids, no house, and no joint business, and we had separate careers so that we could support ourselves independently. If there had been kids, for example, it would have made a big difference. I almost certainly would have stayed in the relationship. There are ways to keep even the worst of marriages together if you really need to. Marriage counseling may not work miracles, but at the very least it can usually keep a bad marriage limping along from one year to the next, buying time until the kids grow up or other long-term circumstances bring about a slow easing of tension in the marriage. But in our marriage, we could break up and go our separate ways relatively easily.

It may sound kind of mercenary to put considerations like these at the top of the list, instead of things like love or emotional commitment. But when you start thinking about breaking up, you first have to consider whether a break-up is even doable in the first place. And things like children and finances have a big impact on “doability.”

The other big consideration: Was the marriage salvageable, and at what price? Some people will argue that ANY marriage should be salvaged ANYtime at ANY price. I disagree. For good or bad, divorces are relatively frequent in today’s society, and they are a real option for people in genuinely dysfunctional marriages.

For those of you who haven’t been in a long-term relationship (say, over five years), please understand that no one breaks up a ten-year marriage frivolously. Ten years of your life is an enormous investment in another person, and it’s a big shock even when you begin considering the possibility of a break-up seriously for the first time, never mind when the break-up is looming right in front of you. Believe me, you DO want to salvage the marriage. But after years of tension and animosity, you also have to look out for your own well-being and start asking “at what price?”

In my case, I was getting worn down by all of this arguing and animosity (far more than she was). I was 41, not so young as I once was, and the accumulation of stress was getting bad enough that I was honestly starting to worry about it ruining my health. At the age of 41, who wants the rest of their life to consist of sweating away at work, bickering at home in the evening and on weekends, turning bitter across time, and then dying prematurely from a stress-related illness? As I said before, my wife was actually kind of energized by all this conflict, and she was going to wear me down long before I wore her down.

15

<Part 3 of 4>

We had pretty well run through the standard fixes. For a while it didn’t seem like it should be that hard to fix the marriage. We had had a lot of good years together, and it didn’t seem like it should be hard to stop the downward spiral and work our way back to better times. But after a couple years of getting short-term relief and then slipping back into bad habits, it became clear that the marriage had become permanently dysfunctional and all we could hope to do was buy time.

We considered non-standard fixes: Going into permanent long-term counseling and using it to arrest the downward spiral and limp along from one year to the next; major changes in our careers to ease work pressures and massively restructure our life around salvaging the marriage; alternative marriage arrangements such as anything from separate bedrooms to an open marriage.

Suffice to say that one or both of us nixed all these possibilities as an unacceptable price for salvaging the marriage. In some cases one or the other of us just didn’t want to work that hard. In other cases, the arrangement required an unacceptable sacrifice. We were, after all, fighting over control issues. If a solution meant sacrificing a vital part of ourselves for the other, the arrangement wouldn’t work because we would resent the other for manipulating us into an unbearable position or lifestyle.

In other words, there WERE still ways to salvage the marriage, but the price was too high for one or both of us. We knew that a radical solution might heal some of the problems we were currently suffering, but it also would create new rifts and resentments that would poison us other ways.

One last important consideration for me personally: Would the next relationship be any better? I knew that if I divorced my ex, sooner or later I would want to get back into another long-term relationship. Was the next relationship doomed to the same results? A few good years and then a long slide to desperation and frustration? Was this the true nature of marriage? Or was it peculiar to me in particular?

For a long while I thought that if the next marriage was going to go the same route, then I might as well stick it out and keep hacking away at my current marriage. After all, I already had a huge investment in the current marriage, and if future marriages were inevitably going to end in the same place then I might as well settle for misery with my present wife over misery with another wife.

When my ex and I finally divorced, I still hadn’t resolved that last consideration to my satisfaction. But eventually it didn’t really matter. I got to the point where a life alone would have been preferable to that relationship. In other words, the other considerations eventually outweighed that last consideration. And so we divorced.

After the divorce, everything became more or less moot except for that last consideration. I still had to deal with where I was going next. At first, though, I basically dropped out of the social scene for a year or so and just took some time to heal, bring my stress level back down to normal, enjoy some peace and quiet, and get my life back into some semblance of order.

During that year I was introduced to Myers-Briggs personality types for the first time. Personality typing is a longstanding psychological tool for studying and understanding differences in how people view and deal with the world. Probably its most common application these days is in the workplace: It is commonly used by many large companies as a management and team leadership tool for understanding how to assemble teams of people and get them to function together with maximum efficiency. However, it also has applications for two people in relationships or even for family matters, child-raising etc.

I began to see some application to my own case. I read up heavily on the subject and even began to subscribe to Internet message lists on that subject to discuss ideas with other people who were into the study of personality types. Eventually I came to the following conclusions: My ex and I were two very different personality types that were, by nature, pretty much incompatible. It was a credit to our good communication skills and our goodwill toward each other that we worked together well in the first half of our relationship; but eventually time, inertia, the usual stresses of life, etc. brought out the incompatibilities.

16

<Part 4 of 4>

Children would have helped the relationship considerably by serving as a buffer between us and binding us together in ways other than mere compatibility/incompatibility considerations. Or a massive restructuring of our relationship could possibly have helped by simply removing points of friction. In other words, plenty of marriages between incompatible types do manage to succeed by accidentally or purposefully directing some of the worst incompatibilities into other channels. And, in fact, I talked to my ex about getting back and reworking the relationship with this new information. But for various reasons that effort didn’t go very far, which was for the best in my opinion. Too much built up resentment to start fresh.

But I got two important things out of my study of personality typing. First, it relieved me of a lot of guilt I carried away from the break-up. I had pretty much come to the conclusion even before the divorce that we were just naturally incompatible as a couple, but it was nice to have some independent confirmation of that belief. Otherwise, you never really know how much of it was whose fault due to ill-will and personal faults.

Second, it reassured me that there really are woman in the world with whom I would be naturally compatible, and that I would be able to identify them better once I was proficient at personality typing. So I picked two or three personality types that I thought would be most compatible with my type, started dating a woman with one of those personality types, and we’ve been together a year now. It has been smooth sailing–as different as night and day compared to my marriage to my ex–and I anticipate that we will be staying together for the duration.

Incidentally, if you aren’t real familiar with Myers-Briggs personality types, then I should warn you that it’s not a magic wand. A number of people have written books on using personality typing to establish compatibility in love, and they disagree to some extent on what personality type combinations would be most compatible. I did a lot of research and debating with others and came to my own conclusions on what types would be most compatible with my own personality type specifically. So far it has worked for me. But I don’t necessarily know which types would be most compatible for other types.

Some folks are going to have trouble with the concept of picking and rejecting potential SOs based on personality types. All I can say is: 1) It has worked for me, and 2) Myers-Briggs personality typing has been around in general for 60 years and has been proven effective scientifically. There’s a huge body of good scientific data supporting its validity (as opposed to something like astrology, which simply can’t be proven to work when examined scientifically).

Beyond that, everyone’s free to draw their own conclusions about the worth or value of picking SOs using personality typing.

I’m going to wrap this post up at this point. Lifecrisis, all this material on my own break-up may or may not help you. I spent a lot of the post demonstrating how I analyzed the relationship and what considerations I weighed against each other when deciding to separate. However, you may prefer to analyze your own relationship along completely different lines, using other value systems. In that case, this message may well be of absolutely no help to you.

But I thought I would throw it out there in case it gives you some new ideas and some new perspectives. Let me add that I hope you and your spouse find some way to remain together. Divorcing my ex was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. And that’s coming from a former Marine.

For all you other posters: You’re welcome to comment. But I should add that I’m going to be pretty dismissive of those posts that say I thought or acted wrong. I did the best I could given my own situation, and I’m actually quite satisfied with the results. I’m not looking for validation or criticism, and I don’t have any big regrets. I’m just providing this info in case it might help Lifecrisis.

Lifecrisis: If some of this is useful and you could use some more info on some specific points, you can e-mail me at jtr357@yahoo.com.

P.S. My SO reviewed your post and the first draft of this response and made a few corrections and changes, which I incorporated. She has been through the divorce thing too. She also made the following comments.

She agrees with me that it’s kind of hard to see exactly where your relationship is at. But she also agrees with the title of your message, that “love is not enough.” She advises that in any case you should avoid putting up with any kind of a situation where you’re getting both a little love and at the same time a lot of indifference/hassle from your spouse, and where you stay in the relationship trying to get the most out of the love and pretend the indifference/hassle doesn’t make a difference. Also, take a good hard look at which of you is working hardest at keeping the relationship afloat.

She suggests that you step back enough to see the entire relationship and get a good feel of how much benefit versus negativity you’re getting out of it. That way you’ll have a better picture of how happy/unhappy you really are. And she is of the opinion that “life’s too short to be unhappy.”