I, 24M married my now wife 24F after 3.5 years of dating last week.
The first 3 years were amazing. we were so in love. but after 3 years or so, so starting maybe early in 2024, I began to feel like I wasn’t sure anymore about getting married. I definitely lost passion for her and to put it in short, I still loved her but wasn’t IN-LOVE with her if that makes sense. But I decided to not call it off (or really say anything about my feelings and just bottle them up) due to: 1) deeming it just ‘nerves’ / ‘cold feet’ 2) didn’t want to break her heart 3) so much time / money wasted 4) telling myself that the last 3 years were so amazing, it’ll go back to normal soon and this was just a slump.
Anyway, decided to go through with the marriage. It was a great wedding and now on a great honeymoon. But my feelings havent really changed. I love her so much – but I am not in love with her. Definitely not the way she’s in love with me.
She is such an amazing wife and amazing girl. All day she reads books about how to be a better wife, asks to cuddle / have sex, wants to spend time together. And I do like doing these things with her, and sometimes It’s super fun and we have great days. But behind my smiles I just keep thinking I’d rather be single. I think she can tell sometimes too. Sometimes at night she’ll get really sad saying that ‘I thought you would have been happier to be married” and it breaks my heart. Truthfully, sometimes I daydream about if we never met or how my life would be if i broke this off before we got married.
But now that we’re married, I feel like I’m trapped. I can’t do anything about these feelings. If I told her, it would crush her, she loves me more than life itself. But at the same time I’m not truly happy on the inside. My plan is once I get back I’m just going to envelop myself in work and hope to forget about some of these feelings. Probably won’t say anything to anyone still.
If I could get in a time machine and go back to break it off, I probably would.
You didn’t get trapped. You walked into this with your eyes open.
You knew months before the wedding that something inside you had changed. Instead of being honest, you chose the easier path in the moment. You told yourself it was cold feet. You told yourself things would magically go back to the way they were. You told yourself you didn’t want to waste the time or money. And now here you are.
The problem is that marriage isn’t something you “try and see how it goes.” It’s a promise. And right now you’re on your honeymoon quietly planning how to emotionally disappear into work so you don’t have to deal with the reality you created.
That’s not fair to your wife.
She’s sitting there trying to be the best partner she can possibly be. She’s reading books about being a better wife, trying to connect with you, trying to build a life with you. Meanwhile you’re standing next to her daydreaming about a life where she doesn’t exist. That gap between what she thinks this marriage is and what you know it is will eventually crush her if you keep pretending.
And burying yourself in work won’t fix this. It’ll just drag the pain out longer.
Feelings in long relationships ebb and flow. The butterflies fade for everyone. But what you’re describing isn’t just the end of the honeymoon phase. You’re already mentally halfway out the door.
So you have a decision to make, and it requires courage you didn’t show before the wedding.
You either commit to this marriage for real. That means counseling, brutal honesty with yourself, and actually investing in rebuilding connection with your wife instead of fantasizing about being single.
Or you tell the truth.
Yes, it will devastate her. There is no way around that. But living a lie for the next five or ten years while she keeps trying to love a man who checked out before the wedding will devastate her even more.
You already made one cowardly decision by going through with the marriage when you knew you were unsure. Don’t compound it by hiding from the consequences now.