[vhiremath4]

Yeah great advice. We both really tried. We committed to working through things. We saw a couple’s therapist. We went through some pretty intense ups and downs on both our ends ranging from a death of a very close family member of hers to layoffs at my company and many other things. I just found that, ultimately, it still didn’t feel worth it based on how we would communicate and trigger each other even when we tried. And we would just keep going because we wanted to fight for the relationship, despite it continuing to not make a ton of progress.

I guess that’s the “not depending on books alone” part of your comment. It feels like I’ve gained some really important life experience, but I just haven’t fully processed it or been able to make sense of it. Funny enough, I’m making more sense of it with time and with comments like the ones here.

Thank you for your comment!

[binary132]

My wife and I had a long few years towards the beginning that felt familiar while reading this, but eventually we both learned to prioritize peace and patience with one another over whatever nonsense seems so important at the moment. If it’s genuinely important, we are both generally now able to restrain ourselves and listen, or get some space while we calm down if it’s not. Not at all to gloat, only to say it is at least possible. I think the passage of some years also helped.