After a lot of soul-searching, I’ve decided to divorce my wife of five years. All we did was fight, and we had little in the way of sexual intimacy. The problem is that my soon-to-be ex-wife just had a baby a few weeks ago. I was thinking about divorce when I found out she was pregnant but decided to stay for the sake of the baby.
It’s four weeks after the birth, and things are worse. We fight constantly and we haven’t had sex for almost four months, so last week I finally got the courage to break ties and move into an apartment.
The problem? My friends and family say I’m horrible—that my wife just had a baby; that we’re in the miserable newborn stage and of course we’d fight; that she’s not even cleared by the doctor for sex yet, so of course we’re not sleeping together.\
Even my brother says I’m being selfish. What do I say to these people? My wife stopped being the woman I loved almost a year ago, but I only hung around because she got pregnant.
—Sympathy for the Devil
I don’t know that “hanging around” was the best response to a surprise pregnancy. You didn’t stay for the sake of the baby; you merely postponed your exit for the duration of the pregnancy! You seem to have chosen the worst of both worlds over the past year: You halfheartedly decided to stay a bit longer without trying anything new, and now you’ve chosen an awfully inopportune time to move out. (I’m not enormously sympathetic to your four-month-long dry spell, but I’ll take you at your word that sex had been infrequent long before this particular jab of celibacy.)
The problem? My friends and family say I’m horrible—that my wife just had a baby; that we’re in the miserable newborn stage and of course we’d fight; that she’s not even cleared by the doctor for sex yet, so of course we’re not sleeping together. Even my brother says I’m being selfish. What do I say to these people? My wife stopped being the woman I loved almost a year ago, but I only hung around because she got pregnant.
—Sympathy for the Devil
I don’t know that “hanging around” was the best response to a surprise pregnancy. You didn’t stay for the sake of the baby; you merely postponed your exit for the duration of the pregnancy! You seem to have chosen the worst of both worlds over the past year: You halfheartedly decided to stay a bit longer without trying anything new, and now you’ve chosen an awfully inopportune time to move out. (I’m not enormously sympathetic to your four-month-long dry spell, but I’ll take you at your word that sex had been infrequent long before this particular jab of celibacy.)
