I (22M) am married to my wife (26F). We married young. I was 19, she was 23. We are in ministry together and We went through a ton of crap during our engagement. My mom almost died, her mom was very outspoken of her negative feelings towards me, her mom being a very “the government poisoned the water” religious fanatic type. Very strange woman. But besides that. We went through a lot of crap to get where we are today. Now we serve God and travel the world together.
But my issue is this. I feel so unfulfilled. Sexually, mentally, emotionally. I’m physically tired and feel like I’m sleeping all the time, yet I get no rest. I’m just tired, and not the kind that sleep can fix. Im introverted and love being alone, but I feel lonely. I don’t like opening up to my wife. She insists that I do, and I know it’s in good heart, but for someone reason I feel even worse when I do and she doesn’t seem to care. She wants up to communicate and be open.
The issue I wanna bring up is that I feel this undying urge to either split up or invest in someone else. I try and pray and push down the emotions as much as I can but they always seem to find a way back to the surface. There is a lady right now who I’ve slowly started gaining feelings for and every night I tear my hair out, trying to convince myself that it’s all just emotions and to not act on it and it’ll be okay and I’ll be okay to just breathe. But it’s hard.
My marriage feels fine. We have sex sometimes, we pursue God together, finances are a struggle but when aren’t they as an adult. We travel for work and it’s so easy to get emotionally attached to people you meet, expecially when you guys go through the struggles of life together. This leads me to my co-worker who works with us in a large team. We all travel together in a large team. And she is so kind and soft spoken, she listens to me and she lights up when we speak. I tell myself these feelings are one sided to hopefully gaslight myself into leaving these feelings behind. But the issue is that I’ve done this before, time and time again, and it works for a second, but never for long.
My fear is that i married too young. I’ve changed over the years and my values and morals and changed. I wanna do so many things that are considered taboo in Christianity. I wanna smoke and see what it’s like. I wanna have a passionate love story that doesn’t involve so many taboo rules. Just because I don’t cry and yell when worship is played doesn’t mean I’m mad or upset. I’m just not emotional. I wanna explore the world and appreciate it without this agenda of “turning people to Christians” which is very taboo where I’m from.
What the heck should I do with all this?
Condensed: I married young and have changed over the years. wanting to leave a perfectly good marriage due to unfulfillment emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. Co-worker has caught my eye and I try to do what I do best and that’s push down the emotions I have and gaslight myself into believing this will all pass and that I just need to chill out. I wanna explore the world without the pressure of missions and marriage and all that comes with it.