Hi all. Where to begin... We are both 30, been married almost 7 years. Been together almost 8. Have a S4 and a D1.5. My wife K declared that she is absolutely done and wants a D on the day before my bday (8/12) just before we are about to go out on a date. This was caused by my complaining that she's not wanting to spend time with me. K's 15yr old cousin was visiting from out of town and she spent the entire week with her (including being out until very late every night...12am etc) and basically mostly avoiding me. My complaint turned into her feeling I'm being needy and smothering her and she has had enough and she doesn't have any respect for me because of my "neediness". Of course me being insecure about us and her virtually ignoring me for a week after things seem to be going well isn't considered. She wanted D on father's day about 3 months prior (yes I'm cursed it seems with these special days) and I told her will do everything I can to make this marriage work. Well for 3 months I tried to improve myself. I'm working out, being supportive of her training, trying to interact better with my S4. Be available emotionally for her and etc. I thought things were improving and going great. But she fessed up and said she was pretending/acting to trying to make her feelings come back and they aren't. One day she even said she's very close to putting on her wedding ring again. And it ended up she's making her feel that way trying to trigger something and nothing happened. So I was thrown for a big loop. She said she will no longer "pretend" because it's disgenous. If she doesn't feel it she isn't going to try. She says she loves me as a person and father but has not been in love with me for 3 years. She has sex with me sometimes but most of the time she isn't interested since to her it's really only a physical thing but nothing emotional anymore. She said she doesn't want to pretend anymore because it isn't genuine and she doesn't want to hurt me by keeping my hopes up.
Going back to our history. We never had an easy marriage. We never communicated well. I'm stubborn, she's stubborn. For years she did things that she thinks would make me happy but didn't because I really wanted to know what she wanted instead of just doing that. She resented the fact that she did that so of course resentment towards me. She has always struggled with her self image and has issues with bulimia. Of course being immature, selfish, and stupid, I didn't help the situation by suggesting sexier clothing, her wearing makeup, buying her lingerie and shoes and etc that she doesn't want to wear. So more resentment towards me. Also, being a man, I want to fix things. So instead of listening to her needs, I just tried to offer her solutions and lecturing her about why she's feeling this and that way and making her feel stupid over the years probably. Not only did that make her resent me, it made her gave up on coming to me for anything since I'm not available to her. And another really bad thing. When we had major fights in our earlier years, she always made big threats about leaving. It made me really distraught and I have threatened suicide a few times. Now thinking back on it I don't believe I really meant them but it did feel like the end of the world to me when she wanted to leave. I don't think I'd ever carry through with that but now I do realize it is emotional blackmail since she felt she is trapped. So more resentment. When our D1.5 was born, K had a really bad case of postpartum depression on top of all sorts of health problems. I was absolutely overwhelmed having to take care of my S4, my newborn D, and K, and having to work full time. I can work from home when I want so I ended up doing everything. I was burned out and shutdown. I couldn't be there emotionally for her to deal with her depression. She said at one time she almost killed herself because she is so depressed. I was withdrawn and only get mad at her for feeling that way because I was feeling so helpless trying to survive and not able to do anything about getting her better. Also I get a bit loud when I get emotional and agitated and to her that's considered I'm yelling and she really hates that. She really does not like it when I "yell" at her or my S4 when he's being bad. We've both done our fair share of screaming and yelling and saying hurtful things however. Except I forget and forgave about those hurtful things the next day and she remembers every single one of them to this day. So adding to the list of more resentment. For the past year I have been constantly asking her to try to reconnect and spend time with me in order to save the marriage. But she would try a few days and we would be good and then end up avoiding me and spend all her time on the computer browsing and talking to other people online eventually. Although there is no trust issue right now. We have straightened that all out and I trust her 100% and know she will not do anything stupid to hurt me. There was an ex involved but it's no longer an issue and it didn't get very far. Just some emotional infidelity (and couple kisses) that I have forgiven her and we moved on.
So now she says despite of the improvements I have made, it may be too little and too late. K said that if only I realized all that 3 years ago it may have been different. K says she can see that I am doing everything I can to make things better and she's really happy about that. But she isn't sure she can get over the resentment or wants to and the feelings just aren't there.
After some long talks, she does starting to see that I do truly realize the pain and suffering I have caused her and I want to be a better person, a better husband to her, and a better father to our kids (not that I'm not, I just have a hard time with my son sometimes since he is so stubborn and misbehaves badly when he doesn't get attention and I used to yell at him). She sees that the light has finally came on for me and I'm not stuck in this little bubble of denial and pretend that things are fine. For the first time in a long time, in the last few days, she started to say that she really wants this marriage to work and there is just too much to lose. But the bottom line is she is unsure how she will get over this many years of accumulated resentment and how to get her feelings for me back that has died long ago. We are both seeing therapists individually. She said that she wants a separation to sort out her feelings and see if she will have feelings for me when I'm gone (if she truly misses me that is). We agreed on re-evaluating after 30 days and see where to proceed from there. See if she can make progress on the resentment thing and we can start rebuilding. If so maybe we can go see a therapist together. We are both trying to be positive and be optimistic. Ironically we are quite wonderful to each other right now. We kiss, we hug, we say ILU to each other. We've never been this good for a long time since when we were first together.
So I'm suppose to move out in about 3 weeks. She's going to be gone 10 days with the kids visiting the in-laws. The father in law just finished up his chemo from cancer. We are hoping for good news. This has been real hard on her in addition to us and her struggles with self image and eating problems. We live about 2k miles away from the in-laws. Being far away from her family has been really hard for her all these years. She has made a huge sacrifice in being with me and away from her family because my job is here. I think just being agreeable to do the separation has nudged her my way since she has been asking that for a while now and me finally consenting shows that I'm listening to her needs. She said that I can visit the kids about 3 times a week. So my question is what should I do? Is visiting the kids 3 times a week giving her space to figure things out? Kids are very important to both of us and we want to shield them from everything if possible since we are both going to try to make this work. Is there anything I can do to help her get over her resentment. What can I do to help her get her feelings back? She thinks that minimal contact between the two of us is best in the 30 days. So I will be positive, not acting needy, not make demands, no initiation of email, IM, phone, not badger her with questions and always talk about R, and etc. If she breaks down and calls me crying or wants me to come over, will that ruin the process of her trying to figure things out? I don't want to give her "mini fixes" and end up blocking the feelings she's wanting to see if exists. We both want this to work. I just don't want her to call it quits in 30 days because things aren't progressing for her due to the almost non-contact.... Any shared experiences, words of wisdom, or words of encouragement is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
