Thanks for your thoughts. You are right; the R wasn't nearly as loving as it should have been. I take a lot of responsibility for that, and am working on a lot of things in therapy and through reading, journaling, talking with friends, these boards, etc. It's long road indeed, and the more I get into this the further away any reconciliation, if it happens at all, seems to be. I'm well aware that my marriage may be over. I'm the typical "clueless" male who may be "waking up" too late. At least I'm waking up, and I do feel good about that even if I end up with a D.
There are signs of MLC in my wife that go back at least several months before the separation. She got a Mini-Cooper car (and had to have it immediately), started listening to new music, new make up, intense exercise, diet and a lot of weight loss, new clothes. She has long battled self-esteem and anxiety issues that go way back to childhood, and has had overinvolved parents. Whereas she used to let their comments get her down, for a while now she's been getting stronger in terms of making her own decisions. When we separated one thing she told me was that she needed some time to figure out if she could trust me with her future, that she didn't have much longer to "get it right." She has long had a deep fear of death--she read the endings of the last two Harry Potter books first to make sure Harry didn't die. She couldn't read, I just learned, The Five People You Meet in Heaven when her book club chose that work to read. I feel I contributed to the MLC in lots of ways I don't have space to go into here, so I'm not chalking our problems up to her or her parents, etc. My failures reinforced/exacerbated some of her childhood wounds. I am breaking free of my "autopilot" mode and owning a lot of my failures for the first time in my life. I don't have any evidence of OM, and I don't think there's one, but who knows?
We had a good marriage in many respects; she would often say so. I was a big zero, though, in romance and affection. I did a 180 on that front for her birthday and our anniversary (both of which came since the separation). I didn't do anything too heavy, but what I did was way out of character. It felt good for me to do that just for me, and she appreciated the gifts.
I took her for granted for too long. On the one hand, I was too comfortable (which goes back to my search for stability after an unstable childhood) in the relationship, but I also carried around for at least the last three years an anger and resentment over a move we made. The move was basically for her; I left a job and place that I was happy but where she was miserable. Long story short, my new job triggered a lot of old fears and anxieties, and I feel I harbored a deep anger toward her inside, an anger I never let out until now (I've not let it out with her given the lack of contact on the deep stuff; but my therapist is great!). The job is not the main cause of the troubles (childhood patterns in each of us, I believe, are the root of this), but it exacerbated some harmful tendencies, especially in me.
Thanks for listening. Feels good just to type this out. Make it a good day!
