Newly seperated- tell me what you think?

[Dom R]

Good morning (and merry Christmas!)

So, as promised, here's my thoughts

it sounds like overall, you are handling things fairly well. you're taking the situation seriously.. you're not panicing. you're taking care of yourself. you're sticking up for yourself. All good things in my book Especially since this is the second time he is bailing out of the marriage. it shows a lack of commitment on his part, which makes it doubly important for you to protect yourself.
However, you are still interested in having a good marriage with him, so now some comments for that

First, a general reminder, that a lot of people seem to need
"Doing 180s" is NOT the same as "going dark". Remember that it means, "doing 180 degrees different from things before [and seeing if they help]"

Some parts of your going dark/separation/... seem to at least be having an impact, in making him also take YOU seriously. that's a good thing. So, contrariwise, what you are doing, does seem to be "working", for now. I'm suggesting that, when and if you think it is appropriate, it may be ok to "soften" it a bit.

When you told him preemptively, "you were not engaging in conversation about D or R".. i'm not sure why you did that. If you just didnt feel like the hassle right then, i can understand. IF, however, you were saying it because of part of the DB book, that suggests, "dont do R talks"... I believe that is meant to mean, "dont *initiate* R talks". If they bring it up, in a positive manner, though, I dont think it's a bad thing. (in fact, if you're not bringing it up, then it's the only way you could eventually work things out? )



And my final comment:

He called complaining about how I could look good now and not for him, how the house was clean, but it was never clean for him- blah, blah, blah.

This, to me, seems like a major problem. On your side.

You mentally blew him off. When i believe he was actually attempting to meaningfully communicate to you.
Ok, he unfortunately was doing it in a non-positive, probably angry way. But the content of it, was important, I believe.
Generally speaking, people leave a marriage, because of "unmet needs" in the marriage.
TO put it in marriagebuilders terms... it sounds like some of his unmet needs may be: "domestic support" and "attractive spouse", to use their general terms.
Or, to put it in more specific terms for your marriage:
"you never clean the house", and "you dont put in the effort to look nice for him"

If you want a good marriage with him, then at some point, it's important for you to attempt to meet whatever needs he was missing in your marriage before now, yes?
Taking an objective step back, would you say that those two could really be (at least part of) what he was missing?

If so... when you feel up to it.. you might even apologise to him for not putting in more effort in those areas in the past. That doesnt mean you are grovelling, or begging him back, or anything. It's just an apology for past behaviour that you believe was poor, if thats how you feel.