Thanks again for all the feedback. Haphazard, you really captured the dynamic. Unfortunately, my wife and I are both "nice" which means we let the resentments build up over many years. You also nailed the situation when you talk about her need to hang on to the illusion of a happy family without having to lift a finger in our relationship. Once, early on in this process, we had an argument and my daughter heard it and got very upset. My wife later said to me "How dare you bring our children into this." I wanted to ask her exactly how she plans on ending our marriage without letting our children know about it. I feel like I have to add a few facts, however, to give you all a better sense of the situation. For years, I was a very needy person in the sense that I was depressed and medicated myself with work. After years of that, I had had enough and started individual therapy, which I have continued. This changed our relationship for the worse because she was no longer my caretaker because I really didn't need a caretaker anymore. With a better sense of myself, my career took off and my relationships with my children improved dramatically. The marriage deteriorated somewhat (she now says she stopped loving me at this point although she thinks it has nothing to do with my therapy or the changes in me). Then, three years ago when her alcoholic father died suddenly, she lost all interest in me and our marriage (and in most of her friends, in exercisng and in spending time with our children). Instead she devoted all of her energies to our church where she now works (about 80 hours a week) and to the old, very need priest she works for. He is chronically depressed and socially phobic - a pretty much complete mess of a man. So, in a sense, I broke her heart by transforming myself into a much less needy, more self assured man. Then her dad broke her heart by dying and she could therefore no longer care for him. So she opted for the priest. I guess I just think that she will see this and work her way out of it (she is in therapy now) but (a) it ain't a lot of fun sitting around waiting for that to happen and (b) I enable her to take her sweet time by being such a nice guy about the whole thing. It is just not my nature to be otherwise and I do feel sorry for her because she is about the most unhappy person I know. On the other hand, sometimes tough love is the only love you can offer because anything else (like passive, nice guy love) just allows the other person to remain in their personal prison. It is funny, my oldest son told me that he talks about he situation with his girlfriend all the time and he says "I don't know why my mom is being so mean to my dad. He is such a nice guy." I guess I am beginning to see that the answer my lie in those words rearranged a bit - "Mom is being so mean to dad because he is a nice guy. . . ."
