My name is Rob, I am new to this site and it's forums. I'll try not to be too verbose but hopefully won't leave much out.

I have been married for 8+ years, but together with my wife since 1991, we have 2 young children: 7yr old girl, 5 yr old boy. We have had a very rocky relationship the entire time so it makes me wonder if our current separation is just a signal that it's time to move on. We fight alot: if I'm up she's down, if I'm right, she's left - it just seems that we've never agreed on too many topics.

We have been separated for a year but sometimes it feels like we've been separated for longer than that.

My wife suffers from depression also, has been taking medication for it for the past 4-5 years, she also had post partem with both kids and speaking to a counsellor, she was told that she may be suffering from some sort of biological depression that she has been dealing with all of her life and truth be told I have known her since we were kids ourselves and I can remember that she would regularly just shut herself in her bedroom and just lie on her bed and be sad for long periods of time.

We both come from broken or nearly broken homes, both had parents that fought regularly all of our lives and I guess we're just repeating those same patterns that we've learned all of our lives.

We both love our children dearly and that is one difference from our own childhood family lives: we make sure to tell & show our children we love them on a daily basis, make sure they know that they are loved and be very active in their lives.

Early on in our relationship I made it known regularly that I loved her very much and was afraid to lose her and was afraid that I would never find someone else if we were to break up. I had very low self esteem, didn't think much of myself and allowed her to treat me poorly and never really stuck up for myself at all and I realize now because of this past year that I am at fault for "training" her (for lack of a better term) to treat me this way. My poor self-esteem was a product of childhood issues that I've only recently faced & tackled and finally getting over. If I have to admit, my self-esteem is at a good place now (ironically when we are separated), I love myself, treat myself well now, don't let others treat me poorly, I hang out regularly with my friends now (whereas before I acted like a hermit, never going out at all), I go to the gym regularly, I'm in the best shape of my life and go shopping and treat myself to good looking clothes and make taking care of myself a habit & priority whereas before I didn't.

I made alot of mistakes at the beginning of this separation a year ago and looking back I think to myself (UGGG!!!!) how could I have been that way but it happened and there is no changing it. I begged her regularly to take me back, pleaded with her, told her I loved her, told her I would change, told her to do it for the kids (guilt trip), moved out of the family home when she told me to but continued to pay for every bill, mortgage payment and visited the kids as per her schedule and in the end did everything that would push another person away and communicated that I had no self-respect for myself and showed that I had no self-value by being this kind of person: many of the typical mistakes a grief stricken low self-esteem man usually makes when his wife no longer wants him as a husband.

This year showed me change quite a bit and thankfully most of it was for me but truth be told, alot of it was done to get her to take me back. Went into counselling for my childhood issues, went into counselling for people going through separation/divorce. Started going out with my friends more, started taking better care of myself and started learning to love myself and to value myself. How can anyone be attracted to someone who doesn't value themselves and respect themselves? So although the work I did on myself was originally intended to get her to win me back, the momentum was maintained because I realized I wanted to do it for myself.

I'm not perfect yet and I don't think that's the intention either, personal contentment and always pressing forward is the goal, not perfection (no one's perfect).

I did notice that when I stopped paying attention to her and hanging on to her every call, txt msg, email and answering to her every whim that I actually got her attention. She called me more instead of the other way around, txted me more, took my time in replying, made my kids a priority without always including her in everything we did. I now have my children half of the time, I have joint custody of them, I take care of them just as well as she does (if not better) ;-) , take care of myself and my home and don't focus much on her. Detaching is difficult because I do still love her and want her back but ultimately I want the fighting to stop and the real love to begin.

I'm not there yet but the other day when she came over to drop the kids off, she had a tear in her eye and appeared a bit misty, she told me I looked good and appeared to be doing well, I wasn't depressed anymore and it didn't seem that I was affected by our separation. She gave me a hug (a strong one, something I hadn't felt in years literally) and a small kiss on the lips before she left to go back to her home - if I didn't know any better I would think she misses me (I have never felt that before so it is very odd). Am I reading to much into this?

I have ordered the books and will do what it takes to turn this around, can one person really turn a marriage around when the other person has told them in the past that they don't love you, the marriage was mistake, possibly didn't love you in the past, etc. etc. Any ideas on her missing me as what i've shown above.

Any & all feedback would be appreciated & welcome, good & bad. I look forward to contributing more (and learning the abbreviations).
... rob