Just like Constantinople...

[notgoinggently]

I feel that this is the forum to write my first post. To explain my subject, I think of my marriage has met the same fate as Constantinople...a once mighty and great nation crumbled due to inner conflicts. I am 28 and my wife is 25 (both of us will be having a birthday this month mine the 8th and hers the 12th). We met in college, her freshman year. we have been friends since then and didnt start dating until our Junior year. In that time she saw how much of a womanizer I was and all the other character flaws that many Fraternity guys have! She dated my roommate/pledge brother/best friend. He broke it off with her after graduating and moving over 3 hours away. After about5 2 months we hung out almost everyday, but just as friends. Well, it happened one night when we came to my parents house while they were out of town. We got into the pool and had a few glasses of wine. then after we got out we were laying on the floor talking and watching TV. I leaned over to get something and found myself staring at her. I leaned in and she met me halfway...then we kissed. THAT MOMENT WILL NEVER LEAVE ME!! After that we dated for 2 more years before I popped the question. We got married and moved into an apartment near both of our offices. She started to become a little less "romantically inclined" about a year after we were married. Then I built us a house that is roughly halfway between her parents and mine. After we moved in it seemed like our problemsbegan to get worse and worse. She was shorter with me, less likely to have sex and stopped hugging, kissing, touching me completely. I will not lay it all at her feet either. I myself stopped being the happy go lucky guy that i was in college. (i was a DJ at the local clubs and in a frat so of course my life circled around booze and parties!! Well, I didnt hang out with friends much anymore becauase I was tired after work and we stopped going out dancing and doing things like that. She said that she wanted to do those things again so I tried but it seemed that she would get in a bad mood while we were out because I wasnt "myself" or some other reason. Then when I would get amourous she would of course say no zagain and again. It was a vicious circle that didnt get us anywhere! So as the next year went by we became more like roommates. Then tried counseling for a while and thats when she decided that a edivorce is the only answer. She told me that she was done at our weekly counselor meeting. she had already set it all up because her parents (who had just sold thier home in our area and moved about 4 hours away)waiting in the parking lot of the therapiosts to go with her to our home and move all of her stuff out. when i got to my home, there was a moving van in the driveway and her dad and mom trying to help her get her stuff packed. I was devastaed. I have always been a rock. But on this day...she forced me to call the one man that is a GOD to me. My only hero and mentor. Whose opinion of me is the only one i care about outside of my wifes. I had to call my father and cry..no, SOB to him that my wife is leaving me and that i was not prepared to handle it myself. I felt shame and fellings of failure, of abandon ment. I never before had my heart torn asunder the way she did. Not even when I had to carry my Grandfather to his resting place and present the American flag to my grieving grandmother!! I know that I was a mean cuss at times because I was frustrated with her sexually and that I was timid at times because all I was getting was rejection. When she left I did what I always do...I read and study. I gorged on all the books and websites that deal with fixing marriages because i realized that she is still the only woman that carries my heart. I love her more than the air I breathe and would gladly give my life for her if asked. I know that i sound like a bag of cliches falling down the stairs but I want to impart to you, reader, the deep seated love that i have for this woman. I never gave myself to any woman before, they were to be used and played with but never trusted or cherished. SHe helped me to see that I was wrong and she became, and still is, my greatest friend. So, after 3 years of marriage (well it would have been 3 years but she left me 9 days before our anniversary.) we are seperated. at first she said she wantede a divorce. she went with her parents back to thier house for a week and I didnt talk to her in all that time. when she came back she moved into a friend of the families home who lives in dubai but still own the home here. i talked to her and told her that she gave me a wake up call and that i realize that we need to find a way to love again. she said that she wouldnt serve me papers or go through with the divorce yet so that we could try to work it out. the following week we talked and e-mailed and texted each other like when we were dating. she said thats what she wants. to feel like she did when we were first dating. In my mind i thought about that and realized that it is impossible to keep that kind of euphoria going for ever. i didnt tell her that in so many wordas but she still wants it. anyways, we hung out a couple of times and it was great. then she comes over yesterday and we watch a movie and eat lunch that i prepared for her. it was like a picnic inside that i made. after the movie we talk for a while and i know im not supposed to bring it up but it has now been a month and a half and i dont see anything to say that she feels any different.when asked about it she says that when she left me she was "done" and that its hard to reverse those feelings. she said she doesnt even know if she wants to make it work and that she doesnt really want to hang out or talk to me because she cant move out of the past and that she isnt sure if she wants to work it out with me. I get mixed signals because not ONE WEEK AGO sher told me that she cant see her life without me in it and was saying and agreeing with me that when (not if) we make it through this we will be that much stronger of a couple. I feel like she is just trying to say things that hurt me sometimes but at other times she seems so optimistic. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH WOMEN?!?!?!?!? I cant get a read on her. I dont think there is anyone else in her life right now. I dont know if her mom and dad had anything to do with this other than support her decisions. I am constantly trying to figure out what I need to change in order to become the man she needs or wants. it seems like she doesnt know if she even wanted to be maried. she always says things like "when i was younger i didnt even think i would ever get married" or something to that effect. What am i supposed to do now. I am confused by so many things that I dont know where to start. She wants me to change some things so I did. I quite smoking after 10 years of it. I have started going to church with her and actaully enjoy it. I have lost over 20lbs of weight from working out. I am trying to do what she wants by giving her space. But then again, after we had that great week of talking and hanging out, the following monday i contacted her and she seemed standoffish so i asked her whats up and she says that she doesnt feel like she misses me because i dont give her enough room to miss me...what the *&&*%?!>?!?!?!?!?!? SHe had said the week before to contact her whenever, now I cant!?! Well, I am pretty sure that no one has made it this far in my diatribe so I will bite my digital tounge and save the rest for another rant. Please leave any and all comments. THank you all for this opportunity to vent and perhaps get some feedback and maybe even (god willing) some direction of what i need to do next!