Back again...unfortunately

[ClingingToHope]

Lynn, I've been out of the house nearly seven months now. My W has the classic mid-life crisis signs. She's unhappy in her job but makes too much to start over. She wants to sell the house but we're underwater on the mortgage. She's the emotional center between her mother and sister and they pull her every which way. Our daughters are wonderful girls but having typical growing up issues. All of her friends from high school are distant and W isn't the type to work at reaching out.

In short. She's not happy and the only thing in her life she can change is me.

I blamed her 100 percent for the breakup until this summer when I took a Marriage Rebuilders class. It was one night a week for eight weeks and I learned a ton about how I contributed to her growing unease. Every little failure on my part just added another brick to the wall she was building. By this spring she was saying the classic walk-away-wife things such as "I never loved you" and "you deserve to find someone who loves you."

So I'm with you 100 percent.

Now the knowledge that I contributed big time to the breakup and it's not just some pyschological issue on her part is good and bad. After taking the classes, I confessed how badly I treated her in small ways in a letter. It prompted the ONE good conversation we've had since I moved out.

I felt so good after. I just thought it was a matter of time. But there's been no real progress since and I've swung from super happy and GALing successfully to woe-as-me talk.

I paid for three DB phone sessions and they helped. The last one was this week and the counselor gave me three things to think about.

The mid-life crisis fog can take a long time to lift. I'm just seven months in. Read the success stories. Even those took 18 months to three years.

Two. Act "as if." I didn't really understand it until she explained it to me. Act as if this will all work out in the end. You have two kids. That's a strong tie that will always be there.

Three. You aren't actually getting divorced. There's been no filing. Don't jump ahead of the game. In my case. A month ago she was talking about filing soon and being divorced by mid-2010. There's been no talk of it since. I'm at the house every day to see my girls off the bus. I look around. I don't see any paperwork or notes or googling about divorces or attorneys or links.

The DB counselor says the biggest problem for a LBS is they want to speed up the process. You have to have patience. I don't know if I have enough of it. I guess I'll learn.