WAW on the Peninsula

[LITB]

Newbie here….
(a bit long)

I feel like this is a good time for me to join the group since I find myself in the same sitch as many of you. I’ve been reading this board for about a month now. I can see the value of supporting each other and giving each other advice. Nothing wrong with getting an outsider’s perspective.

Anyhow, here is my story:
My wife and I have been married since April 97 and we have been together since May 96. We have D7 and S4. She is 39 and I am 36. We had to relocate to the bay area last March, since this is where I found employment. I always thought our marriage was indestructible and so did all of our friends and family. One of my good friends said he considered us the “All American Couple and All American Family”. All of us were wrong.

Over the latter half of ‘09 and most of ’10 we experienced some major changes in our lives. In ’09 we began taking paycuts at work and eventually both of us were laid off. We ended up losing our house and we had to make some drastic lifestyle changes. We were able to overcome these obstacles without much of a problem, as I was blessed to get a great job offer in the bay area. She wanted to be a stay at home mom (probably a big mistake looking back now), but we made it happen. She has always worked and is a very social person, so hence the mistake. A little over a month that I moved up here, my dad passed away. I coped well when he passed and shortly after, but it eventually (late summer ’10) affected me and I became disconnected from my W and kids. There was another major factor with me becoming disconnected and that was that my MIL moved in with us about the same time. She lives with us ‘til this day.

So over the course of these months, we had about 3/4 arguments that began by her telling me she needed more from me. I didn’t stop to ask her what exactly she meant by needing more from me. I argued what more can I give? I was working 55 hours a week and thought I was taking care of my family by providing for them. More of the same arguments with neither of us stopping to figure out how to fix this runaway train. The day after Thanksgiving, I asked her why she felt so distant. She said that she isn’t happy anymore and wants out of the relationship. I couldn’t believe it and I was completely floored. The conversation continued and of course I ask the obvious, “is there someone else?”. The first time she answered she said no. We continued talking and I asked again, this time I got the answer I didn’t want to hear. She’d been having an EA with a HS classmate who happens to be in his 2nd marriage. She had planned on moving in with him with our kids, two weeks after dropping this bomb on me. He happens to live about 1400 miles away from us. I couldn’t believe what I’m hearing and to know that the world as I know it is crumbling down on top of me.

I went through the normal crying and begging her to work things out. It just pushed her further away and made her more resentful towards me. She had no empathy for me whatsoever. I couldn’t believe the venom that she had for me. This wasn’t the same woman I’ve been with for all these years.

Well since the original madness, things have continually improved over time. After the EA, the W and the OM had planned on growing their R to a PA during the Christmas holiday, but thankfully W came to her senses and ended it. The OM continued to pursue the R until the beginning of January. The W replied to an email from him telling him to move on with his life without her in his future. She volunteered this information to me after I confronted her about her phone records. Looking at her phone records made me feel worse than I already did BTW. I’m grateful that things had improved tremendously from the prior month, but I have a long ride ahead of me.

That’s about the same time I found DB’ing. I’ve read DR, been speaking with MC, read the DB forums and have watched MWD on youtube a thousand times. All these things make me feel better and give me hope, but it is a daily struggle.

Let me try to fill in the blanks. The W and kids (and the MIL) are still living with me, but she wants to file an uncontested D soon and move closer to her family. I don’t believe there is OP involved at this point and if there is, it isn’t like I can do anything about it anyway. I’ve been trying to buy time, but I realize the time is getting close.

I’ve been doing all the things for her that I should have been doing before arriving at this juncture. I don’t tell her I love you anymore, I don’t give her hugs (except once last Friday), try to limit my contact with her and generally give her as much space as possible. It is difficult to completely detach as I believe her secondary love language is “Quality Time”. I truly believe when she said she needed more from me, she needed alone time with me and I didn’t give it to her. She asked me last week if we can set aside 15 minutes every night to talk after the kids are asleep. Of course I agreed. Most the conversations have been about how we are going to work things out, specifically with the kids. I try to listen and validate her feelings. It is a difficult task to say the least, but I have gotten better over the course of time. Believe it or not, I even got her to speak to my coach last week. She hasn’t changed her stance after the session, but I am hoping that something that my coach said will resonate and make her think twice about her decision.

I believe her primary love language is “Acts of Service” and this is where I failed her miserably. I have always been the type of person that does things on my own time. She would ask me to do something and I would just blow it off as no big deal. To her it was a big deal and if I would have just taken care of these things, I wouldn’t find myself in this situation today. Unfortunately I did not realize the damage I was doing by not taking care of these things.

As I understand the plan right now, we file uncontested, she plans to move to another state soon, leave the kids with me to finish school and get through part of the summer. I’m hoping if she moves first, she will get the opportunity to see how life will be without me and having to be away from the kids for an extended period of time. My hope is not to get to this point. As long as she comes back, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. She is my world and I will do whatever it takes to make her happy.

Here are the issues I struggle with. She doesn’t want me to fight her in court and make her stay up here in the bay area because she can’t afford it on her own. However, she plans to move to another state with our kids, which will limit my time with them unless I move. She doesn’t want me to limit her options, but she is willing to dictate my future, especially when my career is flourishing here. We haven’t told our kids anything and I don’t want to as long as I can help it. I know that they are going to be devastated as we are a very tight family. She says she’s optimistic that they will be fine. Ugh!! I just want to YELL!!

Some days I’m overwhelming confused as what to think. I see positive signs, but at the same time, when W makes a decision, she usually sticks to it.

I know many of you have great advice. Any help is greatly appreciated. God Bless