The big punch

[Redo]

25yearsmlc : The first thing i should say is thank you so much for taking time to write the post. I really appreciate it. Yup, i'll be reading this post a lot of times.

I'll try to answer some of your questions. This will also help me evaluate where i am.

180's GAL : In the past i have always been needy and desperate with my wife. Not anymore at-least when i talk with her. When she has crossed the line on some of the divorce issues, i did let her know that I am willing to take it to the next step if she does not stop. She did. My GAL. Not much at the moment socially. But i have been working out more and set some goals for myself in terms of my higher education.

Lawyers: Yup, this was a big mistake i did. Thought i could handle this myself as i thought lawyers might only add more stress into our situation. Also, my in-laws suggested that we try to do this without lawyers and i yielded to them. Right now i have let me my wife know that i do have a lawyer now and will use her if she crosses some of the lines when it comes to daughter.

My personal improvement: Sad to say i have slipped back to me being scared and not hopeful about the future. I am not needy anymore. But there's a loong way for me to go here.

Books: Yup i have read the DR book. I have also read the NUTs book which i believe has helped me a lot.

standing up for wife: Yup, i did fail her once when my parents were there. But what happened after that was that my wife villified my parents totally by not even letting my daughter talk to them totally. Even then i went with her decision, but started bottling up emotions and got depressed. What i learnt from all this is the necessity of having good boundaries. I did have any.
The biggest problem was that my in-laws played a big part in our lives and wife always wanted me to be like her dad. When she finally realized that i could not be like him, she felt betrayed and hence the D.

All i know now is that as you said: I need to deal with my co-dependency behavior and learn to be happy myself.

Thanks again for your insightful feedback.