Hello, My wife and I separated a little over 3 weeks ago. We've been married 14 years and together 15. This is her 3rd marriage and my 2nd. She's struggled through this marriage with anxiety, depression, and most probably Borderline Personality Disorder and has struggled committing to the relationship, expressing often that she is not cut out for a relationship and shouldn't be married (despite lots and lots of happy wonderful times! - well, in my mind).
Within that 3 weeks, we've gone from talking to arguing meanly and now she won't give me her new phone number, blocked my emails at her work, cut off facebook communication. There is only one email address I have left to contact her at, which she responds to inconsistently, and her work phone which she gets angry if I call because we get into stuff and she doesn't want to argue about that stuff at work, and I live only a mile away from her, which is too close because I go over there when I'm troubled.
We are in a counseling hiatus. She said she can't commit to the marriage anymore. I would like to work on it. After saying she wanted a divorce in counseling because of my anger, she back off and said she was feeling like she was forced to choose divorce or work on marriage. So the counselor decided she should work with her counselor for a month to discuss her ambivalence and I should work with my counselor and figuring what I should do. And then we'd reconvene on June 6, the day after she gets back from a trip in which she's supposed to visit her mom and an old friend from Facebook with whom she has been having some kind of flirtation. Our counselor suggested we look at the Divorce Busting site. I have gobbled it all up. My wife has looked at the site sparingly (she's taking online classes and is very busy, but still...... it's because she's not invested!).
Since counseling stopped and we had a bunch of fights, she has said she's "done right now," has taken her ring off, has proceeded to go out on the town. She refuses to define "done right now" to me. Despite all this, after 15 years, we are very good friends. And I want to at least keep the friendship going so we have a place to work on things. She's asked to be left alone, which I'm having a hard time doing.
I've read Divorce Busting, Divorce Remedy, and am half way through Change Your Life and Everyone In It. I've consumed Keeping Love Alive, Marriage Breakthrough seminar, and gotten phone counseling. My phone counselor says I must go dark. Last Resort Technique.
My wife, who has looked at some of the materials, also knows the game.. she told me that I must leave her alone, that I'm afraid if I leave her alone she won't contact me. And she's right. She's the one who stepped out, who has never in her life gone back on something she has decided to do (even if irrational and impulsive), and really isn't that interested in being married! But I know... from what I've read, that we can easily repair our relationship. Divorce Busting is fantastic and dynamic... great program. I want to try it. It would be a total shame not to try with these tools at our disposal. And she won't commit to that.
She's pretty much said we will probably have to go our own way until at least June 6th. And then, she's supposed to decide if she wants to work on the marriage or not. And I'm so afraid that it will be not.
There is much more to the story, of course, but she hasn't filed papers. We are completely separated, money, goods, etc. We used to be joined at the hip - one car, lived on a boat, no stuff, joint bank acct.... for almost 12 years (except for the boat). Sooo going from this extreme togetherness to wife not wanting to be married has upset my entire world (not to mention my own family dissolved with the death of my mom and aunt last fall, so my wife, the boat, and my dog were all I had left!...and they're now gone too! --except I get the dog, Thursday through Sunday.
I set up a phone texting tree to contact people when I felt the urge to email, call, or contact her. At the first sign of contact, like when returning the dog Sunday, she was friendly, offered me two hugs, and it just makes me want to stay and socialize and be friends and get the ball rolling, because WE ARE friendly! Part of it seems like a game, like she's punishing me..... that I have to wait for her to call, because of some recently trust violations she perceives. She's in a very blaming mode where she's done nothing wrong (15 years of my fault!)...and not taking any responsibility for her own actions, not forgiving at all. Those are difficult things for her to do.. but I know if she just gave Divorce Busting a chance, we could breakthrough almost immediately.
So... in going dark, I can't know she'll contact me. How do I go about getting her attention again? I don't know that she will miss me.
