She wants divorce / Last resort method

[Finah]

After many years of physical neglect I had an affair that lasted 3 years.

There is your first problem blaming your W for YOUR AFFAIR.

In the last 4 years my wife has made a total lifestyle change and lost a lot of weight and now goes to the gym 4 days a week. She's gained a ton of self-confidence.

Good for her.

Over the last few years I've started to realize how much she means to me, and how stupid I was.

Why did it take you so long?

Now she has dropped the D bomb and says that she doesn't love or respect me anymore. She says there is no one else and I believe her. We still get along quite well and are friendly with each other, and she wants to get a collaborative divorce. I have told her repeatedly that I want to keep our marriage and family (kids 16 & 11) together.

She married a man who had an LTA and still blames his W for it.

She has totally been sucked into the Divorce Trap. She thinks everything will be just swell if we split our family up. I started reading The Divorce Recovery the other day and understand I need to start the "last resort" method.

She has every right to D you.

My question is, how to I work on my 180 at the same time she keeps wanting to talk to me about moving forward with the collaborative divorce? What do I say to her when she keeps trying to push me to agree on a divorce?
Please help.

You had an A, you need to own that. One of the consequences of having an A is that your BS might D you.


IMO I don't know if there is a whole bunch you can do at this stage. Your W has probably left the M for quite some time.

This might be a case where you end up D and reconcile later after she starts to see some serious changes in you.

Your M slipped back into the pre A state b/c you two never properly addressed the conditions that led to the A and you took your sweet time in ending didn't help matters.

Not too many M recover from a LTA

Pick up the books, find a good IC and start to work on yourself.