I'm new to this so I hope everyone will bear with me. I am soon to be 54 and my W will soon be 50. We met when W was 17 and I was 21. I fell in love with her shortly after, and she felt the same. We went with each other and were engaged 2 years later. We were married 5/20/83. Our children are S28,S24,and D20. You can see we have alot invested in this R. Our M started slipping about 6 years ago. Because of kids, jobs, and me spending too much time elsewhere,our M hit some rough times. We weren't spending enough time just the two of us. We didn't communicate well or make eash other a priority.Both huge mistakes. I started to feel neglected and not loved. We both closed up on each other. I was resentful and got to be hard to live with. I would give her the silent treatment and also slept on the couch many nights. I was sarcastic and just did things to hurt my W. Then one day she exploded. She said she had had it. I fell to pieces. I don't know why I was surprised. I thought for sure I had lost her, and begged and pleaded for forgiveness.Right away I imagined a OM. I don't know why. My W wouldn't do that. All through this she has always told me I should know better. To speed this up I will get to the point. In the next 6 years we went to a local counseler, I got on meds for depression, quit taking them, went to a marriage counseler,I started seeing a psyc.,got back on meds and basically did whatever I could to work on the M.And just a quick note. Don't ever pick a marriage couseler from the Yellow Pages. She was divorced herself and didn't like men very mush. She did more harm than good. Through all of this period we had highs and lows. But something just didn't seem right. I started back to my old ways. I felt like she didn't need me, and she showed me very little affection. It hurt because I never stopped loving her. I threated her with divorce just to get her to see something was wrong. I gave her a choice. Are we going to work on the M or part. Bad move. She got angry and said we were through.4 days later I had a breakdown.I was taken to a psyc hospital.I was there for 8 days and then 5 weeks outpatient therapy. Through all of this my W never mentioned divorce. When I could go home on weekends I slept in a different room. We did talk about things but I kept pushing her for answers. On New Years day we had a fight and she finally said the D word. She said she would be moving out. There were no apartments available, we live in a small town. We ended up buying her a house. I knew she needed to be away from me. She hired a lawyer to handle the house and also had him do divorce papers. Then the bomb hit. A friend came to me and told me about a rumor. My W was supposidly after an affair with a friend of ours. We shared a lake cabin with him and his family for 8 summers. I went home and confronted her about it. She went to pieces. She said it wasn't true and begged me to believe her. After two hours of talking I believed her. She was very upset that people would think such a thing. She has a very important job in the community. This hasn't been very short has it. Anyway she decided that we should just separate not divorce. She moved to town 6 weeks ago. I had thought she would maybe stay. We had comforted each other through the rumor business and come together somewhat. After she moved out she has become an ice queen. Very cold and hurtful. I don't know why the change. There has been no talk of how long this will last. And that's where I'm at.I miss her and hate living alone in this big house. I'm in counseling and reading alot of marriage books. I have a good base of support. I have friends and family I can confide in. I'm staying on my meds but the pain is awful. Sorry this got so long. I would appreciate any input and talking about it helps me
