Help on how to behave

[AnotherStander]

First, sorry you've had to find your way here but rest assured there is a ton of wisdom on these forums and here you will find something that you won't find elsewhere- hope for your marriage. No matter how dark it may seem rest assured there have been many amazing reconcilation stories even when it seemed there was no hope. So take heart!

Wife stated she can't stand me touching her, re-written our marriage history to say everything was wrong - even the sex which she used to be so into but now is saying that it was sex and not love making. Other things include lack of emotional support, neglect and not helping around the house.

Take her seriously, take stock of the things she's told you. Write them down. Commit to changing these things about yourself. Understand that your W does not want to go back to your old M and neither should you. It failed. So change yourself, that's all you have control over. Read DR over and over again and live by it. Show your W a new, happy, confident, strong you. Show her you will be fine with or without her. Don't pursue. Don't talk about the M. Make yourself better and give her time to sort through her emotions and hopefully decide she wants to come back to you to establish a NEW, BETTER marriage.

She has put a wall up saying she won't give in to changing her mind, that she wants more passion in her life, that she needs to find herself.

Don't dwell on anything she says right now, it's her emotions talking:

32. Do not believe any of what you hear and less than 50% of what you see. Your spouse will speak in absolute negatives because she is hurting and scared.

Validate her emotions, tell her things like "I understand why you feel this way and I want you to be happy no matter what that means for us." NO conflict right now! You have to make her feel you're on her side.

She is being very private with e-mail and mobile but no other man - mutual friend and my own detective work has confirmed this although can never be 100% certain.

10. Do not spy on spouse.

Spying never makes things better and often makes things worse. You may find things out that you don't want to know, and if W discovers you're spying it will be a huge setback in your R.

She has told our mutual friends that it is all my fault, that she wants a strong man, that the last 13 years have been a mistaken and she has had enough.

Again, it's her emotions talking. In your OP you are dwelling far too much on what she's saying. Don't do that! Let it roll off of you. She's not the person you knew and she's going to say hurtful things. You need to take the moral high road. She's in a fog right now, you need to be a lighthouse beacon through the fog. Solid, reliable, trustworthy; regardless of how much she tries to hurt you, you remain true to yourself and others. Don't defend yourself, if you stand strong people will see it and respect you for it. Your W too, although she won't let you know until much later.

She is getting angrier by the changes in that why could I not have done them sooner, it makes no difference no and there is no way she sees a future in our marriage.

You're not making the changes for HER, you're making them for YOU. You can tell her that if you want. The idea with GAL is to make yourself a better, stronger, more attractive person. This will hopefully bring your W back, but even if it doesn't you still benefit.

She keeps referring back to needing to find herself, that she has changed in what she wants, she then says it is not me it is her, but contradicts herself by saying it is all my fault.

Again, disregard what she says. Expect LOTS of contradictory, confusing statements in the coming weeks/ months.

So how do I deal with this. After the initial shock and begging I am trying to disrtance myself and focus on my sons, myself by getting to the gym but it is all starting to tear me up.

No more begging! Yes, focusing on your sons and getting to the gym are good things. Also reach out and contact old friends, start building yourself a support group. If you can find men who have gone through similar situations it will help immensely. You'll be surprised that when you start talking to friends some of them will have gone through the same thing even though you never knew about it.

I have read about detachment and everytime I start to feel progress my Wife starts being nice and I am back to square 1.

This is the "pursuit/ distance" dynamic. When you detach, your W will sense that you're distancing and she will pursue. You need to keep detaching when she does this, because if you go into pursuit mode she'll go right back to distancing which is why you end up back to square 1.

I have told her I accept her decision etc and will support her. That has difused everything and the tension is a lot less. I have stopped snooping as there is still a nagging doubt re OM in my search for answers to all this.

GOOD! This is what you should do. Now don't backslide! Stick with the game plan. If she wants to leave, just agree with her that it may be best. In fact it probably is for the best, WAW's can never seem to get their heads straight as long as they stay home. But when they move out, the fog starts to clear.

Can someone please advise how i handle this. We are still sleeping in the same bed (no touching/intimacy) but it is like a ticking time bomb until she sorts out a place of her own. I 100% want this to work but don't want to carry on in what feels like limbo at the moment. I have ordered DR but has not arrived yet but did read the chapter on this site.

Don't expect a turnaround while she's at home. After BD my W and I still slept in the same bed and even ML, we went to MC, etc. It didn't help. She was set on moving out and that's what she's done. I know EXACTLY what you mean when you say it's like being in limbo, because that's exactly what it was for me. Much of what I read in your OP sounds like my W's script as well. I hope you can accept that she's probably going to leave, and that it's probably for the best, and that it'll take many months for the sitch to change for the better. In the meantime keep working out, keep strengthening your R with your kids and work on improving yourself.

On my last thread a poster confirmed it sounds like MLC. That was my assumption but a mutual friend commented that W did not look herself, looked depressed and was shaking when talking to her.

I spent a lot of time trying to "diagnose" my W, but the bottom line is it's a waste of time. You'll want to tell her why she's doing what she's doing, but what she'll hear is "there's nothing wrong with me, you're doing this because there's something wrong with you" and she'll shut down. If you fix the things about yourself that she's complaining about, she'll see it and appreciate it even if she doesn't say so now. That should be your approach. Fix yourself. Only she can sort through her issues and that's going to take time.

29. Know that if you can do 180, your smallest CONSISTENT actions will be noticed much more than any words you can say or write.