Completely lost

[Albuquerque]

Grey,

Sorry to see you here but you will get some great advice from some great people. Snodderly has already given you a lot of good advice.

My opinion (and it is only opinion) is that couple's therapy is pointless in an MLC type situation. The reason I think that is that the MLCer is often facing a personal internal battle. They are trying to find themselves. Or they are desperately trying to run away from who they think they've been. Or a variety of issues. Bottom line is, they are not a "whole" person. They are not a mentally healthy person. And a broken person cannot even start to contemplate the complexities of a relationship. So while I realize you are doing what you can to fix your issues, I fear that it will be for naught. I went through the same thing and think it actually only made things worse.

I've been trying to put up a good facade - cooking, being upbeat, claiming to be going out, etc.

This particular sentence grabbed my attention in particular. The point is not to put up a FACADE. The point is not to CLAIM to be going out. The point is to GO OUT and to DO YOUR OWN THING. This is often very hard for people to grasp. You have to take a hard look at yourself and work on yourself and actually start to live FOR YOURSELF. What are your faults? What are the legitimate areas in your life that need work? This is where your focus needs to be.

Believe me, we all know the pain and fear you are feeling right now. You're wanting to do everything and anything in order to keep your marriage intact. The best thing you can do is let her do her thing and work on yourself. It sounds completely counterintutive. It sounds wrong. It sounds like it would make things worse. And there certainly is no guarantees it will fix your relationship, but it's the only thing you can do to make sure YOU will make it through intact and a better person.

Big hugs to you Grey. This is a hard road. As Snodderly said, buckle up. But know that you're among friends here.