Newbies introduce yourself /moderation notes

[S4tk]

Here goes...

We have been married 11 years. We met on the mission field (both coming to the same country with that desire independently). We have a D-5 and S-1.5. We have had ups and downs in marriage, but I thought these last 5 years since D was born, things were pretty good. Busy, but good. I suppose I was blind or unwilling to look under the surface.

3 months ago, W shared that she didn't love me anymore, that the connection was gone, that she was "done." Within 5 days of the initial bomb, she took off the rings and said she was leaving with the kids.

Though vague about her reasons for losing love for me, she has used words that I hadn't heard these 11 years: controlling, manipulative, "stealing her voice", etc. 7 years ago she also was unhappy - she has been through depression twice in our marriage and went through therapy at that time. I found out then about some really sad stuff from her childhood and past, and kind of ignorantly didn't know how to support her with it - so I let the therapy progress and she came out feeling better. At that time, she saw that some of the changes that needed to be made were not just related to her, but to our M. She asked for more affection, a weekly date night, evening couch time to talk, and a house and to begin trying to have children. This all seemed reasonable to me, and we have - for the most part - kept all of those things since that time.

So the bomb in July just shocked me. Additionally, because of our work, we were living in a small country in Eastern Europe and the reality of separation or divorce would take us away from our work, our network of good friends, etc. In short, my world was rocked with the threat of many aspects of my identity (husband, father, vocation, friend) being ripped away simultaneously.

The first 6 weeks up until end of August, I broke many of what I see referred to as "Sandi2's rules." I begged for time, I promised change, and at the same time I was also obsessed with figuring her out. I spent hours googling everything from depression to bipolar to attachment disorders to midlife crises. I finally realized the damage I was doing by driving myself nuts, and occasionally her as well.

We flew our family home in early September, and since then I have been doing individual therapy. Although the therapist isn't the brief kind that Michele advocates (he is typical psychoanalysis, but with my faith background mixed in), he is good and is leading me to own my sh1t in all this. So I have still been screwing up and not exactly DBing these last six weeks, but I did leave behind some of the damaging things I was doing the first six weeks.

We did one joint MC session and she told the therapist she is 100% done. We scheduled for the following week but the day before W decided she didn't want to do it. I had learned enough the I was starting to DB without knowing it (just found the books and this website about 3-4 days ago). When she told me she didn't want to return to MC, I had about 30 minutes where I went to another room to silently process impending doom. Then, I realized that her refusing a 2nd session of MC didn't mean that she will leave tomorrow necessarily. I saw that I was placing all hope in certain things (MC, her daily responses, etc).

I would qualify us as basically S under the same roof. We eat together with the kids, watch TV in the same room, but touching her even casually has become off limits. She doesn't wear her rings, and is working on a resume - presumably a step in the process toward S and maybe then big D.

I am reading DB, almost finished. Have bought DR but haven't started it yet. I am torn between the idea of going dark, which I am reading about in this forum, and the idea which likely emerges from the therapy and from my faith background, which is continued repentance toward her for my part in this, and continued pursuit to win her heart back.

I have many questions for you DB vets, especially those who have seen their M restored.

That's my story up to this point. I am saddened every morning with the prospect of losing the love of my life, and the kids. But I am beginning to work on GAL and some 180 stuff. Figuring out which 180 techniques to implement is tough, because I'm still not sure that the explanations W have given me are clear enough for me to figure out what exactly to change. This, to me, seems to be a most important question that I need to figure out.

TB