Wife dropped the bomb; doing in house separation

[HopeTex]

I am new to the forum, have read DB.

My basic story:

Married over a decade. My first marriage, my wife's second. She got married straight out of college to a guy who turned out to be mentally ill and emotionally abusive, so she divorced him. I met her a few years after her first divorce.

I had a tough home life growing up, divorced parents, emotionally abusive parents, etc. I ended up as a very guarded person, basically a lone wolf who decided the only way to be safe in the world was to be detached and unemotional. I just stuffed everything, denied my wounds, and focused on achievement.

Not surprisingly this was not good for marriage. W says she probably was attracted to me because of my detachment, after her bad experience from her abusive first husband, but eventually she felt alone and abandoned in our marriage.

We lost our first child soon after his birth due to unforeseen birth defects. Obviously a very tough experience, wife still takes it very hard. But it also started to crack the wall I had built up around my emotions, brought me to God, etc. we started going to grief counseling together, that turned into marriage counseling and individual counseling. For a year or two the focus was on me and getting in touch with my issues. Took a long time, I really wasn't fully aware of all my issues and how much I had walled myself off. I laugh when I remember the counseling hearing my childhood story and asking what emotions I had about it, and me replying "I don't know; I really don't feel anything about it." Which was true. And when he tried to explain intimacy, I was was genuinely confused and knew the term intimacy but really wasn't quite sure what it was! Looking back it is hard to believe how walled off I was.

After a while I finally made some progress and had some breakthroughs, started getting in touch with all the emotions and wounds I had buried, started a real relationship with God, etc. became determined to break out of the "cave" I had walled myself into and to start exploring intimacy with wife, kids (we needed up having twin daughters and a boy). But I did come out of my cave pretty wobbly and needy. I have a very "insecure attachment style" due to my childhood, so my thinking was "Ok, I am going to take this risk and come out of my cave and risk intimacy and connection, even though I know it is risky and I have been hurt in the past by people. So here goes!" My assumption was "I have been the problem in this marriage due to my fear of intimacy. W is very emotionally healthy and loving and had a better childhood so she is ready for this, I just need to reach out to her and everything will be great."

That is not what happened! I started reaching out and being vulnerable and loving and intimate. I know I was pretty needy and smothering and uncertain and insecure in the way I did it. But the response was still pretty startling. W really started withdrawing, closing off. Suddenly she started withdrawing sex, always blaming it on something I had done that day or recently that irritated her. That really set me off, I didn't take it well, it hurt and I complained and was needy.

She then shocked me by saying "I see that you are changing, but I think it might be too late. The first part of our marriage I was so lonely, and eventually a couple years ago I pretty much gave up hope on our relationship being fulfilling. My heart basically died to you and I am not sure it can come back." As you can imagine this was a shock and devastating, it felt like my world was crumbling. Like my greatest fear coming true. I come out of my cave and risk intimacy and this is what I get?! It felt just like my childhood all over again: rejection, abandonment, etc.

A few months into that and W said she had started recovering vague memories of having been sexually abused by a family friend, or coach, or someone (she wasn't sure) in early childhood. She started seeing a female counselor on her own to start understanding and working on recovery for that. Part of me was very caring and compassionate about that, and proud of her for being brave enough to face some very unpleasant issues. But unfortunately part of me just wanted to get her"fixed". Especially when she announced, fairly coldly, that we wouldn't be having sex anymore, at least for a long time. The insecure selfish part of me was devastated, in seemed like she was just slowly pulling away from me and would never come back. So of course I complained and pursued and tried to fix, which only served to push her away more. She pretty much shut down from me emotionally, when we would try to have R conversations she would basically freeze up, couldn't even talk. Which set me off more. I was a mess.

One night a couple years ago I got upset, packed an overnight bag, and stormed out to a hotel. The next day I knew that was a dumb move, but when we met with the MC my W said she wasn't ready for me to come back, and shocked me by suggesting a separation. I felt like my guts were spilling into the floor, I was devastated. I existed but eventually moved out for what ended up being 4 months. It was the worst experience of my life, and probably also one of the best, it made me face some big issues and grow, and grow closer to God. The first month or two I pursued a lot, en finally gave her space and that helped. (I didn't read DB back then but would have benefitted.). Eventually she invited me back home, but it wasn't a very joyous or romantic homecoming, I was still pretty insecure and controlling (although slightly healthier), she was still going thru her recovery and still pretty half-in-half-out in terms of her commitment to our marriage. T least in my opinion.

We would have stretched were we would start up a sex life, then she would stop again. And withdraw emotionally too, and stop going to MC or participating much when she did go. I was slowly working on my issues and getting healthier emotionally, but I was still very emotionally dependent on W, so when she withdrew I would get very sad and moody. This out a lot of pressure and strain on her.

A few months ago she same back from a faith retreat and expressed a new commitment to our marriage, she had realized that she was very afraid of intimacy and had not really been committed to it in our marriage due to her big fears of always being hurt. For a couple weeks I saw good signs of a new commitment, but it tapered off pretty quick. But I thought things err generally getting better.

Then in June she came into MC and dropped the bomb. "I have tried but I am coming to accept that my heart did die for you and it is not coming back. You are a good man and father and you have made amazing changes to yourself, and you deserve to be with someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. I would like for you to move out sometime soon and for us to start working thru a divorce." I was stunned and hurt, and didn't have much of a response at the moment so I just said I loved her and didn't want a divorce and we left it at that. On use drive home later that day I stopped and looked at apartments nearby. When I got home I did some of the pleading and pursuing and crying routine. She said well, maybe you can move out and we can just separate for several months to a year and see if that helps. The next few days I did other type of unproductive pursuing, like calling her parents and some folks in our church to try to get them to talk to her. Not real helpful I now realize.

A few days later after a lot of good conversations with my counselor,and good Christian friends, I realized that my moving out into an apartment was a very dumb idea from a lot of perspectives (including legal) so I calmly told her "I love you and I want our marriage to work, so I am not giving up. But I am not going to move out of our house, if she need to leave this marriage then you cam leave." She was pretty stunned and pissed but didn't have much to say. She moved out of the bedroom and went pretty quiet. We had some chats with the counselor about different separation options. W eventually proposed that we continue doing what we had started doing, basically an in-house separation, where we trade weeks in the master bedroom, the other spouse staying in the guest room. It is a pretty weird and tough situation. We spend a lot of time together with our young kids (7,7 and 5) and are pretty cordial together with hem, and we even chat at night about a variety of topics, we just don't have any R conversations.

She says she wants to do this until school starts back up, and then "reappraise" at that point. She is actively planning going back to work, after having been mostly a stay at home mother for 7 years. I know she has looked into rental homes in our neighborhood. I think part of her is preparing for divorce by getting a job lined up so that she can move out and support herself. I have made it pretty clear that I will want 50% physical custody of the kids.

I am hoping that part of her is still wanting to reconcile and keep trying in our marriage.

After that initial week of pursuing, I am pretty committed to doing DB best practices. I haven't pursued at all in several weeks, haven't tried to bring up R conversations, haven't complained at she has stopped coming to Counseling, have been trying to GAL, hang out with the kids on my own or go out with friends, exercise more, dress better, focus on my continuing personal work and emotional health. I think she must be pretty shocked that I am not pursuing, that is very different than in the past.

As far as I know she has never talked to a lawyer, but who knows. Neither I nor our counselor believes she is involved in any type of affair, but who knows.

I imagine that in a few weeks when the kids go back to school we will have some type of conversation where she states what she wants next. Part of me cannot believe she will actually go thru with divorce. But part of me can't imagine her having a turnaround and recommitting to the marriage either.

I have all the typical emotional swings. Some days I feel pretty strong, and am coming to grips with the fact that even tho I do not want divorce for me or my kids, I and God can handle that if it happens, and that there is indeed life after divorce that would still be good. Other days I feel like I will crumble and blow away and life will be ruined.

My personal focus is on regaining my sense of self, and self-validation instead of validation from W. It is becoming very clear how codependent, emotionally fused/enmeshed etc I have become. This is unhealthy and unattractive. It has smothered my wife and driven her away. I like the book Passionate Marriage and what it says about the need for "differentiation." The need to have a strong sense of self before you can have a healthy intimate relationship with someone else.

I also know that she has contributed to our issues, I am not the only one at fault although I do like to put all the blame and shame on myself. I am finally accepting that I cannot fix her and that she will have to work thru that stuff mostly on her own.

My DB strategy right now is detachment, trying to find the healthy balance where I am detached and happy and doing my own thing, but not being too cold in my daily interactions with her. The inhouse separation thing is tricky.

My greatest hope is that our marriage can be saved. Actually strike that, my greatest hope is that I can be a strong, healthy happy person with a strong relationship with God. I also hope that my marriage can be saved.

Thanks in advance for good guidance and support as I work thru this. I have already benefited from reading other peoples stories.