Married now living seperatly

[FunDad]

Here love languages are:
1. Time spent (communicating and seeking understanding)
2. Acts of service.
Mine are:
1. Physical touch
2. Words of affirmation.

So we are polar opposites it seems. Anyway, we are (were) overwhelmed at home. We have adopted several children on top of the three we already had. She's a stay at home mom who wants to home-school while I'm out bringing home a salary. Even so, I do alot of running around town for groceries and appointments. The last adoption was a sibling set from foster care that came with deep emotional baggage including RAD and ODD. Anyway, back to the list. I have made blunders in the above categories and MY WIFE DOES NOT FORGET. For example, #13, has not happened very much but one time occurred in a big way. I felt like a jerk afterward, but my wife adds the incident to the stack of evidence that she feels leaving me is the answer (leading us to #8). Our sex life is non-existent. If I bring it up, it only leads to a conversation where she claims I should not expect any type of physical anything from her leaving me very frustrated. I understand she can't "perform" where her heart is now but it feels as though kids have come first FOR YEARS before our marriage. We have depleted our resources adopting children. It's been so many years since she has initiated and she says she has no need for it and any mention of it on my part leads us to (#5,7,9,&10). Btw - I found this board from folks over at experienceproject.com and I'm a member of the ILIASM. I'm still in what they would call "fix it mode". Dbing offers this group some hope, for which I'm thankful.

Speaking of hope. I received the DR (divorce remedy) book today. Interesting we also call DR (disaster recovery) in my work. So I'm on the step of last resort which lines up nicely with Dr. Dobson's "Love must be tough" approach (Let them out of the cage so to speak). Some notes of positive progress lately are that we are going several days with no arguments, no talk of divorce, and she even suggested that we all go eat out "like old times" as a family for the benefit of the kids. I'm exercising, losing weight, and involved in church and music again. All of which I gave up to be at her beck and call before she moved out. She's also asking me to help her with little things like hooking up appliances and little errands to test the waters. I'm emotionally recovered enough that I can show up with a good attitude at her "new" house and get it done and get out. I've made new friends (including my neighbors).

She has a gang of friends that have always wanted a closer friendship with her and one in particular has wanted for years for her to dump me. She even openly jokes about it on FB. I just let it go. From the DR, I now see why. She lost her husband a while back, and I think she wants my wife to help fill the huge gaping hole that was torn away from her. I feel for her, but tt's very selfish I think to want to a wreck a family out of your own self-centeredness. So I do not suspect an OMEA at this point but the OF's she relies on for emotional support are not helping and almost as bad. Ironically, one of them had to be away in another state for her own family emergency and things between us became much better. She's sending them my texts "He said this" for example for their review and then I get mean content back (She accidentally sent one to me). I actually do the same sometimes with a friend who was helping me to be tender before she moved out. Now that I'm detached, it's alot easier to respond by not not fueling the fire of her chaos engine with reminders that I love her. This is helping I think by giving her space.

Thanks for your thoughts!