Hopeless in NYC

[eclipse]

Hello everyone. I've been browsing some stories here, but I'm starting to wonder if my situation is too far outside the scope of what DB was designed for. I'm going to paint a more of a complete picture of my life than most others may have done because 1) it seems very relevant and 2) it just helps to let it all out. Here goes...

My wife walked away in October 2014. We have been married since 2009 (unplanned pregnancy) and have been together since 2001 (high school sweethearts, both 16 at the time). We've only ever been with each other, and our relationship was somewhat different from others--not particularly passionate, but rather sweet, gentle, and more of a friendship, even from the very beginning.

In 2002 I almost lost her because I focused too much on work (been working since junior year in H.S.). It may sound strange, but at some point I think I somehow forced myself to feel something even though we were drifting apart. Or maybe it was just attachment. What does it matter...it felt real at the end of the day. Then in 2008, I almost lost her again when our then-mutual best friend sought a little too much comfort from her during one of his own relationship failures. She cited stagnation in our relationship and a lack of growth together as the trigger for her having feelings for some else. Eventually, thanks to a large effort on my part, the interloper was banished from our lives and after a month or so we managed to reconcile and continued on our merry way.

Almost a year later, we were pregnant with an unexpected child. She always wanted, I never did (I come from a long line of broken homes and just wanted to escape that cycle). She was still in college accumulating a sizable debt, and I was working an internship earning barely enough to make rent each month. Luckily a former classmate set me up with a full time job, but it was still a continuous struggle to keep up. We talked about abortion, but she said if I don't want the child I can just leave. I chose to stay, and I think that's when the seeds of destruction were planted, because at the point I became resentful that I would be losing out on the closeness with her which I always enjoyed. That mental rift between loving my wife and at the same time being angry with her took years to close, and it took a toll on our entire family.

Those years of raising our daughter were a nightmare for both of us. I fell into the typical trap of focusing too much on work. I did laps around my coworkers and enjoyed praise and promotion. Meanwhile, my wife was feeling so alone that she actually pushed us to move across state lines, willingly isolating herself from everyone she knew just so I can spend less time on the commute and not be so stressed. As you may have guessed, that's not how it worked out. I pushed even harder at work, causing my own self to suffer. Finally things reached the point where I became emotionally abusive. That love/hate rift became a chasm. Both of us lacked any sort of support system, and everything just went to hell. I had created a reality that can only be described as a depressive, nihilistic nightmare, and I pulled my entire family into it.

And yet, even at that point my wife tried to make things work by catering to any whim or fantasy of a better life I had ever spouted, and I just either ignored or berated her. She even offered for us to move further away yet to escape the situation. Then, in 2010, I had an emotional affair with a coworker, and my wife found out. Instead of giving up, she moved back in with her parents for a few months and told me that I can either move back with her and start over in our home state or I can just stay put and our relationship would be over. Of course I moved, but instead of genuinely starting over, all I did was bring the vortex of misery with me. I felt like I had failed at life and started having panic attacks. At that point we ended up seeing a marriage counselor (her idea) who suggested that we both need individual therapy as well, but we never followed up.

At the start of 2014, something strange happened, and I started to feel some sort of shift in my outlook on life. I stopped caring so much about work and started coming home earlier. Instead of b-lining straight for the bedroom, I would greet my wife and daughter with open arms. I genuinely thought that things were coming around. I was dead wrong. Even though I felt like I was becoming a new person, my old self was still in there, pulling me back. I became unstable, and my wife was terrified because she never knew which "me" to expect--the "let's all go out for a nice walk" or the explosive outbursts and self-harm. After my 30th birthday at the end of that September, she once again moved back in with her parents. She told me to seek professional help, and that only after several months of continuous therapy would she even consider coming back. She never kept that end of the bargain.

So I've been seeing a shrink since then, and in some ways, things have really been turning around. I exorcised any remaining traces of dissonance about having an unplanned child and built a wonderful relationship with my daughter (she is 5 1/5 now). After many years, I was able to reconnect with my mother and the sister I barely knew. I've been reaching out to friends and ways to keep busy with.

But I cannot reconnect with my wife. Our communication is rocky, and she is cold to me most of the time. Initially she would only talk to me via text, and avoided eye contact when I could come to pick up our daughter. When she came in for a collateral visit to one of my therapy sessions, she was frantic. My shrink asked her to give an account of what's wrong in our relationship, and she just rambled "make sure he doesn't kill himself," "just give me 17%," "I wanted to meet someone new." I told her I understand what I've done wrong and that I am willing to do anything possible to make things work. She broke down, started crying and said "why won't you just let me go." When I reached over to try and comfort her, she twisted away and shrieked "don't touch me." Her entire body contorted and I knew then that something was really wrong. I felt sick to my stomach. Maybe worth adding is the fact that she has been taking very good care of herself, and like a stupid male, I got jealous and took it at face value. Of course, her actually *saying* that she wants a divorce so she can meet a quality guy didn't help the paranoia either, but she's hasn't brought it up since then.

It's taken these four months to even have a coherent, minute-long conversation with her, and even now it's really just logistics. Her mood varies often, and I have at best a 50% chance of getting any response when I ask her about her day. She is extremely defensive, and any trace of being warm and friendly promptly brings up the D word again. She has been critical and suspicious of every positive change I've made in my life, and sometimes makes sarcastic and insulting remarks obviously meant to sting (took a while to learn to ignore these). Every time I talk to her I feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I've heard from secondary sources that she is glad that I was able to make these changes, but that it doesn't change how she feels (or rather doesn't) about me. She's given me the ILYBINILWY, "we can be friends," "I'm not attracted to you," et al, and I've done the pleading, begging, reasoning with the expected failure rate.

I am afraid that my wife has closed off her heart to me forever. She has shut out her parents, close friends, and anyone else who suggested we try to work it out. She said she's moving into her own place soon. It just seems like she wants to start a brand new life and never look back. Every time our daughter asks why we can't be a family together, my heart breaks and I don't know what to say except to reassure her that she is always loved no matter what. It's taken me over five years to understand what family really means, and now it's slipping away. I've ordered the DB book, and I am continuing with therapy, but now that I'm fully aware of all the atrocities I've committed over the years, I've lost a lot of my resolve to win her back because I don't feel I deserve her anymore.

And now I think I'm rambling like some lovesick man-puppy...