Advice Welcome, separating and W moving out soon..

[jedi]

Hi All,

Like many others, I came across this board when my situation first started, have been lurking while learning along the way, and am now finally at a point where I'm ready to bring my own life out into the open so to speak.

For my part, while we've had ups and downs as most do, I never saw THIS coming. This seems to be standard issue for LBS from my reading thus far, and I feel better knowing I’m not alone. The shock in this situation I have felt has been echoed by every single person who is now aware of what’s occurring, including both of our parents, our siblings (or mine at least), and all of my close friends. The unhappiness it seems was hidden well.

We've had a lot of good times along the way, but W and I have been in what I'd been calling a 'rut' for maybe 12-18 months, and as I've now learned she was most likely detaching this entire time while I assumed things would fix themselves in due time.

At this point, she has been living with her parents for about 6 weeks. It started off as a few days to just get away, and about a week later it turned into needing space to “clear her head”. This lasted for 3 weeks (she at her parents, me in our house) and when we finally sat down to have a temp check she simply stated she had an answer and it was not the one I wanted to hear. She compared me to a platonic friend, says that she loves me but is not in love with me, and that something has been “off” ever since we began dating and that we should never have married. When i asked her to explain this, she claimed to have been “caught up in the moment of getting married”.

Of course, I did the expected during our 3 week "giving space experiment", meaning I smothered her with texts and pictures of happier days, made a lot of claims as to how things could be different, that we could fix this, etc. #FAIL. She was not overly distant during this period however, and we talked every day and continued with ILU and other endearments throughout the day on phone calls and text messages.

As a bit of background, she started a new job in early 2014, at which time I was downward spiraling with my own job and unhappiness, and the end result here was that I did not engage her new career move like a husband should. I firmly believe this was the start of the pulling away. I see now I was likely somewhat depressed during this time, focused only on myself, and therein lies my major role in the demise of our M.

Now, 14 months later for her, I’m 10 months in a new job as well (which did not give me the happiness I was seeking FWIW) and she is overwhelmed with work, spending easily 50 or 60 hours each week trying to stay afloat. Very little time left on her side for anything related to our relationship, and no noticeable change in my level of career happiness or contentment.

There are many other details which will probably come out in due time, but I now believe I failed to help keep my portion of the R alive as we both started along our own new paths career-wise. In addition to this, I pushed back on having kids for the majority of our relationship, and while I’m now genuinely ready for that (and was for at least 6 months before this happened), she has decided I’m only at that point now because not having them would mean losing her. I think that’s relevant, but exactly how yet I’m not sure.

I’ve read DB, 5LL, and I’ve learned from reading here that this is out of my control in many (if not all) ways. I've realized at this point we talked a fair amount in our years together, but were very much not communicating with each other. I can give very solid examples of how our LL’s are different and how once I stopped speaking hers, she in some ways pulled further away.

I do not believe there is EA, and almost certainly no PA. I have no reason to think there is either and have never been suspicious of such. I realize anything is possible, but my gut says no way, this is about her and her alone. In an odd way that alone makes this both easier and much harder.

So - background over, I’ve started to GAL at this point. I quit smoking (which was also a large point of contention between us) and have been exercising daily (2 of the goals I’ve set for myself). I’ve been making plans as I can with friends, have decided to get EMT certification (more on this later), and have ceased all R talk at this point.

I’ve been truthful to her with my emotions at times, but have not tried to stop her from moving out since the day after she decided she couldn’t try any more. I’ve accepted the situation, and have realized I’m not angry at her, I’m angry at my M failing. I’ve told her all of this as well.

We have honestly not yet had 24 hours without contact of some fashion, mostly text and calls. We’ve had lunch several times, and as she is in the process of packing to move out we have had some time together at the house. It’s all been very cordial, and in many ways we’ve talked and just hung out more in the last few weeks than we had in the months leading up to this. I dare say it’s been enjoyable in fact, getting back to our roots as friends before lovers. D has been mentioned several times, but to the best of my knowledge has no traction yet.

I very much want to reconcile at this point, but realize my old M is over (thanks to this forum). I genuinely think her moving out is the first step to a new relationship beginning, but now as I see her things piling up around the house in boxes I’m starting to get scared that once she’s gone, with no kids or any other reason to keep us in contact she may never return.

I have some other details I can add, journaling from the last few weeks, etc, but will wait and post those separately as this is a LONG first post. I just wanted as much background out here as possible.

I also want to go ahead and say thank you to everyone who’s posting here - I’ve gained much insight, and simply reading what others are going through and the responses here has been very therapeutic for me in my situation.