Newby here, desperate for some advice

[JRuss]

Hi everyone. I found this site like a lot of you, I imagine. As my marriage started to fall apart, I ran a lot of desperate "how can I save my marriage" type google searches and blundered into this really great place. I've already learned a lot just from reading about others' struggles and the advice they've been given, and I've tried to implement some of the last resort/180 techniques I've read about here, but with very,very little success so far. I figure if I have any hope of doing anything that would actually help save my marriage, I should try to post here and see if anyone has any thoughts or concrete advice.

I tried to put my pertinent info in my signature, but this is my first post, and I'm not sure if I did it right. So, briefly, I'm 45, my wife is 44. We've been married just shy of 17 years, together 21. We have two great kids, a D12 and S9.

I first realized our marriage was in real trouble a little over two years ago. We had been fighting more, and the fights had taken on a sharpness that hadn't been there previously, but they were always about dumb stuff, like me not picking up dirty clothes or something else that didn't seem to warrant the level of anger I was experiencing, and so I didn't realize that they were symptomatic of something much worse. We went on a brief vacation with the kids, and I vividly remember she said she needed to go pick up candy for the kids (it was Easter weekend, so the Bunny could come), and I asked her if I could go with her, and she gave me this look I'll always remember: just this wave of revulsion and disgust washed over her face.

Anyway, that was the first real moment of realization for me, and it went downhill from there. I knew things weren't right, I started pursuing (although I had no idea that's what it was at the time), and she started distancing, I grew increasingly frantic with worry, and she pulled away gradually more and more. Lather, rinse, repeat. I had to have major reconstructive surgery on my foot and ankle and was non-weight bearing for several months, and she had to take over all of the chores (we both work hard, professional jobs, and it's always been a sticking point that I don't do enough to help), and she had to drive me everywhere because it was my right foot. Nurturing isn't something she relishes, and this put her in a bad place. Anyway, in the middle of all of that, we had a big fight on the way to work one morning, and I just said something to the effect of "Why can't you just tell me what on earth is going on with us?!?!" (Because I never, ever could get her to tell me, really, what the problem(s) are/were). And she told me that she was no longer attracted to me.

This just crushed me. It was (and still is) such a massive, crushing blow to my self-esteem, like I'd been killed in a way. I cried (embarrassing), peppered her with questions, asking how it came to happen, what I'd done to cause it, begging her to tell me how I could change -- in short, all of the textbook questions and behaviors you want to avoid. What little I could get her to explain seemed to indicate that she lost her attraction over time, didn't "feel supported" when we had our second child and took a step back career-wise (it was 100% her choice), and just stopped seeing me in that way. She said she "struggled with it for years" (but didn't tell me, or try to get us to work on it???). I will readily admit that I was certainly stressed out during that time -- parenting has always been a little overwhelming to me, and I definitely freaked out a lot when they were both so small and got sick, I worried, emoting all of my feelings in real time, etc. Over time, she's also said that she feels like I don't have enough of my own identity, that I look to her for too much and more than she can give me. That I'm not my own person, not trying to self-actualize, etc.

I threw myself into an orgy of self-improvement, started going to a therapist (a God send), taught myself how to meditate (another God send) and read dozens of self-improvement books. I've lost about 25 pounds. I've talked to my best friend a lot, and to my Dad and sister, both of whom are professional mental health counselors. I made it my mission in life to change and to try to save things, but I haven't been very successful, at all.

She's very, very sad about it. She knows how much it hurts me. We've had many very intense, tear-filled conversations about all of it, and, with my nature (I always want to talk it out, brainstorm solutions, connect through sharing), I actually thought these represented progress, since she's much more guarded about her feelings and always has been. I've recently learned it's just the opposite, though: she told me that she's felt smothered and emotionally bullied when these have happened, and that she thinks I tell her all about my feelings to make her feel guilty. This wasn't my intent, at all, and it breaks what's left of my heart to hear her say it and realize that we're even further away than when I started my bid to "fix things".

During all of it, we've continued to sleep in the same bed and, until recently (about 2 weeks ago) had even continued to have sex, albeit not great sex (it's been hard for me to let go or get into it knowing I'm not attractive to her, and she's pretty obviously just been going through the motions).

Her plans and what she really wants have always been sort of vague, but she's never walked back the "you're not attractive" bomb. I've asked her to go to MC, but she's resisted. I haven't been able to get past the idea that she could start having these feelings, grind away on them apparently for years, not tell me anything, and let things get so far that she was done before I ever even got the courtesy of knowing, without me really having a chance to work with her to change our relationship to something that could be mutually satisfying (like it was for the first 15 years or so). So that all of what's transpired since is just purposeless. It's so far outside of anything I'd have ever done that I still can't get my brain around it. I feel like she sandbagged me and never really gave me a chance. And that makes me angry and depressed.

Just recently, we had another of those intense relationship talks, and she got so upset she almost moved out. Said she can't take it anymore, wants to live a life while she isn't yet old, and (real dagger) wants to see if there is a better fit for her out there in terms of a new man, thinks I'd be better off with someone else, etc. We had a very calm, even loving conversation about how it would be much better if we didn't spring all of this on the kids without warning, and she agreed not to move out now, but she was very clear that it's just for "a year or two" to make things go as well as possible for the children (our youngest is in a good public school for two more years, and I think that's where she's going with the timing).

Since that conversation, we've been cordial, but cold. No affection. She texts her friends constantly, which is somewhat new. In a moment of weakness (I'm ashamed), I saw one set of texts that were about how she's stayed in it for years because of how much she knew it would hurt me but wants to see what is out there, that maybe there's someone else who could be better for her, that she deserves to be happy, with the friend (also my friend, at least until then) just being a complete echo chamber reinforcing her, telling her she deserves to be happy, that I'll be ok in the long run, that I "need to grow".

I really want to save things but am just lost at this point. As I mentioned, I've been reading here for a few weeks and have gravitated toward the last resort and 180 teachings. I've dropped a lot of weight, started getting fit, hired a personal trainer (first session today), I'm getting back into reading more, have made tentative forays into trying to do more socially with friends and have continued my meditation and mental health counseling. All of it, though, has pretty much been done with one finger on the pulse of our relationship. She knows I'm checking to see if any of it is helping, so it isn't and, really, just puts more pressure on everything and drives her further away.

If anyone is still reading and hasn't fallen into REM sleep reading about this saga, I'd really love some practical advice. I feel like I may have one last window of time, but it will close very fast as things start to shift to real decoupling, putting house on the market, etc., and I just want to be able to say I really did everything I could, in a way that had a chance of success, as opposed to what I've been doing so ineffectually. "Dropping the rope" is hard when there are perceptive kids in the house, and we're trying to minimize how much they have to know right now. They'll know something is amiss if I adopt some of the blunter, colder ways of interacting with my wife that I see some have had some success with here. I also feel pretty desperate to be around them as much as possible right now, because I know that, soon, I could very well be looking at losing, at best, 50% of their remaining childhood (i.e., when they're with their mother), so getting out of the house all the time to do my own thing doesn't feel right, either. What did they do to deserve that?

Those who've done it -- how do you persuasively act like you don't care if the 180 is working? I feel like it would take Meryl Streep-worthy acting ability that I decidedly don't have, and, without that ability, I'm just doing more pursuing. Bottom line: I have so much sorrow and fear and anxiety in my heart that it is just really, really hard not to let her see it or sense it, and so I never get any traction being able to demonstrate that I have the ability to be self-reliant. So she continues to see no future with me that would be worth it. She has at times said she notices some of the things "I'm working on", but it seems like it's really just her noting that I'm getting my life somewhat back on track which, in turn, relieves her of some of the guilt she'd feel leaving me and destroying me completely (i.e., as evidence I could maybe survive the divorce). I know it takes a real change in my outlook -- that it's all really and truly for me -- but how do you get that switch to turn on, and the other, wrong one to turn off?

I apologize this is so long -- any advice or just encouragement would be so welcome. Thanks so much in advance.