My turn... Part 3

[Cole_]

I just said goodnight to my family over Skype and my wife invited me to brunch this weekend. It seemed like an invitation more out of obligation to our kids than a genuine desire to have me there. I told my wife that I had something going on in the morning but if the timing worked out, I'd do my best to meet them.

Given my current situation, how much time should I be spending with everyone as a family? Not just me alone with my kids, which I'd obviously take any chance I could, but me with my wife and kids together.

It's easy for me to say yes to these invitations because I love my family and feel so empty when I'm away from them. I miss them and want to spend time with them. The interactions between my wife and I at these kinds of things are generally positive, but still more like acquaintances than a married couple. She really does seem to have no attraction to me and no desire to be anything but an acquaintance... the bare minimum for functional coparenting.

Do people really lose affection and love and a desire for friendship so easily? I mean I could understand if I were abusive or completely ignored her but that's far from the case. I keep looking inward to figure out my role in all of this and nothing I come up with seems to justify the way she's treated me. I think I'll always wonder how and why and it's obviously something I need to work on and not get to caught up trying to answer.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be able to have the kids stay at my apartment soon which should make things easier and perhaps more clear but I'm still not sure what I should be doing to help move us forward. Should I be minimizing contact with her? Not talk to her except to coordinate time with the kids? Not spend any time with her except to pick up the kids from her house and drop them off? How much and in what way should I be interacting with my wife right now?

Man, I really just need to admit that everything is over and cut my losses but that's so hard when you've shared so much, invested so much, and still love so much. I'm hopeless really...