Newby here, desperate for some advice (thread 2)

[JRuss]

Thanks to all for responding.

I am very much like albac in that getting back what we had years ago doesn't interest me. I would never again want to be the guy she fell out of love with because, if I'm honest, there was enough there to create problems for most spouses (setting aside the fact she never told me she was struggling, which I think was a violation of her vows), and I didn't like myself at all, either. So I don't want the old me back. But I also don't want the new her, either. She'd have to be in love with the new me, and that just ain't happening, at least not yet. And I'd have to be in love with whatever her she evolves into, i.e., this "her" would have to be some phase she grows out of, because it is for the most part marked by a set of behaviors and attitudes I don't want to be around, certainly not for the rest of my life.

And yet, I still hold out hope that she'll pull herself back out of the perfect, imagined future she sees herself starring in and just see me, as I am now, and not as a frozen-in-time doppelganger of who I was 2-3 years ago. But it never seems to happen, at least not for long. It's almost as if she feels herself soften at times, if only ever so softly (maybe I've been particularly good for a while at GAL or on a run with 180s), and then she needs to retrench for several days, giving me the ice treatment, flinching if my arm strays in the night and touches her by accident, giving me the dead eyes look or deliberately not making eye contact.

The when and the how of extinguishing all hope is something I struggling hugely with. When I'm down and prone to self-criticism, I feel like it should have already happened; I should have told her to hit the road if she's really that disgusted to be with me. That's what a man with pride would do, right? When I'm worried about my children, I feel like I'd live the rest of my life like this without complaint if it meant insulating them from suffering through a D. And then part of me just sees her across the room, or she'll forget she's supposed to be killing things off so the marriage can die and will smile at me, like she used to, and my heart melts, and I just want to have a future with her.

I'm just tired of the weight of it all at this point. Life has such a heavy quality to it so much of the time. It's exhausting.