I been lurking on here for the past week as I have tried to comprehend the weight of my situation. My wife of 15 years, literally out of nowhere, tells me that she doesn't love me and she wants a divorce. Well, she doesn't really tell me. She was acting aloof and distance for a couple of days. When I ask her what's going on she tells me she's not happy. After that, I basically have to pull the info out her. She says that there isn't anyone else and that she's not happy with the way I treat our 12 year old daughter. I admit, I'm a pest and a nag with my daughter and that I sometimes take my frustrations out on my wife and daughter, but it's never anything abusive in anyway. She tells me she's made up her mind and she doesn't want to work on this at all. No counseling or anything. Frankly she seems like she wants to avoid the discussion entirely.
I go and speak with a therapist I've seen and the past and she suggested I tell her exactly how I feel: I love you and I want to work on our marriage for our sake and the sake of our daughter. She says she'll think about it but she's resigned to the fact that the marriage is over in her mind.
The next night she says she's going to meet a girlfriend from work. When's she not at home by 1:30 (very unusual), I text to see if she alright. No answer. I text her again. No answer. Her car has a app that show where the car is parked. I look and she's nowhere near where she said she was going to be. I look up the address and she's at a male co-workers house. Someone she just started working with but someone she knows for a long time thru friends. When she get's home, I ask her where she was. She sticks to her original story until I show her where she really was. Eventually she fesses up and says she was with this guy that she works with and that they were just talking about our situation. She swears on our daughters life that nothing is happening with this guy. We discuss that neither of us can afford this divorce and that we'll cool it for awhile.
The next day I start to detach and implement Michele's 37 rules. Keeping up a brave face, being cordial and limiting the amount of time I spend around her. Working on myself and seeing if I can better myself in the mean time. It's so, so hard. I truly and deeply love her but right now she seems like she's encased herself in a concrete shell and nothing can get in. She's resigned herself to this and there's no talking about it. I'm utterly heartbroken for us. Our family will be ripped apart. We'll have to sell our home and move intro separate apartments, most likely out of our current school district where our daughter is thriving. We'll lose everything we put into the house because we bought at the height of the housing bubble and the market never came back. If we break even, we'll be lucky.
I like most people have issues I need to deal with. She does too. There have been times when we've both had to carry each other thru the marriage because the other just couldn't. We're both adverse to conflict which is really bad. Things never get discussed and they're left to fester. I'm willing to do the serious work that i need to do in order to be a better person and father. I'd do anything to keep our family together. It's just so hard to feel hopeful when only one person in a marriage feels that way.
