So Confused and Conflicted

[WshIKnw]

I'm going to try to provide a story of the breakdown of our marriage, without it being too long, because I could write 20 or 30 pages on it, probably. I apologize if this is too long. I can try to shorten it to a paragraph, if anyone wants me to.

I am 33. My wife turned 30 last March. We have no kids. We were married in Nov of 2009. Started dating in Feb of 2007. When she started shutting down on me, we had just finished our seventh year of marriage, on her 30th year of life, after she took a new job during the summer, that put her around a very different group of people. Early in our relationship, I noticed that I could not read her. I couldn't tell how happy she was. This came after she started distancing herself from me in late 2007; it completely blindsided me. I got her back around the beginning of 2008. She said there was another guy that she had some interest in, and they decided not to pursue it. She also gave me some reasons about why she was unhappy with me and an ultimatum of something I needed to fix. Because I did not at all see that almost-breakup coming, I vowed to forever get periodic feedback from her about how happy she is in the relationship, because I could never tell. That feedback would involve me asking her probably about once a month to tell me her overall happiness with the relationship. That helped me to know how hard I needed to work to keep her happy. You know, if someone's at a 4, you want to know that, so that you don't keep doing what you are doing, thinking all is fine. And if your partner's at a 10, you don't want to keep laying on the love, when you'd rather be doing other things.

I kept getting that periodic status report for many years and it seemed to be my Golden Tool for the relationship. Well, a few years ago -- I'd guess 4 or so -- I started to get very comfortable in the marriage. I started to forget how easy it was to lose her, how much life sucked before I found her, and how much it would suck again if I lost her. I also forgot the importance of asking her how happy she is. I have theories as to why I could never tell, but I don't know for sure. Now, in her bitter hatred of the walk-away wife, she says that I'm on the autism spectrum, whenever we discuss my inability to read her. That may be true, but I think the reasons were mostly because: 1. I'm a guy. We don't read females (or perhaps people in general) as well as other females do. 2. She puts on a happy face when she's not happy, and has admitted to this, and calls it "fake(ing) it until you make it". It's a great, "be positive", way to live, but it robs the spouse of important feedback. 3. She gives very positive feedback, like very sweet cards saying everything is fine, when things aren't fine. She gave me a sweet card for our anniversary in November this past year, where she hand-wrote in the card about how she loved me, how happy she was to have me in her life, and how she wanted to spend many more years growing with me. Somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks later, she went cold on me, and started building a wall of hate. During that 1 or 2 week period, nothing of any significance happened, that I'm aware of. She didn't catch me cheating on her or anything like that (which I have never done).

When I noticed that she seemed to be fake-smiling, whenever I entered the room, I started becoming concerned, and I sat down with her one night to approach her about it right after noticing her doing it, and she told me she wasn't sure she wanted to be with me any more. She said I was becoming weird as hell, absorbed in my own head. I didn't listen well and follow along well with things. She also brought up the recent weekend anniversary trip that we made, and complained that I had slept too late on the trip, and she was just sick of dealing with someone that wasn't a good traveller. She also mentioned my lack of desire to have friends and get out. She basically complained that she was sick of feeling like I was her ball and chain. Throughout our relationship, I have had big issues with travel anxiety and with a lacking desire to get out of the house in general, and with a lack of interest in socializing. I don't think I'd ever tell her "no" to much of anything, but I would often complain or act disinterested. So, these were the main issues at the time of the first bomb drop, that she complained about.

She spent the next few weeks becoming colder and more and more distant with me. It was like she was weaning me off of her. We still had some sex, but it was less frequent. She acted like she didn't care about anything in the house and was giving up. She wasn't cooking anymore. She wouldn't snuggle me much or show much affection. She was saying "I love you" less and less, and this girl used to say "I love you" almost too much at times (several times a day). Too much to me, anyway. (Now, I'd give anything to hear her say it unprompted and genuinely.) I don't think she would repeat it back to me at this point. I haven't told her I love her in weeks. She bought some CD's with songs about breaking up and hating men, and she would blast them in the house while I was around. "What kind of man loves like you?" and "Did I build a ship to wreck?" It killed me inside to hear this stuff. She was building a wall of hate. During this month or so (the month of December), I was writing her letters just about every day, averaging about 2 pages a piece, where I was pleading with her to stay and give me another chance, telling her about how I didn't understand how unhappy she was -- I didn't even know she was unhappy, telling her about my lack of appreciation and how I had become too comfortable in the marriage -- so on and so on. How I'd do so much better now, because I've been shaken awake by what she was doing. Nothing budged her hardly. She rarely wrote me back or responded to what I wrote her, unless it was just a few sentences of a response.

She left on December 28th. A few days later, she wrote me a long email, a massive list of 17 general things that she complained about: laziness about helping with chores; too much time on the computer (I was too into my hobbies; she says she suspected I was having a cyber-affair with someone (I wasn't), she complained about me looking at porn, which I did do some of, but in the past she always would just say "well, I know that all guys do it..." and that would be that); lack of life skills, like cooking; unreliability/lateness; she said I was scared of everything (I have issues with anxiety and depression); complained that I was sort of mean about her appearance in that I didn't show enough sexual interest in her (I showed a lot, but I can see why she would think it's lacking); said I was weak physically and mentally and whiny; she complained that I was spoiled and that it was her fault that she let me be so weak and whiny; she said I was "nickel and diming" her, which I think is kind of a made up complaint mostly (she seemed to only be referring to us agreeing that she do more chores in exchange for me paying a larger share of the bills (we agreed to that, I thought); complained that I didn't want her to do things that might form a wedge between us; I made easy things hard; she said I didn't want her to think much of herself, which in my opinion is another made up reason to be mad at me (I simply didn't like when she vocally complimented herself or responded to one of my compliments with, "mmmhmmm", like she saying "I know". It hurt my feelings.); said I wasn't interested in personal growth, which I think is kind of unfair; said I don't have friends and don't nurture relationships with family; continuously puts it back in my face the one time that she said I laughed when she was crying and begging me for something (I'm sure that my "laugh" was just a smirk; I probably just thought she seemed like she was overreacting to something, but I by no means wanted to hurt her feelings); she complained of lack of sex (we had sex pretty much once a week, usually on Sundays; so a little lacking, but not that bad; she has always said that I was good at sex and that it was good for the most part, just not often enough for her). I know that my looking at porn some during the week affected my desire to want to have sex more often, so I greatly regret doing that now, but hindsight is 20/20, and besides, it was just one of her many complaints. I don't think it was a core issue. The point of me posting all of these complaints for you is to show you how she only gave a few initial reasons, mostly about me not being outgoing, adventurous, and fun enough, and then later morphed into all of this stuff (an email that was 4 pages long, single-spaced, when pasted to a word processor). That told me that she had done a lot of looking for things about me to hate to help her build up her wall of hate. I will admit, though, that most of these complaints are valid. It's just interesting that initially her reasons were about me not being fun enough.

I think the core issues were that I had gotten too comfortable in the marriage, I couldn't read her, I was inexperienced and not knowledgeable in how to please a woman (argued with her instead of trying to understand her feelings and empathize, forgot (or never really knew) how important romance and intimacy is to a woman, etc.). All of these problems that I'm aware of, and that she is aware of, are fixable. They just require me putting in a lot more effort, which now that I have been separated from her for about 6 weeks, I am extremely motivated to do everything I can to fix the marriage. I was extremely motivated as soon as she said she wasn't sure she wanted to be with me, but now I'm even more motivated. Ever since she first told me she wasn't sure she wanted to stay with me (I think that was late November), I have done nothing but think about her and how to fix things. I completely stopped working on my hobbies that I was too into before -- have had no desire to work on them. I have done what I have had to do, like keep my employer happy, but other than that, I've been thinking about her, reading about fixing the marriage, watching videos, trying to do anything I could think to do to change her mind, including working on me, and making long overdue repairs to the house.

Update to the present: I have gradually cut out the letters, since early January, probably, and have lessened and lessened my contact with her. At the end of January, she moved just about all of her stuff out of the house, and into a small house that she is renting. I try to give her space now. And I constantly wrestle with whether to contact her. Because one of her main complaints was me being neglectful of her, I am terrified of using the Last Resort Technique. I saw where one person here, who was also guilty of being neglectful with their wife, was able to bring their wife back, after using the LRT. (Post: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2705013#Post2705013) So that has given me a little confidence in using it, but I'm still scared.

My wife rarely ever makes contact with me. Last week she asked if I wanted her and our dog to come visit on Sunday. I agreed. I found the visit to be very platonic, disappointing, and seemed focused on her getting more of her stuff from the house. She also called me on Tuesday night to ask me how I wanted to receive the separation papers, that she had told me, on Sunday night, were in the works. That conversation, like many others that go into the realm of relationship talk, slowly ended in a firestorm of rage on her side. She was telling me, "I love you", but in a mean, teasing kind of way at the end of the conversation, in a way that she clearly didn't mean. She rarely starts off mean, but it snowballs in an argument. I had argued that she was rushing things, not giving herself time to change her mind. After all, look at how fast she went from giving me an anniversary card that basically said "everything's good" to going stone cold on me a week or two later. She had only moved out about 5 weeks prior to pursuing official separation arrangements. And separation is going to cost her $4,000. How likely is she going to want to undo it later? It would take a whole lot of desire to get back with me to want to undo that. She basically said, "yeah, but if we love each other and want to get back together, then it will be worth it." I see it as rushing to be able to date the guy that I suspect she is seeing, and rushing to make it harder for her to ever want to change her mind. I have felt the whole time like she has been fighting a large part of herself that wants to stay with me, and trying to beat that part of herself down and kill it, before it can take her back over.

I have long suspected, ever since she first dropped a bomb in late November, that she had become interested in a guy at work. I still don't know for sure at this point whether she is seeing someone else, but I'm still very, very suspicious that she is. As much as that girl loved me, and as much as I love her (though apparently I was very bad at showing it, which I understand), and as much as she needed me all the time, needed my attention, affection, and so on, I can't imagine how she could go cold turkey on me, without having someone else to take my place.

Hopefully in this long post, I have answered most people's questions. I am sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner. I have been busy with work, reading stuff like Divorce Remedy, other posts on this site, talking to family and friends, watching the Last Resort Technique video series (which I found very good), and so on. I have struggled the most with not arguing with my wife -- not trying to defend myself, especially. I have noticed that every time we get into an argument, it leads to an ultimate explosion of hate and tirades of complaints out of her, and seems to result in her wall becoming much thicker. When she attacks me, I need to just say "I'm very sorry you have felt that way" and do my best to keep her out of a tirade and off the subject. I now struggle over whether or not I should pursue her and how much. It seemed that when I was calling her a week or two ago at the end of every night, and sticking to non-relationship talk, that things seemed to be getting better. She has/had always had a strong desire for my attention and has continuously complained of a lacking in my attention. So, I have thought that maybe me contacting her every night for a short friendly chat was a good thing. We seemed to get along well when we were doing that. And I know that the most important rule is probably to do what seems to work, and not do what seems to not work. But I'm just so afraid that what I should be doing is detaching. The longest I've gone without contacting her (I also made myself invisible online) was four days, I believe, back in January. She didn't contact me throughout that time, I don't think, and acted unphased by it. Maybe it wasn't long enough. I'm just so torn between reaching out to her (in small very friendly doses) or detaching. I don't want to make the wrong choice and hurt my situation with her even more. I'm expecting separation papers any day. So, it's already in a very bad situation. What should I do?