Been reading here for quite a while, and have made a few posts, but as it was pointed out I haven't actually told my story. For that I apologize, I am also active elsewhere and I neglected to participate here when I did start posting.
My wife and I have been together for almost 24 years now, and married for almost 18. We have no kids, no stresses in life, have had a very fortunate life together. We were always incredibly close, great communication, very open about problems and issues. We have a lot of freedom and no real challenges. She has always traveled a lot and is very active/athletic.
The first BD occurred around Jan 2017 while we were away from home on an extended stay. Looking back I reconstructed that her MLC started around three years ago. She was having more and more anger issues (she always had a bit of a temper but this was much worse). She started criticizing things about me that never were an issue before around Nov before BD. I found it odd but didn't think much of it and because we were so close and I trusted her implicitly I took her criticism to heart. This got worse and worse and then the first BD happened after a minor disagreement over an issue. She essentially did the textbook ILWBIANILWY speech verbatim, that she never wanted to be married, never wanted to have breakfast together every day (yes this random bit of a "problem" was one of the major explanations, which even at the time struck me as odd because this was not something we tended to do). I was so put off balance that my initial reaction was to try to make things work. Her basic statement was that she didn't want to spend time together but maybe see each other on "dates" 2 or 3 times a week. I not being aware of what was going on agreed to give her space, we were relatively independent people anyway. Even at this time I had already noted her very strong relationship with a "friend" she was skiing with and had point blank asked her about him. But she always waved my concerns off.
So I guess I pretzeled for about 4 weeks or so, and during this time she went away on a ski trip with the OM. When she came back I got BD2, that she was repulsed by me, that she was extremely angry and that I had essentially ruined her life. She said she wanted to get over her anger but she wasn't making much sense and I was now even more confused and lost.
Finally around end of March when we got back home she had already decided she was going to go stay with the OM for an extended ski trip. Before she left I tried to talk to her and that is when I had the final and total shark eyes/disconnect in our conversations to a point where I was deeply concerned. She was like an alien living in my wifes body (yes we all know this one, it is almost comical how they all are so alike). She told me that it was my fault she had lived our common life and if it hadn't been for me she would have been off and having a great life 20 years ago (the typical the unhappiness extends further and further back). But as she was packing up to leave I started trying to figure out what was going on and stumbled onto the MLC information resources.
I know this post is getting long so will continue part 2 in next one.
