No more denial, time to get to work

[MRay]

Hello, I’m new here and thought I’d share my story. I am 32 and W is 34. We have been together for 16 years, married for 9. We are each others only serious relationship ever, and only sexual partners as well. We have never separated or discussed being apart before this. We have two children, D6 and S3. We have have been separated since the beginning of 2018, but still live in the same house. We are living in separate bedrooms, but share a bathroom. After work, we spend the day together with our children like we normally do, but when they go to bed we go our separate ways. Financially we can afford living separately, but we are trying to keep things as normal as possible for our kids for now.

I’m sure this is going to be tl;dr, but I’ll try my best. A lot has happened in three months.

Some highlights of the relationship:
6 years long distance relationship during college (undergrad & her grad school), we saw each other a couple times a month.

Married 1 year after she moved home.

We are both teachers, and worked together for 6 years in classrooms right next to each other. We work very well together, and this was a lot of fun for both of us. This stopped because we wanted to save more money for our kids college funds, so I went back to grad school for 2 years and took care of our S3. After graduating I got a job making double the money I made previously.

Our relationship slowed down after D6 was born. We joked that going to the school plays were our date night for the semester. When we did go out we had a great time. She rarely initiated sex, but we were intimate about once every two weeks. We still could be silly and laugh and have a good time and we’ve always been best friends, but the intimacy was leaving us. Whenever I brought it up in conversation she would have some reason. She was tired, or stressed, or worried about money, or finding a babysitter, or some other excuse and I believed her. We always had a great time at work or when we went out, she just seemed very tired and stressed at home. I really stepped it up at home and did all of the cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. I thought if she’s so stressed and tired, I’ll do as much as I can to relieve that stress. She seemed to appreciate it, but she just threw herself more into work (she is a workaholic just like her dad).

I really started to notice a big change since the school year started in August. She was distant at home, but whenever I would go to her work she would be playful and smile and give me a big kiss and hold onto my arm like we were teenagers again. It was exhilarating because it was everything I wanted, but also was quite confusing because it was only at her work. She had become good friends with a coworker (he started there after I left, bug I’ve met him a number of times), and you can guess where this is going. I felt uncomfortable with their relationship, and this along with her lack of affection towards me, this led to a big argument in late December.

We had a very rough January. She wouldn’t talk to me or look at me. My wife said she was contemplating divorce. She gave the classic “I love you, but I’m not in love with you” speech, and said she fell out of love with me six years ago after our daughter was born because I pressured her for sex instead of being understanding after she gave birth. We had sex 4 months after she gave birth, and I don’t think I pressured her much beyond talking about it to see how she was feeling towards the idea. I brought it up about once a week after the 12 week mark, but I don’t ever remember trying to coerce her in any way. I feel like she has rewritten our history. Things weren’t perfect, but they weren’t nearly as bad as she is saying. She is also contradicting herself a lot. She even tried to say she was never in love with me before realizing how ridiculous that sounded.

She has said I am a great father and a good person, but she just doesn’t have those feelings for me anymore and hasn’t for a long time. She said she has been faking our relationship for the past six years, and she dreaded coming home every day because I was constantly pressuring for sex. She viewed my taking care of the cooking, cleaning, etc. as me trying to make her feel guilty so she would give me sex because she owed me. Again, I feel like this is rewriting history. She always appreciated my work around the house until she started talking to OM at her work. Until September, she always said that eating dinner together as a family was such an important part of her life growing up, and she loved that I cooked every night and provided a good meal on the table for our family.

She agreed to go to marriage counseling with a therapist recommended by a friend of ours. We met with the therapist once together, and then once each separately. The day before I went to my individual session I found proof of her EA. I confronted them both, separately. She said she had only just realized she had feelings for him a few days earlier, and nothing happened beyond holding hands and having dinner together. The texts and emails I read went back for months and they do corroborate her story. As far as I know, they have not had contact beyond running into each other in the hallways since (I have people at their work keeping watch for me). The night after I confronted my wife, she said she wanted a divorce. I said okay and we talked calmly about some of the logistics of divorcing. The next morning she said she had changed her mind and wasn’t sure. Then after work she came home as a completely different person. She was saying she was all in on staying in the marriage and she was bubbly and smiling, and it was all very forced. It was a very scary thing, and I don’t really know how to describe it, but I feared for her life. W is a very thin woman, and when she’s stressed or anxious she stops eating. She would sit on my lap and smile at me while shaking uncontrollably. For two days I couldn’t get her to snap out of it, so I threatened to call somebody to get her help (I’m not sure what I meant, but like I said I feared for her safety). I tried to be silly with her, and she said she had “killed silly because she had given it to him.” At this point I told her I had to leave, and if her silly side was gone forever then I didn’t want to be with her anymore. A few hours later I came home to find her huddled in bed with our kids because she was afraid I was going to take them. She had at least snapped out of her funk (I have no other words to describe it). She was down to a very dangerous weight and her clothes were hanging off her, and she later admitted that she was probably trying to slowly kill herself. She has suffered from bouts of depression in the past, but never like that and never suicidal in any way.

After this crazy incident she went to her individual therapy session, and the therapist said marriage counseling would be a bad idea at this point as she was in no way ready for that. She has been continuing individual therapy since, and she is trying to figure out who she is and what she wants/needs to make herself happy. She says she needs to focus on herself right now as she is not ready to be in a relationship with anybody. I agree with her and I have been focusing on myself as well. I have started working out again, going out with friends, and generally taking care of myself. I am continuing to be the best possible father I can be. W has stepped up around the house and is doing more with the kids as well. She’s never done much with the kids, and says she regrets that.

I desperately want to keep my family together. I love my wife with all my heart, and I don’t want to be a part-time father. I have forgiven her for the EA, but I will be dealing with that pain for awhile. I’ve been acting as if things are normal. Currently, W is unable to be herself around me, it is painfully obvious. There is no intimacy of any kind. She can handle being around me for a while, but gets weird after a couple hours. She says she feels like she’s leading me on.

I want what is best for my wife, and about a week ago we agreed that divorce would be in her best interest. The next day she was her old self again, and she texted me throughout the day and talked to me like the days before we were married. This continued for a few days, and she was even starting to show a bit of affection. I told her that I feel like I gave up on the M too soon and didn’t try hard enough. She said that I did everything that I could, but maybe she gave up too soon. We took the kids out to dinner the next night, and it went fantastic. The next day she pulled away from me again. She said she didn’t want to talk to me about it, but she was dealing with some stuff and wanted to talk to her therapist about it. She had her session last night, and she is clearly still processing and figuring out what she wants.

I’ve finished reading DR, and I’ve decided to detach. I’ve already been GAL, doing things with friends and going out and being the best version of me that I can be. Not for her, but for me. The detaching thing is going to be hard. Our kids are young, and I want to keep things as normal as possible for them. They don’t really know anything is going on other than us sleeping apart. I'm in this for the long haul, and understand this is a marathon. I know I will struggle with this because I want to protect my kids first and foremost, and I'll want to expedite the process when it is not the prudent thing to do. I guess I’ll journal a bit here to help me keep track of my progress. Sorry for the length of the post, and I appreciate any comments.