Wife in MLC, I think

[LB55]

Good Day, I have been reading this forum for a week or so now, I finally decided to jump on here to keep learning from the members here and make progress towards being a more confident man for me and the kids. I have read a lot of your stories and situations. I definitely have plenty to work on in myself, I have spent a lot of time in reflection and self study to this point in time. There are a lot of good lists, write ups, how to, and advice here, I am working to implement it in my life already.

Here is my sitch. We have been together for 15 years, M for 12. Two kids, S11, D8. I am active duty military, have been for over 20 years. We have certainly been through our ups and downs, but I would say that our marriage is satisfying and we have been well blessed. This year has been particularly tough, as I am on a year long assignment away from home, this is the longest I have ever been gone. We both decided to do this last tour, and for W and kids to stay at our home instead of coming with me, which was an option. We decided it was best for the kids to have stability, stay in the same school, keep the same friends. We would have moved down here for a year, and then moved back to where they are now, and finished this tour at that location. That kind of disruption is really tough on kids, and W had friends and didn't want to move either. I have about 4 weeks until I am headed back to where they live.

We set up email accounts for the kids, monitored by W, so they could write me and I them in order to keep in touch. They aren't much for emailing, and the etiquette of email is not there. That is ok, it was fun and even one liners were nice to get and send to them. I am able to communicate with kids and W on a daily basis via email, really grateful for that. It is so important to try and stay involved at home and keep up with the day to day lives of everyone. You are already kind of a stranger coming home after a long time away, and email helps to ease that transitiona bit.

W and I emailed at least once per day for the past 11 months, usually multiple times per day. Sometimes short, sometimes long, sometimes about business, kids, life; others were flirty, sexy, and some even sexual fantasy. I am able to call some days, and some not, due to schedule and availability of service due to location. We talked via phone probably 90% of the days when it was an option. Sometimes phonecall, sometimes FaceTime, which the kids would stop by for a minute, tell me about their days, and make silly faces to me. It is tough, but this makes it more manageable. We were both looking forward to January when I return and life gets so much more normal for our family and MR. I have been able to visit about 6 times during the year, sometimes for only a weekend, a couple for 10 days or so. They came to visit me in September for a bit, kids skipped school for a couple days, and we did fun family things like amusement parks and stuff. She was a bit distant, but it always is that way when we haven't been regularly together. I was upset with the amount of time she had been spending on her phone, I told her that it would be nice to pay a little more attention to us and less to the phone; not well received. Constantly texting, but didn't want me to know who or what the topic was. I pressed, she told me who, but not the topic. Friends that I knew about, but don't really know well, they are new to her life since I left. I had always had a bit of unease about the new friends, they were very different than all of our other friends, but I tried to be supportive and was glad she had someone there for her to be with while I was gone. I backed off on the phone issue, and she agreed to try and spend a little less time on the phone. She was distant in bed to, always as far away as possible in a king bed, usually she is very snuggly; she didn't really want to talk much about why. I got worried and started the worry train, which just makes me cling, I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't sleep much during the trip.

In October things shifted dramatically. I was gone and had no ability to write or call for about a month, other than a sporadic email here or there that may or may not make it home or be lost in cyberspace forever. I let them all know this, and I did write a few that made it home, and got a few from home. However the tone of the emails were very different, I picked up on it right away. Very business like, to the point, mostly about the kids or an appliance issue; there was no terms of endearment, no greeting, and it felt very uncaring and forced. I chocked it up to stress, and once I got back from that operation, called home and let's just say it was uncomfortable talking, not our normal banter, jokes, and love. After about 90 mins of forced conversation, I said goodnight, love you, and we will talk tomorrow. I was concerned. It is early November now, and I will be visiting for the thanksgiving holiday soon. It was a few days before we could talk again, but we exchanged texts and emails. She would read the text, but wouldn't reply for hours. She replies to everyone else ASAP; I asked her why she didn't reply to me in the same manner. She turned off read receipts and didn't answer.

Next phone conversation, I had been starting to read about marital communication. I realized that I wasn't a good listener, I was not very empathetic, even speaking with contempt. I committed myself to change at that moment. I didn't feel good about myself and I was going to change. The phone conversation started out ok, I tried hard to actively listen, validate, and show empathy. It is hard to just change, but I am committed to this. I proposed some ideas, maybe we could go on a date(we don't do that very often) when I was home. This idea was met with some resistance and she didn't want to. I tried to explain that I was working on changes in myself, and that I have realized that there were issues that I needed to work on for our marriage. This was not well received, and she went on an emotional tirade about things from our past, things that didn't quite jive with how I remembered them. She told me she didn't want to talk about any of this over the phone, and she had some things she needed to tell me in person. I pushed a little, trying to figure out the problem, and she gave me a bit, but kept insisting she didn't want to talk about it on the phone. I dropped it and agreed to talk about it when I got home.

The day before I am to head home, I get a long email, the gist of which was ' I don't want to have sex with you, sleep next to you, shower or be in an state of undress with you here. You can sleep on the couch while you are here.' Needless to say, panic set in at this point! I agreed to her boundaries, didn't really ask questions. I got home very late due to delayed flights, and slept on the couch. She had a medical appointment the following day, which would require a driver, she had already arranged for one of her new friends to take her, so I stayed home. Saw the kids off to school. She got home mid afternoon, I got her set up on the couch with her tablet, phone, ice packs, etc, and didn't push for any R talk. Kids got home, we had fun, made dinner, enjoyed a fun evening. I slept on the couch again. She is very adamant we don't discuss any R problems in front of the kids, and I am ok with that. The next day they left for school, and I waited for her to talk to me. She buried herself in the Internet, and finally I initiated the discussion. She got very angry, 'you want to do this right now!? We'll ok!' Got some papers, threw them at me, and told me she had already been in touch with a L and they were going to start WW3 on me, I had been abusive to her and the kids(I haven't been) she isn't sure she can ever be intimate with me ever again. Asked me if it would be amicable or if I would fight her. I told her it could be amicable, but I didn't think it was the right answer. She went on for a couple hours telling me every single thing I had ever done wrong, how she didn't like camping, fishing, disc golf, or any of the things we did for fun. It was very hurtful and I was in shock. I apologized multiple times, for everything under the sun. Nothing worked, I couldn't figure out what was wrong but it sure sounded like I was the problem.

The next couple days she spent with her new friends mostly, and I did fun things with the kids. Little communication, she said she needed do emotional space to think things through. When she was home, she was glued to her phone and hid any signs of who she was talking to from me. The last day of the weekend she told me I should make plans to do something else for thanksgiving, as I couldn't be there anymore, she didn't want to play house. This made me upset, I retreated to a spare room to think. I spent the next 8 days of my time off with my side of the family, it wasn't very celebratory. I did al the anti DB stuff during this time, texting her articles about what was wrong with me, how I was sorry, how I wanted to understand her issues, I rookies to be better, etc. needless to say that didn't work.

I flew back to where I work without seeing W, but did get to see the kids for an evening before I left. I noted some strange things during this day. All pictures of us had been taken down in our room. Motivational saying posted here and there. All the keys to our vehicles and toys were gone from the key rack. Kids were very clingy, especially D8, she just sat with me in a chair most of the evening. Now it is approaching the Christmas holiday, and I will be going there again, however I have already been told not to come home and to make alternate plans for Christmas and New Years. She said she is scared for me to come home in January and I should think about making alternate living arrangements.

I have pretty much went quiet since then, one email about passive aggressive behavior, I didn't really know what that was, but I definitely do have P-A tendencies, and that I was sorry for that. I asked about a plan to see the kids over Christmas, to which the reply was ' as previously discussed, make alternate arrangements for the holidays'. I replied 'just to be clear, you will not allow me to see the kids over Christmas?' No reply.

That is pretty much where I sit. Stuck 1000 miles from home, not communicating with the W, worried about the storm at home. She has all the trump cards right now and knows it. She is very emotional normally, life has been a bit of a roller coaster, but we have always made it. She is very emotional right now, but it is cold, calm, and collected. She just knows that she wants out. She acknowledged that my behavior has changed, followed by, that will be helpful in your next relationship. Thanks for letting me post, and I look forward to the supportive dialogue and interaction here!